Disclaimer: I don't own either of the two intellectual properties that have been melded into one here today, those being Macross Frontier and the Fate Stay/Night franchises, and certainly don't have the intent to make money of this piece of work, only the intent to make some people smile.
Chapter 8: First Attack.
It didn't take long for the Quarter to complete the twelve fold jumps. I could count them with my eyes shut – every time we de-folded then folded again, my magic circuits thrummed in resonance with something. It was the strangest thing – I'd been in hundreds of fold jumps, with and without odo running through my circuits, and never had they resonated like they were doing now.
Every time we activated or deactivated the fold drives, a random beat would disrupt the flow of my odo for a second or so. Not enough for me to lose control of my circuits, but it was definitely noticeable. On top of that, I couldn't pick a pattern in the beat – it was completely random, every single time.
I was slightly worried. I was about to head into what could potentially be the largest Vajra fleet encountered yet, and if my circuits were unreliable – well let's just say I might be graduating to full blown Counter-Guardian a lot earlier than I was expecting to be.
Not much that could be done now though. We were here, and pretty soon we'd be finding out one way or another how hot the combat zone was.
"Prep for take-off," Ozma snapped on the squad comm, a holo of his face appearing in the bottom right of my HUD. Skull Squadron were the ace V.F. outfit in SMS, which meant we had the honour of being first out. As a result our units were secured right next to the elevators to the flight deck. Ozma and I taxied onto the foremost of the three elevators that connected the hangar to the flight deck of the ARMD-L carrier that made up launch platform for the Quarter's fighter complement. Saotome and Mikhail taxied onto the elevator behind us, and Luca made himself the sole occupant of the third.
Locking clamps snapped over our landing gear and the elevators quickly rose into the roof. As we passed out of the hangar bay, a floating feeling in my stomach informed me that we'd left the artificial gravity field generated internally on the Quarter. As we were deposited on the deck of the ARMD-L I flicked a switch down in the lower left of my cockpit and a couple of the electromagnetic locks usually reserved for use in the transformation sequence of the Messiah activated, feebly keeping my wheels on deck. It was weird for such an technologically up-to-date company such as SMS to use such an outdated form of launch for it's highly advanced variable fighters, I reflected as we taxied over to the launchways. Hell, the NUNS were using multiple unit integrated elevator launch platforms on their carriers these days, and they were a much more efficient system than the setup we had on the Quarter. I mean, here we were, taxiing in microgravity!
Out of the corner of my eye I watched the elevators recede into the deck, heading back to pick up the next squadron out - the Pixies. That was of secondary concern however - my odo enhanced eyes were focussed on the battle kilometres away, where a veritable swarm of red and white Vajra were overwhelming the two ships that had managed to escape Galaxy - the Dulfim and the Kaitos. I spotted a few smaller NUNS units mixed in the chaos - mostly V9 unmanned Ghost drones - but their numbers were being whittled away before our eyes. Clearly we'd arrived in the nick of time, something for which I was very grateful – another ten minutes and there'd probably be nothing left to save, if I was any guess.
"All fighter units, prepare for launch," came Captain Wilder's steely voice, having opened up a non-visual channel to all the fighter squadrons on board.
We were in position on the launchways now. A line of yellow guidance holos swirled into existence above the deck – the signal to release the electromagnetic clamps and raise the landing gear. I did so, leaving my Messiah wobbling slightly above the deck, the station keeping thrusters flaring occasionally. I felt a trill of excitement pass through me – when all was said and done, this is what I lived for. The chance to save people.
The guidance holos flipped green.
"Skull Squadron, heading out!" roared Ozma, and his VF-25 glided past me on twin flares of blue, rapidly gaining velocity.
I pushed forwards on the throttle as far as it would go. My Messiah barely even shook in response as it's engine lines flared full of power and I chased out after Ozma. Once space-borne, I pulled the throttle back to seventy percent and performed a quick systems check. No problems there. A glance around confirmed that the rest of Skull Squadron were in formation with us. A quick check of my scopes let me know the Pixies were the next squadron from SMS into the void, and they were rapidly closing in on us. It was at that point Ozma opened a channel to our entire fighter complement.
"Skull Leader to all units, we're here to clear a path for our military. While we're at it, we want to collect data on the Vajra as well!" he reminded us, as if we had to be told again.
"Prototype Fold Communication Guidance System is all green," reported Luca. "With this, we shouldn't have to worry about the Vajra affecting our fold communications and causing confusion."
Well, that was the first time I'd heard about the deployment of what I assumed were anti-jamming measures. I could feel a frown forming on my face, and seeing as I wasn't transmitting any video feeds, I didn't bother to reign in the visible emotion. I wasn't even aware that the Vajra had any capability to jam our fold communications to begin with, which made me slightly suspicious as to why Luca had chosen to deploy the anti-jamming in this encounter. What did he know about the Vajra that I didn't?
Or more likely, what did the higher ups at L.A.I. know that I didn't?
"Acknowledged," grunted Ozma. If he was surprised about the anti-jamming measures, he hid it well.
"Alto," the Squadron Commander continued, "you stay back as far as possible."
"What?" the boy in question shot back. His voice was devoid of the directionless rage it usually contained when being told something contrary to his opinions. Not to say it was emotionless – there was a very clinical undertone there. "I can fight too!"
"Damn rookie," snorted Ozma good naturedly.
There was a short pause as Ozma considered his course of action. Personally I was hoping that our greying Squad Commander would keep him back – a few easy kills made by picking off the enemies that Ozma and I would force into position would be a good little introduction to combat for Saotome, and a great way to build his confidence (although, come to think of it, I guess he hardly needed to work on that).
"If we're doing this, I want you close enough behind me that you can smell my arse!" Ozma roared down the comm.
Well.
I guess we could do that too.
Suddenly, my circuits started to flare – that weird resonance again, only, well, stronger in amplitude. I shrugged it off, as we were closing rapidly in on the combat area now, and my scopes were starting to filter out individual Vajra units. I reinforced my eyes, increasing my imaging power and focussing it on the battle ahead. It looked like the Vajra had finally deigned to notice our entrance into this fight – several units had broken away from their vanguard and were wheeling around to face us.
"Incoming," warned Luca sharply, the extra sensors on his RVF-25 variant no doubt affording him increased resolution on his scanners.
"All units, Planet Dance!" roared Ozma. I rolled my eyes as I brought the throttle up to maximum again and pulled slightly to the left. Only Ozma would name formations after the songs of a rock band that disbanded almost fifteen years ago.
Regardless, a call for formation was a call for formation, and there wasn't a better choice at this point in time. The Planet Dance was essentially a spearpoint made out of several variable fighters. The lead was taken by the frontliners, usually Ozma and myself, whose role was to cover two frontal arcs as we advanced. Mikhail would ride in the middle of the formation, providing covering sniper fire down a central cone between myself and Ozma. Luca would hang at the back, his QF-4000 Ghost's covering the flanks of our formation. We were still working on a version that incorporated a third frontliner into it, but for now we'd make do with Saotome riding on Ozma's arse.
