Chapter 37 – You Had Better Not Fall Behind Either!
The vast military hangar adjacent to Seldia's administrative quarter. The group had assembled here.
This mission was the vigilante corps' official response to the engagement in the debris field--a formal reconnaissance and investigation operation.
At the hangar's center, Grain's machine stood flanked by Steshia's and Retta's, the Makinas waiting for deployment in their dull metal sheen. Among them: Arden, and one other--Zein and Fal's dual-seat machine, its modifications giving it a distinctive, workmanlike silhouette.
"Working alongside the corps today, then."
Zein spoke idly, watching the corps members run through their briefing some distance away.
"So that's the new Rude model. Makes sense."
He cast his eye over the corps' Makinas. Every one was a custom build on the Rude base frame.
"'New' is relative, boss--that model's two years old now. But it's still miles ahead of what we're riding."
Fal said it with mild envy. Letaria was standing nearby, taking in the exchange.
The relative quality of machines was largely outside her frame of reference. Her only benchmark was Arden.
"Is it really that impressive?"
She asked, genuinely curious.
Footsteps approached.
"Letaria-san--the Rude is easy to handle and has excellent expansion potential on top of solid baseline performance! Just getting to pilot one of these is reward enough for joining the Seldia corps!"
Steshia cut in cheerfully. Behind her, Retta was grinning too.
Grain caught the easy atmosphere from across the hangar. His expression softened briefly--then he straightened it back into purpose.
"Zein-san. Fal-san. Thank you both for your cooperation today. I'm Grain, captain of the Seldia vigilante corps. Today's operation is a re-investigation of the sector where your group made contact last time. Letaria--I'm counting on you again as well."
Zein and Fal nodded.
"You may count on Arden's brilliant performance!"
Laughter rippled through the group, and the operation began.
◆◆◆
Cruising away from Seldia toward the target debris field, the comm carried a mix of tension and something lighter--the kind of conversation that forms naturally between people who have fought together before.
"There was a strange voice last time, out here..."
Letaria said it almost to herself, remembering. The unidentified warning that had reached only her, directly.
"...This investigation may give us something to work with on that."
Grain answered steadily. His machine led the formation, cutting quietly through the void.
"Those little machines nearly stopped my heart last time. Didn't expect autonomous weapons hiding inside a debris field like that."
Zein said it with a rueful half-laugh.
"The corps encountered that same type at a nearby ruins site once before. Letaria-san was there for that as well."
Steshia jumped in over Grain's words.
"If they show up again, Letaria-san will knock them apart in no time!"
"Steshia--that's our job. We're the vigilante corps, remember."
Retta cut in, sounding long-suffering. From somewhere in the cockpit, Fal had been listening to the exchange with mild surprise.
"I expected a corps to be more... wound up. You're all actually pretty easygoing."
"Ha! That's a good thing--means morale is high."
Zein's laughter filled the comm. Grain let it settle, then:
"...We'll handle as much as we can ourselves. All units, stay sharp."
The formation reached its destination. A sea of drifting debris--the silence of it holding the traces of the last engagement inside itself. The group spread out on Grain's signal and began the survey in earnest.
The key instrument was Zein's sensor array. Fal worked the controls with precision, the sweep covering the full sector and feeding data to every machine.
"No thermal signatures so far. Nice and quiet. ...Hoping it stays that way."
As Fal reported, a stretch of uneventful survey time passed. But Letaria, inside Arden's cockpit, had begun to feel something--a pressure, formless and unnamed.
"...? This feeling again..."
And then it came.
The same eerie noise flooded Arden's comm channels. All contact with the other machines went dark. And in that silence, the same clear, purposeful voice reached her again.
"--Can you hear me, pilot of Arden."
"...What?"
Why does it know Arden's name? The question had barely formed when the next words came.
"--Sharpen your senses. Arden will answer your will."
Different from the warning last time. This was something that reached toward her power--an address to what she was.
"You should be able to see it. ...Reach for it."
Letaria hesitated--but she followed. Last time, this voice had warned her, and it had been right.
She drew a slow breath and let her awareness sink--deeper, into Arden's core.
And then she felt it: her magic spreading outward through the sea of stars, like a second sense unfurling.
"...There."
Her eyes sharpened.
◆◆◆
"Everyone--they're coming! Three of them!"
Letaria's shout--and the noise cleared at the same instant.
From the void, as though expelled from the dark itself, three machine silhouettes in deep green materialized.
"--Hey there. This time I'm taking your head, cosplay woman!"
A voice sliced into the comm, edged with laughter and something unhinged.
Blang.
"One machine... No--"
Letaria barely registered his words before a blue flash came streaking from behind a rock formation.
"What--?!"
Retta's Baris caught it on the shield by reflex. The shield surface scorched--but held.
"Two more on radar--one of them is moving at impossible speed!"
Fal's sharp warning rang out.
Coming from an entirely different direction from Blang: two machines in a sooty, muted color. One lightweight, approaching at high speed. The other: a heavy-configuration machine bracing a massive Photon Cannon.
"--Here it comes again!"
A flash tore through the debris and grazed Retta's machine.
"Retta, Steshia--evasion only!"
Grain turned his machine toward Blang without hesitation.
"I'll handle this one. The rest of you--take those two. Blang--your fight is with me."
"The captain himself offering his neck--how generous!"
Blang's laughter climbed.
"Grain--we'll hold here! And you had better not fall behind either!"
"It's working hours, Fal--support me! Let's go!"
"On it! Pinpointing the sniper's coordinates now!"
The battle line split in two.
In the distance: Grain and Blang, already colliding.
And directly ahead: the high-mobility unit closing at devastating speed, and the heavy frame picking its shots coldly from long range--both aimed at annihilation.
"Now then--let me show you what a lady's battle looks like!"
Arden's thrusters roared, and the dark purple machine drove straight at the unknown machines.
Two desperate fights, in a divided sky, were beginning.