Chapter 28 – I Shall Deliver Justice Upon the Scoundrel!

Arden's afterimage tore through the silence of space, accelerating hard.

Letaria Adeniam's eyes burned with a fire she had never quite shown before.

Blang. The man who had hurt her companion and stood in her way. The fury aimed at him was pushing Arden's output toward its ceiling.

"Prepare yourself, you scoundrel! The audacity of obstructing me--I shall carve that lesson into you personally!"

The heavy-armor machine turned its massive Gatling toward her and roared.

An impossible density of rounds flooded the void--but to Letaria, they were barely moving. She read each trajectory before it was drawn, magic tracking the pull of every trigger finger, the shift of every drive system, the direction of every murderous intent.

"Die already, cosplay woman! This time I'll turn you into a sieve!"

Blang kept pulling, kept firing, relentless.

It made no difference.

Arden carved wide arcs through the storm, threading every burst, closing the distance without taking a single graze.

(...Something's off.)

Even as she evaded, Letaria narrowed her eyes.

The fact that nothing was hitting--that hadn't changed. But the enemy's reactions were sharper than before. He was responding faster, adjusting sooner. Something about it didn't sit right.

"But if it doesn't hit, it doesn't matter!"

Arden drove to point-blank range.

◆◆◆

"Why won't it--why can't I hit her?! How is she still in one piece after moving like that?! What is she, some kind of monster?!"

Blang was screaming inside his cockpit.

The unknown system installed in this machine--he was using it, and even he was being battered by a splitting headache, vision strobing in and out. And yet that purple machine kept defying gravity, kept accelerating, kept moving like physics was optional.

"Damn--my head's going to split open... but let's try this!"

Blang wrenched his machine through a hard turn and let the Gatling go at zero range.

Letaria avoided it with the minimum possible movement and drove Arden's leg upward.

"You won't land it!"

A sharp kick found the heavy armor. The impact shuddered through the frame--Blang gritted through it and wrenched his machine upright.

And turned a hidden weapon toward her.

"Got you!"

The left arm's armor casing split open. An internal short-range cannon fired at point-blank. A hidden weapon--one he hadn't shown in any prior engagement. Timing that should have been unavoidable.

Letaria's magic felt it before it fired.

In the instant before Blang's left arm moved, she felt the pulse of energy running through the machine's systems--registered it against her skin.

Arden executed a correction so sudden it looked physically impossible, and the beam passed through the space where she had been.

"That's--you dodged that?! Are you seeing the future or something?!"

Blang's shock curdled into fear.

He fell back on rapid-fire hand cannon shots, trying to create distance--but Letaria slipped every one of them, closing, measuring the range.

There. This distance. This position. Even she, with her poor aim, could not miss from here.

"You're not getting away! Photon Rifle--take this!"

Letaria raised Arden's rifle. The moment the FCS lock indicator turned red, she pulled the trigger.

Three beams drove toward Blang's machine.

The first stripped armor from the left leg. The second grazed the chest. The third--

A detonation. Blang's right shoulder armor blew apart in a spray of fire and debris.

"What?! My machine--!!"

Arden's Photon Rifle was a current Syn-Fibra model--its output exceeded standard-issue by a meaningful margin. It had punched straight through the anti-photon coating.

"And now this ends! Photon Saber--!"

Letaria channeled everything into the right arm. The blade of light formed, brilliant and sharp.

She drove forward with all her momentum behind the swing.

But Blang was fighting with the desperation of a cornered animal. He abandoned the ruined right shoulder entirely and thrust his remaining left arm deliberately into the blade's path.

Metal screamed. The arm was severed.

He had taken the blow on his own terms--and survived.

What was left of Blang's machine could barely fight. But barely was not yet nothing.

"Damn it--even with that, it's not enough... My head--my head is splitting! I'll remember this, cosplay woman!"

Blang hit the emergency booster in his cockpit. The crippled machine hurled itself into the cover of the debris field and ran.

"Oh no you don't--this is not finished!"

Letaria fired her thrusters to give chase--

"--That's enough, Letaria. Do not pursue!"

Milea's voice, sharp with something that sounded almost like fear.

"Milea! Do not interfere! That man has to answer for what he's done--!"

"No. Your vitals are spiking badly. ...Calm down. The transport ship is safe. That was the mission. Come back."

"...!"

The words landed. Letaria came back to herself.

A warning indicator, blinking at the edge of her vision. Her own heart, pounding--she was only noticing it now. She pressed a slow breath down against the pounding, and another.

"...You're right. I'm coming back."

Letaria eased Arden's output down and watched Blang's trail until it disappeared.

As the anger receded, exhaustion moved in to replace it. But first--

"Zein! Fal! Are you all right?!"

She flipped Arden around and pushed toward them.

Fal's machine was battered, listing--propped up by Zein's beside it. Still there.

"...I'm alive. Barely. ...Thanks to you. ...I owe you one, Letaria."

"You pulled through for us, miss. Whatever that was back there--that wasn't a normal raider operation. But that's a question for later. Getting back comes first."

"Agreed. Let's go."

The three machines turned together and made their slow way back toward the Serpent, waiting in a void that looked now like the last of the evening dark.

Letaria watched the stars drifting past the viewport.

A small, private smile found her face.

The silence that follows a hard fight settled gently over the cockpit, and held.