Chapter 45 – They’re Coming! Is Everyone Ready?!

The silence that should have ruled this void was broken--a faint, desperate electronic pulse, repeating without rest.

A distress signal. For anyone who made their living in the harsh reaches of space, it was something close to a curse. It could not be ignored.

"Everyone--we're heading for the source of that signal! Full speed!"

Letaria was already pushing Arden's thrusters when a voice cut across the shared channel--older, measured, putting the brakes on.

"Hold on, miss. You just came out of a fight with those creatures back there. You're running on fumes. The right call is to head back to Seldia and hand this over to the vigilante corps officially. Chasing too deep gets people killed."

A perfectly reasonable position. Not a word of it wrong.

Arden tilted--Letaria moving the machine with the deliberate gesture of shaking its head--and she spoke without hesitation.

"I decline. If there are people out there in the cold dark, in danger, at this very moment--then going to their aid is the duty of a noble. Nothing more, nothing less."

The words were old-fashioned. They were also completely without pretense.

A murmur ran through the freelancers on the channel.

"'People in danger'? 'Duty of a noble'? That's a strange way to put it..."

"Is she serious? ...But that look in her eye. That's not someone playing around."

Confusion mixed with something harder to name. In the Rigune's cockpit, Zein gave a small laugh to himself.

"...Fal. You in?"

"Of course I am, boss!"

His partner's answer came before he'd finished asking. Zein opened the channel to the full group.

"All right, listen up. Letaria and I are going. The rest of you--anyone who's got ammunition and energy to spare, and more importantly, anyone who doesn't mind a job that doesn't pay today--fall in behind us."

◆

Three Makinas pushed through the asteroid belt and into deeper dark.

Letaria's Arden. Zein and Fal's Rigune. And one more--a heavy-armored older model that had quietly taken up formation with them.

"Well, guess it couldn't be helped. Keeping up with this lady is just who we are."

Zein muttered it with something approaching resignation, then glanced toward the third machine.

"By the way... you. What's your name? You're an interesting one."

"Oh, boss--I pulled him from the participant list." Fal's answer was faster than Zein's question. "He goes by 'Twoin.'"

The man addressed as Twoin let a low, weighted voice carry across the comm.

"...I came to Seldia because I wanted to see the so-called Runaway Lady in action. The one everyone's been talking about. A special-unit pilot. ...A moment like this one is exactly what I was hoping to witness. I'm grateful."

The camera feed from Twoin's machine showed his face: powerfully built, close-cropped black hair swept into a soft mohawk, an appearance that could only be described as imposing. But behind that, his eyes held the steady calm of a seasoned fighter.

"My, is that so. How discerning of you--to wish to witness my brilliant performance. If there is a battle ahead, I shall give you something worth watching!"

Twoin's expression didn't shift. He simply said, "I'm counting on it," and gave one deliberate nod.

"...We're getting close. The distress signal coordinates--it's coming from that ruin over there. An abandoned mining relay station."

Zein was right. Between the drifting debris, a vast structure came into view--something humans had once used, long since dead.

◆

Up close, the ruins looked like a tombstone the size of a small city, drifting through the dark.

Letaria studied the image on Arden's monitor, and her brow drew together.

"...Something is wrong here. It isn't just quiet. There is something... foul about this place."

Near the station's entrance, clustered around the container where the signal was originating--four drifting shapes.

"Fal, sensors to maximum. Kill every blind spot."

"On it, boss! ...There. Four Makinas. They look like they've got the signal container surrounded. ...But wait, these are..."

Fal's voice wavered slightly. Zein ran the imagery through the analysis system.

"No question, they're Makinas. But... they're barely moving. Hardly any activity at all."

Letaria turned her awareness through Arden toward the four machines.

Her senses sharpened. The voice she had been half-listening for wasn't there--but something else was: the complete absence of what she would have called the pulse of living things. Nothing. Not a trace.

"...They are unmanned."

Letaria said it with no uncertainty in her voice. Zein didn't question it.

"Understood. If you say so, that's good enough for me. ...Hold position for a moment. They haven't spotted us yet. We take one out first--clean and certain. We go on our terms."

The Rigune smoothly brought the massive long-range Photon Sniper Rifle up from its back mount. Zein fixed the machine in the shadow of the ruins and settled into the aim.

"Fal--direct the generator! Maximum charge!"

"On it! Energy charge, ninety... one hundred! Whenever you're ready, boss!"

In the silence, the count ran down.

"...Five, four, three, two, one--fire."

A burst of ultra-high-output light tore through the black.

The shot crossed the distance in an instant and punched clean through the center mass of one unmanned machine standing idle at far range. Not a millimeter off.

The machine came apart in a burst of fire and scattered into nothing.

"Got it!"

Fal's cheer rang out--and in the same breath, everything changed.

The three remaining unmanned machines turned. Together. Simultaneously. A single synchronized motion, with a reaction speed that had no business existing, pivoting in perfect unison to face the direction the shot had come from.

"--They're coming! Is everyone ready?!"

Letaria's shout carried across the channel, and the three shadows carved through the dark, closing the distance at terrifying speed.

The silence of the deep broke open.

A new battle had begun.