Give me the fire extinguisher. Anybody injured?
Wu’s taken shrapnel! He’s unconscious! Someone see to him!
“Ngh...” Mao muttered helplessly. Her only option was to grip her M9’s control stick and read her machine’s status. No damage to the machine, she realized. Ready to drop at any time.
There were ten kilometers left to the drop point.
She thought, Hurry...
There was no stress worse than that felt by a paratrooper. The enemies could be attacking and there’d be nothing you could do. All the training you’d done, all the skills you’d acquired... You could fall to your death without ever getting a chance to use any of them.
“Laguz-2, I’ve destroyed two enemy anti-air SAM sites. As far as I can tell, there’s only one le—” A wave of static hissed out, and Laguz-2’s communications cut off.
“Laguz-1 here,” their escort reported. “Laguz-2 took a hit. I can see smoke. Laguz-2, can you hear me? Laguz-2, respond!”
Six kilometers left to the drop point.
Hurry!
“Laguz-2 went down near coordinates 21-82. No sign of parachute. I repeat. No sign of parachute!”
One of their FAV-8s was down, Mao realized, and they didn’t know if the pilot was alive or dead.
“Pilot to all drop units. Engine 1 output is dropping. We can’t maintain altitude. I repeat. We cannot maintain altitude!”
The fire in the cargo bay was getting worse. They were already in low pressure mode for the drop, so why was the fire still spreading? Three kilometers to the drop point, Mao thought urgently. Close enough!
“Ben!” she yelled.
“Right,” he agreed tersely. “Captain, we’re ready. Let us out.”
“Roger, Uruz-1,” the pilot told them. “Good luck.”
Mao was immediately assaulted by the howl of the wind and the engines when the rear cargo hatch opened. The blackness of night yawned outside of the hatch, and sporadic bursts of anti-air artillery fire illuminated both the night and the two M9s in red.
“Clear the rails! We’re going on ahead!” Clouseau, ignoring drop procedure, shouted over his external speakers. The M9 locks were released first. The alarm blared, and sparks went flying as Clouseau’s Falke slid down the guide rails and flew backwards out of the aircraft.
“Uruz-2, dropping!” yelled Mao, realizing that she had no time to follow procedure, either. As Clouseau’s machine disappeared outside the plane, Mao immediately released her own locks, and felt a heavy jolt as her machine lurched backwards. The walls on either side of her went rushing by, and in moments she was sucked out into the open air.
Mao could see the starry sky above and pitch-black ground below. She watched as the C-17 ahead of her, its right engine trailing a thin flame, moved off into the distance.
There was an explosion nearby. She didn’t know if it was from a missile or anti-air artillery, and her machine’s sensors couldn’t tell, either. The blast threw her M9 off balance and into a sharp spin. She couldn’t see the transport any more. She couldn’t tell which way was down.
Where’s Clouseau? Mao wondered. Did Yang and the others get out safely? Any damage to my machine? What’s my current altitude? She couldn’t read it with the screen shaking like this. Her machine was spinning so fast the sweat was almost flying off her in beads. Yes, my alignment... Got to fix my alignment...
Yes, you’ve done this many times before, she reminded herself. Stabilize your posture. Moving her limbs with all her might, Mao spread the M9’s arms and legs out wide. She could feel the strong wind pressure through the machine’s feedback system. She was moving right to left, so she pulled her right arm and leg in slightly, then extended just her left arm, in order to stop her machine’s chaotic spinning.
Her current altitude was fifteen hundred meters. She couldn’t open her parachute yet; to do so would only make her a target. So, for now, she checked her instruments and activated her ECS, switching her sensors to passive infrared to pick up a heat source in the cold mountain ridge below.
It was the anti-air cannon that took that last shot, she realized, and it’s still focused on me. It’s going to shoot again. Now—
Mao gasped, and swung her limbs to rotate her machine a few times, moving it to the left just as a tracer round burst in the sky where she’d been moments before. The proximity fuze had triggered, her ECS scrambling its aim. Unsteadily, she aimed her assault rifle below her and turned her master arm on.
She fired. Her fire control system adjusted her aim based on recoil. Mao’s 40mm shells rained down on the anti-air cannon far below, causing it to explode.
Altitude: five hundred meters. She couldn’t hold out any longer, and her drop speed slowed dramatically as she was forced to open her first parachute. Mao released the first parachute before deploying her second, and her descent slowed again. If there were any enemies remaining in the area, this would be her most vulnerable moment.
She released the parachute and went into free fall, speeding toward the surface of the pitch-black mountain before landing successfully. Shock absorbent steam jetted from the M9’s joints and Mao’s bones screamed in protest, sparks flying before her eyes as the shock ran through her. But this was how it always went. She gritted her teeth to endure it, and then drew her machine away swiftly in order to scan the area.
She couldn’t find Clouseau or her other allies. If they were alive, they should be nearby. She couldn’t make out the enemy units, either. No, that isn’t true, Mao realized after a moment. I can see my mission target.
