Trust the Mecha
While Jincheon struggled against an unexpectedly formidable opponent, Calsira and Heliane clashed with Jezer's subordinates — a force of mechas all of the same model.
Jezer's men knew how to fight outnumbered foes. They tried to encircle the two women in a tightening ring, pouring fire from every angle.
Fwoosh!
It began with the compact multi-launch missile pods mounted beside their ankles, spitting a volley straight at Calsira and Heliane.
Neither woman panicked. They split left and right and charged straight through.
KRA-KOOM!
The multi-launch missiles slammed into the Garelds. The searing flash of the explosions triggered the main cameras' low-luminance mode, shielding both pilots' eyes from the glare.
Calsira caught the blasts on her Gareld's shield. Before the fireball had even finished blooming, she raised her rifle and, guided by the radar-corrected targeting system, put a shot clean through her mark.
"U-uwaaaagh!"
KRAANG!
The laser punched through the explosion and bored straight into the upper cockpit of a mecha whose pilot had hesitated a fraction too long on his evasion. The machine detonated.
"Tch! So that's why everyone keeps going on about the Gareld!"
"They're tougher than they look!"
Even the thick-looking armor alone looked like it might shrug off compact multi-launch missiles — and on top of that, they had solid shields. Jezer's subordinates were beginning to understand why the Gareld sat at the absolute peak of C-class, and why it was issued only to ace pilots.
"Don't stop moving! Chip away at their shields—!"
The Sub-Chief — commanding in place of Jezer's vice-captain — was still barking orders when—
WHOOOOM!
The instant the explosion's light faded, Heliane's Gareld redlined its boosters and lunged straight at him.
"Kh—!"
The overwhelming burst of acceleration closed the gap in a heartbeat. The Sub-Chief scrambled to open distance, spraying fire from his hybrid gun as he went.
He twisted and juked with flashy footwork, changing vectors again and again — but Heliane refused to be baited. She tracked him with stubborn precision and drove her shoulder into his torso.
CRUNCH!
"Ghhhk!"
The impact rattled the Sub-Chief's cockpit hard enough to make his teeth click. Through the shock, he realized the pilot opposite him was no greenhorn relying on the machine alone.
Tuka-kaka-kang! Fwoosh!
Two mechas Calsira wasn't engaging opened supporting fire — hybrid guns and the last of their multi-launch missiles — trying to peel Heliane off their Sub-Chief.
"Tch."
A Gareld's shield was tougher than a standard mecha's, but trusting it to eat every hit was still a good way to die. Heliane clicked her tongue, kicked her boosters upward to open the range, and answered with her laser rifle.
At a few hundred meters — even a few kilometers — dodging a laser rifle meant constant, unbroken evasive movement. Heliane, by contrast, had a shield. So long as she avoided clean hits, the pressure barely registered. She moved at a leisurely pace and picked her shots with calm precision.
Some distance away, Calsira was dealing with the pirates trying to swamp her in a similar encirclement — and her expression was even more relaxed.
"This is easier than I expected."
She slipped the pirates' net with practiced ease, toying with them as she went.
"Damn it! She keeps getting out!"
"She's used to breaking encirclements!"
Whoever said it was right. Calsira knew exactly how to fight while surrounded. She had spent her life being forced into unfavorable battles; enemies who knew nothing about her always leaned on numbers, boxed her in, and tried to crush her under sheer weight of fire. She had always come back alive from those fights. Against that standard, a pirate encirclement was almost laughable.
"Hup."
She drew a sharp breath, tensed, and deliberately slowed — then put a rifle shot into one of the pirates trailing her.
KRA-KOOM!
Huh? He actually ate that?
It had been a simple harassing shot — nice if it hit, fine if it missed. Watching a pirate mecha come apart under it left her more startled than satisfied. Confusion flooded her mind, but she kept the tension in her frame, re-accelerated, and slipped the return fire from the pilot who had just lost a comrade.
Why? Why did that land?
From longer range they had dodged cleanly enough. So they weren't completely talentless.
To test them, Calsira changed heading and charged straight in. Their numbers were low enough that a few direct hits wouldn't kill her.
No close-combat weapons, though!
