Armor Frame Battle (2)
Predictive Maneuver.
A technique that read the instant an attack would land and the path it would take, then flew the machine a half-beat ahead of it. At the sight of Laurent's performance, a chill ran the length of Steve's spine. Predictive Maneuver was not a showing any rookie with not a single Armor Frame battle to his name ought to have been capable of.
Steve ground his teeth. He was not half so furious that some long-stagnant veteran had been playing the beginner as he was at the thought that every expense he had sunk into this duel might be about to vanish into nothing.
His offense turned savage, and rounds poured down like rain. The bullets from the live-ammo rifle tore indiscriminately through the space junk crowding the field; sparks spat, and fragments whirled away. For a pilot of thin experience, the view alone would have been enough to dizzy the eyes.
A derelict satellite burst apart in a flare of light. Laurent's Jing swung wide around the ruined hulk, carving a great arc.
"Damn it!"
Steve's attacks failed, every one of them. The debris strewn in chaos was a double-edged sword. Where Steve grew frantic, Laurent still had room to breathe. What the Chivalry trait strengthened was not the body alone—brute strength, reflexes, and the like. Willpower, too, was a thing that trait laid its hand upon.
"Comfortable."
Laurent felt Jing's limbs as if they were his own. Sensation did not truly reach him, and yet there was no feeling at all that they were anything other than his.
"Hm?"
Just then something dropped free of Red Bird's back, and Zack opened a channel.
"You're in danger! It's a multiple-launch missile!"
"And what of a missile."
"Shut up and fall back!"
Zack's advice was sound. These were match missiles with the guidance stripped out; fall back, and they were easy enough to dodge.
"They're going to spread wide! Pull back and you can clear them easy!"
"Pathetic."
He said it with perfect calm. Even in the instant the missiles came screaming in, there was not a shred of panic in him.
"What are you doing! I said dodge!"
"I refuse."
"What!"
"I said I refuse!"
Laurent drove straight into the downpour of missiles.
Somewhere in the space colony Kaidal-4, the broadcast booth of GBN Sports—the Galactic Broadcast Network—was in a fervor over the Armor Frame battle.
"Pilot Laurent is incredible! Pilot Steve is rattled!"
The commentators raised their voices. A rookie whose record was not merely thin but blank paper was putting on a show, and they could not help but get carried away. Hundreds of broadcast drones were feeding the battlefield live, and Laurent's Jing was cutting a figure that had nothing whatever to do with its nickname: the one-eyed tin can.
"Jing's looking rather handsome today. I may have to pick up a Jing model kit on the way home."
"Ha ha! I like the sound of that! I'll buy one myself!"
The two commentators called the match at their ease. Then the cameras caught a moment worth a clenched fist.
"Ohh! Pilot Steve! Multiple-launch missiles away! How will Pilot Laurent answer!"
"Falling back would be the orthodox play, of course."
"Yes! That is clearly the textbook answer! And yet—ah—ahhh! What is this! Pilot Laurent! He's charging straight into the missile rain! What manner of madness is this!"
The booth erupted. They could already see the next frame.
"Kyaaa!"
"My God!"
The stands fell into chaos as well. Even to untrained eyes, what Laurent was doing was as good as suicide.
"No!"
Steve screamed too. He would not miss Laurent's death. What he feared was being disqualified because of it.
And then the world around him slowed.
It was a sensation like the laws of physics being overruled by force. Having charged instead of retreated, that was what Laurent felt.
One! He slipped the first missile—and the second was already closing in.
Focusing, Laurent sent his will through the Psi Connector. In the same instant, plasma gas jetted from Jing's left leg: the left-leg thruster. He had fired only one side of the attitude-control auxiliary boosters.
A sound. A sound, arriving in the vacuum of space, where no sound could travel. An auditory hallucination born of extreme concentration. Laurent heard it, and he flew the machine by it.
Two! He cleared the second missile as well. A miraculous result.
Three! Four! Five!
Laurent flew. He slipped the spiderweb of missiles with the flight of a butterfly, and the spider's venomous fangs never once found him. The commentators' mouths fell open. Even to their eyes, this was no mere talented rookie.
"He—he dodged them! No—he broke through!"
A cheer exploded. A star was being born.
"Laurent! You okay?!"
"Of course."
"Hoo...!"
Zack, who had nearly died of fright, wiped cold sweat. Laurent, by contrast, looked as if he had not strained in the slightest.
"A knight does not retreat."
So saying, Laurent sent his will again. The choice was the charge.
Steve, meanwhile, had gone pale to the lips. A rising star whose skill he could not measure was aiming for him and for Red Bird.
"Damn it!"
He sprayed rounds to keep Jing off, and the automated turrets planted through the junk heaps opened fire along with him. The charging Jing traced a tangled line through the barrage, then closed on one of the turrets. The turret exploded—Jing had slipped into its blind spot and driven the heat blade home. Turrets burst one after another. Before turning on Red Bird, Jing was cutting the nuisances down, one by one.
"Laurent! Shoot the Vulcans! Turrets like those, the Vulcans can handle just fine!"
So said Zack: advice to gun the automated turrets down with the built-in Vulcan cannons mounted on both of Jing's shoulders.
"I will not!"
"What do you mean you won't! Fire the Vulcans!"
"Silence! To bid me fire a gun in a sacred contest of blades—whence such insolence!"
"But—!"
