Chapter 52
The escape pod disappeared behind us in a plume of hellfire, propelling us into the raw darkness of space and cutting off our only exit.
I activated my back thrusters in an attempt to break the momentum, but my wings had been badly damaged in the blast, and I wasn’t able to get any notable propulsion out of them anymore. My shoulder thrusters were also damaged, and my right leg was tangled with Vann’s.
I managed to get my boot free as soon as our descent slowed, but I caught the tank in my periphery a fraction of a second too late to get us out of the way, and it was in wide eyed horror that I watched the beam rip Vann’s unit in two, slamming into the side of his torso, and ripping him apart from the waist down.
As long as the cockpit wasn’t destroyed, he should still be alive.
“Are you okay?” I attempted to COMM into his unit, my voice uncharacteristically rattled in my own ears. No response. He must have blacked out.
“Vann.” I tried again, more panic slipping into my voice now. “Vann, status report.”
No. Dammit, no. I saved him once. This can’t be the way he dies.
I assessed my damage and his, rapidly checking all of my scans.
My unit was still structurally in good enough shape, barring thruster damage and a few of my guns that were no longer operational.
All of our tracking beacons had been destroyed, so no one would be able to locate us to assist, and because of this star forsaken anonymous-death system, I couldn’t confirm Vann’s vitals.
I’d assumed the ping was for Leo, but what if it wasn’t?
Shit.
“LYNC system override. Disengage control.” I shouted into my cockpit, instantaneously ripping me from the mind of my Shinka, and returning my sense of consciousness to my real body.
My helmet lifted and retracted, and the harnesses released me from my seat.
With a quick tap, I activated my atmospheric helm, built into my Imperium suit, and a smooth silver mask wrapped around my face.
I pushed out of the seat, and maneuvered through the reduced gravity to the top of my cockpit, where I opened the hatch with the emergency release. With my tether in place, I slipped out of my Shinka into open space.
The cold of deep space arrested my heart in my chest, even with the protection of my Imperium suit to keep me at homeostasis.
I could only be in this absence of atmosphere for an hour before my air supply and power reserves would deplete, but I shouldn’t need more than a few minutes.
I used maintenance handholds to climb along my machine, then I pushed off Vetala’s chest with a hard kick, until I came into contact with Vann’s Unit 999.
The silence was surreal in the soundlessness of space, even as I saw fire and destruction that should have been ear shattering erupting in the distant darkness.
But there was nowhere for sound to travel out here, creating a sense of the truest emptiness.
It was unnerving, at a time when I couldn’t afford to lose any of my wits about me.
It was only a matter of time before another tank or Ghul might spot us, and I needed to be back at my controls before then.
Snow and Elio had both been counting on me, and I’d failed them both. I should have known that unit was a fake, but I hadn’t had the mind to verify it was accurately on the radar, nor that its beacons were intact.
I failed as a leader again. All of my decisions were too little, too late.
No.
It wasn’t too late until we were dead.
I had to tell myself that. Vann wouldn’t give up in this situation, so I wouldn’t either.
I got to the hatch on Vann’s cockpit, and I used the chip in my palm to attempt access, but the hatch was completely melted and mangled. The door attempted to spiral open, but the mechanism got stuck with barely more than a crack in its seal.
Shit, shit, shit.
I rifled through the pocket of my uniform jacket for my plasma cutter, and started slowly melting an entrance into the sealed cylinder. Twenty minutes, forty-three seconds was how long it took before I was able to toss aside the remains and slip inside.
Vann was still sealed in his seat, thank the stars, as the LYNC helmet would keep him alive as the pressure and air was sucked from the cylinder on penetration. I dropped down into the cylinder and checked his pulse first.
He was alive. Barely, but alive.
I shoved an emergency mask over his mouth and his nose, so I had time to remove the LYNC helmet and activate his Imperium helm without him breathing in space itself, then I gripped him beneath his arms and gently removed his unconscious body from the seat.
Thirty-one minutes, fourteen seconds left. Plenty of time.
I held him firmly, surprised he was as small as he was, having never quite noticed when sparring with him in loose material, then I followed my tether, and made my way back to Vetala.
Forty-one minutes and fifty-nine seconds was the time I needed to perform the full operation, before I was back in my own cockpit, hatch closed, artificial atmosphere and pressure reinitiated.
All good data to keep in mind. That was a lot of time to be a sitting target.
I would have to add this to future practice drills to increase efficiency.
Cockpits in Shinkas were cramped, with little room for two people, however.
Placing him behind my seat wouldn’t offer any security in the event of an impact.
This wasn’t the time to overthink this. I was still holding him as I dropped into my chair, and I placed him securely on my lap.
I sank my boots back into the gel, and I attempted to position him so I could comfortably reinsert my hands.
These seats had never seemed too small before.
I nudged his waist, trying to reposition his unconscious body between my legs, and…
That seems…
Wrong.
In an Imperium suit, there was absolutely nothing left to the imagination, and yet what I was seeing and what I was feeling was distinctly different. I ran my hand up his side, until I felt the vague shape of bandages around his chest, barely hidden by the skin tight material.
I grabbed his wrist, planning to check his CHRONO for an A2, only to find he was wearing a cloaked second device beneath his standard issue band.
Something that would be impossible to notice without explicitly looking for it.
I rested my thumb against the deactivator until the covert, old-tech CHRONO powered down, and dammit, I didn’t have time for this, but I had to know.
I had to have irrefutable clarity that I was feeling what I thought I was feeling.
And the distorted pulse that restored Vann to someone who I suspected was not at all named Vann, was… startling.