Unfortunately, the ruins had yielded nothing but laser rifles. Still, with a Gareld's output, even bare fists and kicks packed serious force. She locked the rifle to her back so it wouldn't take a stray hit, lit her boosters, and closed.
"You little shit!"
"Die!"
Convinced she was mocking them by charging unarmed, the two pirates drew heat axes from either side. Energy flooded through the palm connectors; the axe blades flared cherry-red in an instant.
A shield would fail under enough concentrated force — exactly the kind of force two mechas swinging heat axes from both flanks could deliver.
But the moment Calsira saw the attack, the source of her unease snapped into focus.
Slow.
Not the smug, speedster-dodging-and-laughing kind of slow from a battle manga. Genuinely, physically slow.
Becoming Jincheon's woman — taking in his seed — had strengthened her body beyond what it once was. But this was something more fundamental than that.
She slipped both heat axes with clean, economical movement, kicked one mecha hard in the flank to shove it away, and opened the distance. By her standards, the pirates' machines moved a full beat late every time they swung.
Their reaction speed is lagging. The mechas can't keep up with the pilots.
Until now, everyone Calsira had fought had been elite — hand-picked by the Anti-Zabalcan Alliance for the sole purpose of killing the Horned Empress. Mecha, pilot, equipment: every piece of the package had been top-tier, prepared with national-level support.
These men? No matter how hard they prepared, they were still just pirates. The gulf between state-backed elite troops and the "elites" of one pirate faction out of the countless swarms in the lawless star systems was absolute.
At this level of skill, she could handle three times their number.
What was I even tense about?
Her usual measuring stick — the ace pilots of the Anti-Zabalcan Alliance — had simply been set too high. Calsira's expression eased.
"You dare toy with us!?"
One pirate, realizing he was being played with, roared in fury and lit his boosters for a charge.
Calsira already knew his measure. She flew straight into him and drove her shoulder into his torso.
"Ghak!"
The cockpit slammed hard enough to rattle his bones. He scrambled just to keep his center of gravity.
Zzt-crack!
Calsira put a rifle shot through the wrist holding the heat axe, carving upward in a single stroke. She tore the weapon free from the heat-severed joint and brought it down through the pirate's torso in one continuous cut.
KRZZZT-CRACK!
The superheated axe blade split the mecha cleanly on a diagonal. Same weapon — vastly different result, courtesy of the Gareld's superior specs.
"U-uwaaagh! Spare m—!"
KRAAAANG!
The mecha came apart in two halves; the power core went up with it, and the pilot in the cockpit was reduced to ash in the blast.
The last remaining mecha spun and fled, thoroughly terrified of what it had just witnessed.
"Fuck! Fuck! I can't take that thing alone—!"
Pii-chiiiik!
Calsira put a rifle shot clean through the fleeing pirate's back and finished him without ceremony.
It wasn't that the people I've been fighting were the norm — they were just strong. This is what ordinary skill looks like. Honestly, the idea of going out into the wider world scared me a little… but if this is the standard, I can live with it.
She had spent her whole life caged as a Zabalcan royal. The fear of stepping into the open world loosened its grip, and a new ease settled over her.
Heliane's side looks comfortable enough… and Jincheon… wait, what?
She scanned the battlefield, found Jincheon locked with the enemy vanguard commander — and her face twisted into something between disbelief and secondhand embarrassment.
"What… is that absolute clown show?"
A pirate mecha was driving a Gareld back with guided rounds — smart-gun fire, by the look of it — while Jincheon's Gareld failed to land a single clean counter. The movement itself didn't look frightened. It looked like a complete beginner flailing against attacks he couldn't properly answer.
Wait. Beginner?
The reason for Jincheon's miserable performance clicked into place. Calsira lit her boosters and shot toward him.
"Heliane! I'm going to advise Jincheon — hold the pirates off!"
Heliane lacked Calsira's raw skill, but she had plenty of experience — and enough breathing room in her own fight to answer while she kept the pirates busy.
"Goddamn it!"
Jincheon snarled as he twisted and juked, trying to stay ahead of Jezer's smart-gun fire. The man kept his distance, darting at high speed, stitching the void with guided rounds. Jincheon threw himself into chaotic evasive patterns until the smart rounds lined up in a single file — then swept his laser rifle across them like a brushstroke and burned them out of existence.
