Chapter 289 - 290: The God-Tier Helmsman Is Online

Chapter 289: Chapter 290: The God-Tier Helmsman Is Online

"Kira, one Laurasia-class has appeared below the Archangel."

Inori spoke up again.

"Damn it—"

Kira wanted to shake off the Duel tangling her up, but there was no way.

Although the Archangel had crippled one Nazca-class, the other Laurasia-class had seized the chance to slip in and was now grappling with the Archangel.

"Mu-san! Cagalli!"

Kira could only call on the other two for help.

"You don’t have to tell me!"

Cagalli was about to charge straight down.

But then Mu had a sudden "flash of insight."

"Cagalli, look out!"

"Wha—?!"

Cagalli was just about to dive when her mobile suit was suddenly ensnared by a grapple cable that shot out of nowhere—Creuset’s CGUE emerged from behind a meteoroid, arcs of electricity dancing along the claw and lighting up the cockpit.

"This was originally meant for dealing with PS armor, but the red machine and the blue machine don’t seem to have that. Well, this works out just as well."

Creuset had outfitted the GINNs with these grapple cables.

Such weapons were hard to control, but with AI’s help everything became simple.

The GINN was no match for the Strike, and relying endlessly on high-drain particle weapons wasn’t sustainable either.

—But physical attacks being useless didn’t mean physical restraints were useless.

If you couldn’t use a blade, then use a rope.

Mu wanted to lend support, but Miguel and Olor had already tangled him up.

The Strike overloaded its thrusters and burst forward again, shaking off the Duel behind it, then fired a shot at Creuset up ahead; Creuset twisted aside to dodge.

"AI really is powerful." With the AI’s prediction to help, Creuset likewise evaded Kira’s attack.

But that very instant gave Cagalli her breathing room.

The Red Frame torqued its waist at an unbelievable angle, the anti-ship sword flicking upward from below to slash through the CGUE’s right-arm joint, splattering hydraulic fluid that froze into red ice crystals in the vacuum.

"Captain!"

Athrun cried out.

"I’m fine! Gang up on the Strike!"

Though Cagalli was fighting beyond her usual level, Creuset was no ordinary man either; the Red Frame’s right hand and main camera were both sliced off by Creuset.

"I’ve trained for a situation like this!"

Cagalli knew she was unskilled, so she’d already run through the scenario of being attacked by an enemy.

No—rather, such a scenario existed in the training system.

Cagalli immediately switched to the sub-camera and booted the CGUE away with a kick.

Though the anti-ship sword was lost, the Sword Striker still had a shield—more than enough for self-defense.

"Inori, what do I do?!" Kira was already panicking.

Had she... gotten weaker?

"In thirty-nine seconds, a high-speed debris cluster will pass along this trajectory. Two of the larger pieces are enough to destroy a warship and break the deadlock. But I need command authority over the fleet."

"Murrue-san!"

Kira contacted the captain directly.

"What is it?!"

The Archangel was a cutting-edge ship, true, but one-on-two was still a strain—and one of them was at the Archangel’s underside.

"Can we follow... no—follow Inori’s commands from here on?"

Kira asked.

"Inori? Are you kidding?!" Badgiruel didn’t quite understand.

But Murrue, at this moment, was utterly calm—and utterly decisive.

"Do it!"

"Understood. Neumann-san."

The first person Inori called on was the Archangel’s helmsman, Arnold Neumann?

"Me?!"

Neumann was drenched in sweat right now.

"Please proceed along this route."

"This maneuver?! On the Archangel?! Are you joking?!"

Neumann was floored.

"With the Archangel’s performance, it’s more than achievable. I’ve already sent a shipwide broadcast to have everyone brace."

"True—if it’s a maneuver like this, we could flip the tables in an instant!" Natarle saw it too.

"Please ready the positron cannon."

The Archangel had two Lohengrin cannons; one was cooling down, but the other was available.

Pity the Archangel had only received the basic AI refit; if it were fully computerized into an electronic warship, Inori could dominate it completely, and the warship-scale "Reaper Domain" could be reproduced too.

But that wasn’t needed for now.

At the same time, Inori also sent the signal to Mu and Cagalli.

The two immediately pulled back to a distance.

"What’s going on?!"

Noticing the Archangel’s odd movement, Athrun and the others were baffled too.

Then the Archangel’s engines roared to full power.

"Captain, deployment complete."

Inori’s voice reached Murrue’s ears again.

"Then... commence operation!"

"Positron cannon, begin charging!" Natarle sprang into action too.

Directly ahead of the hull lay a death maze of space colonies, warship wreckage, and asteroids; behind and below was ZAFT’s relentless pursuing fleet.

"Shipwide inertial control system, run it in overload mode! All hands, brace your positions!"

Neumann seized the helm.

"Now!"

The hundreds-of-meters-long silver-white hull looked as though an invisible giant hand had grabbed its prow, tracing an impossible right-angled turn through the vacuum that defied physical intuition.

The helmsman was drenched in sweat.

But Inori knew—this wasn’t even his limit.

"This is—!"

The ZAFT crews, seeing this sight, were stunned as well.

—The massive hull reared its prow at a near-vertical angle, attitude-control nozzles abruptly bursting with blue-white flame.

[Holy crap, Pugachev’s Cobra!]

[Battleship-scale!]

[And in the freaking debris belt!]

[Who even is this helmsman]

[Absurd]

[Insane!]

[Holy crap]

[Wait—that’s not Pugachev’s Cobra!]

[Don’t tell me it’s a loop maneuver?]

[666666]

And yet, even in the debris belt, the Archangel dodged nearly all the wreckage, surging straight upward.

"Now!"

"Main engines, full-power reverse thrust!"

Neumann hauled the reverse-thrust lever, and the prow—originally pointed straight up—plunged along a spiraling arc. Only then did the captains of the two Laurasia-class ships realize what the Archangel meant to do, and they began frantically adjusting their attitude.

—The loop maneuver.

When a fighter is being pursued, it hauls hard on the stick, does an "aerial flip" over the top, and ends up behind the enemy craft. That kind of maneuver.

The Archangel’s structural strength was sufficient, so it could pull off a maneuver like this.

"But this leaves you completely exposed, Long Legs!" Creuset immediately issued his order: "All batteries, fire!"

But at that very moment, Creuset suddenly received an alarm.

"Something’s closing fast?! Oh no!"

A colossal asteroid came hurtling in at extreme speed—and because of its sheer size, it paradoxically didn’t look all that fast.

It was like a giant beast that looked slow even though each of its strides spanned hundreds of meters.

And in order to adjust their attitude to meet the still-"airborne" Archangel, both Laurasia-class ships were now caught in very awkward orientations!