Hold Up, I'm An Arsenal Bird Now?!

Act 11 - An Unexpected Artifact

I'm off on my way to inspect a signal I detected a few days ago. The signal patterns resembled a satellite, the system says. I'm now traveling with Selina in one of my F-14Ds I managed to land on a gravel road. She is still shocked by the speed of my plane.

Oh yeah, I planned to use the speaker for a special event. The day I tested the TTS, Selina watched from the trees, and somehow my MQ-101s didn't detect her. So after a few words to clear out the misunderstanding, she beamed with joy, even happier than the first time she succeeded in her spell.

'Oi, are you good there? You look like you shat yourself ten times over.'

"I-I'm ok, Motherbird. It's just—"

"CONTROLS OVERRIDDEN"

"Ehh?! W-w-what does that— WUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!?!?!?"

I pulled off a kulbuit and then dived toward the ground. Selina thought she was about to die, so I made a last-second save by pitching the craft up. The belly nearly scrapped the earth by a foot, and I flew upwards back to its squadron formation.

I wanted to laugh so bad at her stupid face.

Selina's mind restarted as she was pulled from her scared stance and screamed.

"MOTHERBIRD, YOU'RE A MEANIE! MEANIE! MEANIE!!!"

'C'mon, at least let me have a bit of fun.'

She pouted and looked away. I wanted to prank her again, but I preferred not to. It's been a long ride, and we're flying for over an hour now. We discovered a few cities, and some of its residents thought we were the dragons from the Empire. I placed tags on my map as cities and were in for a smooth ride. We are nearing our destination, and I sent an MQ-101 to scan the area for potential hostiles. Once in the vicinity, I landed Selina's F-14D in an open, flat field. I also summoned a truck to drive her to the location. I reached my destination, and through the processed images from my drone, it seemed to be a satellite.

...

Wait

...

The fuck?

A satellite?

The system's right.

I looked more closely at the fallen satellite, and on the side, I saw an orange roundel with seven stars inside, the symbol of Erusia. Where did an Erusian satellite come from, and more specifically, how?

So many questions rushed through my mind like a Blitzkrieg. To figure out its origins, I set up a building to repair its modules and sift through its data. Selina came around to see the newly built structure.

"Was this building here before?"

'Look at the building. Does it look new? OF COURSE, IT FUCKING IS!!!'

The crane near the building lifted the satellite and brought it inside for restoration. I also spawned T-72s and ZSU-23-4s to protect the area. It will take time to repair a satellite module, depending on the damage. All I can do now is wait.

I interacted with the system for a bit and discovered the music tab. It got a bunch of Ace Combat themes and some fan music in it. While waiting, I decided to sing with Archange playing.

'Protege nos qui vitam frugalem agimus
O terra nostra, dona nobis perpetua bona
O calida lux quae regulat matutinam quietem
Dormientem illuminat, o caelum nostrum

Protege nos qui vitam frugalem agimus
Dona nobis perpetua bona, o terra nostra
Protege nos qui vitam frugalem agimus
Dona nobis perpetua bona, o caelum nostrum

Protege nos qui vitam frugalem agimus
Dona nobis perpetua bona, o terra nostra
Protege nos qui vitam frugalem agimus
Dona nobis perpetua bona, o caelum nostrum

Protege nos qui vitam frugalem agimus
Dona nobis perpetua bona, o terra nostra
Protege nos qui vitam frugalem agimus
Dona nobis perpetua bona, o caelum nostrum

Protege nos qui vitam frugalem agimus
Dona nobis perpetua bona, o terra nostra
Protege nos qui vitam frugalem agimus
Dona nobis perpetua bona, o caelum nostrum

Dona nobis perpetua bona

Dona nobis perpetua bona

O terra aeterna qua pulcher sol matutinus oritur, dona nobis perpetua bona
(O terra ae-terna qua pul-cher sol ma-tu-ti-nus o-ri-tur, do-na no-bis perpe-tua bo-na)
O terra aeterna, dona nobis perpetua bona

Protege nos qui vitam frugalem agimus
Dona nobis perpetua bona, o terra nostra
Protege nos qui vitam frugalem agimus
Dona nobis perpetua bona, o caelum nostrum'

(Straight from Zaptroxix, edited to maximize word count cause I'm lazy.)

Oh my fucking god, it has been a long time since I sang to it. It brings back memories from my childhood, the first time I played Ace Combat 5. Now that I thought about it, I will name the F-14D squadron the Razgriz Squadron.

—————————————————————
///NOTICE///
|
SQUADRON ALPHA

CHANGE NAME TO [RAZGRIZ SQUADRON]
—————————————————————

CONFIRM?
>Y< N

—————————————————————

Nice.

"Huh, I never knew you could sing Motherbird. It sounds elegant."

'Look, I can sing it all because of the stupid Latin lessons. It's frustrating, but it's worth it.'

(I did take Latin myself. It's cool, but it sucks some of my sanity away.)

"I see..."

Within a moment of silence, I settled on playing Archange through the speaker, somehow, to give Selina a taste of modern music.

4 minutes later

Selina looked like she was in heaven for some reason, but I spent that moment checking what was in that module. The satellite module is fixed way faster than I anticipated. I hoarded the data from it and found a map of the world. It showed a large continent with a huge hole. It's noticeable on the map. Without a second thought, I scanned every land on the map provided. Seeing nothing special, I was about to check other data, but the system stopped me. It went back to the map and created an outline. What surprised me was how the shape closely matched the current map. How didn't I notice it? My brain is probably dead. I began sifting through related data and was shocked by the photo I found.

It showed Usea hit by a humongous asteroid and the end of Erusia.