In the early 20th Century, the deployment of the aircraft carrier, an enormous, ocean-going vessel, equipped with its own runway, changed the nature of war forever. In the early 21st Century, the Space-X Falconer IV replaced the C-5 Galaxy as the largest military plane ever built, and once again war was forever transformed. The Falconer IV was the aircraft carrier of the sky. Built to maintain low-earth orbit for extensive periods of time without refueling, it was designed with docking clamps for four redesigned AC-130 Hercules and two C-5 Galaxies on its underbelly, as well as bays for significant numbers of sixth generation fighter aircraft, reconfigured V-22s, and other support aircraft, ground vehicles, and shock troopers. The ODST, or “Hell Jumpers,” imagined in HALO were no longer imaginary. Where the use of air coverage in warfare had once been constrained by the airspace of sovereign nations and no-fly zones, the United States could now drop a variety of forces any where in the world any time. If you were an enemy of the American people, the American people could now quite literally drop Hell straight down upon you out of a clear blue sky.
To date, twelve of these enormous aircraft were roaming the skies. One of them was in the process of returning to LEO (low-earth orbit) over the northern hemisphere after dropping forces on the Balkans, which had once again dissolved into ethnic warfare. Among these forces was a tank that was hit by an RPG shortly after dustdown, and which was photographed hours later still burning on a family's flower garden. The Falconer that had made the drop, the XF-4 Titania, which had completed flight 3-75 and which was beginning flight 3-76 as it ascended back out of earth's atmosphere, was going to be burning soon, as well. An unidentified and hostile force using previously unknown weapons was going cause a sudden and unexplained drop in the Titania's cabin pressure, while decimating her crew using explosives that left no detectable residues. In the process, Crissy Angelside and the Death Eaters were going to prove to that they, too, could change war forever, and that no one is impervious to a clever-enough mind. Of course, she knew none of this the night before she went to share her thoughts with the Dark Lord. She went to sleep every night with the knowledge that she might have nightmares and flashbacks, but she hadn't expected these to be fruitful.
She didn't know how long she had been asleep when the dream came, but she knew it when it started because she had it often. Her body was broken and tired, exhausted from her benefactors' intense and continuous attempts to make a more efficient soldier out of her. She looked out dimly, through the viscous, bubbling liquid in which she floated, through the thick, round glass of the tank that surrounded her, at the man standing before her, watching her. She recognized him, if only barely, as the High Benefactor. He was a calm and silent man, intelligent, grave; his face cratered with scars, tall, and thin, and unsmiling. His name was Dradin, and he was said to be over four thousand years old, though no one could confirm or deny it, and certainly no one would ask him. Of all her benefactors High Benefactor Dradin was her favorite. Perhaps she even idolize him in her quiet, efficient way. She was perhaps the only person he would smile for, and he smiled now as he watched her. She would have smiled back, but a respirator filled her mouth, immobilizing her lips and jaw.
High Benefactor Dradin's warped image in the class of her tank turned to someone in the room beyond and gave a nod, and Christianna's next training simulation began. Electrical current passed through the fluid in which she was suspended, transferring signals straight to her nerve endings, turning the fluid into a full-sensory hallucination. In her mind, Crissy now found herself in one of the cargo holds of an enormous plane. The aircraft was in LEO, but the weak tug of artificial gravity was still keeping her feet on the metal deck panels. In one hand, she carried an adapted AR-15 battle rifle with a set of catches along its side into which the wand that she held in her other hand could be snapped. She examined her wand for a moment. It was about ten inches long, made of a silver metal, rather than wood, with an openable panel close to its butt and three small, square LED lights that indicated whether or not it was ready for use. She opened the panel, revealing a dense, intricate web of tiny, glowing strands which glowed in alternating patterns. Crissy was very familiar with this kind of wand, and knew that she would need to adjust the strands to use the wand properly. The wand didn't choose the wizard, as far as the benefactors were concerned; all wands were the same, but the wizard had to know how to rapidly reconfigure a wand before it would be fully functional. Finishing her adjustments, she snapped the silver wand into the catches on the battle rifle, and a translucent, green panel immediately sprung up from the wand in front of her. The panel displayed crosshairs and her ammo count, as well as a map of the aircraft, which she recognized as a Taurus Class XF-4.
After that, the dream became chaotic and confused. She swept the same rooms more than once. Her memory was jumbled and out of order. The world appeared and disappeared between muzzle flashes. Crissy could hear her heart pounding in her ears as deafening as the sounds of the fight. They told her it got easier. With practice. With time. With training. With experience. She would be calm when she did these things. It wouldn't be scary. It was scary, though. It was terrifying. Her environment disoriented her. Her enemies were surprising. Her vision swam, and she realized that she had been holding her breath. She couldn't get around the next corner. Every time she started to move, she was fired upon. Holding the battle rifle in one hand, she clenched the other until she felt pressure building between her fingers and saw the LEDs on her wand begin to blink red and fast, warning her that she was about to overload it, then she threw the thing that had formed in her hand around the corner and ducked back as it exploded. The area cleared, she wheeled around to face the corridor, but she had made a mistake. She had waited too long to throw, and her wand was still overloading. It began to vibrate, shaking the rifle in her hands before it exploded, blowing her back against the wall. Dazed and bleeding from the back of her head, she drew herself up on her hands and knees, unable to think clearly as she began to drag herself to cover. The remains of her wand were still arcing dangerously close to the magazine of her twisted, ruined rifle. She was nearly to safety when she heard that one arc that just didn't quite sound like the rest, as a stray bolt of energy from the wand struck the magazine and set off the rounds inside it.
Crissy woke in her small bed in her little room in the Malfoy's manor. She was drenched in a cold sweat and breathing as if she had been running a marathon. She sat up slowly and tried to steady her heartbeat. Putting her feet on the floor, she walked past her chair to the window and looked out at the early morning for a long moment. Her benefactors had run her through the XF-4 Taurus simulation over and over until she had mastered it, but it was still that one run that had gone horribly wrong that her dreams replayed for her.
She set her hand on the windowpane, feeling the cold glass against her palm. Crissy thought about back on her experiences with the Death Eaters to that point, digesting them slowly and carefully. They seemed to have one big problem, one that she did not share with them, and she resolved to do something about it. Getting dressed, she drifted downstairs, still lost in thought, making her way unhurriedly to the Dark Lord's door. It would not be easy or comfortable conversation, she determined very quickly, and she would be walking a very thin line between advising and insubordination. In her mind, though, the surest way to prevent failure was to examine circumstances logically and openly, and to adjust accordingly. If the Dark Lord was interested in succeeding, he would also need to be interested in listening, and listening, Crissy feared, was not one of Voldemort's strong suits. Most feared him, but Crissy feared him in a different way than most. She feared that he would fail.
Voldemort was a leader, but no leader did it all on their own, no matter how fervently they thought they did. Some leaders move heaven and earth for ideals, while others move mountains for power. Voldemort, or so it seemed to Crissy, lead for his own power, while disciples, which Voldemort appeared to want, follow ideals. She intended to give him disciples, and all she asked in return was that he listen.
So, having been inspired to do something great by a terrible dream, she knocked on the door of the Great and Terrible Dark Lord to ask him to do her the favor of allowing her to do him a favor.
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