“Hoki! Hoki!!” Sabban roared – He moved to his controls, desperate to reach out and grab her machine as the Casnel's flaming sword bore its way through.
Even as he did however a flurry of four green lightning bolts grazed off his Neo's armour – Sabban looked for the source and found it easily, hurtling towards them was an enemy combatant larger than any other mech on the field of battle that day.
A sort of shifting rhombus shape of polished black-marble metal – A Diamond almost, with four metallic hoses each attached to small energy cannons, the very thing that had just missed him.
There was no time to react, the machine was coming in too fast, at this rate it would ram them – Sabban braced himself, and then – It passed.
To his surprise the Fortress came in close, wrapped one of its four hoses around the critically damaged Casnel and then began to run away – As fast as it had appeared, the Fortress, now toeing the Casnel – Were gone.
Sabban however didn't even consider giving chase, his machine lurched forward and grabbed Hoki's;
“Hoki answer me!”
The Cyan Neo-C had been cut across diagonally, starting from its right shoulder blade, all the way across to its left elbow – Sabban earnestly couldn't tell past the waves of smouldering metal whether the blade had struck the cockpit of not – The Neo's neck was gone, a thin series of exposed cables just barely holding the head unit in place, the light in the visor flicking off and on mockingly.
“S-Sabban....” Murmured a voice at last, “You.... called me Hoki.... Without the 'Miss' part...Thanks.”
“What? I mean sure fine, I'll do it again – Hoki, Hoki, Hoki, a thousands times, Hoki – As long as you're ok!” The young man half shouted, relieved just to hear her voice;
“Now come on, open your hatch and lets get home, if your suit got damaged will just have to be quick – A pilot can escape into space for a few seconds as long as they're careful and get straight back into another sealed space right? You taught me that Hoki, you!”
“....Sabban, the heat of his blade.... It sealed... Fused the hatch shut.....” Hoki said back before breaking into a harsh fit of coughing - “....If you try to force it with your machine..... you are as likely to crush me.....”
“Wh-what are saying! We have to get you out of there before that Fortress comes back around - Come on!”
Sabban half shouted back.
“Sabban, look to area... 33...”
“Those are!” Having done as he was told, the young man spotted an enemy squad was approaching, to investigate all the commotion of their battle with the Casnel no doubt.
“You're out of weapons... You need a distractions and I'm trapped in here anyway... Look at area 39.”
That area was the site of another battle that had just ended, two warships had been sunk and now the last of an IAFS squad was falling as it became overwhelmed by TSU-s mechs – Those mechs would also be on top of Sabban and Hoki as soon as they finished off the last of the poor Nemo squadron any second now.
“Hoki hold on a damn second this is too fast - You can't be serious! We'll find a way, you're not dead, You Are Not Dying! I'll get you out of there and we can just hide for a bit of something.”
“....Sabban, the heat of the Arc-Staff that close to my...skin – Sabban I never saw it but I read about what you saw.... And I know you can't take a repeat of Shasha.....”
Sabban's vision lurched and his heart clenched – His eyes were drawn to his two deeply scared hands, still so heavily damaged from when he had forced Nemo 26's cabin door open, only to find his childhood friend long dead.
“N-nooo...” The man replied in more of a wail than anything else.
“Here....” Hoki's voice crooked – Her machine began to move, creaking and rocking with each inch – It grabbed her signature rifle, pulled until the cables connecting it to her mech broke loose and pushed it hard into Sabban's machine;
“It can only fire a single time when.... disconnected..... But that might be enough.”
“Hoki stop, don't do this.”
“......Sabban, I'll be your decoy........ Let me just this once............. Protect one of my precious students...”
Stolen novel; please report.
The cyan mech, barely functional as it now was, had began to move away, to get smaller on Sabban's screen – He reached his mechs remaining hand out but did not move – He wanted to, to give chase and stop her – But Sabban Vint had recently learned the signs, how to tell when someone was already dead by their voice alone – And something deep within him refused to throw away what she was about to do;
“No! No please Hoki, No!!”
