Chapter 21 - Latent Heat on a Distant Moon
13th November 2204 - Ulawa 5
Deep in the rocky rings of a beautiful purple gas planet, the Tiger II-B Attacker emerged from its warp wormhole and nearly collided with a giant icy meteor.
"Whoa what the!?" exclaimed Konno as she yanked her flight stick hard left to avoid the large space debris.
"Watch out there's another one!" cried Otto as he pointed to yet another icy meteor directly in front of their path.
"Yeah I see it!" yelled Konno as she used the thrusters of the Warp Booster to dive their spacecraft bomber just under the icy meteor.
However, Konno had no time to take a break as there were still hundreds of icy meteors, both big and small, flying all around them which forced the young pilot to continue to weave and duck through the cluster. However, she couldn't dodge all of them as there were a few tiny icy debris that struck either the Tiger IIB Attacker or the Warp Booster.
"This isn't right!" Josiah frowned. "We were supposed to arrive above the rings of the gas planet! Not deep inside it! Did you set the coordinates wrongly?"
"I didn't!" protested Otto. "These coordinates were given by Lieutenant Commander Welmer herself! She wouldn't have made an error especially since it's right near a gas giant!"
Just then, an icy debris the size of a basketball, smacked right between the rear of the cockpit of the Tiger IIB Attacker and the bubble turret, which startled both Otto and Josiah causing them to jump in their seats in terror.
"Yikes!" screamed Otto.
"I've had enough of this!" muttered Josiah as he switched on the turret's targeting computer. "I'm going to shoot these damn space junk before they kill us!"
"No! Don't!" yelled Konno in alarm. "Hold your fire! I repeat hold your fire!"
"Why not!?" Josiah shot back at her just as their spacecraft bomber dodged yet another icy meteor from the left. "I can just blast those icy space rocks out of the sky to clear a path for us!"
"If you do that, you'll trigger a chain reaction of icy rocks to collide with everything inside the rings of this gas planet!" replied Konno. "And that includes us as well! Do you want us to risk getting hit by multiple space rocks from all directions!?"
Josiah bit back a curse as he knew that Konno was right. But he was still unnerved that they had to rely on Konno's piloting skills to get them out of this precarious zone.
As she weaved in and out through several space rocks, Konno saw an opening from above and pulled the Tiger IIB Attacker up into a climb towards the clearing. However just before she could reach it, two very large icy asteroids flew into her path, on a collision course with one another.
"Oh come on!" moaned Otto.
Despite the giant obstacles that were getting into their way, Konno pressed on to fly through the decreasing gap between the two asteroids.
"Are you crazy!?" yelled Josiah. "Don't go between them!"
"Don't worry, we'll make it!" replied Konno confidently as she began activating the controls to the warp boosters. "Initiating full thrust on booster engines! Hold on tight!"
The large twin rear engines of the warp booster ignited at full power, causing the Tiger IIB Attacker to accelerate at a rapid pace. As Otto felt the intense G-forces pushing him against his seat, he began sweating intensely as the Tiger IIB Attacker began entering the narrowing gap of the colossal asteroids.
"We're not going to make it!" squeaked Otto.
"We're going to make it!" reassured Konno as she pushed the Warp Booster engines to full power, aiming her bomber towards the narrowing gap.
"We're not going to make it!" a panicked Josiah screamed as he watched as the two rocky walls of the giant asteroids closed in rapidly from both sides.
"We'll make it! We'll make it!" yelled Konno as she pulled a half barrel roll to angle their speeding Tiger IIB Attacker sideways to buy additional precious seconds for them. Just before the warp booster's ventral and dorsal side began to scratch the edges of the asteroids, the Tiger IIB Attacker triumphantly shot out from between the two giant space rocks before they collided with one another.
Konno began cheering triumphantly before laughing to herself in both relief and excitement.
"See? I told you we would make it!" said Konno with a big grin on her face.
Otto gasped in deep breaths as he fought to catch his breath. "Oh God…. I thought this was it! Can we not do that again please? My poor heart…."
