Previously…

Ten miles outside of the Sankai Resort, Hakone, Japan

Itami's head was spinning faster than the wheels of the van as his mind struggled to make sense of everything that had happened in the past two hours.

It was supposed to be a calm and relaxing evening at a hot springs resort. He had been assured that the JSDF had stationed guards outside, and would be monitoring the area remotely via UAV. The resulting evening and next morning were supposed to happen like an anime OVA, or one of Rise's doujinshis. Funny, lighthearted, maybe a little embarrassing, but overall a good time.

This, of course, begged the question, what idiot writer starts a firefight in the middle of the Onsen Episode!?

Instead of leaving his room at eight AM with a cup of coffee in one hand and a sleepy Tuka clutching the other, he had opened the partially demolished door at an hour past midnight to find the tea garden littered with corpses and Rory Mercury in a blood-soaked nightgown, perched atop a boulder with a delighted smile on her face.

It wasn't until they were speeding away from the resort in a captured van that their guests from the Special Region began asking questions. Remarkably, it was Pina who figured it out first. "This is my conjecture," she said, "But I have been sold out, haven't I?"

Impossible,Itami thought. The Ministry of Defense would never… "No," he said. 'That's not it."

"But since the first day the plans and form of transportation have been changed several times, that underground hell's ride suddenly stopped after we got off, the place we were supposed to stay had a fire and this attack that just happened…" she shook her head. "There are too many strange incidents."

Itami cast a glance at Tomita in the driver's seat and Kuribayashi, who Pina had halted in the middle of a chiding. The three of them had already stumbled their way through diplomacy at Italica, and the subject that Pina was approaching would have been handled better by a professional. Where's Yanagida when you need him!? Itami yearned to shout.

The princess pressed further. "I came to this country to mediate negotiations. I came for peace negotiations. Yet our guards vanished, leaving us like a chained lamb in front of a monster. The only ones who could do this are the ones controlling this country. Therefore, in this world there are currently powers that want to proceed with the peace negotiations, and others that are against it. Correct?"

"...something like that," Itami said. "It's complicated."

"Could it be that woman from their government?" Bozes asked, "Kouhara Mizuki?"

"Minister Kouhara thinks highly of herself," Tomita replied, with an amused grin. "But she does not control the JSDF. The only politicians who do are the Prime Minister, and the Minister of Defense."

"Kano's a tough old bastard," Itami countered. "He wouldn't betray Japan. Not even at gunpoint."

"Eeeeh?" Kuribayashi said, clearly putting two and two together. "Why would the Motoi sell out his own country? I mean, I didn't vote for him, but come on-"

"Someone else could have forced him," Pina said simply. "Hostages, bribery, blackmail."

"It was another kingdom." Lelei said simply.

The others stopped in their argument and turned to look at her, so she added. "Only some of the soldiers who attacked us looked Japanese."

"Itami," Pina said, now very serious. "How many nations does this world have aside from Japan?"

Shit! If there was one thing that Itami did not want Pina thinking of, it was other nations. "Two hundred, I think? A lot."

"And where would you say Japan ranks among these nations?"

"High."

"How high? The top?"

This time Itami said nothing, and he stared daggers at Tomita and Kuribayashi, daring them to open their mouths.

Rather than let the conversation die, Tuka picked up the thread. "On the way here, Miss Kuribayashi said she heard the languages Eigo, Roshiago, and Chugokugo. If the language of Nihon (Japan) is Nihongo, the other nations are Chugoku (China), Roshia (Russia), and Ei. Correct?"

But the three JSDF soldiers refused to say anything else. Instead, Itami had Tomita pull over at the next convenience store, and allowed the topic of processed food and vending machines to coerce the girls into talking about something else. As they got back into the car, Itami switched out with Tomita in the driver's seat, and one by one the girls fell asleep.

Or, that was what Itami had hoped. At a red light, he glanced over his shoulder. They were all exhausted, and even Kuribayashi seemed to be nodding off.

… well, all of them except Rory. She had been silent for the entire drive, but before their departure she had moved to the seat right behind Itami's and leaned forward. When she spoke, it was with a low voice, so as not to wake the others. "China, Russia, and Ei. Are they really more powerful than Japan?"

