Chapter 49
There were so damn many of them. How many Ghuls had Gehenna built?
And why would they unleash so many against trainees doing an exercise?
We were far enough from the inhabited station that it would take as much as an hour or more before back-up could arrive, but we were also far enough that there was nothing to takeover or destroy in the sphere. What was the strategic significance?
I didn’t have the luxury of pondering on intent or scale right now. Sebastian, Elio, and Breaker were holding their own well enough, but in the distance, I kept catching sight of explosions that could only be our own Shinkas, as every loud, nondescript ping echoed through my cockpit chamber.
“Safe to say you won’t be retreating just yet?” Conrad inquired through the COMM.
“Safe to say,” I agreed. “Is that a problem?”
“No, ma’am. I would be more disappointed if you said anything else.” His enthusiasm was concerning, but I appreciated the support. “I’ve got the whole picture. I’ll assist in picking targets.”
“Thanks, Conrad.” Words I didn’t ever expect to say in our short acquaintance.
“Believe it or not, I’m rooting for you, kid. Now on your left.”
I’d be hard pressed to explain why that inspired confidence, but it really fucking did.
Maybe I was harder on him in my mind than I knew he deserved in my heart.
I went into full offense, using every projectile canon at the disposal of my bone stock training unit, and one by one, I took out as many Ghuls as I could.
Admittedly, they were surprisingly easy to destroy, much unlike a Shinka. The training drones were one thing, but true Ghuls should have been as capable as we were. Perhaps Gehenna hadn’t created something as strong as the Diacynn compound that made up our armor?
That seemed wrong though. These Ghuls were going down much faster and easier than the ones in Protectorate 005 had.
Were they not optimized for deep space combat?
Did they have different tiers of units? There must be.
Otherwise, why would they initiate a war with an inferior weapon?
They’d had over a decade to study the Shinkas and build their answer to our weapons, so they should have been overwhelming us easily.
Especially considering that our best pilots here were still, technically, just trainees.
If we were able to destroy these units in a single blow while taking on enemy fire that couldn’t fully penetrate our armor, then how had they expected to win?
They were overwhelming us with numbers, but that couldn’t be the strategy, could it? Was I overthinking it?
“Execute, execute, execute.” I continued to offer support, while we’d backed off over a hundred kilometers closer to the exit transport that would take us back to the academy.
Though the numbers of enemy units had barely dropped, even at the rate we were tearing them down, and we still had a hundred clicks to go for a safe exit.
Elio, Breaker, and Sebastian continued to decimate swaths of Ghuls, Vetala artistically painting the darkness of space with shed oil and fire, Lamassu brutally smashing and chopping and obliterating rows of metal beasts with sheer, unadulterated force, and Kishi functioning like madness in a bottle that had been shaken and popped.
But the four of us alone could only do so much, and our numbers were still dropping, going from 1000 accounted pilots to 847.
I had to try not to think about the fact that every single one of those loud, anonymous pings was on the death toll, and on this scale, with so much to juggle, I was starting to understand what Dr. Dorian had meant about not needing to know the names of the fallen during live combat.
I just hoped enough of them were able to eject or retreat, even if that only meant capture instead of death.
“Units 455 and 132 are both attempting to sprint for the exit transport. Can you cover them?” Conrad was the godsend I never would have imagined needing. In all of our training exercises, contact with anyone but the other men in the field was minimal, but on this scale, information was power.
“Covering.” I aimed my rifle toward the retreating Shinkas, both of which had damaged limbs and were holding on to each other, full bore on their combined propulsion jets, attempting to outpace the horde.
I took out the first Ghul to catch up, then the second, then the third, until there was enough distance between them and the pursuing units to make a clean break for the escape pod.
As soon as they were on the transport platform, they would be safe. They just needed to get there.
Units 455 and 132 both cleared the remaining kilometers to the escape, and I exhaled a sigh of relief before I returned my attention to the men in front of me.
The men in—
Gold and red slammed into me head on, and my vision was suddenly filled with nothing but the metal palm of Elio’s Lamassu.
His thrusters forced us to the ground in a violent plume of space dust, with my back in the dirt of the isolated platform, and him on top of me.
Panic hit me with the force of the impact that reverberated through my nerves, and my sync dropped to a sluggish 97%.
“What the hell are you doing? Let me fight,” I shouted through a private channel, and I didn’t have time for his bullshit. “This isn’t the time to be picking a fight—”
“Shut the fuck up and stay down, Fianna—” Elio’s voice was loud in my COMM, barely getting out a full sentence before his words were cut off by his stifled scream, when a bright orange beam burst through his right arm—the same one that was holding me down—ripping off the appendage in a scorching display of power and violence.
A beam that, barely two seconds ago, would have been directly and perfectly in line with my cockpit.
“Y-You…”