86 Eighty-Six
“Let’s all watch the fireworks in the First Sector someday. I’m sure you’ll all laugh at how bad it is.”
She felt Shin smile wryly.
“I don’t remember it being that bad.”
“Then come see it for yourself and find out if you remember correctly or not. Once the war ends and you’re all discharged, we can see them together.”
She then remembered, and her voice faltered. Daiya. And the other six who’d gradually perished.
“I wish I could have shown this to Second Lieutenant Irma and the others, too… Oh, I’m sorry. Me and my bad timing again…”
“Don’t be. I think Daiya and the others would be happy if they knew they were the first of us to ever get a funeral artillery salute. They all hated it when everyone got mopey and melancholic.”
Kino and the others seemed to be genuinely enjoying themselves, and she could make out their laughter. Shin himself must have felt something, too, because she could feel the undulations of his emotions a bit more clearly.
“And Anju finally cried a bit earlier, too. She tends to keep everything bottled up… So that’s another thing for me to be thankful for.”
“…”
Daiya and Anju seemed to have gotten along really well and had apparently been friends for a very long time.
“I’m sure Ensign Emma will never forget him…”
“That holds true for all of us. Just like you could never forget…my brother.”
He paused, apparently hesitant to finish that sentence, but eventually, he continued.
“It made me happy knowing that… I could never remember him, myself.”
Hearing that subtle shiver in his voice, Lena could hardly contain her disbelief. She had never heard Shin bare his feelings so openly before.
“Captain Nouzen…”
“Major. Could you please…never forget us?”
Shin had probably intended this as a joke. His voice and tone were, in fact, just a bit flippant. But through the Sensory Resonance, which was set higher than usual, she could make it out. Subtle as it was. Lena could feel the fervent wish that lay behind those words.
If we die. Even for just a short while, could you…?
Lena closed her eyes. No matter how strong they were. Even if they had lived through more battlefields than they could count. Even still, death always seemed to be looming over them.
“Of course I will… But…”
She took a sharp breath, declaring it clearly. That was her task—the duty of Spearhead squadron’s Handler, Vladilena Milizé.
“…before that, I won’t let you die. Not one of you, not anymore.”
However, no matter how much Lena appealed for Processors to replace those who had fallen, no matter how many times she petitioned for it, no reinforcements were dispatched for the Spearhead squadron.
When they went into battle that day, four more died.
It was a standard raid on a Legion advance force. The enemy vanguard maintained a foothold, but that was a decoy. The position seemed defenseless but was actually surrounded by forces lying in ambush. Sensing the position and numbers of the enemies in the impact point ahead of time as always, Shin had planned to detour around the ambush’s front and strike them from the flank.
For some reason, the Eintagsfliege didn’t deploy, and Lena didn’t detect any more bogeys on the radar screen, but just before they made contact with the enemy, Shin and a few others felt something. Raiden whispered something about having a bad feeling, which was what they all must have felt and was probably what had kept them alive for so long.
A warrior’s sense of smell, of sorts, an ability that stood head-to-head with Shin’s power to hear the ghosts.
Something fell diagonally from the heavens, and the moment it impacted, the radar blared up with a warning siren.
Those who’d remained vigilant—and subconsciously prepped themselves in a position that would allow them to react to any situation—survived. Griffin, who had failed to dodge in time, took a direct hit and was blown away, and Fafnir, who’d been too close to the impact point, was pelted with shrapnel and downed immediately. All the other units were knocked away by the powerful shock waves and lost their balance, which was when the second and third shells rained down in an intense bombardment.
The support computer reverse calculated the firing position to 120 kilometers east-northeast. Such a long-distance artillery barrage from the Legion had never been recorded. Moreover, the shells traveled at unbelievable speeds. Their initial velocity was estimated at four thousand meters per second, exceeding the maximum range for artillery by a bit.
The ambush itself was a sacrificial pawn to lure the Spearhead squadron into the artillery fire’s range. They had even predicted they would attack from the flank. It was a subtle, ruthless strategy, unlike anything the Legion had been known to be capable of before.
Had Shin not promptly identified and destroyed the Long-Range Observer Units that had witnessed the impact, and had the bombardment not stopped after ten shells because of some flaw in this new type, even elites like them might not have been able to retreat, resulting in complete destruction of the squadron.
And now, after they had shaken off the units in pursuit, the team had lost a total of four members. Chise, Kino, Kuroto, and Touma—KIA. A mere nine Juggernauts remained. They had finally been reduced to less than half of their original numbers and were now down to single digits.
“I…”
Grasped by terror, Lena tried to speak. Her mouth was dry. An ominous image, a certain horrifying premonition jolted her. The words left her mouth as if she’d coughed them up.
“I’ll have them send reinforcements. I’ll make them commit right now—today. This can’t… This is messed up…!”
The Spearhead squadron had been operating at half efficiency for weeks now. They didn’t have enough soldiers or sufficient time to rest, and they had only just barely been able to hold the line by asking other units to send reinforcements and take over some of their sorties. HQ was fully aware of this but had done nothing. For some reason, they could ask other squadrons for help, but all requests to fill in for their missing ranks were ignored. She even bore the shame of exploiting her connections with Karlstahl to have him put in the requisition for her, but even a request from a commodore like him didn’t bring a single bit of reinforcement to the Spearhead squadron.
Shin opened his mouth and said briefly:
“Major.”
“I’ll ask the Commodore again and have him vouch for us. And if that won’t do, I’ll do anything to—”
“Major Milizé.”
At that second, slightly more forceful call, Lena fell silent.
“Everyone. We’re all okay with this, right?”
“…Yeah.”
Raiden agreed on the survivors’ behalf. A heavy silence hung over everyone else.
“…What are you…?”
“You can stop now, Major. No matter what you do, it’s all pointless now.”
“What are you saying, Captain…?”
“Reinforcements won’t come anymore. Not a single one. No matter what.”
“…Huh…?”
And then Shin said it silently, declaring the truth they all knew but had never told Lena.
“We’ll all be killed here. This squadron is our execution ground.”