Chapter 47 – Don’t Tell Me… Is That You in There…?
Three Makinas converged on the source of the signal and stared.
It was less a standard cargo container than a section of the ruin's bulkhead, forcibly cut free and sealed into something that passed for an airtight shelter. Old. Graceless. A box of iron improvised against death.
"...Everyone in one piece?"
Zein's low, steady voice came through the shared channel.
"Not a scratch on me."
"Same here."
At Letaria's and Twoin's replies, Zein turned his attention back to the iron box.
"Something's off. Those unmanned machines had this shelter surrounded - but there's no sign it was actually attacked. It looks more like they were standing guard. Like someone wanted whatever's inside kept whole."
The wrongness of it drifted through the sector without resolution. But the signal was still transmitting, and that meant someone was inside.
"Weapons up, everyone. Could be a trap."
At Zein's word, Arden and Yera moved to combat readiness. Leaving the two of them on watch, the Rigune advanced slowly. Its heavy manipulators closed around the shelter's hatch - careful, then firm - and wrenched it open.
The silence broke. Pressurized air vented into the vacuum in a white rush.
The Rigune's lights flooded the dark interior without mercy.
"...No hostile response," Twoin confirmed, scanning the sensor readouts.
"There are people in there. Confirmed?"
Letaria leaned toward the screen. At the far end of the illuminated space, pressed together against the back wall, were five figures in pilot suits, huddled into each other.
"Are you all right?! We received your distress signal! You're safe now!"
From the dual-seat cockpit, Fal's voice came through the speaker at full volume.
The moment the words reached them, the frozen figures broke. They pulled themselves toward the hatch on shaking limbs and let out sounds they had been holding back for a long time.
"We made it... we actually made it..."
"I thought it was over... I thought we'd starve in here, or get torn apart by those things..."
The words came out ragged, drenched - the relief of people who had looked at death and somehow come back from it. Real. Unguarded.
And somewhere in that tangle of frightened voices, Letaria's ears caught one she knew. One she had absolutely no reason to be happy to hear.
"Thank god... I really thought I was gonna die..."
Something that had nothing to do with combat shot up Letaria's spine. She zoomed Arden's cameras onto the man's face.
"...Don't tell me - is that you in there - the shameless scoundrel who has attacked me time and again?!"
Fal reacted the instant Letaria's sharp cry hit the comm and slammed her monitor.
"You have got to be kidding me! That voice - that's Blang! The one who wrecked my machine! What are you doing here - why is someone like you here of all places?!"
Fal's outburst came through the speaker at a volume that made all five survivors flinch. The other four looked up at the three towering Makinas, and the relief in their eyes flipped to something darker - the expression of people who have realized they've been caught - and they shrank back.
Blang, however, was different.
The unhinged gloating. The arrogant swagger. None of it was there. He pressed both palms together, voice barely audible.
"I... I never thought it'd come to this... Look - I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Cospl-- no, the beautiful lady in the dress! And... the spirited young lady! I mean it, I swear. I'm grateful you came. I really, truly am...!"
He kept pressing his hands together, over and over, bowing with them.
Inside the Rigune's cockpit, Zein narrowed his eyes.
(... That's not a performance. He's genuinely terrified down to his bones.)
The fury that had been filling Letaria's chest dissolved rapidly at the sheer spectacle of it, replaced by a confusion she didn't have words for. The person she had put her life on the line to rescue as a knight - and it turned out to be the very raider who had menaced Seldia and the man who led him. Who could have predicted this.
"...Would you care to explain? How is it that villains like yourselves - surrounded by unmanned machines that should be your own - are cowering here in this state?"
At Letaria's demand, Blang only trembled. Nothing coherent came out.
"...All right, miss. I understand the urge to press him - but we still don't know what else might be lurking here. These people are criminals. Let's get them contained and move."
Zein cut in. He worked the Rigune's arms with practiced ease, dragging a relatively undamaged container from the debris around the shelter.
"We stuff them in something secure, head back to Seldia, and interrogate them once they're in a proper cell. They can explain themselves on the way."
It was the sensible call, and Letaria knew it. "...Yes. You're right." Twoin gave a wordless nod and kept Yera moving on perimeter watch.
The man who had once brought terror to the battlefield was loaded into an iron box by the hands of freelancers, reduced to cargo.
The three machines - Arden, Rigune, Yera - cleared the sector and were gone.
After they left --
In the deeper dark beyond --
(Lunect Protocol... Core Unit "Letaria"... Registration complete... Sequence transition.)