"Sorry," apologized Konno sheepishly. "But hey, at least we're still alive. That counts for something!"
"Indeed," said an annoyed Josiah who wasn't too pleased with Konno's cheerful attitude despite nearly getting crushed to death. "At least you lived up to your name! Little Miss Tunnel Vision!"
Konno's bright expression darkened at Josiah's remark, she was about to retort back to him when suddenly alarms began ringing out from her instrument display panel.
"Now what!?" exclaimed Otto.
Konno's eyes widened with concern as she saw several warning flashes coming from the warp booster systems display. "Uh oh! We have a major problem here! The Warp Booster's energy condensers are overheating!"
"Oh that's just great," muttered Josiah sarcastically while groaning in annoyance.
"The temperature is rising dangerously close to melting point," reported Konno as she began flipping some switches. "I'm initiating an emergency shut down to cool it off!"
"Wait what!?" exclaimed a worried Otto. "But won't that cut off our main propulsion?
"I can still use the thrusters to maneuver," replied Konno. "But our speed will be drastically reduced."
As Konno began looking out of her cockpit to peer at her surroundings around the gas giant's ring, she called out to her fellow bomber crew. "Gesizler! Anton! Try looking around for a landing spot!"
"Why may I ask?" replied Josiah as he rotated his bubble turret as he began searching with his eyes. "Are we in enough trouble to ditch our spacecraft?"
"No you dummy!" Konno rolled her eyes. "The situation isn't that bad. We just need to land so we can inspect the damage to the warp booster."
"Hey Miss Yashiro? Will that moon over there do?" asked Otto as he pointed to a pale white satellite that was above the asteroid ring at their eight o'clock.
"Yes!" replied Konno after taking a good glimpse. "That will do nicely! Hang on! I'm going to turn the warp booster back on for a short while so we can propel ourselves faster to that moon."
The main engines of the warp booster ignited once more but with a less intense glare as Konno began piloting the crippled spacecraft bomber towards the moon with a faint trail of smoke leaking from behind. Once the Tiger IIB Attacker was in close orbit of the moon, Konno began gliding over its surface as she and the rest of her motley bomber crew looked for a suitable place to land. Upon finding a landing spot on top of a flat plateau, Konno switched off the warp booster's main engines and used their thrusters to slowly land the Tiger IIB Attacker on the ground with a gentle touch.
With landing complete, Konno switched off most of the controls and began unbuckling herself from her seat with both Otto and Josiah doing the same. After depressurizing both the cockpit and the bubble turret, Konno opened the canopy of the cockpit and quickly climbed out to examine the smoking warp booster attached to her spacecraft's rear with the other two following suit.
Once the maintenance hatch of the warp booster opened, tons of smoke began pouring out causing the three officers to back off.
"Oh Gosh!" gasped Otto in shock.
After a dozen seconds, enough smoke had cleared out for Konno to look inside and examine the wave motion core chamber. To her relief, the wave motion core was still intact despite the chamber itself looking quite burnt and glowing from the heat.
"How bad is it?" asked Otto.
"The wave motion core looks undamaged and thankfully still online," replied Konno as she peered inside. "We can still perform a warp jump, but with the condensers overheating. I reckon it will take at least an hour at most to completely cool down."
"Oh that's just terrific!" Josiah threw his hands in the hand. "We're going to miss the rendezvous deadline by then!"
"Do you know what caused the failure?" asked Otto as he also looked inside the warp booster's main chamber compartment.
"I don't know," replied Konno as she tried looking through the systems of the warp booster via the control display screen. "I guess it's probably a coolant leak considering how fast it overheated."
"Huh…" muttered Otto as he looked at the machinery inside the wave motion core compartment. "Well what do you know, this wave motion core engine design is very similar to our FS Combat Boats' Geschtam Engines! It's definitely more advanced but I don't think it's as efficient as ours."
"Have you operated one of these engine drives before?" asked Konno curiously.
