The Red Gareld's Mockery
The mercenaries came on hard, but the Saisalas charged straight into them like a heavy infantryman, trusting its thick shields and armor to carry it through.
Behind it, the navy-blue Gareld used the Saisalas as a living shield, then burst out from cover and opened fire.
BOOM! BANG!
As if it could read every evasive maneuver the mercenaries made, the navy-blue Gareld put one round through one mecha after another, showing off marksmanship so precise it was almost insulting.
"Goddamn it! Fall back! Fall back!"
Judging that a straight fight would get them wiped out, the mercenaries began retreating toward their ships.
"Bring the AA guns online! Kill those bastards!"
"You useless pieces of shit! You can't even handle that?!"
"Shut the fuck up! If you're so pissed about it, come do it yourself!"
A regular military force would have answered a call for reinforcements one way or another. These were just a patchwork of hired guns, though, so they spent the precious seconds bickering instead.
The Saisalas seized that brief gap and loosed a volley of guided missiles at the mercenaries.
As the missiles locked on and closed in, the mercenaries had no choice but to scatter in every direction.
WHOOSH! BOOM!
One of the mechas weaving frantically through the swarm, shooting down the missiles coming for it, took a laser straight through the torso and froze for a single instant.
KA-KA-KRAAASH!
The remaining missiles slammed into it. The explosion tore the machine into ragged scrap and sent the wreckage tumbling limply off into the void.
While the navy-blue Gareld sniped the enemies still dodging missiles, the Saisalas—having emptied its racks—kicked into a hard burn and charged the nearest destroyer that had caught its eye.
"W-what the—! Evade! Evasive maneuvers!"
The destroyer threw itself into a desperate turn, but a warship's bulk was never going to outmaneuver a mecha.
FWOOOOSH!
The Saisalas fired both wire-tethered arms, clamped onto the destroyer's hull mid-evasion, then reeled the cables in and hauled itself in after them.
CLANG!
It slammed into the destroyer's body. The armor plating over its abdomen split open, and the plasma buster it had already charged roared to life.
"Wait! Wait a second! We surren—!"
The destroyer's captain scrambled to declare surrender, but the Saisalas's plasma buster fired first.
KRAAAAAAAAAA—!
The concentrated blast punched clean through the destroyer's hull.
The Saisalas lit its thrusters and pulled away. A moment later the motionless destroyer erupted from within and became so much space junk in a single heartbeat.
"Wh-what the hell?! These bastards are named units, aren't they?!"
One was a Gareld that had once been ranked B-class; the other was a current B-class machine—the Saisalas. The mechas themselves were excellent, but the pilots were in a completely different league from ordinary mercenaries.
The mercenaries' panicked screams carried all the way to the ones still hammering the Imperial Guard.
BANG BANG BANG!
Weaving through the chaos with impossible precision, the red Gareld put round after round into mercenary mechas and blew them apart.
"Damn it! Kill that one first!"
"Take those two out and we've won!"
They had already confirmed the Imperial Guard was out of ammunition. All they had to do was eliminate the reinforcements and victory was theirs—or so they believed.
TUKAKAKAKAKAKANG!
The mercenaries opened up with everything they had. The red Gareld answered by dumping thruster burn in every direction, dancing forward, back, left, and right without a single pause.
"Th-that's impossible…"
"How is a human even conscious through that kind of G-force?"
The Imperial Guard pilots could only stare, heads spinning just from watching the red Gareld's evasion patterns.
Did some new pilot suit get developed without us knowing? Or is this a foreign special-ops unit?
Beatrix was certain no anonymous mercenaries could fight like this. They had to be special forces sent by another nation.
It's obvious. We're in crisis, so they disguised themselves as mercenaries to help us and gain leverage over the Empire.
They could have crushed or captured every last enemy with a flick of the wrist. That ruled out any enemy scheme. The only explanation left was foreign intervention—backing the underdog in an imperial crisis to secure diplomatic advantage and influence.
Their skill was simply too high for nameless freelancers. Anyone in Beatrix's position would have reached the same conclusion.
I can't just sit here!
She had no choice but to accept the help—but if she let them do everything, she would lose the political sparring that came afterward.
"Haaah!"
Beatrix lit her engines and shot forward, pushing the thrusters harder than she ever had. The red Gareld's performance had lit a competitive fire in her, and she forced her machine past its limits.
"Kh—!"
