Chapter 240

Mercenaries Etta was currently reaching the absolute peak of a mental breakdown.

The fleet she’d pinned all her hopes on was being swarmed by an absurd, almost violent number of filthy mechanical lifeforms. Any semblance of an organized chain of command had evaporated. Most of her ships were flailing in a desperate bid for survival; while a single vessel might take out dozens of enemies before being blown to bits, the enemy had more than a hundred times their numbers. It was less a battle and more a chaotic scrap-metal processing plant.

“…………I don’t get it. I just don't get it,” Etta whimpered.

Her confusion wasn’t just born from the sight of her fleet being reduced to burning wreckage. There was something else. Despite the battlefield looking like a soup of pure chaos, the enemy fleet was just… drifting. They were loitering through the sector with a casual, almost bored level of composure.

“Doesn’t look like many of them are even heading that way, ma’am. Oh, wait, a few are. Never mind, they just got pulverized instantly. Maybe it’s some kind of New Weapon?”

The Adjutant spoke in a breezy, lighthearted tone, as if he were discussing the weather rather than their impending doom. Usually, Etta would have blistered his ears with a string of creative profanities, but right now, she could only stare blankly and parrot him.

“A New Weapon…?”

“Most of the Drive Particles in the sector have been sucked dry. Looks like the WIND drives used them all up. Except for the Carriers and a few other ships carrying reserves, everyone is stuck in the mud………… though, honestly, plenty of ships can’t even fly despite having particles.”

Warp Scramblers had been dumped into the sector in such obscene quantities that it was impossible to tell who was responsible. Unless a ship was packing a top-of-the-line drive system, they were essentially butterflies caught in a very large, very high-tech spiderweb.

“…………Wait. Someone’s still okay,” Etta muttered.

She stumbled forward with the gait of a hungover wraith, pressing her face so close to the Radar Screen that her nose practically smeared against the glass.

“MS77… 59… 38… Admiral. It’s Admiral Sod’s unit!”

Recognizing the numbering, Etta’s face split into a manic grin. She tripped over her own feet, scrambled across the floor, and hauled herself back into her command chair.

“Admiral! Admiral Sod! Can you hear me? Answer me! Give me a sitrep! What the hell is going on?!”

Etta practically nuzzled the communicator, her face flushed with a desperate joy. After a long stretch of static and electronic screaming, Sod’s voice finally crackled through.

“Miss Etta. The situation is exactly what it looks like. We’re surrounded by a hundred thousand WIND, and everyone is trying their best not to die. Or, wait, I think we’re down to seventy thousand now. It looks like it all started when an enemy Stealth Ship Unit punched through. So, that’s that. The ceasefire doesn't apply to the WIND, after all. The guys leading them can just claim they were ‘fleeing’ and the robots followed.”

The static-heavy holograph shrugged his shoulders with a look of supreme indifference. Etta shook her head violently, dismissing his logic.

“I don’t care about that! Admiral, your fleet looks fine. You still have teeth, don’t you? Merge with my position immediately. We’re going to crush these bastards!”

“No, Miss Etta. I am no longer an Admiral.”

“Then I’m reinstating you! Now move! Surround them! How many do you have left? Two hundred? Three hundred? The enemy has less than a hundred ships! Hehe… we can still do this!”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to pass, Miss Etta.”

Sod’s refusal was as flat as a pancake. Etta sat there with her mouth hanging open like a landed fish before finally stammering, “Admiral…?”

“Did I stutter? I said no, Miss Etta. My fleet is currently preoccupied with self-defense and the recovery of Rescuees. We aren't in any condition for Fleet Combat. My priority is saving as many people as possible and getting the hell out of here.”

Etta’s relief curdled into an explosive rage.

“What are you talking about?! This is an order! Give me those ships right now!”

Sod gave a weary, ‘good grief’ sort of sigh and shook his head.

“No. I can say it in every language in the Empire, but the answer remains the same: NO, Miss Etta. If you want to charge me with the Crime of Insubordination, feel free to punish me later. But right now? Not happening.”

“That fleet isn't your personal toy! I’m the one who decides where those ships go!”

“Sadly, Miss Etta, the current situation qualifies as an Emergency Refuge under Galactic Imperial Law. Every individual is entitled to use any means necessary to evacuate. If my fleet looks like they’re following me, it’s only because they’ve individually decided that I’m not an idiot and you are.”

“…………Now look here, Admiral Sod,” Etta said, forcing her twitching face into what she hoped was a calm expression. “I don’t want to have a petty argument. We have to think about the post-war world, right? We should be on the same side.”

Sod’s holographic eyes were cold—as if he were looking at something particularly boring and slightly damp.

