A Glitch in Time[IC]

"No longer..." Haruna repeated softly. "But how does she know?" Haruna was about to press the question, such was the nature of the Jupiterran on things she did not understand, but a glance at Alexander seemed to ease her. If Alexander Werther trusts this delegation, then Shimazaki Haruna will too.

"Very well. However, I sense that this is not the end of it. Does the Cardinal request an audience of us?"

Xalion, Orbital Space Dock 154
Colonial Military Ship Frederick the Great (FRG-H1)
Colonial Military Ship Prinz Eugen(PE-AH3)

---

Not much had happened after Alexander and Haruna left Terra on board the C.M.S. Prinz Eugen, having been called to Xalion, the Capital of the Colonies, by the Central High Command. Not many details had been given to them, with the CHC only directly contacting the Prinz Eugen after they had jumped near the dying planet, transmitting them they had been assigned to a diplomatic/escort mission, without giving them too many details. Seemingly, they had to present themselves in the Central Information Center of the Frederick the Great, wearing full dress uniforms, since this was going to be an official mission. Although the description of the mission was a little vague, they conformed. Having arrived in the same Orbital Space Dock as the Frederick, every last of the crew members of the Prinz Eugen were surprised. The Prinz was a mere fly compared to it.

The Frederick the Great lived up to its name. One of the newest commissioned ships of the Kriegsflotte, it had already gained the reputation of a legend among the Colonial ships for leading the Colonial assault in the victory at Line Stacia. If such a huge and important ship was going to be used for a mission, it was clear that the mission was going to be really, really important.

---

For the entirety of the time in which the small transport ship took Haruna and Alexander to the Frederick the Great, the black haired Colonial admiral looked at the Frederick through the window, with the expression of an envious child looking at another child's toy. Well, it wasn't like anyone could blame him. Even if the Frederick was completely different from the Prinz Eugen, (the H Class being designed as a Super Heavy Battlestar, continuing the design elements of the Bismarck Class, while the Prinz Eugen is an Admiral Hipper Class Battlestar, designed for smaller and faster operations), it was clear that the H Class was the dream of any Admiral or Captain.

For this mission, Alexander was wearing a full dress uniform of the Colonial Kriegsflotte , with its colors being even brighter than in his usual uniform, if that would be possible. The uniform wasn't all that different from the service uniform, although it was clearly more ornamental, with a taller collar, golden ornamented ranks, a lot more decorations, and the emblem of the Colonies in a gold color, as compared to its usual black color. The entire uniform also simply seemed to shine, being prepared in complete accordance with the rules of the Military Index about the wearing of full dress uniforms by a Colonial officer.

After the transport ship landed on one of the huge flight pods of the Frederick, Alexander quickly spoke with a Colonial soldier nearby, before joining Haruna back on their way to one of the elevators. Due to its sheer size, the Frederick had a lot of automated walkways and elevators to speed up transport through the ship, and they were going to take an elevator directly to the CIC.

"It seems that the Hegemon of the Colonies and Cardinal are present on the Frederick the Great. And it seems that we'll have to guard them in whatever diplomatic mission we're doing, as part of the Colonial delegation.", the black eyed Colonial said to Haruna as they were walking. "The Hegemon is seemingly waiting for us in the CIC, and he wants to talk to us. I haven't seen him in a long time, due to the war, but back... then, he was one of my best friends He was also the one who saved us all.."

Even so, it seemed that Alexander still had a hard time talking about what he called "back then", so he avoided once again to get into too much detail about it, but anyway, they soon reached the gigantic CIC of the Frederick. And strangely enough, something important seemed to be happening, as most of the people there were gathered around the middle section of the center.

"What's happening?", Alexander asked one of the soldiers who seeing his rank, turned around and saluted. "The Hegemon is playing a game against the Frederick's systems, and he's winning!" Of course, for Haruna and any other foreigners, what exactly the game was would have been a mystery, but as they moved forward through the crowd, they soon saw it.

In the middle of the CIC, the huge holographic projector there was used to display the hologram of what looked like a game. More specifically, a battle simulation game, which put up two Colonial fleets against one each other. The weaker Colonial fleet was commanded by what looked to be a young boy wearing a Colonial uniform in a black-gold color scheme, but it was hard to say who he was, since he was sitting with the back at the crowd.  He had a messy black hair, and his rank was seemingly pretty high.On the other side of the hologram, the other, seemingly stronger Colonial fleet was controlled by a woman, with a long, rather wild white hair. Wearing a female variant of the Colonial blue-red uniform, she had pretty... strange eyes, with a strange color that could be the best described as something between pink and purple, a little bit more pink up and blue on the bottom, maybe due to something like heterochromia.