"A couple of times back when I was in the Imperial Garmillas Academy," replied Otto as he looked further into the engine bay. "I did an elective lesson on mechanical engineering and I had a lesson on these miniaturized Geschtam engines. Aha! I think I see the problem!"
Otto pointed to what had caught his attention: A disconnected tube that had been connected to the coolant liquid tank.
"Oh no!" gasped Konno. "That was supposed to supply coolant liquid to the condensers! I can't imagine how much of it we lost during the flight!"
"It doesn't seem broken," said Otto as he observed the damage. "Looks like it was loose and it just came off by itself."
"Really? I wonder why…" said Josiah sarcastically as he eyed Konno. "Maybe if someone hadn't been going out of their way to perform crazy flying stunts, I'm sure this wouldn't have happened."
"Excuse me!?" Konno turned to glare back at Josiah. "Are you saying that this whole thing was my fault!?"
"Of course!" argued Josiah. "If you hadn't pushed the booster so hard with that unnecessary maneuver back there, it wouldn't have gotten so banged up!"
"I had no choice!" snapped Konno. "We had to get out of the debris field as quickly as possible!"
"No choice?" laughed Josiah. "You sounded like you were having an awful lot of fun for someone forced into doing a perilous manoeuvre."
"W-what I-" stammered Konno, caught off guard by his statement. Noticing her hesitation, Josiah let out a sigh as a slight smirk formed on his face.
"Seriously, it's crap like this that makes me wonder how you keep getting away from every battle scot free." continued Josiah as he shook his head.
"What's that supposed to mean?!" questioned Konno.
"Guys can we not do this now?" sighed Otto who was being distracted from analysing the warp booster.
"You stay out of this." snarled Josiah glaring at Otto before turning his attention back to the pilot in front of him.
"Every time you fly out in that damn space plane of yours it seems like you forget about everything else around you." began Josiah as he took a step forward. "You keep jeopardizing our mission by carelessly doing whatever you please while the rest of us are forced to make way for you just so you don't die from your recklessness! It's almost as if you think this is some sort of game!"
"That's not true at all!" countered Konno. "I know full well what the weight of my responsibilities are as a pilot of Osprey Squadron! That's why I always spend most of my off hours on the ship training in simulations and reading old action reports from veteran pilots to prepare myself for upcoming battles. I spent endless nights in the academy working to get myself to get here and I hope to even maybe one day get promoted to serve in the Yamato fighter corps! I wouldn't sacrifice all that just for a bit of-
"And yet here you are, laughing as you dance between asteroids and even ignoring orders in the middle of a battle just to throw a fit!" exclaimed Josiah causing Konno to wince slightly. "Yamato fighter corps? You barely function as a pilot here on the Audacious!"
"Oh and that gives you the right to try and blow me out of the-"
"You're too caught up in your own adrenaline rush to even realize the tactical situation of the battle which puts everyone around you at risk!" added Josiah coldly, cutting Konno off. "Like what happened with that other pilot, Osprey Four! Who nearly died under your command!
"That was different!" Konno argued with a hint of stammering in her voice. "I couldn't come in time to save Genta because-
"Because what? Because you were too busy?" spat Josiah.
Konno clenched her fist in response. "I was p-preoccupied!" she stammered shakily, "If I had let the other fighters go they would escape and-"
"And there's exactly my point!" exclaimed Josiah, taking another step forward. "A third rate pilot like you who's too caught up with herself to protect her own wingmen would never stand a chance at getting assigned to any of the best fighter squadrons of the fleet!"
Otto, realizing the situation was beginning to look hairy between the two attempted to interject but was cut off abruptly again by Josiah.
"Your dream to serve on the all mighty revered Yamato of yours is nothing but a naive shallow fantasy that only optimistic fools like you would pursue." Josiah continued as he got right up in front of Konno, who would not meet his glare.
"Wake up Ms Yashiro! We're at war! Every mistake you make costs lives!" exclaimed Josiah. "If you can't comprehend that, then it would have been much better for all of us on the Audacious if you hadn't survived that graviton blast. Because right now, you're nothing but a liability with wings!"
