Alarms blared as the steam catapult and rocket motors roared to life simultaneously. Sousuke felt a blast of explosive acceleration, as though a massive invisible hand was shoving at him from behind as the tip of the flight deck sped closer and closer. The catapult released him automatically, casting his machine out over the ocean. But just as the Laevatein seemed about to crash into the black waves, it achieved lift and accelerated as it began to ascend.
In his rear-view monitor, he could see the de Danaan immediately closing its flight hatch to resubmerge. In the blink of an eye it was miles away, quickly rendered invisible behind the curtain of rain and mist.
As expected, the Laevatein was vibrating wildly, jerking in all directions so violently that Sousuke was amazed it was really flying. Am I crashing already? he wondered. No, he was still flying... The readings on his screen showed that despite the shaking, his speed was evening out. But even with wings, this was less like flying and more like being shot out of a cannon: the immense propulsion of the XL-3 was throwing this aerodynamically unstable “ground weapon” at Merida Island through brute force alone.
《Vehicle resembling a ship detected in our path,》 Al reported. 《Distance, 317. Bearing 0-8-6.》
“Classification?!” Sousuke found himself shouting over the powerful noise and vibrations.
《Unknown. Same signals detected at bearings 0-8-1 and 0-9-3.》
Sousuke knew that the sensors on an M9 or the Arbalest would have been able to give him more detail, but at this distance and in this state, it was frankly impressive that the Laevatein even got as far as “resembling a ship.” He was fully reliant on the XL-3’s inherent FLIR and navigation radar.
Three ships in my path... That can’t be right, thought Sousuke. The water would be shallow in that area, and all but the most experienced crews would avoid it for fear of running aground. For them to specifically stake out a place there meant—
“They’re not ships,” he realized. “They’re Behemoths!” Those massive ASes... The data they’d acquired suggested that they would still have three of them left.
《Something like active radar detected, a lock, possibly from anti-air missiles, 》 said Al. 《They’ve been fired. Four each. Twelve in total. Evasive maneuvers?》
“Not an option!” Sousuke yelled back. It was impossible to dodge modern anti-air missiles with simple evasive maneuvers—and he wasn’t piloting a fighter jet, anyway. A sharp turn would snap their wings off from the g-forces, or at best, they’d lose speed and plummet into the ocean. Of course, it went without saying that he didn’t have any electronic warfare equipment.
The twelve missiles approached.
Three seconds to contact—
●
Around the time that the Laevatein was picking up the Behemoths’ anti-air radar pings, alarms were also ringing out in the C-17 transport carrying Mao and the others.
“Missiles incoming,” the control room advised. “We’re trying to dodge. Brace for impact.”
“Anti-ECS missiles? For the love of...” Mao clicked her tongue from the cockpit of her M9, which was on standby in the plane’s cargo bay. The transport was ECS-enabled, which meant their enemies shouldn’t have been able to track their approach with normal radar... yet they were still getting ‘welcome fireworks’ as they approached the drop point. With electronic warfare systems and at this altitude, they should be able to avoid a direct hit even from anti-ECS missiles, but—
She felt a jolt, followed by the sound of an explosion. An enemy missile had climbed to ten thousand meters and exploded near the transport. Mao couldn’t tell their current status from the cockpit. She just had to trust in the pilot’s skill, and pray that the plane held out. “Did we take a direct hit?!” she called out.
“No, probably just a fragment!” replied the pilot. “There’s a fire in the second engine! Working to put it out now!”
The right-side jet engine was howling terribly with a piercing sound of turbines. The noise then quieted down; perhaps the pilot had turned the engine off. At the same time, though, the plane’s vibrations got worse. They were flying on one lung, with two ASes and 32 soldiers aboard. This wasn’t good.
“Enough, let’s just drop—” Mao tried.
“No, hold out a while longer. Just fifteen kilometers left. Can you make it?” Clouseau said to the pilot, cutting her off.
“Ben?!” she questioned.
“If we drop now, we’ll be too far from the target,” he reminded her. “We’d have to cross the mountain, and we don’t have time for that.”
“Geh...” Mao muttered. He was right; she’d just have to grit her teeth and leave it to them.
“Got it. Ah, we’ll hold out somehow, I’m sure! Just be ready to go at any time!” the pilot responded, and then relayed their situation to the two fighter jet escorts. These were Mithril’s last two FAV-8 super harriers, who’d rendezvoused with them mid-flight on the border with Pakistan. They’d already begun to return fire at the enemy site that had fired the anti-air missile, dropping precipitously to a dangerous altitude.
“Laguz-1, roger!” the super harrier’s pilot responded. “We’ll escort you as far as we can! We’ll get you to Point Echo however it—”
Another warning blared out: an anti-air missile was on the way. Their transport banked valiantly while broadcasting a hologram decoy to evade.
There was another explosion. This came from farther away than the last one, but their plane was still bombarded by shrapnel, and the world around her shook. If Mao hadn’t already been gritting her teeth, she probably would’ve bit her tongue, because the front part of the cargo bay was now on fire. She could hear Yang and the others, on standby in their drop gear, shouting.