Our final approach to Luuxis was considerably slower than the one to Magnos, mostly owing to the Caralain’s slow “warp velocity.” About a full day before we were due to arrive, Varstithon held a strategy meeting to outline and revise the battle plan. I had expected third-row seating again, but Karl and I sat next to Anna and her general in the front row, with a few other generals around us. It quickly became apparent that this was because Varstithon intended to position the Firebrand’s fleet, along with three others, as the Golden Chain’s escort toward the planet.
The overall plan was to draw out the bulk of the Kinetice defenders with the main fleet, then send the 5,000-strong force rapidly toward Luuxis on a vector calculated to avoid the thick of the fighting. A great many Kinetice were anticipated to break off and pursue—those would be our job.
The Firebrand would no longer berth on the Caralain for the final leg of the journey, reinforcing my belief that it had been in the first place primarily to keep an eye on me. Several hours before arrival, the team met in the virtual space to give Anna encouragement.
Of course, given that it took place in virtual space with time dilation, that encouragement was able to take the form of a full-on party. Mostly I just stood around it being bored, but even that was a luxury in a way. I had declined similar treatment prior to Magnos, preferring to just spend time with Mewi or alone with my thoughts. I was never a party person, although I tended to mind ones with a high degree of formality, like the one we’d been to on the 6th Floor, less than most, not that I’d had many chances other than that in my life, before or after arriving at the Tower. A party with just us six teammates wasn’t so bad, either.
Anna and I would be the only ones present at the battle, and we agreed that we’d both exit the virtual space an hour before entering the battlefield, to get it over with. You might think it strange that I was nervous too, but I was going to be in for a lot of fighting, and I was expected—counted on—to dispatch the Kinetice ships I boarded quickly. Once Anna was on the surface of Luuxis, the Firebrand would, unless something went wrong, be among the forces covering the armada’s withdraw—I’d be fighting longer and harder than most of the forces. I had gotten careless in protracted battles before, so I was on myself not to do so here.
Once I left virtual space, it seemed like no time at all before the familiar warning sounded, “Alert: Arrival in the engagement zone in 15 minutes. All personnel to battle stations.”
Once the assault finally started, it seemed to go by shockingly fast. The Firebrand didn’t directly engage Kinetice vessels at first, instead using her substantial weaponry to disable a great number of them that other ships in the fleet then boarded. By the time I actually started seeing action, I only went through three enemy ships before a message sounded through the entire ship confirming that Anna had successfully landed on Luuxis.
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The next few hours felt like I was speedrunning a short, indie roguelike dungeon crawler, over and over. As I’d expected, I had to concentrate in order not to become complacent, and I found the speedrunning mindset actually helped. It also helped that my max Stamina was so high that I basically had a video game protagonist’s ability to keep going and going without rest by now.
As indicated, the interior of the advanced Kinetice ship types we were facing were rather like small-scale dungeons, most having three “floors” that were navigated between by using some kind of warp pads between my boarding point and the core. Some of them had five, with rather stronger enemies on board as well, but they still weren’t hard to plow through or speedily maneuver around, whichever would be faster.
Serayne, too, added a new advantage. She had gained enough strength that she was able to handle going on the boardings alongside me. She helped both by clearing routes ahead of me as well as occupying attention when occasionally groups of enemies came at me that I’d have otherwise had to stop to deal with.
The thing that took the most getting used to, when it came to fighting with Serayne, was how heedless of her own safety she acted. As she’d explained to me, the chief advantage of being a Familiar was that you didn’t die when you were killed—not exactly. As long as I still lived, Serayne could revive herself endlessly, though the process took a considerable amount of time, such that she was being at least rather more careful than usual in this battle. With her assistance, each run through a Kinetice ship indeed felt like a speed run.
So, when the announcement came that the armada’s withdraw had completed, and we were safely warping away from Luuxis, my first reaction was what, already?
My second reaction was, Oh brother, what now? What this was in reaction to was a group of soldiers who had lined up on either side of the corridor that led from the lift I always took from the Combat Deck to the main deck.
Who immediately began applauding as I emerged from said lift. “Would anybody care to explain what this is about, exactly?”
A nearby human soldier wore a look that by now I was familiar with as the usual nervous, yet excited expression of a fanboy meeting me in person. “You accounted for 44 ships, including eight Kinetice Sentinels, by yourself. Your average boarding time was less than five minutes! That’s...it was insane!”
Oh. “Oh,” I said, “did I break some kind of record or something?”
“Probably!”
“Cool. I guess this reception makes sense, then.” Maybe I should lighten up just a bit. I’ve been freaking out so much lately about who is or might be still stronger than me that I lost sight of how many people in Area 1 I’m basically a superhuman compared to.
I smiled, doing my best to make it a genuine one. “I’m going to go have a word with the general, now that the mission is complete. I’m sure you all have things to do. But...thank you.”