The young pilot stood rooted in place, silently with her head down, seemingly reactionless as Josiah eyed her carefully. Her eyes were blocked by the top of her helmet, but he could clearly see the tightened fists that lay at her sides.
"I got it."
"W-what?" asked Josiah, caught off guard by the pilot's almost inaudible reply.
"I said I got it." murmured Konno before looking straight into Josiah's eyes. "Anything else?"
Josiah gulped quietly to himself as he barely met Konno's glare with his own. Her eyes were glistening, and her lips were barely holding in a quiver. But from his distance, the intensity in Konno's ruby colored eyes unnerved him, almost feeling as if a knife was being held up to his neck.
"C-come on guys," stuttered Otto as he slowly shuffled himself in between the two officers.
"Why don't we save our anger for when the Gatlanteans attack?" asked the bespectacled Garmillan officer, trying to sound as calm as he could. "F-fighting here isn't going to solve any of our problems anyway right?"
Otto let out a nervous laugh as he watched the two officers remain locked in their standoff.
"Fine," muttered Josiah softly before taking a step back. "That's all I needed to say anyway."
He glanced at Otto briefly causing the Garmillan officer to flinch before turning away. While he said nothing, Otto noticed that the scowl Josiah had worn since their mission briefing had cracked slightly, showing signs of concern underneath. The tactical officer broke off from the other two and hopped off the warp booster, landing softly on the moon's surface due to its low gravity.
"Hopefully we haven't screwed up the rendezvous," Josiah murmured under his breath as he slowly began walking away.
"W-wait where are you going?" asked Otto.
"I'm just going to that rock outcropping over there," Josiah flatly stated, pointing at a nearby rocky formation. "The booster needs to cool down anyway right? Just call me on the comms if there's anything."
"O-Okay," replied Otto as he watched the tactical officer leave the area.
Geesh, what's that guy's problem? he wondered silently to himself as he turned back to Konno. However the young pilot had quickly scampered back into the Tiger IIB's cockpit and was already sealing herself in. Otto let out a sigh as he scratched the back of his helmet in worry, thinking about what he should do.
Inside the cockpit, Konno ripped off her helmet gasping for air as her bob of black hair flowed down to her shoulders. Her breaths were shuddering, and the tears she had tried so hard to suppress earlier were beginning to trickle down her face. She bit her tongue as the lump she had been feeling in her throat began to overpower her, and tried to take in a few deep breaths.
Ah what the heck are you doing? Konno thought to herself as she sat up straight and suddenly slapped herself with both hands. The young pilot winced as she felt the pain course through her face, but could feel her breathing slowly begin to stabilize. As she opened her eyes, she noticed a small reflection of herself in the well polished visor of her helmet which laid in her lap. Her eyes were puffy, and her fringe was in a mess. But the most noticeable thing to her were the two big red hand prints that had begun to form from where she had hit herself. Konno stared blankly at her reflection, and couldn't help but smile slightly in response as she let out a soft sigh.
"What am I doing?" she wondered quietly through her somber smile.
Just then, Konno heard a few metal thumps coming from behind her. She turned around and saw Otto making his way towards the cockpit. Wiping off the remnants of her tears, the young pilot quickly put her helmet back on and turned on her comms.
"Uh, sorry about that quarrel back there," said Konno through the comms as she forced a laugh. "I'll be out in a second if you need to check the readings from the instruments."
"N-no it's okay," stuttered Otto, caught off guard by her casual tone. "From what I could tell there's no significant mechanical damage to the warp booster. We should be able to make our way to the Neu Lambea safely once it cools down."
As the canopy of the Tiger IIB's cockpit opened up, Otto watched as Konno climbed out and hopped down onto the surface.
"That's good," replied Konno as she stretched out her arms and let out a loud groan.
"Well, at least we get to stretch a bit." she said chirpily. "I'm sure you two are grateful for that."
