The Opening Skirmish (2)
***
"What in the world is that?"
Something pure white had torn through the atmosphere and shot up from the surface.
Watching the craft climb trailing a parachute-shaped plume of air with a sonic boom rippling off its hull, the fleet commander let out an involuntary gasp of admiration.
"I had no idea anyone could break through the atmosphere that cleanly."
A faint smile crossed his lips as he watched the object draw closer in real time, shedding rings of white shockwaves.
So that's the true identity of the unidentified energy source.
Perhaps because of its small size, its approach speed was nothing short of extraordinary.
Hovering leisurely 1,000 kilometers above the planet, gazing down at its surface, he gave the order.
"Inform the fleet that capture or boarding is the top priority. Discourage the use of main cannons."
"Yes, sir! Understood."
"One hit from a main cannon and it could vanish without a trace." Concern for his men's safety simply did not exist in him. If anything, he was pleased — it meant less work for him.
Moving a fleet beneath a planet's atmosphere drained enormous power and imposed countless restrictions. So naturally, he could only welcome an unidentified craft flying toward them of its own accord.
His location was the command-and-control bridge of a gigant-class mothership stretching two hundred kilometers from bow to stern, serving as the flagship of the recon fleet. Even if the target was a high-grade energy source, judging by its total output it was hardly a match for an entire fleet.
And a formidable fleet it was: three gigant-class motherships, fifty attack carriers, more than two hundred mega-class battleships, and over seven hundred standard warships, cruisers, and destroyers standing in formation.
A mere fraction of the main force, to be sure — but already more than enough to reduce an entire planet to ash.
Moreover, a craft that small could only put out so much power at once. It was not for nothing that warships grew exponentially more powerful as they grew larger.
So there was no reason whatsoever to fear a sub-ten-meter craft flying their way.
The craft that had launched from the surface came to a dead halt in empty space, far ahead of the fleet.
Its speed control... is absurd.
Observing the craft from stem to stern, the fleet commander could not hold back his awe.
'It's beautiful.'
As a Devrain, a people who worshipped beauty above all, he had no choice but to marvel at its form.
No — could it even be called a craft?
It looked as though the upper half of a colossal robot had wrapped itself around a woman from behind, cradling her in its embrace.
Her body was half-encased in a skeletal frame of gleaming white metal, with plates of armor-like alloy shielding her here and there.
Behind her, glowing with pale fluorescent light, a streamlined mechanical shield hovered above her shoulders like a pauldron, and beneath it, like a second pair of arms, enormous mechanical limbs reached out to assist her.
Trailing from behind the shoulder-mounted shield hung a pair of fifty-meter white wings like twin tails, their surfaces studded with razor-sharp metal panels packed as tight as feathers, spewing white flame.
Goodness... a design like that is even possible?
Above the woman's head floated a mechanism reminiscent of an Eastern-style helmet, a three-pronged crest jutting from the center of its brow.
Each mechanism moved organically and seamlessly around the woman at the center.
A truly enviable design.
And yet the officer in him, down to the marrow, could only conclude that for all its beauty, it was utterly impractical.
After all, only the power source mattered; the exterior was irrelevant.
Reassessing the craft hovering serenely before him, he amended his orders.
"One misplaced shell and we won't even leave a smudge. Send in the interceptors."
"Yes, sir."
[All squadrons, launch.]
At the command, more than ten thousand interceptors poured from a thousand warships.
The sight of hangar bays opening and fighters streaming out was beyond majestic.
A veritable tide of war filled the void and hurled itself at the unidentified craft.
And then light detonated from the white machine.
The instant it happened, the fifty-meter wings snapped out to either side, and the feather-like metal panels sloughed away in a rush, swirling into a vortex around her.
Tzap—
And then she was gone.
"!!"
She reappeared directly above an incoming interceptor.
In each hand of the mechanical arms that had been assisting her, she now gripped a slender, elongated fifty-meter curved blade.
They were the wing spars the metal feathers had vacated.
KWA-KWA-KWA-BOOM—
Tens of thousands of gleaming metal panels trailed after her in a long ribbon, detonating every interceptor in their path.
It was as if she were paving a road of light along her own flight trajectory.
KWA-KWA-KWA-BOOM—
Leaving a trail of blossoming explosions behind her, she swung the mechanical arms.
ShhhhAAAA—
A sensation as if time itself had stopped.
As the fifty-meter curved blades carved through the void, the nightmare of the Devrain began.
***
"Captain! We've sunk a mega-class battleship...! Grant authorization for the main cannons, now!"
"..."
"Captain!!"