Even if it seemed to be more of a simulation, it was clearly a game, although the rules could not be understand by someone who was simply looking at it. But even if the odds seemed to be against him, the boy was winning. Slowly but surely, his forces seemed to fall back, making illogical movements, but which ended with the woman's fleet attacking too much in the center, and with the boy using his more mobile flanks to defeat the enemy formation, ending up with the woman's flagship being destroyed in only a few hundred moves, gaining a round of cheering from the crew members.

Smiling, the boy turned around, only to reveal that his left eye was covered by a black eye patch, while his right eye had vibrant, dark purple color, certainly making him stand out among the other Colonials, if he wasn't visible enough already. But despite his smile, the boy seemed to be tired, and he was really pale for some reason...

As the match ended, and the crew members returned to their jobs, the boy looked around, only to notice Alexander, and smiled again. Alexander also noticed him, and as they walked to one each other, they hugged like old friends who hadn't seen each other in a long time.

"Long time no see, my friend.", the slightly younger boy said to Alexander, "And before you even start, you can drop the formalities. We've known each other for too long for you to start calling me Herr Hegemon again or something like that." Also smiling, Alexander answered, clearly glad to see the boy again. "Of course, Julius, I wasn't even going to. I thought that you might be the one we have to guard when they told us that we had to go on the Frederick. You like to have such a gigantic ship under your command, don't you?" Turning around as they started to walk back to Haruna, Julius continued. "Well, I did ask you if you wanted to take the Frederick's sister ship, Charles the Great, but you're the one who refused the offer. And can you blame me? This ship is the best we have. And it's so cool."

As they reached Haruna, the two stopped. "Julius, I'd like to introduce you to Shimazaki Haruna, my girlfriend, and Vice Admiral of the Jupiterran Star Fleet.", Alexander said, introducing Haruna to the boy. The boy smiled, and extended his hand, presenting himself before Alexander could do it. "Oh, so you're the one who actually managed to bring Alexander here out of his shell. I'm Julius Kingsley, Hegemon of the Colonies, Supreme Commander of the Colonial Armed Forces and so on, and an old friend of Alexander. Nice to meet you, Shimazaki Haruna."

Smiling, the purple eyed boy lightly shook Haruna's hand back, while also responding to her salute. If she would have been careful, Haruna could have noticed the already familiar small scars on the boy's hand, showing that he had recently used something that wrapped thorny vines around his hand... but his sword was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh, you don't have to worry about formalities with me. I'm more than okay with Alexander's girlfriend talking normally to me. That of course, if you're also okay with it.", the Hegemon continued, before he looked at Alexander. "Sometimes, I even wonder how did I end up as a Hegemon, while all of you others continued your normal lives. It's exhausting."

Even if he was smiling and he was talking perfectly normally, it was clear that the purple eyed boy was tired. But Alexander simply smiled and replied back. "You became the Hegemon because you were the best and you defeated us all. You were especially unstoppable at this game. But seriously? You're now beating ships at it for fun?" Julius smirked, looking at the hologram that was still showing the result of the last game. "Well, it wasn't only for fun... but after all, you were the only one who actually managed to destroy me at this game. We should play it again sometimes. But firstly.."

The Hegemon then looked at Haruna. "I heard quite a lot about you. While this isn't one of the Jupiterran simulations, would you like to play a game with me? I'd be interested to see what a CyberGenius of Jupiterra can do...". Saying that, Julius smirked again, but not necessarily because of a bad reason. It was known that the Hegemon was sometimes getting bored at winning so often, and would always try to look for new challenges..

"Very well.", the Hegemon said, clearly delighted by the fact that Haruna had accepted his proposal. That game was one of the only few things he was still able to do with all the duties of a Hegemon he had on his head, so he was clearly going to enjoy a new challenge.

"Well,good luck.", Alexander said, smiling." But be careful. Take my advice, never believe in what you see, or in what you think his forces are doing. Julius is well known for playing around with the forces of his enemies in this game." Hearing Alexander's warning for Haruna, the purple eyed boy smiled again."Oh, come on, I'm not that bad... I just like to have some fun..", the Hegemon said, resetting the game."I'm eager to see if you'll be able to beat Alexander's records.", the then said, looking at Haruna."He would probably never say it, knowing how modest he is, but back then, he was the second best in the Program at this..."