"Y-yeah," replied Otto. The bespectacled Garmillon officer watched as Konno looked up into space. He couldn't tell what the pilot was feeling at all, and felt quite annoyed at himself for not being as perceptive as Anika when it came to these sorts of things.
"Um," Otto began as he slowly climbed down from the Tiger IIB and dropped down to the surface. "About just now, you shouldn't let what Lieutenant-"
"It's fine." said Konno nonchalantly. "Don't worry about me, I don't really care about what that trigger happy idiot says. He does this every time we bump into each other."
As she finished her sentence, the young pilot walked back to the nose of the spacecraft and sat down next to the Tiger IIB's landing gear.
"I'll just have to do better so he won't be able to find a reason to yell at me anymore." she continued before leaning back with her hands behind her head and let out a sigh. "Although I did mess up quite badly in the last mission, so it can't be helped that he's angry at me this time."
"I see," said Otto slowly as he lowered his head. Konno turned her head towards the bespectacled Garmillan officer and noticed he was basically squirming in discomfort.
"But thanks for trying to step in," said Konno quickly as she sat up and turned to face Otto. "Usually people just judge us from a distance. And I-I'd probably have punched him if he had said anything else."
"N-no problem," replied Otto as he gave a slight nod. "I know how that feels like."
"To want to punch someone?" asked Konno.
"Er- no," said Otto quickly. "I-I'm always scolded by my superiors so I can sort of understand where you're coming from when you say you just have to do better."
"O-Oh" said Konno as she lowered her head slightly in response. "What did you do to anger them so much?"
"A few things," said Otto as he sat down next to the young pilot. "Sometimes they would get annoyed whenever I couldn't follow their orders quickly enough or whenever I accidentally messed up my posture while marching. Other times I would get singled out because of my nervousness in front of them."
"That doesn't sound great," said Konno as she let out a nervous laugh.
"Yeah," replied Otto as he let out a sigh. "It was better when I was still in the research division on Garmillas. Unfortunately I screwed up and got kicked to the regular forces."
"O-Oh," responded Konno as she unconsciously looked away.
"How about you?" asked Otto. "Earlier you seemed to have been quite enthusiastic about how hard you worked to earn your position."
"E-Eh?" said Konno in response as her head swooped back around. "Well y-yeah although it still has its ups and downs."
The young pilot glanced away sheepishly and scratched the back of her helmet.
"To be honest, becoming a fighter pilot was my dream for a very long time," admitted Konno as she smiled nervously. "So this is as close as it gets to being the ideal life to me."
"Really? Why?" asked Otto as curiosity lit up in his eyes. "Do you like spacecraft a lot?"
"Uh- no not exactly," laughed Konno as she brought up her hands defensively.
The young pilot leaned back and looked up towards the blue gas giant that hovered above them.
"How do I put this?" she wondered out loud as a nostalgic look entered her eyes. "I guess it was because I got to see the sky?"
"H-Huh?" asked Otto blankly in response.
"Sorry it's a bit hard to put into words," giggled Konno as she tilted her head. "I have this memory in my head from a few years ago when my family first stepped out of the underground shelter. We were being relocated to one of the new settlements that had been rebuilt after Earth was restored."
"I had pretty much grown up in those underground cities my whole life," she explained. "The only outside I had vaguely remembered at that point was the ruined hometown my family was from on Mars. Uh- That's the planet next to Earth, its colonists got into a war with our home planet and it resulted in quite a mess."
"Oh, I see," said Otto as he nodded his head slightly.
"I think unconsciously I was beginning to feel some sort of existential dread," said Konno as she leaned back again. "Every day I woke up to some sort of new bad news. It didn't help that the area my family was living in had a weaker protection layer from the radiation that had grown the surface and at the same time was a hotspot for riots. When the Yamato was launched there was a huge hurrah over the media, saying that there was hope we were going to escape from this alive."
"Although when people continued to die from radiation sickness and cave ins, it was hard to see what all the fuss was about, especially when my father was among them." she said with a light smile.
"I-I'm sorry," said Otto as he lowered his head.