If we were the only squadron on the field, this would leave our rear wide open – but in a co-ordinated effort like today's we'd have other squadrons following us up to take advantage of the wedge we were going to drive into the Vajra lines, and they could cover us.
We powered through a small field of debris, and the targeting computer finally blinked green, indicating that my long range hardpoint mounted missiles were in range. I tagged two of the leading red Vajra on my HUD, and was squeezing the missile launch trigger when my target lock dropped off the lead unit. My finger froze in mid squeeze – the HUD was telling me a higher priority targeting solution had my target.
Milliseconds later, a flash of blue split the vacuum, pulping the head of lead Vajra creature. Another two shots slammed into the upper carapace, causing the Vajra to veer away and explode spectacularly.
"Bingo," came the collected voice of Mikhail through the comm.
I had already re-tagged my long range missiles by then, and with a squeeze of my finger I launched all eight of the missiles on my hardpoints. They rocketed forwards like a swarm of angry bees, joining up with the missiles from a barrage Ozma had launched almost simultaneously.
The only long range capability of the Vajra closing in on us were the anti-ship energy weapons the red ones had on their shoulders, and as such Ozma and myself had prioritised the larger red types in our missile strike. A few of the Vajra in the lead of their formation, realising the threat posed by the missiles closing in on them, began to break in order to evade.
Too slow.
I had personally tagged two missiles each to four targets, all of which were marked as confirmed kills as the space in front of our spearhead blossomed into red-yellow fire. It looked like Ozma, with the extra ammunition granted by his Armoured FAST Pack, had dropped three missiles each onto five targets, and as a result was leading today's kill count.
Our missile strike had knocked out all of the red Vajra in the first wave rushing to meet us, and without missing a beat, I transformed into GERWALK mode, continuing forward at an undiminished pace thanks to the momentum I'd built up in fighter mode. I levelled my Howard GU-17A 58mm Gatling gunpod at the closest white Vajra, and with a hail of cannon shells heralding us, our formation crashed into the shattered Vajra swarm sent to hold us off.
"Incredible," came the awed voice of Saotome after we'd blown through the initial Vajra formation.
"Don't space out!" snapped the Squad Commander, transforming quickly into GERWALK mode and cutting across to his left. Saotome vectored off to the right almost instantaneously and milliseconds later imitation cannon fire split through the vacuum between the two Messiahs. Ozma responded with his gunpod, the incessant strobing flashes at the muzzle of his weapon spelling the end for a creature downrange of us.
A second swarm of Vajra were coming to intercept us now. I raised my gunpod again, then used my manoeuvring thrusters to push me hard to the right, evading a line of imitation cannon tracers that cut through the void. I sighted down on my assailant, who seemed to sense the threat and slid away to the right.
Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes that rookies make is that they tend to get too focussed on a single target. That kind of tunnel vision ruins your awareness of your immediate space and other threats that may be around. I was better than that.
So as that white creature moved out of my firing line, I simply brought the targeting reticle down over his bigger, and redder, brother - who was being much more co-operative when it came to staying in my gunsights. I took an extra second or two to tighten the aim onto an area just off centre of the chest carapace, then squeezed the trigger. The familiar thudding of the gunpod firing reverberated through the Messiah's frame, and the cannon shells slammed onto the carapace of the red Vajra, bursting through the armour and igniting the membrane that fed power into the anti-ship weapon. A burst of yellow light flared around the exit wound for a split second before the red Vajra went still.
Seconds later, a swarm of micro-missiles rocketed over my head on seemingly random vectors, before zeroing in on the white Vajra that had evaded me earlier. One missile, on a more direct path than the others, detonated near the creature, buffeting it for a split second before the other missiles finished their flight, ending the Vajra in a burst of chemical flame.
There were still two of the smaller white Vajra to deal with in the space I was assigned to cover in this formation, and both appeared to have a bead on my Messiah. I rolled my VF-25 'down' relative to myself, then swung hard to the left as the Vajra began firing. Like the first encounter I'd had with the Vajra, these ones seemed intent on not aiming until they were already firing, then lining up their shots using the tracer rounds in their imitation cannons – even if I hadn't have pulled off those hard evasive manoeuvres, the imitation cannon fire would have been well away to my left.
Before I had a chance to bring up the targeting reticle for my gunpod, my HUD covered them in yellow warning tags – someone else had already claimed those two as their targets. I shrugged, transformed my Messiah into fighter mode and increased power to the main engines, accelerating towards the two creatures, who for whatever reason could just not manage to bring their cannons accurately to bear on me.
At the last moment, I used a combination of the port manoeuvring thrusters, a half transformation into GERWALK and a light touch on the main engines to throw my bird into a barrel roll (not an easy thing to pull off in vacuum, not by a long shot). As I passed the two Vajra, micro-missile explosions lit up the space around them. I was caught in the outer extremities of the blast, but took no damage as I rocketed out of the yellow flowerburst explosions.
I checked the scopes – those two Vajra were dead.
"Man," came Ramaria's voice through the comm, a small holo of her face appearing on the HUD, "you sure know how to make that look good!"
"Of course I do," I replied with a small grin. "Thanks for the cover."
"Don't thank me," she replied quickly, her eyes dancing all over the holo before her face split into a grin. A click came through the comm. Must have been setting up her missiles. "That was all Nene."
"Thanks Nene," I said, noticing that she'd also been in on this conversation.
"Any time," the pink haired meltran said. Her face popped up on a holo next to Ramaria's communication – she was wearing a mask of concentration, the same face she wore when we fought in the dojo.
In my peripheral vision a series of explosions went off, and I heard Ramaria laugh. "Gotcha," she crowed. I shook my head and closed the channel.
As there were no immediate threats (I'm sure some people would disagree with me, but there was nothing to engage within five seconds of travel), I took a moment to really take in the scope of the battle. Directly ahead of us was the Dulfim, and standing between us and it was a thin line of Vajra. Due to the fold topography, the two refugee ships were basically trying to safely make it to where the Quarter had de-folded. That meant that the Vajra between us and the Dulfim were their lead units – their vanguard.
Of course, in this sense, the words 'thin line' were rather relative. There were dozens of Vajra, possibly more than a hundred, separating us from the Dulfim, but that was bugger all compared to the hundreds of Vajra making up their main force behind the two vessels. I couldn't spot any Ghost drones on defence for the Galaxy ships now, which meant the refugee fleet was down to point defence cannons and anti-fighter barrage weapons – the same weapons that had proven horribly useless against the Vajra when Frontier was attacked last week.
That certainly wasn't stopping the refugee fleet from trying though. The fire that was flying between the larger ships and the Vajra swarm was so thick you could almost walk on it, but unfortunately the effects were almost one way traffic – the Dulfim and the Kaitos were shuddering almost constantly under the fire, and the Kaitos especially looked like she might blow any minute now.