"Rory, please. Drop it."

"They didn't seem more powerful. Is Japan really worried about a war against such foes?"

If he didn't stop her somehow, Itami knew that she was going to pester him all night long… but what to say? How to phrase it so that the Special Region wouldn't consider seeking allies from outside Japan?

"Japan sits at the middle of a balance of power between three countries," Itami said. "All three don't like each other, and all three have fought wars against Japan in the past. Right now, they all stand against each other in a very delicate balance, because they know that a war between any two of them would cede the world to the third. Japan has built very careful relationships with all three, some stronger than others, which allows us to prosper, and helps to maintain the balance of power. This is how it has been for generations...until the Gate appeared. So why did they attack? I think it was because they were afraid… of you. What you meant for that balance."

He expected Rory to find that funny for some reason, but instead the girl uttered a ponderous, "Hmmmm… and here the Gods thought the Imperials were stagnant. If your attack on Italica means anything, I guess it means Earth wars must be really bloody. No wonder all the sides are afraid to fight."

She could feel her lean away slightly, and Itami supposed that she'd gotten the information she wanted. Still, she muttered, "A balance of power between Russia, China, and Ei..."

"They're not called Ei," Itami said.

"Then what are they called?"

"The United States of America."

The event, which came to be known as the Hakone Incident, sparked a chain of events which none of the major powers on Earth could have foreseen, and an intense high-stakes battle against forces the humans of Earth couldn't imagine.

Shortly after the Hakone Incident, Japan's ministry of defense confronted US President Dirrel and his Secretary of Defense, Robert Clayton, with evidence that the Special Region beyond the Gate was inhabited by ethereal beings which the locals referred to as Gods. These Gods were supposedly extremely powerful, all knowing, and to be feared. Japan feared that they might have upset one after interfering with the work of an Apostle-one of the Gods' direct representatives. Seeing negotiations as unlikely to succeed in their favor, Japan instead approached the Americans in hopes of getting their hands on humanity's most powerful deterrent; the atomic bomb.

Clayton, aware that access to the magic and life beyond the Gate was of utmost strategic importance, and knowing that something was needed to balance out Hakone, facilitated a deal which would allow the deployment of a single nuclear weapon to Alnus, under the guise of a scientific suborbital rocket program. To lead this program, he had his subordinate, Colonel Richard Mullan, recruit NASA engineer Dr. Carol Dawson to provide a show for the locals.

Dawson proved herself more invested than Clayton or Mullan had expected. Within weeks, she had mentored Greta La Saretenian, ignited an interest in spaceflight in the locals, and convinced the Academic Rondel Council of planetary heliocentricity; booting primary heliocentricity critic Nariv El Delsus in the process. When Nariv retaliated with force, he and a number of other rioters were killed by the JSDF.

Carol's zeal with the project ended the moment she discovered that one of the three rockets America had brought to the Special Region had an atomic payload. She ultimately accepted Clayton's explanation for the device, and her willingness to return to the Special Region spared the entire city of Bellnahgo from destruction when General Hazama demanded use of the bomb as a counterattack to an offensive of monsters lead by Giselle and the Goddess Hardy. This counterattack was stopped after Itami discovered that his commanders had been fed erroneous information about Gates. Specifically, Yanagida had forged the idea that Apocryph, a dangerous black material that destroys all matter and warps space, was the product of the Gods, rather than an instability generated by leaving large Gates open for too long. Armed with this information, Carol convinced President Dirrel to abort the planned launch and change the target.

At Rory's suggestion, the atomic bomb was used against a traveling invasion army from Carenth, a large nation somewhere to Falmart's Southeast. The effects of the detonation were dramatic; nuclear radiation emitted by the weapon injured the Gods, something that the residents of the Special Region thought to be impossible. Backed into a corner by the threat of nuclear retaliation, the Gods formed an agreement with the United States and Japan; the Gods would remain out of human affairs, and in exchange the Americans would not use nuclear weapons.