An invisible force crushed her into the seat. She clenched her teeth as both arms, locked on the controls, began to tremble.
"Die!"
She refused to look weak. Using pure speed, she charged like a lancer and drove her spear home.
KRASH!
"Fuck! You piece of shit!"
The spear punched through the mecha's torso, but the enemy pilot still managed to twist his upper body and bring a gun to bear on Beatrix's flank.
She started to wrench the spear free for a second strike—
KAKAKAKANG!
—but a burst of rounds from somewhere else shattered the mercenary's weapon and arm first.
Covering fire from the red Gareld.
"Haht!"
She yanked the spear free in that opening and drove it straight through the cockpit, finishing the pilot.
"I didn't need the cover!"
She didn't have the red Gareld's frequency, so she barked the complaint over open channel—pointless interference, as far as she was concerned.
"Heh."
A short, blatantly mocking laugh that could only have come from the red Gareld. Nothing else followed.
"Tch!"
It sounded exactly like someone snorting in contempt, and Beatrix's temper flared even hotter.
"What are the rest of you doing?! We still have our shields and spears, do we not?!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
"Apologies!"
The remaining Imperial Guard pilots raised their shields and charged. The red Gareld slipped through the openings they created and picked off the mercenaries one by one.
"Damn it! Run!"
"They're too strong! We'll all die if we stay!"
The mercenaries hired by the Galdorn side lost their will to fight and fled for their lives.
"Hoo~~"
Chasing them would accomplish little. Beatrix let out a long breath of relief—she had clawed her way out of a crisis she had already written off as the end.
"Hey. You planning to leave it at that?"
A voice came over open channel—the same one that had laughed at her earlier.
"What are you talking about?"
"Looks like you got chased out without time to restock."
The red Gareld raised a hand and pointed at a cruiser trying to escape.
"If you seize that thing and strip it for supplies, you'd at least get some breathing room, wouldn't you?"
"……"
He was right. Capturing an enemy cruiser and looting its stores would take time, but it would still be far faster than putting into some port for resupply.
"Wait a moment."
It wasn't a decision she could make alone. She reported to Eirin first.
"Mercenary. Permission has come down from above. Seize the cruiser."
"Will do. Heh heh."
The red Gareld's pilot obeyed Beatrix's order—and laughed while he did it, a sound that set her teeth on edge.
She frowned and snapped back.
"What is that laugh supposed to mean?"
"I figured we'd arrived at a pretty dangerous moment. Never imagined you'd start throwing rank around before saying thank you."
"……!"
"Well, you're highborn nobles. I suppose it's only natural to think lowly commoners are obligated to help. Off to work, then, milady~"
With that playful drawl, the red Gareld lit its thrusters hard and streaked away to cripple the cruiser's engines.
"…I don't like him."
Beatrix decided she would never get along with the red Gareld's pilot, and bit down hard on her lip in irritation.
The mercenaries succeeded in destroying the cruiser's engines. Equipped with the battle suits issued only to the Imperial Guard, the Guard troops boarded the ship and wiped out the remaining crew in moments.
While mechas helped strip every last supply the cruiser carried, Beatrix and Eirin prepared to meet the mercenary party that had saved them.
"What's with that face?"
"The bastard in the red Gareld. He's arrogant. I don't like him."
They were still in private, so the two sisters spoke casually, the way they always did.
"They pulled us out of a crisis. Of course their noses are in the air."
"No, it's not that…"
Eirin said it was only natural for the mercenaries to be full of themselves. Beatrix's dislike ran deeper than that—something more fundamental. The kind of person people called "bad chemistry." She had never felt genuine ill will toward someone this way before, and she couldn't put the tangled feeling into words.
"You'll understand once you meet them. Don't worry about it."
Unlike Beatrix, Eirin was preparing herself to approach them without prejudice. The odds that they were foreign special forces were high—and that was exactly why she needed to speak with them cleanly, without colored lenses, if she wanted to learn their true identity.
Look at someone through tinted glass from the start, and every conversation tilts that way.
That was why the Empress Dowager herself was going to meet a handful of mere mercenaries.
As they walked toward the hangar, the setting became official. The warm sisterly ease they had shown in private vanished.
Inside the hangar, Eirin and Beatrix took one look at the Garelds and the Saisalas and recognized them as heavily customized machines. The red Gareld stood out most of all.
Normally, speed came from a booster pack. The red Gareld had extra engines mounted directly on its back instead.