"It's fine," said Konno as she turned to Otto. "That was a long time ago, and Garmillas has changed a lot since then so I don't hold any grudges against you. Besides, you were probably only a teenager during then."
"That's true," said Otto softly.
"Anyway, the Yamato somehow did actually return," said Konno chirpily. "Some people were paranoid that it was just a scheme by the government to cover up some sort of impending disaster, but the reality soon set in when some of us started to be relocated to the new settlements on the surface."
"It was almost a fever dream for me," continued Konno as she closed her eyes. "I was almost too scared to blink when we loaded up onboard the trucks because I was afraid I'd suddenly wake up.
The young pilot paused before turning away and looking into the distance.
"But I'll always remember that journey in that truck," said Konno as she held her hands fondly. "Unfortunately I was trapped in the middle seat and couldn't get a good look at the outside because we had a bunch of bags all over us, and my sister kept taunting me with how beautiful the view was from her seat. When we finally reached our destination I couldn't wait and rushed out of the truck."
Otto watched as Konno's eyes began to almost sparkle with life. The pilot took in a deep breath, and suddenly stood up.
"The sight I was met with was completely beyond my imagination!" laughed Konno as she let out her arms in a huge motion. "The place I ran out into was this massive open meadow sprinkled with flowers I had only seen in textbooks and was topped by the most brilliant sky! I remember slowly stopping in the field as I gazed up into a seemingly infinite blue, completely eclipsed by the scale and beauty of everything."
"And while my senses were slowly absorbing all these new sensations, I noticed something slowly moving about in my vision," said Konno as she mimicked the motion of something above her with her fingers. "I could barely see their forms, but the white vapor trails that followed then were a dead giveaway. Later I found out that they were a pair of Cosmo Zeros that were making their way back to base, but at that time I could only recognize them as two graceful aircraft dancing among the clouds."
The young pilot put her hands down, and placed her arms behind her back.
"In that single moment, I realized that I could be up there one day if I really wanted to," said Konno as she looked up at the ringed gas giant above them. "Suddenly the world seemed endless with possibilities, and I felt a weight I never knew of lifted off my shoulders."
The young pilot paused for a moment as she looked up at the ringed gas giant that hovered over them.
"After that, I just had to sign up for the Cosmo Navy," said Konno as she turned to Otto with a gleeful smile.
Her smile was contagious, and Otto couldn't help let out a laugh.
"I-I know it's a bit silly," laughed Konno nervously as she sat back down. "But honestly being able to be in the cockpit of a spacecraft like this is-"
"No I definitely understand where you're coming from," laughed Otto. "If I didn't have any passion in being a technical engineer I think I would have fainted from stress a long time ago from being in the military."
"Y-Yeah," stuttered Konno as she smiled warmly.
"Although," said Otto slowly as he tilted his head, "Why join the Cosmo Navy? I can understand your want to fly but why join the military considering all the baggage that comes with it? From what I understand, Earth doesn't have the same militaristic policies as Garmillas."
Konno opened her mouth to answer but hesitated for a moment. She lowered her head and glanced away.
"It- seemed like the best choice for me at the time," replied Konno as she forced another laugh "I wanted to dedicate myself to something that would make a difference, and I thought protecting the blue earth that gave me so much hope would be a good way to do it."
"I see," said Otto. "Is that why you're aiming to serve on the Yamato eventually?"
"N-No that's more of a dream goal than an actual goal," said Konno defensively. "I'm not trying to say that only the Yamato makes a difference."
"So then you want to serve on that ship because you want to meet your heroes?" asked Otto.
"N-No! That's not it- Well kind of- It's-" stuttered Konno as her eyes darted around.
The young pilot lowered her head and crossed her arms before letting out a sigh. She eyed the bespectacled Garmillan officer carefully as he tilted his head innocently in confusion.
"It's more about finding out about a person rather than meeting them," she said softly as she loosened her crossed arms before turning to Otto. "Have you heard about Planet Bomb Syndrome?"
Otto's whole body flinched when he heard the name of the disease.
