Chapter 34

When it first flickered onto the radar screen, Squall of the Station Security Team nearly wept with joy, certain the Imperial Military had finally arrived to save their sorry hides. But the higher the hope, the harder the fall; when the Identification Signal pinged back that the newcomer was a mere merchant ship, the crushing weight of disappointment hit him harder than a railgun slug.

"We’re doomed. Absolute goners! Dammit, I should’ve hauled ass out of this backwater station ages ago!"

The swarms of WIND—or "flies buzzing around a pile of crap," as Squall liked to call them—were already a chaotic mess of over a hundred light points dancing across his radar. The station’s physical damage was minor for now, but the capacity of the main shields was in a terminal nose-dive. It was only a matter of time before the whole place folded.

"Screw you! What did we ever do to you bastards?!"

Squall screamed at no one in particular as he lunged at a WIND ship streaking past. His twenty-meter titan of steel, a BISHOP unit he controlled via direct neural link, grappled onto the WIND’s hull—an ugly, mismatched patchwork of scrap metal.

"That’s number eight! Not that it matters when you’re pissing into a hurricane!"

The titan’s oversized rifle slammed against the WIND’s engine block. He squeezed the trigger, pumping four consecutive Beams into the thruster.

"I am NOT dying in a dump like this!"

He kicked off the dead WIND just as a flash of light incinerated the space he’d occupied a microsecond prior. Cold sweat drenched his flight suit as Squall shoved his engines to redline, hauling tail back toward the station.

"『Hiii, Squall. Congrats on number eight. Keep it up and you might actually see that bonus.』"

A low, feminine drawl crackled through Squall’s comms.

"If I live to cash the check, Bella! How’s the station? Is it still holding?"

Squall checked his perimeter with a short-range scan. Suddenly, the word [LOCKED] flashed in giant, blood-red letters across his HUD. He slammed on the airbrakes. An instant later, a Beam streaked past his nose, close enough to boil the paint.

"Go shoot someone else! Dammit, it’s a total shooting gallery out here!"

Squall’s desperate yelp was met with the infuriatingly casual tone of his colleague.

"『Well, obviously, Squall. We’re dead meat anyway. Might as well have some fun and take a few more of these losers to hell with us, right?』"

A crimson machine shot out from the station, swapping places with Squall. The chunky, heavily armored giant leveled its rifle at a WIND hull that had to be at least three times its size.

"There are some facts of life I refuse to accept, Bella. How many of us are even left?"

"『Let’s see... fifty-seven people. Ten machines. They really worked us over. Half my favorite grunts are space-dust.』"

"Heh. Give it an hour and we’ll be at zero. Wait, what’s that noise? That beeping is driving me nuts."

"『Oh, some outsider is trying to patch through. They probably don't even realize they're being jammed. It’s likely that ship that jumped in a minute ago.』"

Squall turned his sensor head toward the suspected location. The camera zoomed in, struggling to resolve a blurry silhouette of a vessel in the distance.

"What are they even doing here? It can’t be a rescue, right?"

"『Please. Where in this godforsaken galaxy are you going to find an idiot willing to risk their neck to save the Mafia?』"

"Let me have my delusions, okay?"

Squall hit the docking bay for a lightning-fast ammo and fuel top-off before throwing himself back into the void. He spotted a mangled WIND—probably one Bella had failed to finish off—and took careful aim. He squeezed the trigger.

"Does that count as my kill or yours? Do we split the commission?"

"『Who cares? Talk about it later. More importantly, Squall, you see that? That ship is hauling ass straight toward us.』"

"Huh? Hey, hey, don't tell me they're actually coming to help. I haven't prayed to God since I was in diapers."

Squall swiveled his camera back to the mystery ship. This time, he got a clear, head-on shot. A moment later, a sequence of bright flashes erupted from the ship’s hull.

"They’re firing! Oh, baby! I don’t know who those idiots are, but we’ve got reinforcements!"

Eight Beams tore through the vacuum. Two of them slammed into a WIND, punching through its hull like a hot needle through silk.

"『Those are Large-caliber Cannons. Judging by the output, we're looking at a Cruiser-class. Think they’re in the same business as us?』"

"No way. My money’s on a Military Detachment. No civilian idiot could land a Beam hit from that range. It’s gotta be the army or a top-tier Security Company."

"『Security Companies don't work for free, and we’re broke. Maybe the military? Did we have any VIPs hiding on the station?』"

"Hell if I know, but I want to talk to them. We still have some Capsules, right?"

"『Ooh, look at you, actually having a brain today. All yours, Squall.』"

Squall flipped his machine around and snatched up a Capsule Launcher from the dock. He aimed the mechanical giant at the distant silhouette, uploaded the necessary data into the warhead, and fired.

