Chapter 43 – You Need Not Use That Name, If You Please?

Seldia's residential district. Unlike the orderly sectors managed by the vigilante corps, this part of the cylinder lived on a different kind of energy--the mingled smell of fuel and food stalls and hard work, the heat of people moving fast through their days.

After several days of rest, Letaria Adeniam had come to the civilian shared hangar where the freelancers kept their machines.

The place was crowded with Makinas that couldn't claim to be cutting-edge but wore the marks of their owners' care like a second skin--rough-edged, well-used, and possessed of a particular unglamorous charm. Among them, one machine stood out: patchwork armor, reinforced sensor units, unmistakably itself.

"Zein--I've been meaning to ask properly. What is that machine called?"

Letaria climbed down Arden's ramp and tilted her head. For her, giving a beloved machine a name was no casual matter--it carried the same weight as a knight naming a sword. A genuine ritual.

Zein, wiping down a manipulator arm with a cloth, gave a vaguely put-upon snort.

"A name? ...Look, I've swapped machines more times than I can count. Getting sentimental about naming them is a luxury I can't afford. The moment you love a machine too much, you hesitate when you have to leave it behind on a battlefield. If I'm calling it anything, I call it the Rigune."

"The boss's machine is built on a base model called the 'Rigune,' made by Ledetel--so the name just stuck." Fal had appeared at Letaria's elbow at some point, twirling the end of one braid between her fingers. "The boss works that way, so I never named my machine either."

"Is that so... There are so many different ways of thinking about it, aren't there. It feels a little lonely to me--but I suppose I understand."

Letaria glanced around, and something occurred to her.

"By the way--where is Fal's machine today? I don't see it."

Zein's hands went still for just a moment. He looked away with a slightly pained expression.

"Ah... yeah. The damage from the other day was too bad. Could've been fixed, technically, but..."

"Uuugh... I had no choice, I scrapped it!"

Fal said it with undisguised frustration. Letaria looked at her and genuinely didn't know what to say.

"Oh... I had no idea. I'm so sorry..."

"It's fine though! Right now I'm supporting the boss, so things are okay! And I'm going to buy myself something really good before long!"

Fal's smile when she said it was entirely unclouded. The resilience of it made Letaria smile too, almost against her will.

"Yes--and when you do, I'll be waiting. When you're back in your own cockpit, we shall have a proper rematch. Arden and I will be ready."

"I'm counting on it!"

The warmth of the exchange still hung in the hangar air when the electronic departure tone sounded.

"Time to work. You're heading out too, miss?"

"Indeed. Today's commission is pest clearance and perimeter security. ...Then let us meet outside."

◆◆◆

Some distance from Seldia, the group reached the shadow of something too large to be called debris--a genuine asteroid. Rich mineral veins lay dormant in the rock, and before the mining ships arrived, someone needed to clear the perimeter of the creatures that prowled the surface. The commission: eliminate the Lithos Core.

The Lithos Core were less creature than walking mineral formation. Their bodies were irregular clusters of polyhedral crystal, articulated by multiple crystalline limbs that rasped and dragged against the rock--a metallic scraping that carried through the vacuum where no other sound could reach.

"All units, spread out--don't let a single one slip through!"

At Zein's order, the freelancers' Makinas moved.

Arden swept through the black of space in a streak of deep purple.

"Clear my path, you repulsive rock monsters--!"

Arden touched down on the asteroid surface. The shockwave rolled through the Lithos Core cluster like a wave. Letaria ignited the Photon Saber instantly. The blade of light swept through the dark and split the crystal formations open. No blood--only shattered translucent fragments spinning away, catching the distant starlight as they scattered.

Across the field, Zein and Fal's Rigune poured live-fire into the swarm.

"Fal--eleven o'clock!"

"Got it! Heat source locked, gatling sweep commencing!"

Under Fal's precise fire control, the torrent of rounds reduced Lithos Core after Lithos Core to silence. The other freelancers worked through their sectors with practiced efficiency. The operation moved cleanly forward.

Hours later, stillness had settled back over the asteroid's surface.

"...That's it. No mobile heat signatures on sensors. Operation complete."

Zein's voice carried over the shared channel, and the other machines responded with the sounds of relief and easy chatter.

"Nice work, everyone. Tonight I'm drinking something good."

"The so-called Runaway Lady--fine arm you've got there."

"You need not use that name, if you please? But I will grant that for me, this is simply how it goes!"

The words came out exactly as they always did--and then Letaria stopped.

Something was wrong.

Not the voice. Not that clear, androgynous sound she'd been half-waiting for. This was different--coming from a direction that had nothing to do with the asteroid. From the depths of empty space itself. A wrongness. A weight pressing in from the dark void where nothing should be.

"...?"

She brought Arden to a halt and turned the machine toward the empty dark.

Nothing visible. Sensors silent. But her sense--whatever that heightened awareness was--reached into the deep and found something. A presence. A pressure.

"Letaria? Something wrong again?"

Fal noticed. Her voice was careful.

"...Over there. In the nothing on the other side--something is... I cannot explain it properly. But something is calling to us. Like something is calling from over there."

Zein went quiet. He turned the Rigune's main sensor array toward the darkness Letaria was staring into, pushed the reception gain to its limit, and swept the bands that would ordinarily be filtered out as irrelevant noise.

Then, threading through the hiss and static--

A regular electronic pulse. Small and weak, but persistent.

"...A distress signal."

Zein's voice cut through the channel, and the tension came with it.

The signal was faint. But it was continuous. From somewhere deep in the lightless dark, it was calling for help without stopping.