The spot where she had landed was near the ridge of the gentle mountain slope. From there, she could see a towering mountain across a deep gorge. It was hunched there in the darkness, like a beast ready to pounce. That mountain was Ishkashim Base.
The entire mountain was her mission target. She had to make it to the entrance, which was halfway up the slope, infiltrate her way deep underground, and take back the launch control center.
“Fifty minutes left. Just fifty minutes...” She cast a glance at the clock in the corner of her screen and tried to let out a dry laugh. But what actually emerged sounded more like a cough.
●
Six anti-air missiles, fired by the three Behemoths, approached. With no way to dodge, release electronic countermeasures, or otherwise fight in midair, the Laevatein simply continued to streak through the sky.
I’ll just have to bust through, Sousuke decided, and gave Al his order: “Prepare both Zeloses.”
《Roger. Moving weapons C and D to firing position.》
The two 20mm Gatling guns mounted behind the Laevatein’s hips—i.e. the Zeloses—swiveled into place underneath its arms to jut out in the front. These were an optional armament the Laevatein had in common with the M9 series, weak but rapid-fire. They could spew out a hundred 20mm shots per second.
“All other usable weapons, too,” Sousuke decided. “The GEC-Bs, the Boxer-2s, the GAU-19s: move them all into firing position.”
Two Boxer-2 76mm shotcannons gripped in each hand; two GEC-B 40mm assault rifles held by each sub-arm; two GAU-19 12.7mm Gatling guns mounted on the head; there were eight guns in all, all of which now pointed forward. He’d use these to try to intercept the missiles. Something might still slip through, but then he’d just have to make it through with the lambda driver somehow.
“You handle the aiming and firing of the Zelos and GECs,” Sousuke told Al. “I’ll handle the hand and head guns.”
《Roger.》
“Don’t hold back on ammunition. On my signal, fire everything we have.”
《Right,》 agreed Al.
Firing weapons and moving the head and arms during high-speed flight wasn’t an easy task. It would create turbulence and destabilize them again. Yet the XL-3’s flight computer remained valiantly in control of its flight surfaces and held him steady.
The missiles approached as they reached the XL-3’s FLIR range. One second left. Distance: four thousand... three thousand... two thousand…
“Fire!” Sousuke ordered, and the guns, large and small, fired out all at once. In just three seconds, he’d unleashed twelve hundred shots of all sizes, and the surrounding sky—still steamy from the rain—suddenly flared a bright orange. The recoil caused him to abruptly lose altitude, and the engine almost stalled. But the XL-3’s sheer propulsion dominated the recoil and continued to push the Laevatein forward.
The wall of fire sprayed over the missiles. One took a hit. It was impossible to know which shot was responsible, but the missile itself went corkscrewing downward as it disintegrated. Sousuke took another to pieces just in front of him, then another, and then four more.
But that was all he managed to shoot down. He couldn’t avoid the rest.
《Five missiles remaining. Count 2... 1...》
“Hng...” he choked out. Focus, he reminded himself. Imagine.
The air ahead of him warped as the missiles exploded at close range to the Laevatein, causing its right side to buck upwards. The Laevatein’s lambda driver force field could just barely block the explosions and shrapnel from five missiles hitting it almost simultaneously. They were weak missiles meant for aircraft, so that stood to reason... but a set of slightly more powerful warheads might have sent him spiraling into the ocean.
“Damage report!” Sousuke demanded.
《Damage to XL-3’s left wing. First aileron lost. Slat actuator is also not responding.》
“And us?”
《No damage. Lambda driver is functioning normally.》
An AS was an extension of its operator, which meant that while Sousuke had been able to create an image of the Laevatein itself being protected, he hadn’t been able to imagine the same for its ‘wings.’ That was why he couldn’t protect the XL-3, even though it was his lifeline.
Damage to the left wing... He turned the Laevatein’s head to the left to see it for himself. The last quarter of the left wing had been torn to pieces, leaving him with periodic instances of nausea-inducing shaking. The machine’s alignment seemed about to pitch to the left at any moment, forcing the flight computer to stubbornly right it time and again. Yet the Laevatein kept flying. This jury-rigged booster was just as tough as its maker, “Bruiser” Sachs himself.
But it won’t hold out against another hit, Sousuke thought grimly. He withdrew all his weapons and returned the Boxer 2s to their hip hardpoints, as well. His now-empty hands were ready for their main weapon.
“Equip the demolition gun!” Sousuke ordered. “Gun-howitzer mode!”
《Sarge. Are you joking?》 Al replied, finding the order unbelievable.
The Laevatein’s main weapon was the incredible 165mm demolition gun. The massive cannon, longer than the machine was tall, had the power to take out a Behemoth in one shot. But it also had such powerful recoil that, even if he’d planted his legs on the ground, he would still go flying back. To fire it while airborne...
《It will tear us apart,》 Al predicted.
“I’ll handle the recoil. Hurry!”