So it looked like we'd have to break through the main Vajra vanguard, clear some space around the two ships and then run defence until they could safely fold out. Not that easy.
Well, unless your immediate superior was named Ozma Lee.
"Skull Four: cover me!"
Ozma's VF-25 transformed into fighter mode and dove head-first into the Vajra vanguard, jinking left and right with his thrusters, sliding past oncoming fire with apparent ease. It was an impressive feat, considering the Squad Commander's bird was equipped with an Armoured FAST Pack – it was slightly more than double the weight of the Super FAST Pack, and none of that weight went into extra thruster ports, it all went into carrying more missiles.
Saotome was doing his level best to keep up with the Squad Commander, and was managing nicely for the most part. The main difference between the two was easy to spot – while Ozma was still heading in guns blazing, Saotome had yet to fire a shot during the battle. If I had to guess, I'd say Saotome didn't have the ability just yet to keep up with Ozma and concentrate on firing at the same time.
In response to Ozma's call for support, I flipped my Messiah into battloid mode, dodging what appeared to be an organic missile analogue by a few centimetres in the process. As it swung past, my control over my open magic circuits stuttered for a second. A few quick bursts on the manoeuvring thrusters spun me around to track the 'missile' as it hurled itself through space, and my Messiah brought the gunpod up in response to a slight tug on the cockpit controls.
Without engaging the targeting system, I opened fire, and the missile disappeared in a blaze of cannon fire. I allowed my battloid to continue spinning until it was facing towards Ozma again, then pulled heavily on my circuits in order to feed odo into my main engine lines – Ozma was getting away from me, and there's no way I'd be able to cover him if he got out of range of my gunpod. When I judged that it was safe, I raised one leg of my battloid to a forty-five degree angle behind me, locked the gunpod up to the shoulder of my machine (standard battloid space combat stance – it allowed for high speed movement and quick targeting speed) and poured all my available power into the main leg and backpack thrusters, exceeding their recommended safety levels by thirty percent.
From a technical standpoint it would be safer to transform to fighter mode in order to catch up with Ozma – but with so many threats in the combat zone having the extra manoeuvrability of the battloid mode would enable me to evade more efficiently and decrease my target acquisition time, seeing as I had to cover both of Ozma's flanks now. Not that I was the only person covering the Squadron Commander – even as I was pulling into position, I counted four sniper rounds splitting the void. Michel was busy today.
I used the main thrusters to swing in towards Ozma, spitting shells at any of the smaller Vajra who were hoping to try their luck against the Squad Commander and his rookie tail. Aim to the left, forty rounds. Push further the left, evade a line of cannon fire. Gunpod up, squeeze the trigger. Reinforce hip joints, kick left leg forwards, engage right boot thrusters, swing the battloid into a flip, level gunpod at red Vajra approaching Ozma from his six o'clock, terminally discourage it with a rain of cannon rounds. Tag three smaller white Vajra as my battloid continues it's flip, arm four micro-missiles per target, fire.
I was leaving an impressive body count behind me as Ozma drove further into the vanguard, ducking, weaving and transforming like a madman. On my glances behind us when my manoeuvring faced me that way, I could see the Pixies keeping up tight on us, and the rest of the SMS fighter compliment driving into the wedge Skull Squadron had opened in the Vajra lines. The small part of my brain that was dedicated to the artistic, no matter how crazy the situation was, decided that it was truly an awe inspiring sight.
The remainder of my brain noted, rather clinically, that the plan was working. Especially when I saw a brown, oversized machine gaining quickly on us from above.
I'd just finished pouring fire through a large Vajra that had missed Saotome by a good two metres or two with it's anti-ship weapon when Ozma, his VF-25 in GERWALK mode, abruptly brought up his leg thrusters and fired them, hard. I briefly considered pulling up alongside him, but decided not to, and continued to coast along as our Squad Commander came to a dead stop in space.
Fighter combat in space is traditionally performed at speed – you need velocity to evade, as a general rule. It's not set in stone though – there are certain game-breaking attacks that require a stationary platform, and as Ozma came to a halt, his VF-25 transformed into battloid mode in preparation for one of those.
Suddenly, targeting data flooded my HUD. Nearly every target in a direct line between our Planet Dance formation and the Dulfim was obscured by yellow targeting tags.
Milliseconds later the Armoured VF-25 lit up.
"Eat this!" roared Ozma down the comm.
Dozens upon dozens of micro-missiles had detached from the combination of chest mounted HMM-5A Mobile Remmington micro-missile CIWS launcher pods and the leg mounted Remmington Close Range micro-missile launcher pods the Armoured battloid was toting. The lead missiles began dancing towards the swarm on automated random patterns, while the latter missiles described more aggressive arcs towards their target, covered from anti-missile defenses by the leading guided explosive devices.
Blue trails of fire began to split and diverge as the missiles reached the swarm, groups of missiles breaking off to chase down their tagged targets. I cruised past Ozma's Messiah as he was transforming back into GERWALK mode, and swept the area immediately in front of us for targets. I drew a bead on the closest Vajra as the missiles reached the swarm, but held my fire – the white drone almost instantly disappeared in a burst of red-yellow fire.
I continued forward, now on point, re-targeting constantly. Ozma's missile strike had done it's job though – a trail of flowerburst explosions cut a path through the void between us and the Dulfim, emptying that region of space of enemies.
Our path to the Dulfim was clear.
"Canaria, we've opened your catwalk! Skull Four and Five: Escort her in," commanded our greying Squad Commander, a holo of his face showing up on the bottom right hand corner of my HUD.
"Roger that," I replied. "Saotome, on me!"
"Roger," he replied quickly.
I flipped my unit back into fighter mode, fed half the available power into my main thrusters and the felt the frame of my Messiah hum in response to the acceleration. Out of the top of my cockpit I saw Canaria's VB-6 König Monster rocket forwards into the breach - and into a storm of fire. Despite the fact we'd cleared the direct path, there were still dozens of Vajra on our flanks that were moving to close up the gap, and they were stating their displeasure at our intrusion in no uncertain terms.
I played the manoeuvring thrusters like a piano in order to push my fighter into a zero gee barrel roll, swinging up and pulling into formation alongside Canaria. A quick glance at my scopes confirmed that Saotome had pulled in on the opposite side on Canaria. The three of us dove on through the torrent of Vajra fire towards the Dulfim, which was rapidly growing larger as we closed in on it. As escorts, we did very little – our evasive flying and the heavy armour plates on the Monster kept the three of us safe from the incoming fire. I did take the opportunity to drop a dozen micro-missiles on a red Vajra that had tried to block our path, and barely five seconds after it had been erased from existence Canaria opened the comm, broadcasting into the open.
"Rabbit One to Dulfim: I'm borrowing your deck!"
The Monster began it's transformation sequence under heavy imitation cannon fire, which was the cue for Saotome and myself to pull away. I pulled away to the left, dodging an analogue missile fired by a white Vajra creature behind me. I threw a glance over my shoulder at the offending creature tailing me and snorted derisively. I flipped my Messiah into GERWALK mode and played on my portside thrusters, pushing me into a wide arc that would soon cut in front of Saotome's VF-25.