The Cyan machine disappeared – Hoki Bachika, wingwoman of the legendary Scarlet Scourge, Vice-Commander of the Fluchtig Vijaik team, Heir to the Hokuai dynasty, leader of Beta Squad, and Sabban's teacher - Heading towards where the two warships had just sunk, to create the mother of all decoys.
****
"Whew that's a big one." A pilot muttered mostly to themselves over the defence-line's comm-channel.
Kolme turned his Neo's head in the direction of what had caused the comment – Far off in a lonely corner of No-man's land, a massive explosion had just appeared – It was ridiculous in scale, perhaps the largest since the weapon had fired half a day ago – Another endless ball of white light, a temporary second sun in the night's sky.
His brow furrowed - “That's no ordinary ship sinking, someone deliberately sent a reactor into meltdown.”
He murmured before setting his radio to just the Fluchtig's bridge below;
“You guys seeing this?”
“How could we not?” Replied Charlie, clearly a little awestruck by the scale of it.
A moment later Lt.Aurin's voice cut in with a sigh, clearly not overly impressed by Charlie less than useful answer - “It's fine Captain Nilas, the blast is quite some ways out from the line, it shouldn't cause any immediate issues.”
“Ah well, that's good. Any idea who it was?”
Kolme said back.
“Running scans now Sir. We were aware of two ships out there, perhaps they simply wiped each other other a little more creatively than most.”
“Ya maybe I guess...”
Kolme was a very 'normal' human being – He had zero Magi ability, nor did he place much stock in religion or even in concepts like gut-instincts – But in that moment Kolme felt a truly sickening chill in his spine.
****
“The Heck was that!?” Someone on the bridge of the Valliere shouted.
Scarlet too turned to look as an almighty light burst into existence far behind them in No-man's land.
She was just leaving the Valliere after being restocked, her machine stopped to watch the explosion, hanging in the air alongside the Valliere's angular shape, she watched it swirl and swell, as the pulsing light blotted out their view of the battlefield.
“Ma'am word from the Fluchtig, the defence line is clear – Nothing to worry about.”
The comms operator said.
“Good, though I suppose we are just lucky not of seen more explosions like that today with how many ships have sunk.”
Captain Louise said back, the relief apparent in her voice.
“No.” Scarlet suddenly spoke, “There were more like that, when the weapon fired but we couldn't see them from inside that things blast radius – After that I'd bet real money every ship out here made sure to check reactor measures are properly in place – When a ship sinks its meant to automatically decouple the fuel from the reactor to prevent what we're seeing now – After all an explosion like that is just as likely to hit friends - A normal sinking ship still makes a hell of a mess, but not to that scale.”
“You don't say? Actually I did myself ask Tabitha to have safety systems checked after the weapon fired.”
Louise mused.
“Exactly. I'd guess that was deliberate.” Scarlet added softly.
“Ma'am further report from the Fluchtig – They can't be completely sure, but it seems it was no accident – One of our people lured 12 or so enemies into the sinking warship, than deliberately set its generators to critical!”
Louise whistled under her breath, “For real? One unit taking out two enemy squads – That's quiet impressive.”
“More than you know. The number of people who would have the knowledge to that is minuscule – And far less who could do it while being chased by 12 enemy units – That was no kamikaze, whoever did this just gave their life doing something exceptional - And they won't of made it out, to send a generator into meltdown require a dead-man's switch. Maybe exceptional doesn't do it justice.”
Scarlet spoke.
She didn't know why but her heart ached – Something felt wrong inside her but she couldn't tell what – All she knew was she couldn't take her eye off that ridiculously large explosion – That white void of sheer energy. Similar, albeit magnitudes larger, to the explosion that had taken Una O' Conchabhair from her.
“Ma'am the outer detection probe just pinged – The enemy's main force is imminent!!” The comms operator issued to just about anyone who was listening.
“Lady Scarlet?” The Captain added.
“Ya, ya you're right – No time to be looking at what's behind us – All eyes on what's in front now eh? We owe it to whoever that brave pilot was to do that much a'ight!”
And so the Red-Vijaik Heavy set forth with its 8 remaining Nemo companions, to face the Remembrance army - Never looking back.