Intel mission - hoshi

The ship controlled by humans is now heavily damaged. After providing support to a small group of humans who just finished messing up an Arma Caeli ship, they fight alongside another ally ship controlled by the Fauns. With the two powers cooperating, the battle has been much easier for them. But this won't last long, since the Fauns ship wants to go in another direction to keep guarding their realm, while the humans want to find the Arma vault. They separated, and the humans fell into another wave of continuous attacks. Through Tsukino's incredible commands and situation analysis, they escaped the infinite chaos of bullets and lasers that the formidable Arma Ceali ships have fired. They plan all the way to prevent them from escaping, but their respected commander has been through countless similar situations. Although they flee to a safe zone, their ship is now in a terrible state. If they don't know how to handle that, nobody will make it out alive when the morning comes. Tokuko suggested doing an emergency landing, but Tsukino tells her to connect to Kirifuren and Kiriko's radio and ask them where they are. Three of the humans, the Matsuhiro sisters and Yukari, are now in one place, and they got lost in a forest. Up higher, the stars lead their way. Hoshi opened the ceiling window to look at the sparkly lights that guide them to the forest. They need more fuel; they also need repair and help. Luckily, they don't need to fly for too long to reach the forest. Next to it, there's a wide field that's big enough to do a landing. After selecting a good-looking place with a stable ground surface, the humans successfully calculated a plot and landed. But there's no material store nearby, and their ship needs to get ready or at least move to another safe place before dawn. They separated into 2 teams; some guarded their captured airship, and some went in different directions in search of helpful tools. They only have 5 hours until the sun rises.

Hoshi has the task of searching inside the forest. She has enough power and a good companion to keep herself safe, so she tells everyone to leave her alone. To be honest, it's not so dark in there. Maybe in the past there were some accidents in the forest, so the Fauns used their magic to reduce leafy trees, which let more light through the leaves. But something is wrong; the light seems stronger than it should naturally be. Even brighter than the moonlight itself. Hoshi didn't realize it until she went too close. A strange heat touches her skin, giving it a roasting experience, like she is being burned alive. Hoshi let out a little scream when a strong hand grabbed her long hair and pulled it behind her with rude force. As fast as her trained reaction, Hoshi took out a gun and aimed at their heads. The light from that large fire nearby lit up Kirifuren's serious face. She looks at Hoshi and asks where her focus was when she just unconsciously walks into the fire and almost lets herself be harmed. Hoshi bows to her repeatedly and says sorry along with thank-you. She can never have enough words to express her apology, but if she did, they would not be able to get out of her mouth. Her tongue froze when she saw what was happening there. Kirifuren, Kiriko, and Yukari stand in front of a burning building. Its giant shape was covered in the brutal fire. The three girls, with scarily calm faces, look at her with indifferent eyes. Hoshi comes closer to ask what happened, then she quickly calms down after hearing Yukari's explanation. Her only instructions are to return to the ship and rest, and she declares that they are seriously damaged and that it will be very difficult for them to take off again. Kiriko disagrees, saying that the three of them have no reason to return to the ship if they can't use it at the moment, but Kirifuren has already appeased her. It's okay to just be exhausted after a long day; they all need to rest and recharge their energy. The girls walk back to their ship. But halfway through, Kirifuren breaks the thick air of silence as she takes out a file of mysterious codes and gives it to Hoshi.

- We'll be resting on the ship, then continuing the mission with people up there. If you plan to go search for Tamao, bring this. She might know something when she comes around the enemy ship. You and she may decode this.

Hoshi looked at Kirifuren; her eyes were full of confusion.

- Wait, why do you have to do this? Just bring it to people on our ship; they'll know a way to…

- No. You saw it; we can't even solve the information sheet we got from that defeated ship.

Tokuko said while walking up behind them, looking at Hoshi while she slowly continued to speak.

- We don't have anyone who knows the alien's secret language. The Fauns may have one, but we can't buy enough time to go search for that person on every Faun ship. Take this: Tamao is the only hope; go find her and decode these. For another reason, I'm preventing these important files from being destroyed alongside the ship when we're back in the battle. That can actually happen.

Glancing around at all the humans there, Tokuko's bullet-shaped eyes are made of soulless black pupils.

- Kirifuren, Kiriko, and Yukari. You all look burned and exhausted. You need rest. Come inside the ship, or else I'll tell the commander.

The girls listened to Tokuko's words without arguing; they all know how scary this girl can become. Hoshi quickly returns to the woods in search of Tamao, even though she isn't sure about it at all.

That's what happened 6 hours ago. It's the afternoon, and Hoshi only knows one thing: she's lost. In front of her and behind her were just trees. The burning building was so far behind that she could no longer see the light from the large fire or sense its heat. It's getting dark again, and she stumbled upon an unexpected obstacle. Hoshi hopelessly hugs the file of important information into her chest, holding it tighter as she hears the sounds of shooting ships over the horizon again. The battle seems to be getting more serious and deadly, as Arma Caeli is now in a fully chaotic state of anger over the news. They've lost a crazy amount of helpful equipment, and the records of signals from the mother ship were also stolen. They push over, not holding back their full power anymore, and the frantic artillery blasts with its greatest force, ripping open the sunset sky with mighty energy. She didn't find Tamao, and it's already dark outside. Hoshi sighed. She had no choice but to stop searching in hopelessness and start to take action. If there's a language, there's a way to read it. If Tamao's help makes everything easier, then she'll rather take it harder, because that doesn't mean it's impossible.

Hoshi remembers the way the Arma Caeli communicates. They can use the Ihrutia language, but not so fluently, so maybe that's not how these alien words are organized. They claim to be the original residents of the reflection realm. She doubts that, but in this case, every piece of information helps. If this is true, they'll speak the language of the people in the reflection. But unfortunately, she hasn't met or talked to anyone there but a mysterious, colorful creature who seems to learn and reflect the language of the person who's standing in front of it. When she was in the reflection, it said it in Japanese. I can't say all of Arma Caeli will speak like that; they should have left this realm long before this creature appeared and guided people. The reflection theory is eliminated. She thought about the realms that were close to the colorful realm, but all of them, including Ihrutia, were at the same distance. None of them seem to be linked to or closer to other realms. That's when her thoughts stopped at a keyword that seemed very well related: the Alien Gleamstic.

Hoshi doesn't know if they and the Arma Caeli use the same language; there's a great chance they don't. She contacted the head Fauns ship to ask for a realms language translator, then install it. She writes some sentences to listen to how the Alien Gleamstic will pronounce them, and then she immediately finds some matchings. Although their accents do differ, like American and British English, she can translate them thoroughly and edit some parts to her understanding. Looking at the files full of notes, Hoshi smiles.

- Hello, this is Hoshi calling the 36th ship. I've finished decoding the alien file. The papers lead to exactly where the key is and the third ship's routine. I'm heading back to the ship. Over.

She's still lost, and it's already very dark. She doesn't know which path to go down, but with new hope and pride in what she did, she made her way through the dark trees. Hoshi looks up to read the stars' direction, only to see something at the edge of her eyes. A short shooting sound, and she fell to the ground.

Walking out of the dark is an Arma Caeli holding a gun, with her body severely burned.