"Y-Yes," said Otto as he lowered his head. "From what I know of, it was a fatal disease that was thought to be caused by exposure to the radiation from Garmilas' planet bombs."
"That's the one," said Konno as she looked down and began fidgeting with her hands.
"My family began to show symptoms of it over the course of a few months after we moved into the surface settlement. The first one being my Mom, followed by my older sister and then myself."
"That was actually one of the main reasons I ended up signing up for the Cosmo Navy," admitted Konno. "It was during the period when we only knew about Mom's sickness. My sister became very adamant that she wanted me to follow my dream, and pushed me to apply while she took care of Mom. Part of me felt guilty for leaving Mom to her, but at the same time both of them were highly supportive so I just went for it."
Konno began to lean back as she let out a sigh.
"Of course later I found out that she had the condition as well and regretted it immediately. But because I had spent so much time and effort working to get in, I realized she would probably get pissed if I quit just to see her for a little longer. That's why I decided to work as hard as I could to show her that I was doing well as a pilot so that she could leave feeling proud that she pushed her sister in the right direction."
The young pilot got up from the ground and turned around to gaze at the Tiger IIB behind them.
"Although I think I overworked myself too much during that time," sighed Konno. "My symptoms got dramatically worse after my sister passed away so I wasn't able to do anything of note. And while I was able to hide my condition from my superiors for a short while, I was suspended almost immediately once my physical state got worse."
"Though luckily for me a cure was miraculously found before I could fully kick the bucket," she added softly. The young pilot paused quietly for a while before turning to Otto.
"The reason why I want to serve on the Yamato is because I heard a rumor that one of their pilots sacrificed themselves to get that cure," said Konno as her chirpy tone returned. "I know it's just a rumor, and I'll probably never get the chance to talk to the Yamato's crew about it. But if it's true, I'd really like to know what that person was like, and thank them somehow for saving my life."
"Y-You'll make it eventually," said Otto. "Ignore what Lieutenant Anton says about you, I'm sure you'll get to work with them and find out about this person in due time. A-And if I may, I think your sister would have been proud of the pilot you've become."
Konno flinched slightly when she heard Otto's words. She stared at him blankly for a moment before closing her eyes gently.
"No, not yet," replied Konno. "She has some pretty high standards, and I highly doubt she would be proud of someone who could be described as a floating liability with wings."
Otto froze in response and lowered his head.
"S-Sorry that slipped out," said Konno as she let out a nervous laugh. "Anyway t-that's not necessarily a bad thing."
"As I said, it just means I have to do better."
Josiah shut off his comms as he heard the last sentence. He hadn't intended to eavesdrop but admittedly he was drawn into the conversation
The young lieutenant looked up from his resting position behind a large rock and gazed into space in thought. He grimaced to himself and sat up.
Half an hour later, Josiah strolled slowly back to the Cosmo Tiger IIB. He saw Otto on top of the warp booster still looking at its internals while Konno was seated in the cockpit with the canopy open. As he got closer to the space craft, Konno spotted him from the corner of her eye and the two locked eyes for a moment. Josiah shifted his eyes away quickly before Konno looked back at her controls, clenching her teeth slightly. As he climbed up the Tiger IIB, Otto slammed the access hatch shut and froze when he saw the lieutenant in front of him. Josiah ignored him and squeezed himself into the rear gunner seat and repressurised the cabin. He gripped the turret controls tightly as air entered the bubble canopy. The atmosphere was suffocating, and he couldn't wait to get back to the Audacious.
Meanwhile, Otto made his way into the back seat of the Cosmo Tiger II as Konno closed the canopy.
"Everything looks in order," said Otto. "It's safe for us to make one long range jump."
"Alright," replied Konno as the Cosmo Tiger IIB Attacker and the warp booster rumbled to life.
The combined spacecraft slowly lifted off from the surface of the moon, throwing up a whirlwind of dust with its thrusters and exhausts. The Tiger IIB Attacker got cleared of the orbit of the moon and flew away from the direction of Ulawa 5.