"Saotome! You got this guy on my tail?" I asked the blue haired rookie. His holo popped up in my cockpit and I glanced at it for a fraction of a second. The kid looked slightly stressed, but his voice didn't waver in reply.
"No problem."
It was going to be a nice and easy for the kid – shooting down a preoccupied enemy trying to chase me down. I glanced over at the Dulfim, where the Monster had slammed down on the deck. My reinforced vision spotted the leg stabilisers crashing onto the upper deck where Canaria had parked her bird. I just couldn't wipe the grin off my face.
Until a line of imitation cannon fire streaked over my cockpit and began to track down onto my bird.
I glanced over my shoulder, checked my scopes, and my face split into a grin again. Just as the imitation cannon fire was beginning to get worryingly close, it suddenly stopped. I threw one more glance over my shoulder, where a mess of flash frozen blue ichor and white meat was travelling through space where the bogey on my tail was milliseconds ago. It wouldn't change vector under it's own power ever again.
"Congratulations on keeping up Saotome," I told him over the comm. It was the first kill I'd seen him make today. My vector flashed my Messiah underneath Saotome's, and as I passed close, I felt that damn annoying resonance in my circuits again. This time, there was a discernible pattern – a definite repeat in the resonance, but it quickly passed as I gained distance from his unit.
Okay. That's it. Just what on earth was going on here today? First of all the fold jumps, then the beginning of the attack, then the analogue missiles and now Saotome's Messiah. What was the connecting factor here?
My extremely brief musing was interrupted as Canaria's voice echoed through my earpiece. "Rabbit One to all units who don't want to get blown to hell! Get out of my firing line!"
I glanced over at the deck of the Dulfim and sure enough, the quad railguns of the Monster had been levelled at the main Vajra swarm. With no more warning, a flash of fire and smoke exploded out of the gun barrels and the arm mounted heavy missile launchers spat it's volley of six missiles. The railgun shells quickly disappeared from the optical suite of my Messiah, but I kept track of them with my reinforced eyes.
I knew it was my imagination, but it felt as though the entire battle was holding it's breath. Only for a split second though, as the self guiding shells spread out for maximum impact.
And then maximum impact happened.
Four huge yellow spheres blinked into existence in the middle of the main Vajra swarm. On a scale at least an order of magnitude larger than our micro-missiles, the explosions threw the Vajra swarm into disarray – any creatures caught in the radius of the blasts simply disappeared, disintegrating into their constituent atoms under the intense energy. The Vajra fortunate enough to not be in the initial blast had varying degrees of success at survival. The creatures closest to the explosions were simply pulped by the concussive force of the detonation, expiring violently as their carapaces shattered and spread ichor and muscle through the vacuum, flash-freezing almost instantaneously. The Vajra further out were heavily buffeted by the concussive wave, but not outright killed.
Well, not until the heavy missiles detonated. Although the detonations were small in comparison to the railgun shells, the targeting solution Canaria had found ringed the immediate kill zone from her railguns, and the stunned Vajra caught in that kill zone disintegrated as well.
Saotome summed it up nicely.
"Wow."
On the down low, I couldn't help but agree. I'd seen the VB-6 in action before, but that still didn't make the effects any less impressive. Giant chunks had been taken out of the Vajra swarm assaulting the two ships, and we now had some breathing space with which to extract the refugee ships.
The Kaitos took advantage of the brief lull in incoming fire by adjusting it's vector. The way I judged it, it was aiming pull into the corridor between the Dulfim and the Quarter that our Planet Dance had opened up. I glanced over my shoulder and noted with some degree of satisfaction that our follow up forces were widening the corridor – within a minute there wouldn't be anything left of the Vajra vanguard.
The battle was becoming a touch less desperate now. Thanks to the breathing room granted to us by Canaria and her VB-6, the refugee ships were now able to concentrate their energies on running – even more so considering more and more SMS forces were flooding into escort positions around the stricken ships. The tone of the battle was changing for us as well – instead of being on the offensive, it was our turn to set up a rock solid defensive position.
We achieved this by using the Dulfim as a mobile defensive anchor. The ship was battered as all hell, but the majority of it's defensively mounted destroids were still operational, which provided a close range blizzard of anti-fighter fire to keep the Vajra from getting too close. About two thirds of our active squadrons were set up in escort positions around the Dulfim, while the rest covered our path of escape back to the Quarter in case of any flanking attacks by the Vajra.
Skull and Pixie squadrons weren't on either of those duties however – in order to keep the Vajra from regrouping and regaining their momentum we were tasked with making hit and run attacks on the swarm. For the next few minutes we had fell into a comfortable pattern - Luca would identify where the Vajra were gathering and our combined squadrons (minus Ozma, who'd made his way back to the Quarter to re-arm after his pyrotechnic display earlier had depleted his missile stores) would storm in, lay down a hail of cannon fire and micro-missiles, destroying the knot of Vajra creatures before disengaging before Vajra reinforcements could overwhelm us. Rinse and repeat.
"Alright," called Luca over the comm, "the next group is twenty seven degrees relative to Pixie leader."
A green waypoint tag appeared on my HUD, which I immediately minimised. We hadn't quite finished up with the bunch we were already dealing with, and I was currently occupied drawing the attention of two red Vajra while the rest of our combined squadron attempted to bring them down. My lead pursuer had dropped a volley of those weird biological missiles into the void, which had added another interesting dimension to the chase while my backup settled their gunsights, and just to take it a step further, a glance over my shoulder showed that the other creature following me had decided to bring out the big guns - it's anti-ship weapon was glowing yellow and levelled at me.
I fed power into my lower nosecone manoeuvring thrusters and my upper wing thrusters, igniting them in a burst of blue and pulling myself into an upward bank. I glanced behind me. The Vajra charging it's anti-ship weapon adjusted it's vector to track me, but the manoeuvre was terminally cut short as a blue streak burst through it's chest carapace, igniting the gland storing it's imitation cannon shells.
"Good shot Mikhail," I told the sniper down the comm, even as the swarm of analogue missiles closed in on me. I maintained my arc of motion, and began to feed odo into the currently retracted battled hip joints. When the missiles had closed to within a hundred metres (and incidentally, close enough to cause my circuits to resonate - maybe I could use that to aid in timing my evasion of said missiles later), I engaged the transformation sequence to GERWALK and brought the legs up hard, much harder than they were rated for, the main thrusters suddenly throwing mega Newtons of force against my direction of travel rather than with it, tightening my turn dramatically and pushing my I.S.C. storage up to full. Analogue missiles overshot me, their white trails cutting a pattern through the void in front of my cockpit as they tried to compensate for my adjusted vector. Reinforcing my body to withstand the G-forces, I flipped my Messiah into battloid mode and rolled it over to face the missiles as they swung back around towards me. I brought the gunpod up and squeezed the trigger, spraying a hail of shells into the analogue missiles. The results were predictable - the analogue missiles detonated prematurely as they were shot down.
