The Red Nightmare
"Confirmed—it's the Empress Dowager's party! We've spotted the Rastold Silverion among the allied ships!"
"Excellent! At last, our Reinforce Knights get a chance to shine!"
The knights, already underway with booster units mounted, lit up at the prospect of making a name for themselves.
"I understand the hunger for glory," their commander said, his voice heavy over the channel, "but the enemy is the Imperial Guard. Stay sharp, all of you."
His red hair was cropped short without vanity, and the thick, solemn lines of his face belonged to a warrior who had survived countless battlefields. He knew better than to take the Imperial Guard lightly simply because their numbers were few—every one of them piloted a B-class mecha and possessed skill to match.
"I'll say it again: do not sink the Rastold Silverion. Remember—our true enemy is the Empress Dowager, who means to seize power through her own son."
Of course, none of the rebels would ever admit, I murdered the late emperor out of pure ambition and stole the throne, tee-hee. In their minds, the Empress Dowager had killed her husband, and they were merely preventing her from using her young son as a puppet while she ruled from behind the throne.
"Hey now, no need to get so tense," a frivolous voice cut in. A handsome face appeared in the corner of the main monitor. Only his features showed beneath the helmet, but that alone was enough to mark him as the sort of pretty boy who could talk women into bed without half trying. "I'll just handle everything myself, won't I?"
"Haaah. How many times have I told you not to underestimate the enemy?"
"You know I went to the capital to take the Imperial Guard exams, right? Looking at the ones who passed, they weren't anything special."
The owner of that flippant voice spoke as if even the Imperial Guard ranked beneath him.
"If their daily schedule weren't so damn—so ridiculously brutal, I'd already be their captain."
"True enough. Poltein can't even get motivated unless he spends more than half the day goofing off."
"I heard he was so lazy they almost stripped his knighthood."
"Tsk. Let's not dig up the painful stuff, yeah?"
Under his comrades' teasing jabs, the knight named Poltein grumbled that they leave the old stories alone—clearly the memories still stung.
The world really is unfair, the commander thought. To waste talent like that on a man who only wants to play.
Poltein's gift and skill had drawn love calls from countless knight orders, yet he was so lazy he trained only when the mood struck him, and his temperament was utterly unsuited to group life. He had given one commander after another headaches until he was driven out, nearly losing his knighthood entirely—until the commander of the Reinforce Knights, who knew his true ability, took the homeless knight in.
Nearly being stripped of his title should have been a wake-up call. Poltein never changed. He clung to his lazy ways to the end. And still, because his skill outstripped everyone else's, he always racked up the highest kill count whenever the Reinforce Knights entered battle.
"Your skill may be superior, but the Imperial Guard's machines are better than ours. So—" The commander broke off. "Hm?"
Among the tiny flashes of light born from the distant clash of friend and foe, he had spotted something alien.
"What is that?"
He zoomed the camera toward the strange light—and the instincts forged across countless battlefields screamed a violent warning.
"Scatter!"
"Sir?"
"Dodge, you idiots!"
The knights, finding no enemy nearby, reacted a beat late to the sudden order. Poltein, who had begun evasive maneuvers at almost the same instant as the commander, shouted urgently at the others—
Piiish!
"Wha—? Aaaaagh!"
KWAANG!
A single laser lance punched straight through the power core of a knight still racing forward on his booster unit, and the mecha erupted in a fireball.
"Sniper!"
The commander threw his machine into evasive patterns, certain someone was firing on them from ahead. A few more lasers streaked in, but the knights who had already begun dodging slipped past them by the barest margins.
Even while maneuvering, it's that close. Marksmanship like this has to be named-class…!
He was certain the enemy was a named pilot. The sparse number of incoming shots, however, told him the sniper was either a small team—or alone.
"Commander!"
"Can you do it?"
"I'll try!"
"!!"
The commander startled. Poltein, forever swaggering, had said I'll try.
An enemy that can make even this brat tense…!
The foe was so distant they could not even confirm its existence, yet every shot struck with surgical precision. Either an A- or S-class mecha—or a monster of a pilot capable of sniping across that range. Realistically, the latter was far more likely. An A- or S-class unit would already have been reported.
"Go! Stop that sniper!"
"Yes, sir!"
At the command, Poltein slammed his booster unit's engines to full and surged into the lead. The other knights scattered and followed in his wake.
Who is it? What pilot can snipe from this distance?
Ever since Poltein had learned of his own talent as a pilot, he had taken downing enemies as a matter of course. Now, witnessing a shot even he could never make, his heart began to pound for the first time. Strength gathered naturally in his lower abdomen; power flooded into his hands and feet.