What they were witnessing was the mechanical arm, transformed into a cannon barrel, hurling salvo after salvo rivaling a mega-class main gun.
The tens of thousands of missiles spewed by the ships encircling the woman were all swatted down by the metal panels swirling about her like dust motes.
It was dizzying.
When one considered the resources and time poured into building a single warship...
"Captain! Decide, now!!"
Yet even the adjutant's desperate pleas could not pry his mouth open — because of this:
— You must secure it at all costs. It will be the key to crossing beyond the Outer Cosmos and expanding into the galaxy.— Yes, Supreme Commander!— Bear this in mind. Do not forget that it is worth more than your own life.
It was the Supreme Commander's order — one he had stressed over and over.
If he authorized the main cannons and something went wrong with the target, his head would roll for it.
"Captain!!"
His trembling eyes went still.
It was the moment an attack carrier was cut clean in two by that thing's blade.
"Open fire with all main cannons. Effective immediately, the objective is changed to termination."
"Yes, sir! Understood."
And so began the ferocious battle of eight hundred warships against a single humanoid machine.
***
"KYAAAAAAACK!"
Her eyes squeezed shut. A massive flash of light over a kilometer in diameter streaked past her cheek.
When she opened her eyes again, she realized a barrier field had deployed over the section of space intersecting the main cannon's firing line.
"Uwaahhahngaaaahng!"
She wailed at the top of her lungs. But heedless of her anguish, the machine was already streaking away at high speed in search of its next target.
> AUTO MODE
> Pilot input: DISABLED
That was why.
KWA-AAAAA-NG—
Another warship went up in an explosion and oxidized into drifting dust. Auto Mode closed in on each ship with evasive maneuvers, then hunted down its engine section with demonic precision and blew it apart.
KWA-ANG—
In the wake of the explosions, red and blue light flickered across the void here and there, as if the Milky Way itself had unfurled through space.
It was as though flowers of fire were blooming in the cosmos.
ShuAAAAA—
The machine moved at speeds nearly beyond her perception, laying waste to everything in its path.
It was the very incarnation of destruction.
"KiiyAAAAAAK!!"
The main cannon erupted from the largest of all the warships. Behind her shoulder-shield, a rounded shockwave bloomed as the machine executed a sharp change of direction.
Rings of distorted air pulsed off her back in rapid succession, accelerating her further.
KWA-AAAA-AA—
It was the kind of attack that would make your skin prickle just from being near its path.
But her mind was elsewhere entirely.
"KYAAAAAAK!! One hundred twenty-four MILLION!!"
Her negative balance was multiplying in real time.
> -124,370,122 P
> -124,584,877 P
> -125,890,344 P
...
> -126,255,335 P
"KiiyAAAAAK! One hundred twenty-six MILLION points!"
She had just vaporized another battleship, and in a heartbeat her debt had ballooned.
"How is this even faaaaair?!"
She had been granted a point loan with the Main Manager's approval. He had set it up as a contingency, and the structure was simple: every unit of Ether — or whatever that power source actually was — the machine burned added straight to her debt.
And to top it off, not a single point of the price for the powered armor she was wearing was even included in that debt.
When she factored in that she'd also have to pay rental fees for the machine based on usage afterward... it was truly lamentable.
Ever since the Main Manager had stripped her of her entire fortune, she had racked up a tidy sum of Karma Points working as the Empire's holy maiden — and now there wasn't a trace of it left.
KWA-ANG—
Not that she could stop now. No — if only she could drive it herself, she would have moved as frugally as possible!
By its very nature, Auto Mode was operating at maximum efficiency, but that was cold comfort to a woman whose eyes had rolled back at the sight of her debt climbing with every single move.
Still — she had saved a world. Shouldn't she be happy about that?
"KiiyAAAAK!!"
Thinking of the Main Manager's temper, she had no idea how she would ever repay the debt now piling up.
If she had learned the truth — that the points being deducted in real time had actually been reduced by a substantial margin thanks to the Karma she earned for saving the world — she might well have fainted on the spot.
Her eyes were rolling back in her head.
Even if she wasn't the one at the controls, she'd hoped she could at least lose herself in the machine's rampage and blow off some steam.
These bastards... ME!!
"Dieeeee!!"
Perhaps sensing her mood, the machine's mechanical arms radiated a shockwave and swung their curved blades in a graceful arc toward the final massive battleship.
A slash of pure white light cleaved through the main cannon's blast and struck the engine section dead-on.
KWA-AAAAAAAA-NG—
"KiiyAAAAAAK! Cancel! CANCEL! One hundred eighty MILLION!!"
She wanted to slap her own mouth.
With the mothership's detonation, her points were going up in flames right alongside it.