“You shouldn't have fired on The Facility. If you hadn't, we’d probably still be following your lead. But you pulled the trigger. The only thing waiting for you after this war is ruin, Miss Etta. We’ve lost.”

A heavy silence fell over the Bridge. Then, the bridge crew began to whisper. Etta caught the sound of a faint chuckle amidst the murmurs. Driven by pure, unadulterated impulse, she whipped out her pistol.

“Who laughed?! Step forward and own it!”

The Bridge went dead silent. Etta waved her trembling gun at no one in particular. A moment later, her Adjutant took a single step forward.

“My apologies, Miss Etta. It’s just that the Admiral’s words were so—”

BANG!

Before the Adjutant could finish, Etta pulled the trigger. With a sickening wet pop, the Adjutant’s arm was blown clean off. He slumped to the floor.

“Stop it, Miss Etta. You’ve lost your mind,” the holographic Sod said, looking like he’d just swallowed a lemon.

Etta glared at him, her eyes wide and bloodshot.

“It’s not over! Once I get back to the center………… no, as long as I’m alive, I can rebuild everything! I can grow a company ten times this size! I could build a corporation that puts the Mercenaries to shame in a week if I wanted to! I can read minds! There’s nothing I can’t do!”

She let out a creepy, high-pitched giggle. In response, the Admiral sighed.

“If you don't change, you’ll just end up right back here, Miss Etta. You’re alone. You have no friends, and you have no subordinates who trust you. Personally, I’d hate to work for someone who could peek at my thoughts. And this time, your enemy had exactly what they needed to counter that. That’s why you lost. It wasn't anything special. The enemy wasn't fighting us—they were just fighting you.”

“…………You’re fired,” Etta hissed.

“Wonderful. I’ve already got a lead on a new gig anyway………… so, I’ll leave the rest to you, Miss Marl. Without that Enigma thing, we would’ve been—”

Sod was saying something to someone behind him, but Etta wasn't listening anymore. The weight of her failure finally hit her, and she sank to the floor in a heap of lethargy.

“Sod………… that brat too………… I’ll kill them all……”

Suppressing her urge to just lie down and die with a healthy dose of pure spite, she used BISHOP to prep a Small Stealth Ship for her escape. She tried to stand up, but—

“Oops. Can’t have you doing that. Think of the poor guy who’d have to go find you.”

A massive force slammed her back down. She was pinned. In a blur of rage and confusion, she craned her neck only to see her Adjutant—the one she’d just shot—standing over her, literally treading on her. Etta’s eyes bugged out.

“Seriously though, shooting me out of the blue? That’s cold. You blew my arm right off.”

The Adjutant toyed with his severed arm as if it were a piece of a broken plastic toy. Then, using the limb like a club, he swung it and smashed the BISHOP control console into a million pieces with a single hit.

“No way…… you’re………… but…… the mass check——” Etta stammered, her brain finally misfiring under the sheer absurdity of the situation.

The Phantom tilted his head. “Mass? Oh.” He nodded as if he’d just solved a crossword puzzle. “You were trying to tell us apart by weight? Not a bad idea, but you still fail the class. How do you think I’ve survived this long? My usual opponents are the Imperial Military. Not petty small-fry like you.”

Phantom leaned down and shoved the stump of his severed arm toward Etta’s face. To her horror, the inside was completely hollow. There was literally nothing there.

“My job is to take you alive. If I wanted to kill you, I could’ve done it a hundred times already. I could’ve just kidnapped you, too. But I didn't, because I was terrified that someone actually competent—like Admiral Sod—would take command of the fleet. If he’d been running the show from day one, we would’ve lost. Unlike you, he would’ve just methodically crushed us like he was taking a stroll down a flat road. Your power is scary, sure, but it only works if the other guy doesn't know about it.”

As he spoke, Phantom touched the severed arm back to its shoulder. The skin-tone vanished, replaced by a dull metallic sheen as the two parts merged like they were hugging. A second later, he was moving the arm perfectly, as if nothing had ever happened.

“Now then, I’m going to do this—”

Phantom reached out toward the wreckage of the command chair and, with agonizing slowness, lifted a massive chunk of it. The metal block, which had to weigh several hundred kilograms, groaned as it was ripped from its housing, casting a shadow over the room. His movements were so slow and deliberate that despite several armed guards being in the room, they just stood there, paralyzed.

“I am going to hurl this piece of junk with every ounce of my strength at the first person who tries to shoot me. Or at anyone who’s still in this room by the time I count to ten. Ready? One… two…”

By the time he hit "four," it was just the two of them on the Bridge.

Etta, seeing the last of her hopes crushed by a man with a hollow arm and a very large piece of furniture, let out a tiny pathetic squeak and fainted.

Not one person being all-powerful, but everyone, in their own place, with their own strength.

The long war with the Mercenaries finally ends here.