The red Vajra tailing me was tagged by a yellow marker on my HUD, indicating that someone had a targeting lock on it - but that unfortunately wouldn't do me much good. My expedient deceleration must have taken the creature by surprise, as it was almost on top of me now and travelling at a fair rate of knots. Any attempt to shoot it down now would have a more than decent chance of catching me in the fire as well.
Still, I doubted it would be a challenge.
I drew on my circuits again, this time feeding odo into my gunpod - filling the imperfections in it's frame with the pure essence of magecraft, strengthening it in order that it may fulfil it's duty. The Vajra creature came on me fast, one of it's claws extended over it's angular head, telegraphing the strike it planned to make incredibly clearly. As the claw swung down on my VF-25, I raised my gunpod to parry the blow. The frame of my Messiah shuddered violently in protest as the greater momentum of the Vajra was transferred to it, but the gunpod held firm under the strike, no doubt surprising the creature who would have expected it to be shredded. I used the my barrel of my gunpod as leverage to swing in close to the beast, and in one smooth movement I let go of the gunpod, engaged my knife, twisted on the spot to build up momentum and drove the bladed weapon deep into the throat of the creature. Our quick tango was completed when my Messiah scooped the gunpod back up, planted a boot on the carapace of the spasming creature and launched off, transforming back to fighter mode as I did so. The creature was gratifyingly wiped out in a pair of flowerburst explosions as soon as I was clear.
"Nice moves Shirou," Klan commented. "Have you considered upsizing to try a real battlesuit?"
Klan had a firmly entrenched pride in the martial superiority of zentraedi weapons, so I had no doubt in my mind that she was talking about the Regulant powered armour suit that was the mainstay of male zentraedi forces in the Spacey. I allowed myself to grin on the comm holo in reply. "And miss out on flying possibly one of the sweetest fighters in the galaxy? Not likely. Thanks for the assist by the way."
As we powered along to our next intercept target, Klan shot a grin back at me. "Hey, it's your loss," she chuckled.
Despite the levity of my reply, I couldn't really bring myself to truly feel how I was sounding. There were still hundreds of Vajra swarming around, and eventually they'd get their act together and then we'd be in for a real fight. I glanced out of the cockpit and noticed that the Kaitos had really put some distance between the Vajra and itself. I idly pushed my Messiah into a looping roll to avoid some stray imitation cannon fire and checked the scopes to see how close the Kaitos was to getting past the fold fault prohibiting it's swift departure - sure I could see the ship itself better with my eyes, but I couldn't see fold faults.
Huh. It was about twenty seconds from reaching the safe fold zone, with no Vajra even remotely near enough to pose a threat. Score one, humans.
"What the…" Luca exclaimed over the comm, sounding more than a bit surprised. "A de-fold reaction?" It seemed like he was talking to himself more than relaying information - the kid was definitely distracted. "But, that's impossible… It's coming right through the fault."
Wait. What?
A large purple pattern superimposed itself on the void above the plane of our rescue operation. It widened rapidly, and within a short period of time a bulbous white cone was poking its way through the de-fold gate.
And it just kept coming. And coming. I felt my eyes widen as what was clearly a Vajra battleship emerged into the void. The ship had a white bulbous prow, which terminated at the rear in what I assumed to be a large pair of streamlined reactors, or their biological equivalent, in any case. Slung underneath the prow was an angular protrusion - almost like a stabilising keel on a water bound ship. Even as it emerged from the de-fold gate, it's prow split menacingly into two, which I immediately likened to some enormous predator opening it's maw before devouring a meal. A green-yellow glow of scintillating energy briefly worked itself into existence deep down the 'throat' of the ship (for want of a better word) - I didn't have to be a Vajra expert to tell that an energy weapon was being charged up.
I followed the vector of the enemy ship, trying to ascertain it's target. There was only one target in the firing line.
The Kaitos.
A fraction of a second after I'd determined that fact, a lance of yellow-green light punched a hole straight through the reactors of the escaping ship. There was a pregnant pause for a second or so, almost as if the inanimate ship hadn't quite realised it was dead yet - but then a ball of nuclear fire engulfed the Kaitos.
What.
The.
Fuck.
At that point it was hard to say which emotion had the better of me - pure disbelief or unfiltered rage. Less than ten seconds ago we were in control of the flow of battle, our defences were solid and we were about to get our weakest link of out the combat space. Now a ship that was once full of refugees was nothing more than a tangle of molten steel and space dust. To make matters worse, our lines were cut in two - between our previous strongpoint, the Dulfim, and the Quarter sat the beastly looking Vajra battleship, one that was now spewing out the larger red and smaller white types we were used to seeing.
Damn cheating Vajra! Our assumptions that Vajra fold technology was limited in the same manner that ours was allowed us to fall into the trap of thinking the fold fault would be a safe zone from surprise de-folds. By changing the rules of the game, the Vajra had caught us with our pants down. Being caught out like that made me angry at myself for not thinking of the possibility that could happen, but that anger was dwarfed by the pure rage I felt at watching the Vajra annihilate a ship full of innocent people in the blink of an eye. In that ship was someone human, someone's lover, friend or enemy even - someone's most important person in the world, and now they never had the chance to say goodbye - to talk that one last time. Someone's Rin Tohsaka.
Rin.
Revenge.
Destroy the enemies of humanity so that they may never hurt again.
I immediately brought my Messiah around on an intercept vector for the enemy battleship and dialled all the available power into my main engine lines, sending myself head first into a hail of incoming fire from the battleship's escorts. A flip of a switch later and I had set my micro-missile launcher's system to automatically designate three missiles per target. My eyes danced across the HUD as I transformed into GERWALK mode, using the superior thruster control inherent of that flight mode to aid in my evasion of incoming fire.
Through a red haze of anger I belatedly realised that the newest target markers I was dropping on my HUD were blinking red then disappearing - I'd already tagged enough Vajra to empty my missile racks the second I hit the trigger.
"-irou! Shirou! What are you doing!"
I blinked. Someone was trying to contact me - trying to prevent me from taking my revenge on those that would destroy humanity.
"Shirou! Rally at my marker! Do not fire that salvo!"
I snarled in rage. The voice didn't know what it was talking about - I would break through the Vajra line, force my way into the core of the battleship, kill it, prevent it from killing any more people. I poured odo into the hip joints of the VF-25's frame and flooded my muscles as well, bracing them for the G-forces that years of instinct told me would soon be affecting my body. Instinctively, I pulled my Messiah up hard, the automatic pinpoint barrier catching a round of imitation cannon fire near where the port wing met the fuselage as the line of fire it belonged to swept past me. It was the work of a second to complete a transformation down to battloid mode, which in turn allowed my ride the ability to fire from all the micro-missile launchers hanging off my craft.
