The Flying One (2)
In myth, the sky is the object of all longing. The vast firmament is granted the divinity of a father, or a mother, and bound inseparably to creation itself.
Even where no divinity was ascribed to it, the sky was still regarded as the realm where divine beings dwelled — sometimes a heaven where the dead found salvation, sometimes a place where one lingered after becoming something more than human.
Even after the age of ignorance ended and the age of reason and technology dawned, the sky never lost its allure.
The same held true in Space Survival. A game set against the backdrop of an endless universe could hardly treat the heavens as anything but a challenge to be overcome.
But one had to be careful.
Because within that unknown expanse, there was no telling what might lie in wait.
Snow, rain, hail, and storm. My wings swam through the symphony nature was playing.
Light flashed, thunder chasing close behind. With every lightning strike, my shadow flickered across the gray clouds.
Power coiled through my shoulders and shoulder blades, the muscles beneath carapace and scale rippling. The membranes stretching from fingertip to fingertip along my elongated arms sliced through the cloud cover. Each of my outspread wings measured more than forty meters — a single one longer than my entire body.
Given my size and weight, I'd need at least this much to fly through the sky.
And for the Cult under attack, my presence was anything but welcome. Compared to a heavy cruiser stretching several hundred meters, my body was far smaller — but the Cult watching me through their cameras wouldn't see it that way.
I'd rather not have to crash them, though.
Moments ago, I had rammed the forward section where the bridge sat with my whole body — deliberately, to throw them off balance.
Just as I'd intended, the cruiser was failing to make any coherent decisions. Their situation was desperate enough that fleeing at full speed should have been their only thought, yet they were firing back with their gun batteries anyway.
Amid the eerie din of blizzard and thunder came the crackle of psychic cannon emplacements opening fire. I adjusted my wing-arms and dove sharply downward. An enemy shot skimmed past, grazing the tip of my tail.
｢S-slow down and fly careful! If we fall, we're done for!｣
"I was constructed in anticipation of planetary atmospheric descent operations, so for me this falls within—"
｢Shut up!｣
｢Whoa! Flap flap! This is fun!｣
The kids were riding on my back as I tore through the sky at tremendous speed. Just in case, I had extended my Erosion Tentacles and was wrapping them around everyone, gentle but firm. As the Mother of the Sky said, a fall from up here would not end well for anyone.
Unexpected, honestly.
Despite her name, the Mother of the Sky did not seem to be enjoying my flight one bit. From the moment we'd taken off, she had been clutching my Erosion Tentacles like safety bars on a roller coaster.
[Zzz zzzz zzzzz zzzzzzz (And here I heard you were a skilled combat pilot?)]
｢Flying from a cockpit and flying like this are two different things! Imagine riding a plane with nothing but your bare skin!｣
Put that way, it made perfect sense.
A Griffon's gliding ability might let her hover briefly in the air, but it couldn't erase primal fear. I was convinced immediately, and didn't press her further.
[Zzz zzzzz zzzzz (Are the others all right?)]
｢Yep! Fun!｣
No. 26, who loved everything I did, seemed delighted by the flight. PS-111, more than half machine, looked entirely unmoved by contrast.
In that case, I should cut off their escape route first.
Unlikely as it was, things would get ugly if the enemy captain activated the faster-than-light engine. Unless the cruiser happened to jump straight into the heart of a star, a clean escape would spell trouble for me too.
The Cult Empire could bring in reinforcements from here.
This planet wasn't designated holy ground, so the situation was different from last time. One wrong move, and I could end up at war with the entire empire. I had to make sure they couldn't run.
The thrusters, then.
I beat my wing-arms slowly and glided along the cloud layer. The enemy cruiser's batteries spat fire at me in rapid succession. Violet energy shells, each several meters across, punched holes through the clouds and pursued me relentlessly.
I had dodged fire easily enough even when synced to a starship. Slipping into the storm clouds, I evaded the enemy's attacks without difficulty.
Their main cannon probably can't fire.
Cult cruisers mounted a main cannon of tremendous power.