Piiing! Piing!
Lasers sought his mecha. He weaved left and right, dodging, and the moment his radar locked the enemy's presence, he zoomed in without thinking.
"…What the hell is that?"
There it was: a Gareld painted a vivid, screaming red. Even Poltein would have hesitated to choose a color that eye-catching in the void of space—yet the machine that had sniped them was crimson from crown to sole.
He racked his memory for named pilots who used Garelds. A few came to mind, but none who flew a machine this deliberately conspicuous.
"Die first, then!"
Poltein had never been one to overthink an enemy. He banished the stray thoughts, raised his lance, and charged the red Gareld.
Pipipiping!
Short laser bursts spat like automatic fire, tracking the Gareld—but the machine belched thruster light far fiercer than any ordinary engine and jinked hard left.
Fast!?
The Gareld's blistering evasion made Poltein's heart hammer violently in his chest.
"Not bad!"
At last—an opponent worth fighting. Judging that the enemy wanted a long-range shootout, he flogged his booster unit mercilessly, determined to close the distance. After tasting that monstrous sniping firsthand, any pilot with a brain would expect the red Gareld to open range and keep shooting.
Kwaaaaah!
Instead, the red Gareld discarded its rifle, drew a laser sword, and charged straight at him.
"Idiot."
Poltein sneered, thrust out his shield, and loosed a volley of missiles. An ordinary knight would have met lance with lance; he was no ordinary knight.
In the next instant the red Gareld blasted thrusters and dove into a sharp downward curve.
"!!"
A maneuver like that induced negative G—blood slamming upward under inertia. Blood flooded the brain and eyes, producing red-out, far more dangerous than blackout. In extreme cases it could cause cerebral hemorrhage. Yet the red Gareld, having bought just enough distance from the missiles, drew a 95 mm machine gun with its shield hand and began intercepting.
Kung-kung-kung!
In a heartbeat every missile was shredded. Then the Gareld opened fire on Poltein himself.
Kikang-kang-kang-kang!
"Tch! Should've just run him through with the lance!"
Poltein covered his vital sections with the shield and kept dodging, cursing himself. He had never imagined the enemy would evade like that; better to have finished it with the lance from the start.
"Well done! Five of us will support you—take him down!"
The commander's voice came through, already dividing the knights into those who would push into the main battle and those who would back Poltein.
I finally get a decent fight, and now this…!
Poltein almost snapped back—but if this sector broke, the Empress Dowager would sail unopposed into the rebel-held space that supported her. Lazy he might be, but he was not stupid enough to miss that. He was about to obey when—
Pikiing! Puhng!
"What!?"
The Gareld facing him swapped laser sword for rifle, fired without so much as glancing behind, and detonated a knight's mecha that had been trying to slip past.
Tukakakakang! Kwaaaa—!
Then, pinning Poltein with the 95 mm machine gun in its other hand, it opened range at speed and streaked toward the knights attempting to flank.
"What the hell is this bastard!?"
At first he had thought it merely a skilled pilot. Now, with one impossible feat after another stacking up, a cold unease was creeping in.
Having put distance between them, the red Gareld turned both guns on the knights racing for the battlefield.
"Aaaagh!"
"D-damn it!"
Machines exploded or teetered on the brink; pilots punched their escape ports and bailed out under the red Gareld's fire.
"Poltein! Stop him, now!"
"I know, damn it! Fuck—he's too fast!"
Poltein wanted nothing more than to stop the red Gareld. But the machine was far swifter than his own, twisting through the void in patterns he simply could not match.
The five mechas sent to support him joined the fight and opened fire. The red Gareld banked in a wide arc, slipped past, then looped around to their flanks and rears to strike again. The problem was that even these inefficient, looping paths were still so fast that Poltein, flying the shortest possible line on full boosters, could not catch up.
"What species are you!? What the hell are you that you can take this kind of speed!?"
He kept hammering lance-gun fire at the red Gareld. It was useless. The machine performed aerobatics that would have blacked him out, red-outed him, and torn his body apart—yet it flew them as if they were nothing, and he could not land a single hit.
Kukung! Kwaang!
The red Gareld kept harassing, determined to keep any allied knight from reaching the main battle. The knights raised shields and their kill rate plummeted—but the red Gareld simply targeted the booster units the shields could not cover.
At this rate we won't reinforce our allies in time!
The commander decided he could no longer leave it to Poltein alone. The red Gareld happened to streak toward his own position; he wrenched his machine around and charged to meet it.