> BEEP-BEEP-BEEP
> LASER RIFLE POWER PACK: DEPLETED
> RELOAD REQUIRED
He had repeated the pattern enough times that the warning tone finally told him the power pack was spent.
"Fuck. At this rate I just want to—"
Jezer's insect-like, needling attacks were starting to push real anger up through Jincheon's face.
Jezer, for his part, was growing a little unsettled by what he was seeing.
"He lines the rounds up into a single file and erases them with the rifle? What kind of freak does that?"
A pilot with that much raw ability was somehow failing to answer Jezer's attacks head-on — taking them one-sidedly.
"Whatever the reason, if he's showing me a weakness, I bite it."
Jezer reloaded and loosed another volley of smart-tracker grenades. Jincheon's Gareld scrambled to evade — but he was mid-swap on the power pack, and the delay cost him. A fragment of a smart tracker clipped home.
That shield won't last forever. Drain it dry, then cook him slow.
Jezer settled into a leisurely hunt — until a transmission from the cruiser's deputy captain wiped the ease off his face.
"What?"
The men he had trained personally — already cut down?
Jezer zoomed his cameras toward his subordinates' last position, heart hammering. Of the original seven, five were gone. The remaining two were locked with a single enemy Gareld, damage accumulating by the second. And another Gareld was streaking this way like reinforcements.
"So that one's the ace!?"
He had walked into a trap — or so he decided, and the conclusion was reasonable enough. One pilot had turned half his force into orbital scrap in moments. The other had skill but answered like a raw rookie. Any thinking person would assume the "rookie" had been bait to pin the enemy ace in place while the real threat cleaned up the rest.
"Goddamn it! Played by a piece of shit like this—!"
Jezer spat his fury at the man who had fooled him.
At the same moment, Calsira's transmission linked into Jincheon's cockpit.
"Calsira? You already cleaned them up?"
"That's not what matters right now! You're only trusting yourself!"
"…What?"
The scolding edge in her voice made Jincheon's expression harden.
"Your own ability is so overwhelming that you refuse to trust the mecha's performance!"
"……!"
"In mecha combat, a pilot's skill matters — but the side that knows how to wring every last drop out of their machine's specs has the advantage!"
Jincheon's face went rigid. She was right. He had been swinging his own power around and treating the mecha like a set of shackles holding him back from his true ability. A complete novice to real mecha combat, with personal strength so lopsided it had opened a gap he hadn't even noticed.
"Believe in the Gareld's performance and use it! Not getting hit isn't the same as being the best!"
They were mid-battle, so Calsira poured out everything she needed to say without waiting for his reaction. But Jincheon opened his mental world — where time ran slower than the void outside — and examined the problem until he saw it clearly.
Use the mecha's performance…!
Understanding settled in. A relaxed smile returned to his face.
Heh. I've still got a long way to go.
He knew now what he lacked, and what truly mattered in a fight between machines. The irritation and frustration drained out of him.
"Watching, are you…? Ha! So I'm the live prey for the cubs, is that it!"
Predators often handed a dying or weakened kill to their young and made them finish it themselves — training. Calsira's Gareld had stopped at a distance and done nothing. Jezer decided he was that piece of meat, and his rage climbed all the way to the top.
"I kill this bastard first — then you're next!"
If they wouldn't double-team him, he would break them one at a time. The Gareld he had been fighting had no close-combat weapon. He had meant to grind it down slowly. The situation had changed. Jezer drew a hilt from his hip.
VMMM!
Energy flooded through the palm connector. A blade of sharp-edged crimson laser leapt from the hilt.
"UWOOOOOOOOOH!"
Jincheon, composure fully restored, let out a scream of pure delight the likes of which he hadn't produced since Korea's run to the 2002 World Cup semifinals.
"It's a lightsaber! A beam saber! Holy shit!"
In a sci-fi world it was practically mandatory — and he had never once seen one in the flesh. The weapon this universe called a laser sword had just bloomed open right in front of him. For a man who had been waiting his whole second life for a proper SF world, there was nothing to do but lose his mind cheering.
"That weapon of yours," Jincheon said, licking dry lips, "is mine from this moment on."
He steeled his fighting spirit around a single vow: he would take that laser sword, no matter what it cost.