Once before, a cruiser belonging to Muriel's pirate crew — the Humanity Cartel — had intercepted me from a great distance away. At the time I was commandeering a Star Union freighter, and a single shot from that main cannon had torn the massive ship clean in two.
Devastating as it was, the odds were high it would stay silent now. Activating the main cannon required an enormous concentration of psychic power. It would amount to broadcasting their exact location to every Galagon in the vicinity.
Not that they might go insane and fire it anyway.
Which meant I needed to finish this before that could happen.
Flying hidden within the clouds, I closed in fast on the cruiser's flank. The moment I burst through the cloud cover, the gun batteries whipped their barrels around in a panic.
A few of the quicker guns managed to hit me, but it meant nothing. I had already narrowed the distance to the cruiser more than enough.
Judging myself close enough, I stretched my wing-arms straight back and spread the membranes wide. My body, hurtling forward at ferocious speed, slammed to a halt in midair.
In the same instant, I channeled all that recoil into my tail. The long tail lashed forward like a pendulum, natural and smooth — and the pincer at its end came down on the diamond-shaped cruiser's flank like a maul.
Flame geysered upward with a deafening roar, and the Cult's ship lurched hard to one side. The thrusters mounted along its flank had been blown apart, robbing it of balance.
While the enemy scrambled in confusion, I landed on top of the cruiser. Even the gun batteries couldn't get a clean shot at me with the whole ship pitching and rolling.
There was work to do before the ship stabilized. For the first time in a while, I activated my Acidic Fungal Gland trait. Beneath my twin-forked jaws, corrosive fungal sludge poured down without mercy.
The cruiser's smooth, ivory-colored hull plating melted away with a sour hiss. The fungi bored through the outer wall in moments and penetrated deep into the interior sections.
That should just about do it.
I gouged the hole wide open with my combat arms and pushed my head inside. There in the corridor beyond, a Cultist stood staring up at me, frozen with a blank expression.
Before he could react, I spread my jaws wide and bit him down whole.
"H-hiiik!"
"The monster's breached the ship's interior!"
The Cult crew screamed as they watched their comrade — all but his ankles — vanish into my gullet.
This place is too cramped for me to move around in.
At some point my body had grown far too large for navigating corridors. Outside my Clever Underdog form, I'd struggle even to fit inside, let alone move.
Should I go for the landing strip instead?
After dousing each fleeing Cultist with a splash of fungi, I pulled my head back out.
[Zzzzz zzz zzzzz zzzz (I'll take the other side)]
｢Okay. We clear out the bridge and the engine room first, right?｣
[Zzzzz (For now)]
｢See you soon, Big Baby.｣
"An excellent opportunity to update our database on Cult cruiser construction."
I carefully lowered the children, still wrapped in my Erosion Tentacles, into the ship's interior. Once I felt their presence fade into the distance, I spread my wings once more.
"Damage report!"
The captain screamed as if wrenching the words out of himself. He'd cracked his head in the earlier impact, but that hardly mattered now.
"Hull plating damage at nine percent! Twenty-three percent of interior sections destroyed!"
"Crew status: unable to confirm!"
"Th-the unidentified psychic organism is heading for the engine room! The warrior squad assigned to its defense — wiped out!"
"Damn it all! What in the world is the Temple Guard doing?!"
"That is... they're occupied with the creature that appeared on the landing strip..."
He'd said it aloud, but the captain already knew. There was no way not to know. The dozens of video feeds floating across the center of the bridge were laying the situation bare for all to see.
All twelve Temple Guard members were on the landing strip. Every one of them was fully occupied with the flying creature that now dwarfed even a Galagon.
And calling it a fight was generous. Strictly speaking, it was a massacre.
The long, thick tentacles erupting from the creature's back were as fast and lethal as energy shells. Caught by the appendages at their tips, even the Dragon Scale suits the Guard wore meant nothing. When the tentacles swallowed a man and melted his entire body away, what good was armor?
That wasn't all. The beast's colossal bulk was no idle boast — it was also unspeakably durable.
