Vol 5. Chapter 18: Crash
“Titan is beginning to withdraw from the battle line. Local Strategic AI has requested a re-computation of the operation. Request accepted. Using resources from the Telek Port City base. Computation complete. It has begun a new course of action.”
“192 fighters have reached the combat airspace! Transferring authority to Oceanus Tactical AI command!”
On the visual feed, Titan—its fuselage pierced clean through by the Wyvern’s breath attack—was beginning a wide banking turn, spewing flame and smoke.
The point of penetration was in the center section of its all-wing structure, slightly forward and to the left. It had not touched the computer clusters that formed the ship’s heart, but one of the two fusion reactors had suffered catastrophic damage.
“We have performed an emergency shutdown on Fusion Reactor System B. Forced venting of stored energy is in progress.
Due to overflow in the energy lines, twelve main engines have been damaged. Two sub-engines are unusable.
Port-side radar operating efficiency degraded. Weapons operational rate has fallen below twenty percent.
We will use the rocket boosters for emergency withdrawal.”
To compensate for the lost thrust from the damaged engines, Titan ignited the six solid-fuel rockets mounted on its stern.
Of the twenty plasma jet engines serving as its main propulsion, twelve had been damaged or completely destroyed.
Of the eight jet engines started up as secondary power, two were nonfunctional due to equipment failures.
From a single direct hit by one breath, it had been reduced to a wreck on the verge of collapse.
And while the two fusion reactors were arranged as redundant systems and had narrowly avoided a direct strike, the surrounding equipment had been blown away, leaving one entire system completely dead.
“What’s our situation?”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am.
Titan has transitioned to a withdrawal trajectory.
Because a large-scale fire has broken out inside the ship, firefighting efforts are underway.
It is capable of flight, but whether it will make it back to the Fratara Outskirts Base is fifty–fifty.
The Wyvern has begun to flee. It is lowering altitude and increasing its flight speed.
Oceanus remains fully combat-capable.
Using the fighter group now under its command, it has resumed the attack.”
The Wyvern, having begun its descent, was rapidly increasing its flight speed.
It would probably break the sound barrier.
However, what was chasing after it now were hypersonic missiles and armor-piercing rounds fired downward from the belly railguns. No matter how much speed it gained, there would be no escaping that.
“Oceanus is using the Maser Cannon. It is performing pinpoint irradiation on the Wyvern’s head.”
In addition, the high-output Maser Cannon was being focused on the sensory organs presumed to be in its head.
They were jamming the microwave band the Wyvern itself used.
For a human, it would have been something like suddenly being hit with an ultra-powerful searchlight while sprinting at full speed.
Whether it had thrown its equilibrium organs out of order or merely startled it was unknown, but the Wyvern entered a corkscrew spin as it descended.
And into that, the missiles and a massive volume of armor-piercing rounds converged.
They already had more than enough samples of the defensive membrane’s acceleration-conversion behavior for predictive computation.
The shock of the missiles slamming in and the rain of armor-piercing shells was converted into acceleration by the membrane, but over 75% of those acceleration vectors were now being predicted and controlled by the local Strategic AI.
And at exactly the calculated timing, the defensive membrane’s glow vanished.
“Multi-stage Electromagnetic Cannon (Coilgun) fired. Penetration confirmed. Missile group and individual shell direct hits confirmed.”
And then, with the defensive membrane gone, a concentrated storm of missiles and shells fell upon the Wyvern.
Shell impacts and missile explosions scraped away its scales and blasted them off.
“Multiple direct hits confirmed. Analyzing inflicted damage.”
The shell fired from the Multi-stage Electromagnetic Cannon (Coilgun) had pierced through from the back of its neck and out the other side.
Numerous other railgun shells, while not passing clean through, had still inflicted massive wounds across its body.
The missiles, too, had blown away scales and skin, and appeared to have damaged organs beneath after tearing through the subcutaneous muscle layers.
“Wyvern’s acceleration phenomenon has ceased. It is decelerating due to air resistance.”
“D-Did we really get it this time...?”
Spinning in an unnatural posture, the Wyvern dropped toward the ground, and there was no sign of any further action from it.