Who are they?
Which nation's special forces are these?
Even the Guard escorts flanking Eirin and Beatrix were watching with open curiosity. No ordinary mercenaries fought like that.
CLANK—
One by one, the three cockpits opened, and the pilots climbed out.
"Hm?"
"Huh?"
The first things that caught the eye were an Orobece woman with four arms and violet skin, and a Zabalcan woman with red skin and small horns.
An Orobece and a Zabalcan… together?
Eirin and Beatrix both knew that, dozens of star systems away, the Zabalcan conquest wars were raging. An Orobece and a Zabalcan standing side by side made no sense at all.
And the one who seemed to lead them—the man who stepped out in front of the two women—had almost the same skin tone and build as they did.
He glanced around as if checking something, then spoke without so much as an introduction.
"Strange. I heard there was a young emperor here as well."
He started by asking after the emperor, grumbling as if the boy ought to be present.
"You bastard! A mercenary demanding an audience with His Majesty the Emperor right off the bat?! Know your place!"
"Ah. The noble lady who couldn't even manage a thank-you."
Beatrix recognized the voice that had mocked her earlier and snapped back, nerves raw. When he needled her again, the expressions of the Imperial Guard standing ceremonial escort began to harden.
Only Eirin kept her composure. She pushed down the displeasure trying to show on her face and asked,
"Why do you wish to see His Majesty the Emperor?"
"Normally I wouldn't care what my employer's face looks like. But once you become nobles, you'll be standing over our heads, won't you? Of course I'd want to see the emperor's face too."
"His Majesty is still far too young."
"Could you say that same line in front of the loyalist nobles?"
"What?"
The man had gone too far. Eirin's face went rigid.
"Silence! Do you even know whom you are being rude to right now?!"
"The Empress Dowager, yes. I know it's rude. But we risked our lives to stand here."
Even under Beatrix's scolding, the man didn't tense for a second. He simply turned back to Eirin and pressed on.
"The loyalist nobles will naturally want to see their new emperor. Are you planning to keep him locked away then, too—too young, not ready yet?"
"……"
"If the emperor who is supposed to be their center is hiding behind his mother's skirts, do you really think the nobles will offer genuine loyalty?"
"!!"
The question hit Eirin like a thunderbolt.
To her he was still a child who had not even reached adulthood—her son first, emperor second. To the nobles, age meant nothing. What mattered was what kind of man the new emperor was, and whether he was worth their loyalty. The aristocracy was not soft enough to hand out free points for youth.
She had survived that merciless noble society, and still maternal love had drawn a vast curtain over her eyes. A mother could not help but think in whatever direction most favored the child she had carried and birthed.
On top of that, the moment he became emperor a rebellion had driven them into flight. Survival had been everything. The constant strain of simply staying alive had filled her mind to the brim.
"Your words are correct."
Eirin accepted it with a nod.
He is familiar with noble society. Special forces from another empire, then?
She suspected he had been sent by some other empire that still kept a class system. No one raised in those so-called uncivilized nations that prattled about "power to the people" would ever think along these lines.
"Even so, His Majesty cannot be met so lightly. Understand that much."
"If you've grasped the meaning of what I said, that's enough."
Seeing Eirin's tone toward him change, the man dropped the arrogance of a moment before and answered with proper courtesy.
"Allow me to introduce myself properly. My name is Jincheon—family name first. I am of Terran origin. This is Heliane, a warrior of the Orobece. And last, this is Calsira—Zabalcan by blood, though circumstances leave her without a family name."
An East-Asian man with bold lines and a sharp, handsome face. When Jincheon offered a formal greeting, the insolent mercenary transformed into a gentleman of real presence.
"Terra? The same Terra that babbles about democracy and calls the very idea of class uncivilized?"
"I was simply born Terran. Nothing more, nothing less."
Eirin immediately wondered whether his real plan was to accept a noble title and territory, then plant democracy inside his own domain and overturn the Empire from within.
We already promised him a hereditary title and land. A promise must be kept. But if he starts preaching democracy inside his own territory…
While Eirin turned over political suspicions—
Whoa~ That body does not look like some auntie who already popped out a kid! And the one next to her is the Dowager's sister, right? Both of them well-kept women in their thirties, but with the bio-mods they barely look past their early twenties!
—Jincheon was busy cheering over Eirin's and Beatrix's figures and faces.