"D-damn it! It's reflecting our psychic power!"
"What do you want us to do about it?!"
"The Demolisher, bring up the—" "Gaaaagh!"
While his gaze was turned away for a heartbeat, another soldier died. His spine bent backward, his head smeared with foam that glinted sickeningly.
Right up until departure, this man had been the shield protecting the ship's crew. But his opponent had been the wrong one entirely.
That flying monstrosity was simply too strong.
Watching yet another soldier's limbs get torn away, the captain turned his head aside.
They had been the last hope, and now even that was gone. He would have to devise another way.
Do I abandon the ship?
Using the escape pods, they might be able to slip away from those monsters.
The problem was that escaping wouldn't actually improve their circumstances. Even if they abandoned ship, surviving for long on this planet — with its nightmarish creatures and brutal weather — was impossible.
At best, it would buy them a few extra days of life.
"...Prepare to activate the faster-than-light engine."
"Captain! That's insane!"
The crew on the bridge protested, but the captain shook his head. It was the only option left.
With the ship this badly damaged, there was a good chance it would tear itself apart mid-voyage — but dead was dead either way.
Besides, one of the monsters was already headed for the engine room. In a matter of minutes, even this option would be gone.
Jump to a nearby planet on FTL drive, then evacuate. Simple.
The identities of the raiding monsters were unknown, but they were almost certainly native to this world. Whether they could survive comfortably in a completely different environment was another matter.
"I say again. Prepare to activate the faster-than-light en—"
The captain had barely begun repeating the order when the floor lurched violently.
No.
The ship itself hadn't rocked. It was currently holding steady in the air, running on emergency auxiliary thrusters reserved for exactly this kind of situation.
The flying monster capable of tearing the ship apart was still on the landing strip, battling the Temple Guard.
So if the ship didn't shake, then...
His eyes turned to the sealed blast door. If the bridge were overrun, everything was finished — so every intermediate section connecting to it had been locked down tight.
It couldn't be.
As if in answer to his unspoken question, the bridge shuddered again. This time, the impact hadn't come from him alone.
The crew, busily adjusting the ship's systems, froze. Just like the captain, every one of them turned to stare at the blast door.
"...Confirm the status of all adjacent sections. Now."
"Y-yes, si—"
A thunderous roar split the air. It sounded uncannily like an energy shell discharging from a cannon — and it was deafeningly close.
Close enough to have come from directly behind that blast door.
And the captain's guess was exactly right.
The blast door shuddered under a tremendous impact. It shook several more times, then fell silent.
"……"
"……"
The attack had stopped, but not a single Cultist in the room believed the enemy had simply withdrawn. A few of the crew, catching the captain's glance, drew the weapons stowed aboard the bridge.
As they armed themselves, the blast door changed again. A red point suddenly bloomed at its center, expanding at terrifying speed until it became a gaping hole.
With energy condensed to an extreme degree, the very matter composing the door had been disintegrated.
Everyone on the bridge fixed their eyes on the hole. Through it, faintly, came the screams of the crew in the sections beyond.
And then, out of that darkness thick with shadow, it revealed itself.
Eyes red as fresh blood, and a face so pale it stood in stark contrast to them.
A face that would have been called beautiful, had the eyes been closed, was glaring down into the bridge.
"A... a woman?"
Someone let the words slip in sheer disbelief. He would have to take them back almost immediately.
The moment the white face floating in the darkness split its mouth wide open, everyone understood.
That was no woman.
And no wonder — no woman, human or Cult, had a mouth that tore open so far.
A gaping maw wider than a Cultist's whole face. The instant the captain saw the indigo flame rising within it, he moved to give the order.
Open fire on that thing. Now.
But he never could.
The world abruptly twisted, and a smooth, ivory floor rushed up toward him. Along with it came a sight he saw every morning in the mirror.
His own upper body, wearing its splendid ceremonial sash.
Only then did the captain realize his head had been separated from his body.
The countless arms tearing through the hole, and the soundless screams of his crew, were the last things he would ever remember.