Having prepared the game, the Hegemon then shortly explained the rules."We'll both start by choosing our forces from the available units. Since you're not that used to Colonial units, you could choose Jupiterran units, although I never fought against them before. Or Terran. Or Keltaken. Whatever you want from our database. Afterwards, it'd be the same as a battle simulation, with just two rules. One, we play in moves. During a move, you can only issue one command, afterwards you'll have to wait for me to make a move, and so on. It prevents the game from getting too chaotic, and it makes the player plan his moves in advance. Two, if your flagship is captured or destoryed, you lose. Simple, right?"

The Hegemon had already chosen his forces, going with a clear Colonial fleet and formation, with the heavy battlestars protecting the flagship, listed as a ship called CMS Terra Nova.The battlestars were protected at their own by smaller destroyers and cruisers, and the battlefield seemed to be around a rather familiar Earth type planet, larger than the Old Earth though. And now the system was waiting for the second player to introduce his forces.

"Choose you forces, please.", the Hegemon said, smirking again.

The Hegemon smirked, clearly really enthusiastic about this game, and about the challenge he was going to face. Haruna didn't only seem to be really sure on she was doing, but she was even teasing him before the game began- this was surely going to be fun...

As the game begun, the Colonial ships entered one of their usual defensive formations, while preparing to launch their fighters in order to balance the disadvantage of the slow movement of the Colonial heavy ships. The Colonials activated their shields, the Klein Fields now surrounding them, each ship's shield being in a different color, depending upon the ship's core. As they were now under the protection of their shields, what better way for the battlestars to start the battle, than with a horrific barrage of their main batteries?

Ready, the battlestars opened fire with their main kinetic and laser batteries specifically at the enemy heavier ships wwho were acting as shields in the enemy formation the barrage also having the role to slow down any long range fire from the enemy fleet. Synchronized, the Colonial ships continued the barrage without wavering.

"Do you remember when we first had to play this game, Alexander?", the purple eyed boy asked, still careful at the console, probably trying to figure out what strategy Haruna was preparing. After all, while Haruna had seen Colonial ships and fleets in action before, this was the first time the Hegemon was coming into contact with Jupiterran ships and tactics. It was going to be interesting...

"How could I forget? Those rebels captured our group, and you challenged the bosses of those rebels to a Kriegsspiel. Me and you, against their leader and second in command. We had to play with the rebels literally having their pistols aimed at our heads.", Alexander replied, as if he was complaining. "Yes, but in the end, we defeated them quickly, and we managed to escape. We risked, but we won.", the Hegemon responded, smiling, while looking at the console once again, before looking at Haruna.

"Wer wagt, gewinnt. Who dares, wins, isn't that right?", he asked rhetorically."Let's see what happens.."

Faced with the response barrage of the Jupiterran ships, and having ended their preparations, the Colonial ships made a change in their formation, with the lighter Colonial ships switching position with the heaver Admiral Hipper and Admiral Graf Spee Class Heavy Cruisers, which took their places in shielding the rest of the fleet from the enemy assaults, the lighter ships hiding behind them. The Admiral Classes weren't as big and strong as the B Classes of the Battlestars, but they were still fairly strong, the CMS  Prinz Eugen being one of them. This change into formation allowed the lighter ships to cool down their Klein Fields, while waiting for the next move.

"Probably the most important achievement of the Colonial military technology of this century was minimizing the FTL drives enough for them to be able to be used by fighters. That, combined with out increased computer capabilities, due to the synchronization of the Colonial Tactical Network and the Colonial Strategic Network gives us some real interesting tactics to use, wouldn't you think?", the Hegemon said, as if he was giving someone a lesson on the Colonial military capabilities.

The Colonial ships were already in a disadvantage, caused by the size of the game's map. Someone would be able to use to most out of the battlestars while using them as carriers, since after all, a battlestar was a somewhat combination between a battleship and a carrier. This game was happening in a close system, so it would have been impossible for the battlestars to use the advantage of the 600 light year range of their normal fighters. But they could still do something...

Having launched their Kolibri Fighters( Kolibri, Light Starfighters of the Colonial War Fleet), the heavier battlestars gave the order... and the Kolibri jumped, squadron by squadron, launching an offensive. Using their short FTL jump capabilities, they jumped right behind the Jupiterran fleet, attacking their carriers by using their batteries and missiles, launching their energetic torpedoes before jumping back in the safety of the Colonial formation, the short jumps being successfully calculated by the CTN. In short, a tactic designed to harass and damage the enemy carriers as much as possible, while creating as much chaos as possible. A Colonial tactic from the Index.

"Let's begin the game, shall we?", the Hegemon said, smirking.