Nonetheless, news of the "Godwrecker" slowly made its way around the continent of Falmart, as did word for the new technology and sciences being introduced at Alnus. Seeing the possibility for abuse, the Earth countries placed an immediate halt on all further information exchange, with Clayton claiming to Carol that a permanent deterrent was being worked upon.

Seven years after the bombing, Falmart once again stood on the brink of war. On the one side, Sadera, lead by Sherry Tyueli who was seeking to establish herself as the dominant power of a soon-to-be Falmart Republic. On the other side, Rondel, lead by Chairman Tiberias El Delsus, angered at the death of his cousin by JSDF troops and supported by a city wishing to free itself from burdensome taxes. Sherry soon established the Casus Belli she needed and urged Empress Pina to prepare the nation for war.

The war itself took an unexpected twist early on when Italica came under attack by magically-driven light aircraft launched from Rondel. Italica, unprepared to repel an attack from the sky, seemed about to take serious damage when the assault was interrupted by Ellie Fa Agne, a member of the winged Monarch species of demihumans. She had been traveling with a survivor of the nuclear attack, Hector El Sava, and was operating a Japanese test aircraft when the attack occurred.

Aware of the technical potential posed by a competent pilot and Sherry's Machinations, Clayton (now US Ambassador to the Saderan Empire) ordered Ellie, Hector, and Pina moved to Ichijima Island, a military research and resupply base off the coast of Falmart jointly operated by the JMSDF and US Navy. There, Ellie met Greta, who at Carol's suggestion had been working on a suborbital air-launched spaceplane based on the X-15.

Meanwhile, the Japanese learned that Chairman Delsus had accepted the help and guidance of one of Falmart's Gods, Palapon, in violation of the nuclear agreement made seven years earlier. Furthermore, a World Health Organization member, Dr. Nguyen, was offering technical advice to Rondel in exchange for more information on the Apostles and their recovery abilities.

Fearing a large-scale air assault, Pina reached out to Greta for assistance. In response, Greta concocted a plan to disrupt Rondel's magic-boosting focus crystals from the edge of space. Ellie and Hector piloted the craft, and the plan was ultimately successful, knocking Rondel's airfleet out the sky and giving the JASDF and Saderan ground forces a guaranteed victory.

On the brink of failure, Palapon attempted to intervene directly, but was countered when Clayton activated ADMIT FUSCHIA, a military black project for creating stable Gates, and used it to warp the exhaust of a nuclear engine from Groom Lake AFB to the skies of Falmart. As before, the radiation seared the Gods, causing them continuous injury. Using Rory as a channel, Clayton demanded that the Gods stop Palapon, and was met with evidence of a brutal, global assault as the other Gods ripped all of Palapon's distributed particles from existence. Millions were injured in the process, but the battle was clearly won.

The war ended with Delsus's assassination, and the attention of both worlds quickly turned to what would come next. America now possessed a delivery device that could transport anything, anywhere, at any time, effectively burning the rulebook on conventional and nuclear military strategy. In a desperate attempt to restore balance, General Kengun urged Japan to open up the Gate to the international community, presumably in hopes that a second nation could find parity with the United States.

As the nations of the world rushed to experience the Special Region for themselves, no one paid much attention to Nguyen, who was extradited back to Vietnam with an important secret. Before being murdered by the other gods, Palapon had granted Apostle abilities to Nguyen, thereby granting the God of revenge one last avenue to do what he did best.

This is the final story of man vs. god, nation vs. nation, and, of course, the Gate itself.

Author's Note:

Well, here we are again.

I figure that there's one more story to tell in the Skies universe, and while I can't guarantee quality, I am happy to say that I can guarantee timeliness. As of the time of this post, all but the last chapter of this story are fully drafted and edited. My plan is to release them on a weekly basis, though I might accelerate that rate if the last one is finished and edited early enough. The benefit of this is that I can promise you here and now that the entirety of Starlight will be published before SpaceX flies astronauts this June.

This work relies pretty heavily on ideas introduced back in the previous two novels. As such, I would recommend that you go back and look over some of the key points of the earlier works for the best experience. If you are new, I highly advise going back and reading A Sky Full of Fire and A Sky Full of Thunder.

And if you're a return reader, thanks for sticking with me for so long, and for one last time in the Gate universe, welcome back!