"Shit! He's going to do it! Mikhail, get ready to shoot down the missiles heading for the one that's got Luca!"
What?
I shook my head once and hesitated for a second over the trigger. Forcing away some of the anger I was riding, I scanned my HUD again - a fleeing red Vajra that I had tagged earlier had trapped the green RVF-25 that belonged to Skull Three in some kind of transparent substance. There was no way I could fire those missiles – the barrage would kill one more person. I went to untag the creature, but I was out of time - my hesitation to fire had given the swarm in front of me enough time to fix their weapons on me again. I pushed away more of my anger as I fed power into my thruster lines and pulled away from the swarm, towards a waypoint marker on my HUD.
"Sorry Ozma," I apologised on the comm.
"No time to worry about it now," Ozma shot back, all business.
And he was right. In the time it had taken to complete that exchange, I had successfully disengaged the Vajra escort and were leading some pursuers away towards the waypoint marker tagged in my HUD. I craned my head over my shoulder, keeping out of the spray of imitation cannon fire pouring in from the creatures tailing me rather easily. Just as I managed to lay eyes on the battleship, it's maw closed gently. At least now it's beam weapon wouldn't be a problem for a bit.
"Did you see that?" Ozma roared. "It devoured Skull Three!"
I grunted as my anger flared. Apparently that transmission wasn't for our benefit though - within seconds Catherine Glass was on the comm with us. "It was shot down?" she asked shortly.
"No! It was," a pause as our Squadron Commander tried to find the right word to describe the action I'd missed, "eaten by that mothership!"
"Luca!" roared Saotome. I brought my eyes back to the front, where I quickly spotted Saotome's VF-25 heading towards me on a pillar of blue fire. I glanced back over my shoulder to shake my tails - the HUD had yellow targeting tags hanging over the four smaller forms and one red Vajra following me. I immediately pushed my Messiah below the plane Saotome was using to approach me and grinned as fifteen missiles split the space above me, followed by the blue and white frame of Saotome's bird. Looks like the kid was getting the hang of this.
And again, that odd resonance on my circuits started playing as Saotome sped over the top of me. It almost felt like… no. No. It couldn't be. That would just be stupid.
Unfortunately for us, it seemed that knocking out my pursuers was part of a grander plan for Saotome - the same kind of plan I had only a few seconds before. Saotome continued on his vector, diving into the torrent of fire that only seconds ago I'd been escaping from.
"Skull Five: pull back!" Ozma ordered.
Saotome wasn't having a bar of it, roaring incoherently on the comm as he pushed deeper and deeper into the Vajra escort. Suddenly the battleship itself started spraying fire everywhere, in an extremely passable (and extremely dangerous) imitation of an anti-fighter barrage that our own capital ships would deliver. By now I mostly had my emotions boxed up and stored away - I was thinking rationally now. It was unusual that I had lost my cool in that manner - there was absolutely nothing I could have done to save those people on the Kaitos, so there was no need to get worked up about it so much that I became blind to the fact that one of my allies had been captured by the enemy.
Then again, there was all sorts of unusual going on with this battle. I just had to focus on finishing it safely and then I could afford to sit down and think it out.
"Alto, that damn ship is like a hedgehog! Pull back!" This time it was Mikhail's attempt to try and talk Saotome down, but he had as much success as Ozma had - that is to say basically none at all.
"Hedgehog or whatever, it's got Luca!" the young actor pointed out at the top of his lungs. By now I had reversed my vector and was heading back in after him - and I wasn't the only one with the same idea. A quick check of my scopes confirmed that the Squad Commander and Mikhail were moving up as well. "All I have to do is get inside of it!"
Saotome's white, red and black Messiah was dancing around incoming fire now - I watched the kid as he twisted and dodged and transformed his way out of the path of cannon shells, and somehow even found time to go on the offensive in battloid mode, pulling up smartly and hosing down a white Vajra that was bodily attempting to block his path.
"Mikhail, Canaria, Shirou: cover him!" ordered our fearless leader, having apparently come to the decision that Saotome wasn't going to be reined in the same way I was earlier.
"Skull Four to Skull Leader: requesting permission to follow Skull Five in. I'll make sure he gets out alive," I asked of Ozma, all business. I had no doubt Ozma would have done the same thing himself, but he was a fair way back, and there was no way his fully rearmed Armoured FAST Pack toting VF-25 would catch up with the half empty Super FAST Pack equipped units that Saotome and myself were piloting. Besides, keeping Luca and Saotome was part of my job (the most lives saved is the purpose of Alaya's existence after all) and I stood a much better chance of fulfilling that charge if I could keep my eye on Saotome as he infiltrated the ship.
"Permission granted, Skull Four. Get in there," replied Ozma.
"Thanks Ozma," I told him, allowing a modicum of gratitude into my voice. Alaya knows that he didn't have to allow my request considering that barely less than a minute ago I was so out of control I almost shot down the youngest member of our squadron. It was gratifying to know that Ozma still trusted me after that, that's for sure.
Saotome had a head start on me, but that wouldn't last long - he had the attention of the majority of the battleship's escort swarm, and as it was he was spending most of his time on the defensive, trying to find a path he could thread his way though. I drew deeply on my circuits, reinforced my main engine lines and overrode the power limiters, pushing them to the absolute limit - the limit that had been determined during stress testing all those weeks ago. As I closed in on the blue haired boy, blue streaks from over my shoulder slammed into Vajra moving to block my path. The results of Mikhail's shooting weren't uniform. Some of the creatures shrugged off the shots, others exploded as the sniper rounds penetrated munitions glands, others simply went silent. Regardless, I rocketed past them, cutting off my main thruster lines now that the Messiah had hit top speed.
Ahead of me Saotome was piloting like a man possessed. Despite being on the defensive against an absolutely phenomenal amount of incoming fire, the boy was still slowly making his way towards the battleship. I activated the micro-missile targeting system for the second time in as many minutes, and ran my eyes all over the HUD, dropping targeting markers on the units closest to Saotome and a number of Vajra obstructing our approach the the battleship.
"Saotome, as soon as this barrage hits, be ready to head straight in," I warned the boy. A distracted grunt was the only reply I got as the boy transformed into battloid mode, barely evading a white creature that had come in to attack with it's flagellum. The white Messiah with red and black trimming punished it with an extended burst from the gunpod at the same moment I pulled the trigger, emptying my missile racks in four extended salvoes. The micro-missiles snaked their way towards their targets, ducking this way and that as their targeting programs tracked a mixture of efficient and chaotic courses, calculated in such a way as to minimise the effects of defensive fire.
Yellow-red explosions lit up both in a crescent around Saotome and in a direct line from him to the mothership. I stifled down a snort - the pattern of destruction inadvertently reminded me of the shape of my Command Spells, way back in the Holy Grail War. A Vajra from the flanks then proceeded to drop some of those analogue missiles into the void and they quickly began to home in Saotome. I transformed into GERWALK mode and levelled my gunpod at the analogue missiles, but a line of accurate imitation cannon fodder forced me back into fighter mode and out of position in order to keep myself alive.