"Please reach... please reach... Oh, dammit! Again!"

The first Capsule was vaporized by a WIND before it could clear the zone. Squall slammed another one into the launcher, taking a breath to steady his aim.

"Go! Move it! We’re running out of these things!"

The Capsule roared away on rocket propellants. It narrowly dodged a few WIND Beams—leaving scorched trails in its wake—as it barreled toward the cruiser.

"『What’d you send them? Not your dating profile, I hope.』"

"I’d rather blow myself up than send them that crap. I sent the station’s tactical scan data. If they aren’t total morons, they’ll use it to target the ships carrying the jammers."

As Squall and Bella bickered, the Capsule streaked true. Once it hit the optimal distance, it shed its protective lead casing and began screaming data into the void.

"Did it work? Is it—?! Dammit! Give it a rest!"

Just as the Capsule began its data-bloom, a WIND Beam punched right through it. Squall cursed and reached for another, but Bella’s voice stopped him cold.

"『Squall. Wait. What the hell was that? Did you see that?』"

Squall blinked. Bella sounded... rattled. That was new. "See what?"

"『The enemy just blew up. No one fired a shot, but they just... exploded. I’m not crazy, Squall. Watch yourself.』"

Squall frowned, wondering if she was pulling his leg, but the sensors didn't lie. The Cruiser was still pumping out Beams, occasionally tagging a WIND silhouette, but then—

"What?! What happened?!"

Nowhere near the path of the Beams, a WIND ship suddenly buckled. Its hull crumpled as if gripped by a giant, invisible hand, before it disintegrated in a brilliant flash.

"『See? You saw it! Is that a new military toy?』"

"Who cares?! It could be a new weapon, magic, or the wrath of God for all I care, as long as it keeps deleting WIND! Look—the guys getting hit by the invisible stuff are all the ones carrying jammers. The signal’s going through!"

Squall pumped a fist inside his cockpit. He ditched the launcher and grabbed his rifle with renewed vigor.

"Wait, what’s that? Something’s flying in fast. Debris?"

Squall paused his sortie, his motion sensors screaming at a bizarre reading.

"『Now this is a surprise. Squall, look at that. They’re launching something. It’s not a Beam. It’s physical.』"

"A kinetic weapon? Get real. Even the WIND have Debris Incineration Beams. A Warhead Weapon would get melted before it got halfway there."

"『Don't ask me how it works! You’re too logical for your own good, Squall. There's a monster out there currently beating the hell out of them with those things right now!』"

Squall went to argue, but his sensors locked onto the incoming high-speed projectiles.

They were "slow" compared to light-speed Beams, but they were still screaming toward their targets at twenty kilometers per second. Just as Squall predicted, the WIND ships’ automated Debris Incineration Beams lashed out, thin needles of light intercepting the projectiles. But the moment the Beams should have hit, the incoming rounds vibrated, their coordinates blurring—

"No... freaking... way."

The warheads punched straight through the WIND hulls. The ships crumpled inward, dragged into the vacuum of their own ruptured guts.

"They're dodging? Dodging Beams?! That's impossible!"

"『It’s gotta be a new military toy, Squall! Some kind of insane new Guided Weapon! Our luck hasn't run out yet, boys!』"

The hostile blips around Bella vanished as she finished off another straggler. Squall felt the fire relit in his gut and surged back into the fray.

"『Don't give up now, you bastards! Hold the line!』" Bella screamed.

A chorus of ragged cheers and "Roger that!" echoed through the comms. Squall joined in, "I'm on it!" as he began emptying his magazines into the swarm.

"All the jammers are down! The line should be open!"

"『Patching them through now!』" Bella shouted.

"『S'up! Peace! Hey, quick question—is a Dr. Alzimov around there somewhere?』"

A young man’s voice chirped through the speakers. He sounded inappropriately cheerful, like he was ordering a latte instead of flying into a war zone. Squall stammered, caught completely off guard.

"A-Ah. Well, the Doctor is—"

"The Doctor is right here," Bella interrupted, cutting Squall off. "But as you can see, we’re in a bit of a pickle. Care to lend a hand?"

Squall realized exactly what Bella was doing, but he wasn't about to stop her. Desperate times and all that.

"『Roger that! By the way, those robots are freaking sweet! There are actually people inside those? Man, I am geeking out right now. Seriously.』"

The voice was utterly devoid of tension. Under normal circumstances, Squall would have found it grating, but for now, he just gave a blunt, exhausted reply.

"Save us, and I'll let you poke it as much as you want later."