A thick swallow caught in my throat, and I had to remind myself to breathe. H-how… All this time… He was… SHE was…
She…was…
But I looked into her records. They were legitimate. Was her existence hidden as part of the Vessel Project? Had she been hiding in plain sight her whole life? Why would they perform those experiments on a girl?
A hard impact rocked my cockpit, nearly throwing her into the side of my cylinder walls, and I quickly wrapped my arms around her and held her snug against my chest.
My whole face heated, and why was it so incredibly different to be holding her against me like this, despite having wrestled with her a thousand times.
Dammit, I needed to focus. I went through so much to make sure neither of us died here, and I couldn’t just give up now.
I positioned her head against my chest, then I shoved my hands back into the pale blue gel and initiated sync. I could deal with this crisis later. This was one of those moments where I needed to forget the concept of feelings and focus on action and execution.
My consciousness was ripped from my body and returned to Vetala in a hard jolt, though I still had enough sense in my physical body to feel the phantom pressure of her weight on top of me.
My vitals indicated a slight increase of my heart rate, and I had to shake my head and bite my own lip to ground myself again.
To my relief, the impact had been a result of passing space debris, and not another enemy unit, so I was able to take a moment to breathe and recalibrate from my mental spiral.
I shoved the remains of Snow’s Shinka into the expanse, not sure what to call her now, and I used all of the remaining energy in my rifle to obliterate the remains, lest it be collected by the enemy.
It was another deep breath and a long moment of finding my head again, before I got on the COMM. “Coordinates X-4867, Y-1233, Z-2929. Regroup.” I radioed to my scattered comrades. “Unit 199 was a well-disguised bomb. Be wary of any unfamiliar Shinkas. Have you confirmed ID of unit 989?”
“ID confirmed,” Breaker answered immediately. “He’s way too whiny to be a bomb, I promise. If he is, props to Gehenna for coming up with the most annoying Trojan horse ever built, because the tears sound so real that it’s nauseating.”
“Damage report?” Elio said next.
“Vetala, damage, 28%. Back thrusters and tracking beacons damaged, limbs fully functional, but all ranged weapons are spent or inoperable. Unit 3 and unit 999 have both been eliminated—”
“What.” Elio cut me off before I could finish, and the weight in that single word said more than he’d ever want anyone to know. “Is Vann okay? B-both pilots, I mean. Did the pilots make it out?” His voice was shaking.
He knew.
How long did he know Vann wasn’t a man? How long had he kept that secret from the rest of us? He’d paid Vann an excessive amount of his mind and attention, and while there were some justifications for it, this went beyond Elio being Elio.
No, he broke Vann’s ribs. He couldn’t have known. He would never treat a woman so roughly.
But still…
“Pilot rank three has been lost. I was able to rescue 999. Vann is unconscious but appears to be uninjured. I have him secure in my cockpit.” I closed my eyes, focusing on the vague sensation of her position against my real body. Five more beats per minute.
“Understood. ETA to rendezvous: one-minute, fifty-three seconds,” Elio responded, still speaking quietly, and his voice still shaken. “I just got in touch with mission control. Reinforcements should be here any minute.”
“10-4,” I said.
In that brief moment of quiet, I thought back on every single moment that I could have figured this out before, and yet, I couldn’t say there were any obvious tells.
Physically, sure, but smaller men existed.
Mentally, she was unique, but knowing she was a Vessel, that wasn’t surprising. Who else knew?
Did… Father know?
If he didn’t, what would happen to her if I told him? Was she better off being sent home? Were we better off without her?
I recalled the moment Father had dictated I match with any woman who could handle the Vessel mutation, and a shiver ran up my spine, before my whole body subsequently heated at the implication and realization of what this could mean for both of us.
I was not prepared to think on any of that.
I needed to talk to her and better assess the situation before I made any definitive decisions. As it was, I’d already failed as a leader, and I didn’t trust myself to make the right choices for anyone right now.
I shouldn’t have stopped her from going after Elio. I should have verified identities before loading into the escape pod. I should have done so many things I didn’t.
And yet the only thing I managed was to save one, single soldier, after her machine was completely destroyed. Snow, herself, had successfully saved more men than I had, smartly staying back and providing cover fire when direct engagement wasn’t within her realistic capabilities.
I was no leader, and this only magnified that fact. It was no wonder she’d beaten me in the simulator.
You’d never know I was my father’s son.
I guess I technically wasn’t.
I’d single handedly slain over a thousand Ghuls in this battle, and close to a hundred tanks, having only taken on superficial damage in the process, and yet, when push came to shove, all I could think was that this mission had been a colossal failure.
Breaker, Elio, and the rescued 989 arrived in short order. The lights of the thousands of remaining enemy Ghuls speckled the distance like stars, as our four machines hovered in space.
Elio’s exposed arm socket sparked, as he turned to look at the coming wave. He said nothing. No one did.
So much work, so much training, so much ambition, and for what? Once we were all dead and space dust, all that time I spent trying to be good enough wouldn’t matter.
Just another over achiever who invested in the wrong pursuit of perfection.
I pulled the crossed swords from my back, the hilts half melted but still operational, and I took up stance.
If nothing else, I may as well go out with the record for the most kills.
One more minute passed, and the lights of the coming wave were large and close enough to see the vague silhouettes of the machines zeroing in on us.
I closed my eyes briefly, and when I opened them, a massive carrier ship took position between us and the horde.
Reinforcements unloaded from the craft, including machines I recognized as Dr. Dorian, General Renner, General Kagimura, General Hassan, General Morris, and Father, himself, among them. The entirety of our strongest local forces.
“You held your own well, Cadets.” The voice of Professor Kitagawa filled my cockpit. “Load up in the docking bay, and let the veterans take it from here.”