I needn't have worried. As the missiles closed in on the kid he ejected his FAST Pack, transformed into fighter mode and took off on a curving arc towards the battleship. The missiles detonated harmlessly on his ejected FAST pack, and a string of cannon tracers from one of our backup units behind me tore the offending creature into a frozen blue paste.
Saotome completed his final approach to the battleship at high pace and high volume, his path now temporarily cleared of any obstacles and his lungs expelling all their contents in a n incoherent battle-cry typical of Saotome. I pulled in behind him as he let rip with his cannon, the extended burst from his gunpod gouging out a deep hole in the side of the bulbous white ship. The kid himself took a glancing hit from the defensive anti-fighter barrage being put out by the battleship, tearing a chunk out of his starboard wing. The wasn't much either of us could do about that, and neither was it currently relevant - it might make atmospheric flight more difficult, but space-borne manoeuvring was the realm of thrusters, and there were redundant thrusters everywhere on a Messiah.
By now I was tight up on Saotome and could feel that resonance on my magic circuits again - there was a definite pattern to it, and now that I had more than half a second to work with, I found I could easily recall where I had felt the pattern.
It was a beat for a song.
The song 'Infinity', as sung by Sheryl Nome to be precise.
The next instant, Saotome and myself were inside the Vajra battleship. Thankfully the cavern we'd entered had enough room to bring ourselves to a safe halt, which we did, pulling up around a tunnel out in battloid mode.
"Saotome," I began, opening a two way comm channel between us. "This is unknown territory. Leave this channel open at all times."
"Acknowledged," the boy responded sharply. I glanced around the cavern we were in - there was nothing particularly distinguishing about it and there was an unusual lack of activity. I had been expecting some sort of Vajra welcoming committee at the very least, but even that wasn't the case. I shrugged mentally - maybe the vast majority of it's escort compliment were out in space right now, which would just mean there'd be delay before defensive forces reached us.
"We're going to have to do this quick," I told Saotome, ignoring the constant beat of Sheryl Nome on my magic circuits. "You're on point, I'll cover our six."
Under usual situations, point is the most dangerous job in an advance. Under these situations however, with a defensive force chasing you down and able to approach you from unexpected directions, they were probably both as dangerous as the other, and while I trusted the kid's judgement as he was advancing there were just too many ways we could be surprised from behind than I was comfortable with letting him deal with.
"Roger," Saotome replied and set off confidently down the tunnel.
I glanced at my scopes as I followed behind Saotome, my gunpod waving menacingly back down the way we came. Comm channels from the outside had been cut off, along with most tactical feeds. About the only information penetrating the hull of this ship were the tags describing the position of the Quarter and the Dulfim.
Battleships and carriers had much more powerful IFF transponders than fighters did, and it was far less complicated to transmit a beacon than verbal communications, so it made sense that I couldn't track our smaller units outside, nor tap into the comm network. Deeper inside the ship Skull Three's IFF gave us an objective, and radar pinging had mapped out a likely path through the tunnel system that Saotome was leading me down.
Quietly, I began humming along to the song that was playing itself on my magic circuits before I realised what I was doing. I quickly stopped.
The kid was doing a good job of advancing quickly yet carefully. He'd check each corner by slaving the optical camera on the nose of his gunpod into his HUD and poke that out first before advancing. We'd rounded three corners before we ran into a bit of a conundrum.
"Cannibalism?" Saotome asked, almost to himself. In the corridor around the corner there must have been corpses. "No," he continued quietly, "can't be. There's scorch marks and bullet holes on the wall."
"Show me the feed," I ordered the boy. A second later a holo popped up in my cockpit and sure enough, two Vajra corpses were staining the floor. The battle damage Saotome noted looked fresh, but there was no way to confirm that one way or the other with the tools at our disposal. Either way, they were dead.
"They're not a threat. Lets keep moving." It was a mystery, to be sure - just another one to be added to the growing list of crap happening today to be analysed later.
We reached the chamber containing Luca in just over a minute. Saotome poked his gunpod around the final corner, then just as quickly rolled into the chamber, firing. I quickly checked our six on more time, confirming there was nothing of immediate importance behind us, then I brought my attention back around to the front where imitation cannon fire drew a neat line of explosions into the floor between Saotome and myself.
I poked out of cover with my gunpod raised and immediately spotted Luca at the back of the room we were in. His RVF-25 was in GERWALK mode, suspended awkwardly from the ceiling, wrapped in tendrils of that weird transparent substance that he'd initially been captured in.
Possibly slightly more urgent were the two white Vajra taking shots at Saotome. The kid had his shield arm up and was firing down at the left creature, but a pair of imitation cannon rounds impacting on his shield arm threw off his aim. The creature on the right swung it's weapon towards me, but I had it beaten on the draw. My gunpod rumbled the frame of my Messiah as it spat shells towards my target, the actual kill shot tearing into the head of the creature.
By that time, Saotome had impressively managed to bring his aim back under control despite being under hostile fire – a muzzle flash from his gunpod marked the end of our second opponent.
"Nice shooting Saotome," I complimented the kid, "you kept your head nicely there."
"Thanks," he muttered sullenly, although I could have sworn I heard a thread of pride in there.
"I've got this," I told the blue haired pilot as I strode into the room. "Check your damage then watch our six."
There were a couple of ways to go about this, but today I was in favour of the simplest solution, so I raised my gunpod again. We didn't have time to study what was going on (why the Vajra had bothered to capture Luca, or what that transparent material holding him was), so the best thing to do would be to cut him free, slave his unit to one of ours and get out. The holo in my HUD that I'd dedicated to examining our L.A.I. liaison's unit had just shown me that he was out cold, which removed the ability for him to get out under his own power.
A flicker of movement off to the side caught my attention, and I immediately forced the legs of my battloid to push me backwards – a fraction too late as it turned out. A lance of red energy neatly bisected my gunpod as my Messiah fell backwards. The blast must cooked off some of the chambered shells, because no sooner had I released the now useless weapon it tore itself apart in a small explosion, peppering my falling Messiah with debris.
This was not an ideal situation, I realised as I flooded odo into the left manipulator arm and it's joints. Normally when a battloid goes arse-over-tit, any attempt to brace against the manipulator arms during the fall usually ends up with the arm crushed under the weight of the rest of the frame. There were documented occasions where the angle of the fall caused a lucky bounce instead of crushing the arm entirely, but said occasions happened about once every twenty falls.
So I fixed the odds.
The reinforced arm held as I crashed into the ground and continued to hold as I applied thruster power to balance out the backwards motion then combined a push with the balancing hand and a hit of my thrusters in order to spring into the air upside down - twisting to face my attacker at the same time. The movement was borderline impossible for a battloid, which is what saved me from the second shot that drilled into the floor a few metres under my VF-25's head unit.
My eyes widened in surprise – my enemy was definitely not what I expected to see.
