Chapter 160 – This Pressure…! This Is No Ordinary Makina…

"Pursuers...!"

Before Letaria could even finish the word, the dark-green Makina that had been melting into the black of space burst into motion with a tremendous roar of thrusters.

The Caducus that Letaria had commandeered was somewhat small in form even for a Makina. Compared with Arden, the machine she normally piloted, it was smaller by about a head.

By contrast, the enemy machine standing before her was a very large one. It was fully two sizes bigger than Arden, and its sheer oppressive presence even surpassed that of the navy-blue heavy Makina she had faced in the neutral zone a few days ago.

"This pressure...! This is no ordinary Makina..."

As she studied the enemy machine intently, Letaria suddenly noticed something wrong.

For all its massive frame, the enemy machine was not carrying any handheld weapon such as a Photon Rifle. It was as good as empty-handed.

But then -- where had the flash of photon light that had just grazed her machine been fired from?

Empty-handed...? No--!

With the brute force and ferocious acceleration typical of a large machine, the enemy closed the distance in an instant. On her monitor she saw the enemy's right arm -- a huge palm fitted with sharp claws -- aimed straight at her.

The next moment, a photon laser shot in a straight line from the center of its glowing right hand.

"Ngh...!"

The trajectory of the attack and the timing of its release were plainly visible to Letaria's magical detection.

She could see them. But -- her piloting was unsteady.

"Move... you wretched thing...!"

Letaria wrenched the control stick over and stamped the foot pedals with all her strength.

Caducus evaded a direct hit by a hair. A silver-white beam of light scoured through space, and a bead of cold sweat ran down Letaria's cheek.

The instant after she evaded, a familiar, irritated man's voice rang out over the emergency comm line.

"Damn it... it dodged... it dodged, did it...!"

"You are... the one who was beside Rofi earlier...!?"

Glaring at Letaria through the screen was a dark-green-haired young man -- Marei.

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"She can barely move at all...! I thought I could shoot her down without any trouble at this rate...!"

Inside the cockpit, Marei clicked his tongue in fierce irritation.

"This Acuitas is a dedicated Makina prepared for me, and me alone! With this, I can prove I'm the strongest! Neither Argria nor Coroshe needs the likes of Rofi!"

Shouting, Marei aimed Acuitas's right arm and fired off photon bolts in a continuous stream.

Caducus's movements, drifting before him, were unsteady, no better than an amateur's, by anyone's reckoning. It had not once even made a proper counterattack.

Carol and Findlay had ordered him to secure it, but Marei had no intention of keeping its pilot alive. He would shoot it down here and now, and show off his own strength and his dedicated machine's performance.

And yet, though he was loosing countless beams of light -- why was every one of them dodged like this?

"Damn... don't get cocky!"

Marei deployed the missile pod on the right shoulder.

From it he launched a salvo of high-mobility missiles, their guidance performance pushed to the limit. And into that swarm of missiles, he mixed in his own trump card.

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"I cannot move this properly, you know! Show a little mercy, please--!"

Shouting, Letaria kept working the control stick and the control panel with sweat-slicked hands, desperately.

This was no mere intimidation -- it was fire aimed plainly at taking her life, every shot a direct, lethal hit. And Letaria kept dodging it by the narrowest margin possible.

Sparks flew. A fierce beam of photon light grazed Caducus's left shoulder, and its unpainted silver armor melted and warped slightly.

"Ugh...!"

A moment later, a mass of high-mobility missiles trailing exhaust burst from the enemy's shoulder pod, spread out, and rushed in at her.

"I see your intent...!"

A compound attack: photon bolts to seal off her escape routes and steer her, then missiles from her blind spots to finish her for certain.

What the opponent was aiming at, how he meant to drive her machine into a corner -- Letaria could picture his intent and his movements completely in her mind.

"...There is nothing for it but to do this!"

Steeling herself, Letaria fired Caducus's main thrusters at full boost.

Tremendous centrifugal force and G-load assaulted her unprotected body. Because her body's motions were not reflected directly in the machine as they were in Trace Mode, the seat belts took a heavy load inside the cockpit and her body was squeezed hard. Even so, she gritted her teeth and endured.

She slid the machine wide and dodged by force only the lines of attack that threatened a direct hit, throwing the control stick over on the spur of the moment. It was reckless maneuvering that combined sudden braking from reverse thrust with sharp turns.

"What the hell is wrong with you...! You fly like an amateur, and yet you pull these ridiculous moves...! Stop making a fool of me...!"

Marei's voice came over the comm, a cry mixed with frustration and rage.

Letaria's magic was reading every one of Acuitas's attacks with precision.

...Or so it had seemed.

She dodged the incoming photon bolts by a hair, and shook off the pursuing high-mobility missiles cleanly with an erratic turn that outdid their turning performance -- and in the very next instant, from her blind spot, a single bullet, loosed hidden in the shadow of the missiles' trajectories, was closing as if drawn straight onto the front of Caducus, where Letaria sat.