“Confirming Wyvern is unresponsive.”
“Commander Sis-ter, we have also confirmed loss of the microwaves the Wyvern was emitting. We assess it as likely dead—at the very least, unconscious!”
“Unconscious... Well, still, there’s no sign of the defensive membrane coming back, and at that falling speed, when it smashes into the ground, not even a super-organism is going to withstand it...”
Because of friction with the atmosphere, its falling speed would not become all that extreme.
Even so, when it slammed into the ground at several hundred kilometers per hour, mere modest reinforcement of its bodily tissues would be nowhere near enough to endure it.
If it were <Rain Croyne>, it might just barely manage to survive—but not this.
“Commander Sis-ter, Titan’s fires have been extinguished! The damage is severe, but it looks like it will somehow be able to fly back to base!”
“Good. You did well. It would have been a terrible omen if it had crashed on its maiden sortie.”
In ground-suppression battles, the Gigantia group could display overwhelming strength.
They could drop massive numbers of ground-suppression units from far above and provide supporting bombardment from multiple gun mounts.
Their flight speed exceeded 1,000 kilometers per hour, allowing rapid deployment to any battlefield that needed them.
They could also use the enormous energy produced by their fusion «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» reactors to beam power to all subordinate units in the surrounding area.
Naturally, they also carried enough AI brainpower to fully control all of those units.
They were, quite literally, flying fortresses.
Even so, by virtue of the fact that they were performing aerodynamic flight, they had the inherent weakness of relatively thin armor.
This time, that weakness had been struck dead-on.
Moreover, as they were at the very front line, their air cover had been insufficient.
Or rather, they had simply never anticipated that flying enemies would come after them.
Even so, the fact that they had at least had a minimum of close-escort craft riding along counted as a fine play.
No one could possibly have predicted that a dragon, of all things, would come screaming in from hundreds of kilometers away.
“We wrapped up the subjugation of the United Kingdom of Aphrasia just as planned, and then that Wyvern came along and stole everything, all by itself...”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. I am deeply sorry. I had not accounted for it at all.”
Of course she had not. Commander Eve hadn’t, and even Asahi, of all people, had been unable to foresee anything about the Wyvern.
Blaming <Ringo> would be unreasonable—and seeing <Ringo> so dejected only made Eve’s heart ache.
“Don’t worry about it, <Ringo>. There’s nothing we could have done about this one. In this unreasonable fantasy world, there’s no telling what might happen.”
Commander Eve comforted <Ringo> as she checked the wide-area map.
They had secured all of the United Kingdom of Aphrasia’s major cities.
They had pinpointed the locations of the Grand Dukes and their families as well. If anything happened, they could respond immediately.
The primary military forces of each city had also been almost completely subdued.
There was a chance that the remaining scattered elements might form some kind of resistance organization, but that would not be any particular problem.
After all, <Paraiso> possessed an excellent intelligence network.
“Well then, the only thing left is East Gate City city. We’ve effectively occupied it already, but we should still secure the key figures and strip them of command authority. And lastly, we’ll issue a notification to the Forest Kingdom of Levresta.”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. With that, Operation <What’s Yours Is Mine> will be complete. It should be concluded by sunset today.”
They had somehow managed it.
Letting out a deep breath, Commander Eve sank back into her chair.
“Still, this really is a world where you can’t let your guard down for a second... And also, just like Asahi said, an actual dragon really did show up.”
“It’s not that much, Commander Sis-ter! But even Asahi didn’t think it would show up now of all times!”
On the monitor, Asahi was spinning in circles with her arms thrown up in celebration.
She seemed to be excited because they were about to obtain a sample of a dragon—the quintessential fantasy-world monster.
Even so, she was still continuously transmitting a flood of orders over the radio while she danced, doing her job properly.
It was merely unsightly to look at, not something worth scolding her over. In fact, her Commander Sis-ter watched her with an expression that was more fond than anything. <Ringo> remained silent.
In the midst of all that commotion, the silver dragon showed no sign of slowing and crashed into the outer fringe of the Demon Forest.