A variable fighter.
One that I didn't recognise at all.
Seriously. Fuck this battle.
The dark crimson fighter was in battloid form and pointing a long rifle at me. Given the rounds being fired at me, I guessed it was some kind of particle weapon. The shape of the battloid was bulkier and more upright than our VF-25's, which could possibly indicate it was designed primarily for combat in space, but more likely was a result of other technical considerations. Battloids just didn't share obvious identifying characteristics in the same way fighters did.
With a heavy thud, I completed the flip I'd started. My opponent was still tracking me with his rifle, so I pumped hard on the thrusters again, changing the direction of my motion, just as another streak of red burst forth from the rifle and this time punching clean through the forearm of the manipulator arm I'd reinforced a fraction of a second earlier.
That made me really glad I'd dodged the earlier two shots – if it could break a reinforced and conversion energy shielded manipulator arm, I probably didn't want to have taken the first one through the cockpit.
"Saotome," I roared, now advancing on the red VF with a thruster assisted leap, "Secure Luca while I keep this guy busy! Secure his VF-25 well if you can!"
The channel had been open the entire time, and just at that particular moment music began to pour through from his side of the connection. Not just any music – it was the climax of Sheryl singing 'Infinity', in perfect synch with same song that had been playing a beat on my circuits.
"Music?" The young boy said quietly. I could almost feel the confused shake of the head from here. "I-I mean roger!" he recovered quickly, confirming my order.
The music continued playing over the comm, but there were more pressing matters to worry about. I had lost my knife as well as my gunpod, and my missile racks were empty, but I'd finally gotten my balance back. My opponent in the red VF appeared to realise this as well, and apparently judged that his recharge cycle for the rifle would take too long to safely get another shot off. Blue thruster wake blistered the ground my opponent was standing on for a fraction of a second before the crimson variable fighter leapt into the air and over my head.
The move wasn't surprising – in fact, I was expecting it. With his back to the wall, it made sense to relocate to a position he could easily flee from, especially now that his surprise attack had failed. In this particular chamber, that meant the corridor directly behind me, so as soon as the red battloid had hit the air I twisted my Messiah around and poured as much power into the main thrusters as possible, closing the gap between myself and the corridor as fast as possible.
The red variable fighter landed immediately in front of the edge of the corridor, it's rifle raised at me. A quick transformation threw off my opponent's aim and a shot split the air above the lower height profile of the GERWALK mode.
"Chase him down once agaaaaaain!" Never before had I fought to a musical accompaniment, but as I charged down my opponent with nothing but one and a half manipulator arms, I had to admit, this one of Sheryl's songs seemed to fit quite nicely with my current situation.
The crimson variable fighter realised a millisecond too late what was coming for him – he tried to roll away into the cover of the corridor, but the reinforced edge of my intact manipulator arm lead the rest of my VF-25 into his unit with a bone jarring impact.
My momentum combined with his sideways motion meant that I didn't get quite the angle or power I'd been hoping to get with the ram – rather than slamming the both of us into the back wall in close combat, he'd been driven awkwardly away from me, further down the corridor. Within a second or so I'd be in an exposed position when my opponent recovered, so I immediately angled my thruster pedals to pull back into the main chamber.
My opponent took that opportunity to retreat, at least according to my radar. That was a good thing for me – I'd run out of ideas to fight him off that didn't involve open displays of magecraft, and seeing as I'd already done that in front of Saotome before, well, I wouldn't like the chances of lying my way out of it again. Still, at least we'd solved the mystery of the Vajra corpses earlier – they must have run afoul of my new friend.
I glanced back over my shoulder towards Saotome. He'd just finished freeing Luca's RVF-25 and slaving it to his Messiah. I zoomed a holo on my HUD in at Luca's cockpit – the young boy was still out of it.
At that moment, my HUD lit up – in addition to the IFF tags of the Dulfim and the Quarter, my HUD was showing IFF tags of at least six cruiser tonnage ships from the 1st Defence Fleet – they must have just folded in.
"Well that's finally a break for us," I said aloud, mostly for the benefit of Saotome, who mightn't appreciate the significance of overwhelming force if it hit him in the face with a brick. "There shouldn't be any problems cleaning up now that the big guns are here."
"That's all well and good for the guys outside," he replied, as the song wound down in his audio feed. I saw him reach forward in his EX-gear to tap the earring with a raised eyebrow. Oh boy, did I now have some ideas about that earring that I was hoping to test soonish. "Fail to see how it helps us in here though," he shrugged, sinking back into his cockpit.
"Pass me Luca's gunpod," I commanded. "We'll hole up here and wait for our boys to crack this like a bad egg," I finished confidently. We were in a room with one entrance – with ammo it would be easy to hold for the ten minutes or so it would take for the combined Spacey and SMS forces to assault this battleship.
Before Saotome had a chance to toss me Luca's weapon, the fading beat of Sheryl's song on my circuits was drowned out by a torrential surge of resonating noise – so powerful that my control over them was forcibly ripped away from me, making my head spin. This was entirely different to forcing my circuits to take more than they could handle – my experiences in the Grail War had let me know that was a pain that pervaded my entire body as odo overflowed from my circuits. In this case it was as though someone had snatched control of my circuits then turned them off – for a second I felt incredibly dazed and confused, as though my mind wasn't perfectly balanced and it was messing with my other senses, particularly my sense of vision.
Everything exploded into white for a fraction of a second, and as my sight came back I felt something was wrong, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Depth perception maybe?
As I attempted to blink the depth perception back into my eyes, I realised with a growing sense of disgruntlement that my eyes weren't the problem – reality was displaced on top of itself. To top that off, everything in the room was covered in a purple glow.
We'd just folded.
Author's notes:
Well, that went quicker than expected, slightly less than a month between updates. Pure action this time, and a lot of it. Shirou seems to be taking most of it on the chin – firstly his circuits playing up, then his flip-out, Brera wanting a piece of him too and finally getting folded away on a Vajra battleship. He mightn't be able to get a chance to contemplate each of those events next chapter either, I have a feeling he'll still be in combat mode for most of it, shoving those details away to examine later. Rest assured, it will happen though!
Bonus points(*) if you can figure out what's causing Shirou's circuits to play up. It seems like a few things, but I swear there's only one underlying reason there!
On the other character front, sadly there wasn't much interaction this chapter. Alto seems to be rash as ever when it comes to getting in after his friends, although he is definitely beginning to show signs of his potential as a pilot. Ozma, Canaria and Michel are just as bad-ass as expected, and what chapter would be complete without some random banter between Shirou and the Pixies.
I also hope this chapter highlighted the status of Skull and Pixie squadrons for those of you who came in with just a FSN background. SMS in general (and those squadrons in particular) are the cream of the elite units in the Macross Frontier story, and regularly pull off all sorts of badass as the season progresses :)
Thanks again for the reviews, and I hope you enjoyed the read!
(*) Bonus points are not redeemable. For anything.
