Cutting Off the Head
BOOM!
The moment Eirin received word that more than twenty Imperial Guardsmen sent to clear an enemy ambush had been annihilated by antimatter shells, she slammed her fist down on the armrest.
"Galdorn!!"
She spat the rebel emperor's name in raw fury — yet she could not afford to stand on a podium and denounce the enemy for violating international treaties. Not now.
"We've entered effective range!"
Both fleets had closed to weapons range. To broadcast the rebels' atrocity to the galaxy, she would have to withdraw — and withdrawal would expose her flanks and rear to the enemy.
"All ships! Open fire!"
In the end she chose the enemy in front of her. The order cracked across the fleet. A storm of lasers poured from the loyalist ships; answering beams from the rebel line closed the distance and hammered into her formation.
"Ugh—!"
One of the operators, watching a volume of laser fire he had never seen in any previous engagement, let out an involuntary groan. The sheer density of mutual bombardment was unlike anything in the war so far.
Several beams lanced toward the Rastold Silverion. A translucent barrier flared into existence and swallowed them.
"Shield status!"
"That volley drained approximately thirty-seven percent!"
"Evasive maneuvers — keep the main guns and secondaries firing!"
Eirin ordered counter-fire and waited for the exchange to open a crack in the enemy line. Yet even under the concentrated barrage centered on the Rastold Silverion, the Resily Mercenary Group's Seventh Fleet showed no sign of panic. They fought as if a war of this scale were simply another contract.
"As expected of the Empress Dowager. She came out herself to stop us."
On the opposite side of the battle, the Seventh Fleet's commander — Dolche Rockgumton, an orc-like Getschel who looked as if he had stepped out of a fantasy novel — smiled with quiet satisfaction, his voice calm and professional despite his appearance.
"Commander, the Red Reaper's unit that wiped out the employer's ambush force is flanking us."
The operator's report told him that a squad-sized force — Jincheon, Heliane, Calsira, and Beatrix — was swinging wide around the engagement. Rather than throw themselves into the crossfire, they meant to circle and disrupt the Seventh Fleet from the side.
"So the confidence is everything they say it is."
Dolche had heard plenty about the Red Reaper, Jincheon — the man who had racked up results on other battlefields that bordered on the unbelievable. Now that Jincheon was coming for him, Dolche fell back on the strength that was also his weakness: rock-steady force management.
"Dispatch the Sixth, Eighth, and Ninth Companies against the Red Reaper's group. Shooting them down would be ideal, but if they prove difficult, buy as much time as you can."
"Yes, sir!"
Each company was built around mecha — twelve machines per company. Committing thirty-six mecha to deal with a mere four could be called a waste of combat power, yet no one questioned the order.
Every fleet commander in the Resily Mercenary Group had a distinct command style with its own strengths and flaws. Dolche preferred stable, methodical operations above all else; that very preference had earned him the Seventh Fleet, even if it had never brought him close to the Zero Ship.
"Let's see if the reputation matches the skill."
The Resily Mercenary Group was staffed entirely by veterans — men and women of proven ability and hard-won experience. They were a different breed from the Giranlek Empire's pilots, whose careers had been limited to pirate hunts and simulator drills. Jincheon was clearly an ace to watch, but Dolche had a front line to manage. He shut the Red Reaper out of his mind and focused on the battle at hand.
"Jincheon—!"
"I know."
Having barely escaped the ambush force's suicide detonation, Jincheon's group chose not to rejoin the main fleet. Instead they swung wide, aiming for the enemy's flank — and three companies of mecha peeled off to meet them.
"Calsira!"
"Leave it to me."
Calsira's Trooper Package had turned her into a long-range fire platform, but the distance was still too great for her to read the flow of qi. She fired her beam cannons on pure skill and experience.
FWOOOOM!
Instead of a rail cannon, twin beam cannons mounted over her shoulders unleashed their fury. The mercenaries dodged as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Jincheon's group followed up with their own fire; the mercenaries slipped past every shot without taking so much as a scratch.
"They're better than I expected."
"The Resily Mercenary Group… they're sharper than the Empire's knights."
Beatrix's voice carried a tight edge; she too had felt the unhurried confidence of elite troops in the way the mercenaries moved. Under normal circumstances she would have returned to the Rastold Silverion, but sniping lasers from a distance would contribute nothing to a battle of this scale. For now she had temporarily joined Jincheon's unit.
"Calsira, Beatrix — covering fire!"
After a stretch of fruitless long-range sniping had closed the gap enough, Jincheon called for support.
"Got it!"
"Eat this!"
Calsira poured everything she had into the enemy formation — multi-launch ports on both legs, machine guns on the backs of her hands, and the beam cannons — trying to shatter their ranks. Beatrix added precise lance-gun fire, giving the mercenaries a serious reason to dodge.
"Heliane! Let's go!"
"Hup—!"
Jincheon and Heliane slammed their engines to full throttle and shot forward into the opening.
Only smooth the blood flow when the pressure hits!
Jincheon's Gareld tore through space at blistering speed, but Heliane's Gareld — rebuilt under the Berserker Package into a mass of heavy reinforced armor — kept pace only a fraction behind, thrusters bolted to the extra plating driving her forward.
Veterans of that caliber were never going to sit still and watch. They opened fire even as they maneuvered. Jincheon answered by dumping thrusters from both the Assault Package and the Gareld itself, weaving a zigzag path that slipped every shot coming from every angle.
Zzzzt! Clang-clang-clang!
"Nngh—!"