"No coaching from the sidelines!"
"I don't have a choice! Jing can't catch Red Bird! You can't drag this out!"
Zack knew Jing's limits well. An old model, and one whose very design was specialized for defense, Jing could not catch a Red Bird built to move. They had to settle it while energy still remained.
"Laurent! Listen to me!"
"I will not listen! I shall show you—that there is no such thing as impossible!"
Laurent refused the Vulcans to the very end. He swung nothing but the heat blade.
When the last automated turret was destroyed, Red Bird had already fallen far back and was threading the gaps between the heaps of space junk.
"I go!"
Laurent drove Jing after Red Bird. Soon the two machines held their distance with a wall of debris between them.
"Damn it! What the hell are you going to do!"
"You have only to watch!"
Laurent swung Jing into a wide arc. Jing's path began to cross Red Bird's in a strange, grazing geometry. A moment later, as the distance closed, Steve clenched his teeth and sent his will.
"I will not lose!"
Resolved, he drove Red Bird toward Jing's flank. The two machines began to circle clockwise. Space junk hindered their flight, but not enough to truly snag them.
Then Laurent's eyes flashed.
"Now!"
A fierce will poured into the Psi Connector. The will that entered became a single command, and in a heartbeat it staged a scene of pure shock.
"Wh—what! Pilot Laurent! What are you doing!"
A commentator shot to his feet. Laurent's move was of a kind no one had foreseen.
"He's thrown the heat blade! He's thrown away yet another weapon!"
While that voice boomed through the booth, the live broadcast's chat caught fire as well. A rookie appearing on a field that had stagnated as far as it could stagnate seemed, to them, a welcome thing.
The reaction was a little surprise and a great deal of mockery. Not one of them thought Laurent's ending would be a good one.
"So that was the trick!"
Steve mocked him as well. The heat blade was aimed at Red Bird's main camera.
"You think I'd eat an attack like that!"
He relaxed. He relaxed again. An out-of-nowhere play—but this was Laurent's last card. Survive this one crisis, and the victory was his.
"Dodged it!"
The heat blade grazed the main camera's outer armor and went past. The camera took a blow of extreme heat, and noise crawled across the omnidirectional display, but damage of that degree was acceptable.
Then a ponderous shock rolled through the cockpit with a heavy boom.
"Kh—! What?"
Steve checked the omnidirectional display and understood: Red Bird had collided with space junk. So fixed on dodging the heat blade, he had failed to dodge the debris.
"Tch! I have to break free—!"
"Too late!"
The voice that came over the open channel was Laurent's.
"Huk—! Since when?!"
"Ha ha ha! The victory is mine!"
Laurent's Jing did not let Red Bird go. It reached out and seized Red Bird's cockpit. The scream of crumpling metal rang out. Outer armor was forced open, and the cockpit hatch shuddered.
"L-let go! I said let go!"
"Be still! I shall be gentle!"
The sound grew louder still. The cockpit began to open.
"You crazy bastard...!"
Then, with a wrenching crack, the cockpit entrance was torn away.
"Yield."
"Ah..."
What filled his vision was Jing's single red eye.
With the commentators' voices, the stands filled to the brim with cheers. In the midst of it Laurent opened the cockpit, stepped out, and looked upon the star Kaidal.
Kaidal, an F-type main-sequence star. The brilliant white star shone radiant, yet the helmet's light-regulating filter held that blaze in check. Even so, a star was beautiful, as a star ought to be.
"Now it begins."
Done with his stargazing, Laurent climbed back into the cockpit and flew Jing. The match was over; he was returning to the point of departure. He set Jing down in the hangar and looked for Zack, who ought to have been waiting for him. But Zack was nowhere to be seen—perhaps he had gone to the restroom.
"Pilot Laurent!"
From a distance a woman came running, staff in tow. Someone sent by the organizers of the duel.
"I'm Becky, a reporter for GBN Sports. Congratulations on today's victory."
"Congratulations? There is no need. The result was decided from the start."
"What confidence. Then may I ask for a word on how you feel?"
Laurent stood proud even before a reporter from GBN. No—displeased that they should treat a sacred duel as a show, he met her with arrogance.
"Begone, clown. A victorious knight must offer prayer."
"Prayer, you say? What sort of prayer?"
"Giving thanks unto the god who bestowed today's victory."
He carried himself with arrogance, and yet he answered kindly. And so the reporter, even after being called a clown, found herself liking him. A skilled rookie duelist who was kind, and handsome besides—in a way, a natural result. She hid that feeling and carried the interview on.
"Lastly, might I ask for a word to your fans?"
"Fans? Have I ever possessed such a thing?"
"Of course. There'll probably be even more of them."
Becky said it with a subtle crinkle of her eyes. A rookie as packed with star power as Laurent could grow a line of fans, and no one would find it strange.
"A futile pursuit."
"Pardon?"
"I said it is futile."
While Becky faltered, Laurent went on, his voice as indifferent as ever.
"In the hours you might spend trailing at a man's heels, apply yourselves to the cultivation of the self."
With that he turned. The battered cloak flared and guarded the knight's back.
At that same moment—
"Ha ha ha! I won! I won, I tell you!"
The pitiable man, Count Hogus, threw both arms up in triumph. Unlike Countess Hogus, whose face looked as if she had bitten into something foul, his was full of joy.
Today's victory. He rejoiced in the victory alone.