Episode 38

"Mr. Teiro, four high-speed vessels—presumably WIND—are closing in."

Koume’s voice snapped Teiro’s brain out of its state of stunned disbelief.

"Prepare for interception. Project our identification signal one more time, just for the sake of appearances. If they don't play nice, let the beam turrets do the talking."

Teiro cast one last lingering glance at the mysterious megastructure, then shoved his doubts and anxieties into a box in the back of his mind. It was time to focus on the shooting.

[[LOCK-ON SYSTEM: PARALLEL ACTIVATION]]

Each turret had its own targeting computer. He spun up four—matching the enemy’s numbers—and set them to work on every target on the scope.

[[LOCK-ON IN PROGRESS: 40% COMPLETION]]

An unfamiliar progress bar popped up on BISHOP’s display. Teiro watched the percentage tick up at a snail's pace, his brow furrowing. "What the hell is this?"

"Marl-tan, the lock-on system is acting funky. Usually, it’s instantaneous, but this is taking forever."

"Hold your horses," Marl replied, her fingers flying across her console. "You’re right, that is weird. There’s no sign of the Plum II being jammed, though. Koume, any ideas?"

"Yes, Miss Marl. It appears the targets are utilizing lock-on scramblers. It is a type of jamming equipment, though it isn't directed at the opponent's ship specifically. Think of it as a localized defensive screen."

"I see. So because they aren't aiming it at us, our sensors don't flag it as an attack... It’s like some kind of auxiliary magic buff."

Teiro had the book-learning for this kind of tech, but experiencing it in the wild was a different beast entirely. Just knowing the theory doesn’t mean a damn thing when the lasers start flying, he grumbled to himself. To compensate, he slapped the remaining twelve lock-on systems into gear. With eight systems focusing on each target at once, the sheer processing power brute-forced the locks in seconds.

"So the solution is just 'hit it harder,' huh? Marl, any word on that ID signal?"

"Radio silence. Should I start the fireworks?"

Marl waited for Teiro’s nod before letting loose. The eight beam turrets mounted on the Plum II roared to life, spitting out lances of brilliant blue destruction.

"E1 confirmed destroyed. Mr. Teiro, new signatures detected coming from the structure. They are being... spat out, for lack of a better term."

Teiro’s eyes darted to the radar screen at Koume’s warning. Around twenty light-points had appeared near the mysterious facility, all of them burning a path straight for the Plum II.

"Okay, that’s a lot... Let's stick to the meta and stagger the engagement timing. Turn sixty degrees to the right! Engine output at eighty percent!"

"Roger that! Sixty right, eighty percent power!"

The Plum II’s massive hull began a slow, sweeping turn. Teiro and the crew felt the slight tug of centrifugal force—a gentle reminder of the ship's physics. Compared to the nimble destroyers he used to pilot, this felt like turning a house, yet it was still freakishly agile for a ship of its weight class.

"The enemy is splitting up just like you expected... but this is odd," Marl noted. "They’ve divided into two distinct groups based on speed. Do you think we’re looking at different WIND variants?"

Sure enough, the light-points on the radar were drifting into two clusters. Teiro figured it wasn't a tactical choice so much as a natural consequence of their different engine specs.

"Maybe a new model? We’ve seen them with and without jammers before, so the internal guts are clearly modular."

"Maybe," Marl said, her voice tight. "But different engines? That’s new. I swear, the WIND are evolving faster than we can keep up with lately."

"I concur, Miss Marl," Koume added. "The reason is unknown, but it is possible a new logic-pattern AI has been birthed among them."

Teiro looked at Koume, and for a split second, the horrifying thought of 'What if this girl was my enemy?' flashed through his mind. He gave an involuntary shiver.

"Well, that’s a terrifying thought... Not much we can do about it now, though. Let’s just do our best for the good people of the Empire, shall we?"

Teiro pumped himself up with a sharp "Right!" and began assisting Marl with the firing calculations.

"E14 and E19 destroyed. Mr. Teiro, the enemy has opened fire."

"Got it. Marl, handle the jamming. I’ve got the gunnery."

"Understood. Should I launch the drones?"

"Nah, let’s save them. Until they’re crawling all over us, the turrets will do just fine."

Dozens of thin needle-beams lanced through the void. Thanks to Marl’s beam jamming, nearly half of them curved harmlessly away as if sliding off an invisible soap bubble. Of the remaining beams, four were on a direct collision course. Koume handled the shield control with surgical precision; the beams diffused against the energy barrier, leaving nothing but faint scorch marks on the outer plating.

"E15 and E17 destroyed. Mr. Teiro, I have run out of locked targets."