As Konno began to switch on several controls on her instrument panel, she carefully observed the temperature readouts from the wave motion core chamber of the warp booster.
"Internal chamber's temperature is still a bit hot," said Konno in concern as she lightly tapped the display panel. "But it looks safe to rev up the flywheels for a long range jump."
"Okay," replied Otto as he inputted a couple of numbers into the navigation. "Sending next jump coordinates now."
After receiving the coordinates and inputting into the nav computer of the Warp Booster, Konno sighed softly to herself.
"Let's hope we're not too late for the rendezvous..." she mumbled and began accelerating the warp booster to maximum throttle. "Jumping to warp in five, four, three, two, one!"
The Tiger IIB Attacker leapt into its warp wormhole and disappeared in a flash. Several seconds later, the modified spacecraft entered into the outskirts of the Makira System and was greeted by an unexpected sight.
"Whoa! What the-!?" exclaimed Konno in disbelief as she saw a large piece of olive green metal hurling straight towards them.
"Oh come on!" screamed Josiah as he braced himself.
Konno instinctively dove, barely avoiding the large chunk of debris which narrowly passed them above their cockpit.
"Can we please warp out safely for once?!" Josiah moaned.
"Sorry!" replied Otto, "But this should be the place!"
"Uh guys, we got a bigger problem," said Konno as the piece of debris flew out of her vision.
Josiah and Otto both turned toward what had attracted their pilot's attention and dropped their jaws in horror. Instead of flying into what was supposed to be a safe and isolated area of space where the Neu Lambea's task force would be waiting for them, the young trio realized they had warped right in front of a chaotic space battle, in which the second member of the Crimson Camaraderie Carriers and her escorting ships were fighting for their lives against a Gatlantean attack group.
A/N: Hi guys, I apologize for the very very very long wait for this chapter to be posted. A crap ton of stuff happened for both myself and my proofreader in real life for the past two months which didn't give us much time to work on it.
The editing of this chapter itself was quite troublesome as it took nearly twenty rewrites in total to get this finalized as we both felt the direction and writing in previous drafts just didn't feel right or work which delayed it's original release two weeks later than I had planned. Hopefully it was worth the trouble if you had enjoyed reading this chapter.
In addition if you've noticed a slight change in writing style for this chapter, that's because my proofreader has taken a bigger role in writing this specific arc as a joint-experimentation to see whether we could both collaborate on writing and developing different character dynamics for future chapters and story arcs. Hopefully you will enjoy what we've in store for the next few chapters of this arc which will hopefully be released in two weeks' time although due to our current real-life stuff, we can't make any promises.
In regards to the mecha topic in this episode, I personally believe that the Warp Booster seen in Yamato 2202 was developed from the FS Torpedo Boat's engines as seen in Yamato 2199. If you don't remember the minor Garmillas ship from the series, it's the one that was used by the dimensional submarine UX-01 in an attempt to capture and evacuate Yurisha during the Battle of the Rainbow Cluster (only to kidnap Yuki instead by mistake), and later another was used by Celestella, Dessler's former propaganda minster. Considering that Jirelian used the small craft to travel from the LMC to near the fringes of the Milky Way, it can be assumed it must have a miniaturized Geschtam/Warp engine to reach that distance. Thus it's logical to assume that both Earth decided to develop their own version of a portable miniaturized warp engine for their fighters with some assistance from Garmillan technical consultants after 2199.
Also to address reviewer Joey's comment about not finding the 'new' Gatlantean fighter, it's quite hard to look it up online as it isn't as popular as the infamous Deathvatator or the classic Gatlantean horseshoe crab fighter. At times I had to search up it's Japanese name which was a pain to find. But either way, you can find the official concept designs and images of the Eater II (sometimes called the Eataa II) on the website OurStarBlazers/CosmoDNA (which is practically where I do most of my SBY research). It may be hard to navigate through the website, but I highly recommend you to check it out as the wealth of info and stuff regarding all things about Space Battleship Yamato/Star Blazers is unparalleled.