Heliane had to track both the flow of blood and the enemy fire at once. She dodged, but not with Jincheon's perfection, and a handful of shots found her. The reinforced armor absorbed the hits; the Gareld itself took no damage.
"He's fast—!"
"Scatter!"
"Don't stop shooting!"
The mercenaries watched Jincheon's Gareld close the distance in a heartbeat without taking a single hit. They had already seen his work in the footage their employer had provided, so instead of panicking they fell into their own countermeasures.
"Out of my way! That bastard's mine!"
If anything, they grew more aggressive. If a monster could dodge everything at range, the answer was simple: deny him the space to dodge. Close in and smother him.
"Red Reaper? Don't make me laugh! Every opponent you've faced until now was just weak!"
A heavily armored mecha raised twin laser swords and charged. The pilot of the power-type machine — built like a medieval heavy infantryman — trusted his armor and drove straight at Jincheon, ready to eat friendly fire if it meant staying locked on his target.
Against the current Jincheon, whose Assault Package had pushed his machine's agility to another level, it was not a good plan.
"So the close-combat frame is going to be the one that trips him up, is that it? Fine. I'll play."
Jincheon spun up the chainsaws on both wrists, slipped the lasers still pouring in from every direction, and met the charging power-type head-on.
Vmmmm!
The power-type swung both laser swords. Jincheon answered by redlining his engines.
CRASH!
Gareld and power-type slammed together.
"Ghk—!?"
The mercenary had never imagined anyone would be stupid enough — or skilled enough — to ram him head-on. For a fraction of a second he froze.
KREEEEEEE!
The impact shoved the Gareld backward — and in that same motion the chainsaws carved a diagonal gash across the power-type's torso.
Screeech!
Other mercenaries, willing to risk friendly fire, opened up on the opening. Jincheon's Gareld drifted back, thrusters feathering, sliding past the incoming lasers with barely twenty centimeters to spare.
"You're mine!"
The power-type pilot charged again, laser swords flailing, chasing the Gareld that danced through the crossfire as if it were nothing. The Gareld slipped the lasers, spun a full, fluid rotation, let the laser swords whistle past, and ripped the power-type's flank open with a chainsaw.
Armor forged by the Calsorn Empire itself tore like paper.
THUD-BANG!
The opposite hand jammed a twin laser shotgun into the torn plating and fired straight into the wound.
"U-uwaaah—!"
BOOOOM!
The shotgun chewed through the interior; secondary explosions bloomed. The mercenary punched for the ejection system — but the last attack had wrecked it. The blast took him with the machine.
"Wow. These things actually work."
Jincheon allowed himself a moment of satisfaction at chainsaws that shredded heavy armor like tissue paper, then slipped the next wave of incoming fire.
BOOM-BOOM!
Mercenaries still tracking him took beam-cannon hits from behind and went up like fireworks.
"Damn it! These ones are strong too—!"
"Why didn't we have any intel on them!?"
Heliane, trusting her heavy armor, drove in and carved with the high-output laser sword built into her right arm. As Jincheon and Heliane shattered the formation, Calsira and Beatrix poured fire into every gap that opened.
Jincheon's legend might have overshadowed them, but Heliane, Calsira, and Beatrix were aces in their own right — pilots who could tip an entire battlefield by themselves.
"Ahahahaha! When they dodge this hard, landing hits actually feels rewarding!"
Calsira in particular — forged by a lifetime of battlefields that had tried to kill her — found a new synergy once she had reliable comrades at her side. She started dropping more enemies than even Jincheon.
"Damn it! Fall back! Fall back now!"
With Jincheon's women joining the slaughter in earnest, the mercenaries judged the fight unwinnable. They laid down a covering web of fire and began to withdraw. Unlike pride-bound knights, the moment they decided they could not win, they ran — pure mercenary pragmatism.
"Jincheon. What now?"
Heliane kept up return fire on the retreating machines as she asked for the next move. The briefing had been clear: to break the mercenaries, you had to hit their flagship and kill the fleet commander. The problem was that the flagship sat at the heart of the formation, ringed by escort ships.
"Obviously we cut off the head."
Anyone else would have argued for grinding down the enemy's strength and waiting for an opening. That was the sensible, conventional approach. Jincheon planned to hit the flagship now.
He was not, however, the kind of idiot who built an entire plan on his own power alone.
"I'll punch into the center. You three hit their flanks."
"What? Jincheon! Even for you, that's—!"
"Relax. I don't do reckless things."
"…"
Beatrix's face went blank at the idea that diving alone into the core of a battle-hardened mercenary fleet somehow did not count as reckless.
"Besides — I've got these. Don't worry."
Jincheon tapped the small of the Gareld's back with a finger. Three grenade-shaped devices hung there. Pull the pin, throw, and after a short delay they detonated — not with shrapnel, but with particles that disrupted shield formation. Eirin had issued them to Jincheon's group as the joker card for taking down the Resily flagship.
"…You come back alive. You have to."
"Of course. Just trust me."
Beatrix, who still did not know the full measure of Jincheon's true power, prayed desperately that he would return in one piece. Jincheon gave her a smile, cut the channel, and charged for the heart of the enemy fleet.
"We erase as many of them as we can, Calsira."
"Yes, unnie!"
"Lady Beatrix — what will you do?"
"I'll move with you."
Beatrix judged that the best way to cut friendly losses was to join Heliane and Calsira and keep tearing at the enemy's flanks. The three of them banked toward the mercenary fleet still locked in the gunnery duel with the loyalists, and flew.