Chapter 90 – …And What Exactly Do You Think You Are Doing?

A dark stretch of space just beyond the boundary of Seldia's autonomous zone, lightly veiled in drifting cosmic dust.

In this silent void, where countless pieces of debris floated without purpose, Letaria had arrived -- together with her reborn partner, Arden.

"Hey, long time no see, my lady."

"The machine looks pretty different."

Two voices came through the comm -- one easy and light, one composed and steady, both familiar.

Ahead of her: Zein's slender, compact frame, the Rigune -- and alongside it, the machine Fal had since acquired for herself, the Marchant. The Marchant was a striking contrast to the Rigune: longer-limbed, with an angular, distinctive silhouette that bore the unmistakable design philosophy of its manufacturer, Ledeter.

Arden, too, was not the same machine it had been before. For this assignment, Milea had fitted it with additional armor panels modeled on the civilian general-use Rude -- a deliberate disguise. At a glance, the result fell comfortably within the range of "a standard machine, customized with some flair."

"It has been a while, Zein, Fal."

Letaria returned the greeting through the comm with her usual composure.

Then a third machine slid out from behind a drift of debris -- heavy, dense, substantial in every line.

"You look well, Lady Letaria."

The voice belonged to Twoin, piloting the heavily armored Yera -- the same who had accompanied the mission to apprehend Blang's crew.

"And you as well, Twoin-san. I am glad to see it."

"Right. Save the pleasantries -- let's confirm the job. This one comes directly from Seldia's Administration Bureau. Our assignment is a safety sweep of an abandoned old disposal block in this area. Old as it is, it could still be hosting nests of native organisms, or have automated defense turrets still running."

Zein pulled up a simplified map on the main monitor as he ran through the briefing.

"Full threat elimination and securing safe passage for the survey team. That's our objective."

Fal added the summary.

"Hehehe -- perhaps a touch understated for an assignment befitting me... but it will do perfectly as a warm-up for the new Arden!"

"There you go, getting ahead of yourself already. Though I'll admit -- Letaria always does deliver."

Zein laughed openly from the other side of the comm at Fal's exasperated remark.

"You put in the work every day too. You'll catch up to that one-of-a-kind princess eventually. ...Probably."

It was directed at Fal -- but the first to respond was Letaria.

"I am not a princess. -- Now, shall we?"

◆

The operation began, and the group spread out to sweep the disposal block in sections.

Exactly as Zein had warned: ancient automated defense turrets ground to life at the detection of intruders, clattering out from the derelict interior; and savage native space organisms that had been lurking in the dark lunged out with bared fangs.

They were not, however, a match for Letaria and Arden as they stood today.

The Arden that had mastered its basic weapon systems moved with a sharpness it had never shown before. An organism's raking claws were sidestepped, and on the return -- a single slash, the blade of light cutting the creature's bulk cleanly in two. Against a laser burst fired from cover as an attempted ambush, Letaria tilted the frame with a fraction of movement that seemed as if she'd known it was coming all along, evading it in the minimum possible distance before answering with a clean, unhurried strike of Arden's bare fist.

"...Hey. Something's off."

Zein's voice came through from a different sector.

"Some of the automated defense systems I'm seeing -- they look too new. Wrong spec for old disposal-block scrap. These aren't the junk they're supposed to be."

No one on the comm had an answer.

While the thought was still hanging in the air, something reached Letaria -- not through Arden's sensor suite, but beyond it. Far in the distance, further than any scanner could read, something touched the back of her awareness like a finger pressed directly against her perception.

"There is something... over there..."

Not a signal any instrument had picked up. Her own magic -- reaching out across the void to something at the edge of this sector that simply didn't belong.

Zein, Fal, and the others were conducting a wide-area sweep of a different quadrant, well separated from her position. To all practical purposes she was moving alone.

Letaria didn't hesitate. She angled Arden's thrust toward whatever her instinct had found.

Past the edge of the assigned zone, into a stretch of space where even debris was sparse.

"...What is this?"

What she found, floating in isolation in the void, was a small metal box.

Arden's sensors only caught the faint signal once she was close. No propulsion. No weaponry. Nothing but a small, drifting object.

She extended Arden's arm toward it --

"--!"

Reflex. Letaria fired Arden's thrusters to full output and threw the frame sideways with brute force.

A strike loaded with unmistakable killing intent cut through the exact space where Arden had just been hovering.

Trace Mode delivered the G-load of the evasion directly into Letaria's body. But the Noble Lotus II's reinforced G-mitigation systems and cushioning activated in the same instant, absorbing the impact completely -- and Letaria's own resilience absorbed the rest. She took no damage whatsoever.

Arden reversed and faced forward.

What the main monitor showed her was all Letaria needed to see. She spoke, in a voice entirely level.

"...And what exactly do you think you are doing, Twoin-san."

There, in the darkness of space ahead of her -- the sensor eyes of the heavy frame Yera were pulsing a slow, unsettling red.