《Roger.》 Al must have acknowledged there was no other way to keep the situation from getting out of hand, because he didn’t argue any further. Instead, one of the support arms reached for the demolition gun stored in the weapons station on the back of the Laevatein, just below the XL-3. He held the grip tightly in his right hand as the long barrel rotated and affixed itself right in front of his chest. He’d switched it to its long-range gun-howitzer mode.
Sousuke pointed the thick black barrel straight forward while still airborne. The confused flight computer clearly hadn’t expected him to do something like this during the course of an already compromised flight, and as a result, the oscillations had grown worse. Al tried to make up for it, adjusting the trim at a pace of thirty times per second. His engine output reached its upper limit, but the machine just managed to maintain its posture.
Sousuke used maximum magnification with his infrared sensors. Eighteen kilometers to the Behemoth straight ahead, he thought. He could just see it in his reticule. It grew larger and larger as he watched, and the minute he could make it out...
“Damn,” Sousuke cursed. The enemy was fighting back, and a massive gun—dozens of meters long, like a battleship’s main cannon—was pointed right at him. Its operator had probably judged the destructive power of the anti-air missiles insufficient.
There was no way Sousuke could do clever sniping tricks the way Kurz did. He just used instinct to correct the data given to him by the ballistics computer and took aim.
“Let’s do it!” he declared, focusing and imagining. How would the cannon he was carrying move as he fired? What kind of wind would rage around him at the moment of firing? Yes, I’ve fired it many times before, he told himself. I know its quirks.
He fired. There was a burst of flame in front of his eyes, and a creak went echoing throughout the Laevatein’s frame. The gun’s barrel trembled a bit, and his flight altitude dropped momentarily... But that was all, and he continued to soar.
《Success. The heat dissipation of the lambda driver is easy to manage while in flight.》
“Just track the shot already!” said Sousuke.
《I am.》
The shot, which had been launched from the demolition gun, traced a leisurely arc toward the Behemoth. Even a shell traveling at Mach 3 would take over fifteen seconds to hit a target fifteen kilometers away. Three seconds, two seconds, one second... In the maximum magnified image, Sousuke saw it hit the sea a few hundred meters behind the Behemoth and explode. He’d missed.
《Correcting. Next shot is loaded.》
“Good,” said Sousuke. He fired, once again compensating for recoil, and the 165mm shell flew straight ahead. The enemy fired back at him, as well. He saw a massive muzzle flash. A 300mm shell was incoming at a speed he couldn’t identify.
《Evasive—》
“Not happening,” Sousuke said, cutting him off. “Just pray it misses us!” From somewhere in the black sea below, a mass of overwhelming destructive power approached. The screen display showed it almost arriving.
Both shots hit at almost the exact same time.
Something flashed in a corner of the Laevatein’s vision. A moment later, the shock wave sent it shaking. It was the anti-air shot, exploding far behind him. A close shave indeed...
And his shot? It had hit its mark. A pillar of fire burst from the Behemoth’s chest, and it slowly began to topple backwards. Its arms, each the size of office buildings, stretched out toward the night sky as it dropped the cannon it was holding and sank into the sea.
《Hit,》 Al reported. 《Behemoth B destroyed.》
“Maintain maximum thrust,” Sousuke told him. “We’ll plow through the hole it left behind.”
Merida Island was in visible range now, and the remaining Behemoths on either side moved in while continuing to fire their anti-air machine cannons. At this altitude, distance, and heading, Sousuke managed to avoid them all by keeping the boosters at full power, and adjusting his altitude up and down.
He could see the silhouettes of helicopters in the skies above Merida Island now. The FLIR picked up one target after another.
《Six attack helicopters. They’re Mi-28 Havocs,》 said Al.
They were gaining altitude while approaching the coastline, and probably meant to focus fire on him when he landed. Not happening, Sousuke told himself. To Al, he said, “Pull out the Black Mambas. Fire all shots.”
《Ready,》 said Al, and the twelve short AAMs mounted on the XL-3’s wings all activated their infrared seekers. They locked on to all targets. Their targeting box flashed red and displayed the message “VALID LOCK.”
“Fire all!” Sousuke ordered.
《Roger.》
All twelve missiles fired at once. Their rocket motors lit up, sending twelve trails of fire blossoming out behind them as they streaked away at high speed.
The enemy must not have anticipated that Sousuke would have this kind of anti-air capacity, because the attack helicopters shot out infrared flares and dispersed. But it was too late; two missiles streaked after each of the six helicopters, and all of them hit.
A series of massive fireballs appeared in the sky over the island, and Sousuke reflected that if he hadn’t been in battle, he would’ve lost himself in the sight. Smoke rose up from all the attack helicopters as they crashed.
《All machines shot down,》 Al announced.
But the counterattack from the Merida Island anti-air guns and the Behemoths was fierce, catching them in a crossfire. Tracer bullets crossed paths around him. Sousuke defended with the lambda driver, but couldn’t block them all.