"Ugh, hang on, I’m locking the next batch! This is a total pain in the ass!"

The lock-on scramblers were still running, making every targeting solution a chore. Teiro clicked his tongue in irritation.

"Koume, can you triangulate which one of these bastards is running the scrambler?"

"I shall try, Mr. Teiro. However, our sensors are—pardon me. Calculation complete."

"That fast!? How!?"

Instead of explaining, Koume pointed a finger at the main screen, which was currently magnifying the massive, mysterious structure.

"Mr. Teiro, the scrambling signals are originating from that. It is projecting the field around every WIND unit in the vicinity. Because the output is so ridiculously high, it was trivial to trace. To be honest, if you weren't at the helm, we would be in a very precarious position."

Teiro joined Marl in glaring at the structure on the screen. He didn't know what it was, but he knew he hated it.

"What the hell is that thing? Seriously. Maybe I should just shove a few torpedoes down its throat."

"Don't be reckless," Marl cautioned. "It’s just a theory, but what if that’s what happens to a research station after the WIND take it over? If things get desperate, we’ll blow it sky-high, but for now, we should observe."

Teiro let out a frustrated grunt. Tactically speaking, she was right. Ever since he’d started his corp, he’d been scouring the net for WIND data, and he’d never seen anything like this. If it was a new discovery, every scrap of data they gathered was worth its weight in credits.

"I don't know if 'new discovery' is a good thing here, but it’s definitely worth a report. Koume, keep a hawk-eye on that thing. If it even twitches funny, tell me. We’ll play it Marl’s way for now."

Teiro poured his entire consciousness into the task, weaving through the complex encryption of the lock-on scramblers like a master hacker. He parsed the scrambled scan data, calculating exact relative coordinates for every blip on his screen.

Just as he finished locking onto every incoming threat and took a much-needed breath, Koume’s cool, level voice rang out.

"Mr. Teiro, the distant group has commenced firing."

Both Teiro and Marl snapped their heads up.

"Wait, what? They’re way too far out!" Marl shouted. "We haven't even hit engagement range yet!"

"I’d love to think they just missed, but—holy crap! Koume! Shields to maximum!"

[[SHIELDS: 100% OUTPUT]]

Teiro practically recoiled from the monitor as a literal wall of light filled the screen. Individually, the beams weren't massive, but the sheer volume was staggering.

"Thirty-eight beams incoming! Teiro, those are destroyer-class signatures!" Marl screamed.

"Dammit! Alan, Bella, Squall, prep for launch! Handle the small fry!"

"[[STAR DUST HERE. ROGER THAT, BOSS.]]"

"[[BLUE COMET COPIES. WE’RE READY TO GO ANYTIME!]]"

"[[BLACK METEOR. SAME HERE. I ASSUME WE’RE USING ANTI-SHIP RIFLES?]]"

Teiro opened his mouth to reply to Squall, but another volley of beams slammed into their perimeter, forcing him to cancel the transmission. He had to focus everything on assisting Marl’s jamming and the defensive firing solutions.

"Large ships? Crap, what do I do... what do I do...?"

His eyes went bloodshot as he locked onto the ten destroyer-class WIND units in the distance. This was way outside the mission parameters. Facing ten destroyers at once was enough to make even a seasoned captain break out in a cold sweat.

"Teiro, get a grip!" Marl shouted. "Focus on your shooting! Don't forget, we have that 'retro-futuristic' hardware you dreamed up!"

A wicked smirk tugged at the corner of Teiro’s mouth. According to the textbooks at the Military Academy, one cruiser against ten destroyers was a suicide mission. But as Marl pointed out, he had an ace up his sleeve that the WIND didn't.

"You’re damn right... Alright! Turn sixty left! Target: the destroyer group! Full reverse thrust!"

Marl reacted instantly. They stopped trying to lead the enemies away and instead swung the ship around to face them head-on.

"Frontal profile is the smallest target we can give them! Turrets nine through fourteen, prep for firing!"

Through BISHOP, Teiro opened the hatches for the railguns. The fusion engine dumped a massive surge of voltage into the high-capacity batteries. The superconducting rails began to let out an ominous, low-frequency hum.

"I don't care what kind of upgrades you’ve got! You’re still just WIND, and you aren't laying a finger on my Plum!"

The stored energy was unleashed into the pre-loaded shells. Pushed by the sheer power of Lorentz force, the projectiles tore through the barrels in a shroud of white-hot plasma and screamed into the vacuum of space.

"Go get 'em! Eat my ten-thousand credit bullets!"

As Teiro roared, Marl let out a cheer of her own.

A single shot from a beam weapon cost maybe a few hundred credits. These? These were in a different league entirely.