"Die!"
Shield covering his torso, lance leveled, the commander drove forward. The Gareld blocked the lance-gun lasers with its own shield—then, instead of retreating, drew its laser sword once more.
Watching, Poltein realized the red Gareld's pilot preferred close combat more than he had expected.
Damn it! If I hadn't fired those missiles as a surprise, I could have finished him already!
"Support the commander!"
Regretting the caution he himself had taught the enemy, Poltein and his comrades raced to aid their leader. The commander of the Reinforce Knights was no ace, but he was a seasoned veteran; he should be able to pin the red Gareld's ankles long enough.
"Die, you red vermin!"
The commander labeled the Gareld a red insect for its unnatural movement and thrust his lance. If I use ranged weapons half-heartedly, he'll just open distance and run! He remembered how Poltein's missile volley at the moment of closing had put the red Gareld on guard. So he forswore ranged armament entirely and committed to lance-and-shield melee.
Laser energy flared from the tip of his lance, forming a blade of light. The red Gareld met it with a sweeping stroke of its laser sword.
Pachichichik!
Two masses of superheated energy collided. The underpowered Gareld was driven back, staggering.
Now!
The commander fired his lance-gun into the off-balance machine—
Kwaa!
—and the Gareld, still reeling, blasted thrusters, threw its upper body backward, and slipped downward. The commander's face twisted.
"Damn it! How fast can you—where did he go!?"
"Commander! Right side!"
"Wha—?"
KWAANG!
The Gareld that had clearly gone down reappeared on his right and drove a kick into his flank. How much speed did it take to make magic like that possible? He could not even imagine.
"Ghhhk!"
The impact slammed him with crushing G-forces. He fought through the pressure, ready to counter—when a wire shot from the Gareld's left arm and buried itself in his mecha's torso.
Pachichichik!
"Son of a bitch!"
High voltage flooded the systems. The main monitor crackled; the control suite shorted out for a critical instant.
Whoosh!
Feeling no resistance, the red Gareld reeled the wire in and swung its arm in a great arc. The commander's momentarily helpless mecha was yanked along like a rag doll.
"Uoooooh!"
The wire tore free; control returned. The commander swung his lance at the red Gareld—
Kwachijijik!
—but the Gareld spun with elegant grace, slipped the lance, poured power into its engines, and carved its laser sword through his side.
"Pol—!"
The commander tried to call Poltein's name. The laser sword bisected his mecha cleanly, and the man in the cockpit with it.
KWAANG!
The explosion that followed erased every last shred of hope.
"Co… Commander!!"
Poltein howled, voice cracking with grief. Everywhere else they had called him careless, arrogant, lazy, and driven him out—but this man alone had looked only at his skill and granted him a measure of freedom. To watch that commander die without even a proper last word shattered something in Poltein.
"Uaaaaaaaaah!"
He charged the red Gareld—only for the machine to spin about and begin a retreat.
"Poltein! The Rastold has broken through our defensive line!"
"So what!? I don't give a damn about the Rastold or anything else! I'm killing that bastard with my own hands!"
A comrade tried to update him on the situation, but every nerve in Poltein's body was locked on the red Gareld alone. The red Gareld, having bought the time for the Rastold Silverion to punch through the line, no longer had any reason to linger with them. It withdrew at a speed no knight mecha could hope to match.
"Don't you run! You son of a bitch! Come fight me right now!"
Poltein screamed over open channel at the fleeing machine.
"Don't talk to me, you filthy man. It makes me sick."
The red Gareld's pilot left only that disgusted reply—revolted that a man had dared open a channel—and vanished.
"Uaaaaaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaagh!"
Enraged by the mocking tone, Poltein floored his engines and gave chase. He disengaged the safety lock and pushed the thrusters even harder.
"Ghhhhk!"
His body glued itself to the seat back under crushing pressure. His organs felt ready to plaster themselves against his spine. And still—even after all of that—
"Why!? Why won't it get closer!? Why!?"
The red Gareld simply flew faster, racing effortlessly toward the Rastold Silverion.
"Ugh—! Uwek!"
He had clenched his gut against the G-forces, but the act of roaring out his fury loosened that tension, and he vomited. The safety lock existed precisely to prevent situations like this.
"Red Gareld…!"
Poltein cracked open the faceplate of his helmet, cleared the vomit, and stared after the dwindling crimson silhouette, biting his lip until blood ran. For the first time since he had become a pilot, his eyes filled with the absolute, crushing weight of defeat—and with a rage that would never cool.