Chapter 11
-The Furnace won't grant us landing clearance.
"What?"
-According to our scans, the landing site is clearly empty, but they insist it's full and refuse to grant us clearance.
"What kind of nonsense is that……"
The captain of the Razangriff's message left Yangyang dumbfounded.
She'd confirmed the spaceport was empty barely three minutes ago.
She'd even gotten approval from the spaceport's safety officer before telling the Razangriff to come down.
Why were they suddenly changing their tune?
"Land anyway."
-Pardon?
"Just land."
Ramirez said, patting Rubedo on the back as she continued complaining of motion sickness.
Behind him, Kang Chanwoo was changing his shirt, which was stained with vomit.
-But…… Landing without authorization could be seen as an infringement on the colony's sovereignty. A fully armed combat cruiser and a large number of Federation soldiers would be setting foot on the planet without permission.
"There's space at the landing site, isn't there?"
-The planet's defense interceptors could attack you, Brigadier General.
"It doesn't matter. Trust the force field, evade their attacks, and land at high speed."
The captain on the other end of the line seemed to hesitate.
Although Brigadier General Ramirez addressed the captain respectfully, it was a sign of respect for a comrade he could trust with his life in battle and during jumps—not because the captain outranked him.
Should he obey his superior's order and antagonize the colony, or disobey his superior and let the colony swindle them right under their noses?
He didn't hesitate for long.
-We'll be down shortly.
Soon, the three soldiers spotted a dark shape descending from high above.
"Urgh…… The captain's coming down?"
"That's right, Miss Rubedo."
"If we're here to restock supplies, couldn't we just send them to the station via the orbital elevator?"
"……Now that you mention it."
"Right?"
Yangyang and Kang Chanwoo looked at Ramirez.
Ramirez was still gazing up at the sky.
Rubedo couldn't see it, but high above, the Razangriff was rapidly descending, dodging and deflecting the attacks coming its way.
It dodged the attacks it could avoid in advance.
It deflected the attacks it couldn't evade with its force field.
And any attacks that still reached the ship were stopped by its barrier.
The sight of a ship larger than most buildings passing through a barrage without being hit even once was truly magnificent.
"……"
"Brigadier General?"
"……"
Unable to stand it any longer, Yangyang kicked the back of Ramirez's knee.
"Whoa, you scared me! Are you trying to give an old man a heart attack?"
Despite being struck behind the knee, Ramirez didn't even drop to one knee. He was the very picture of a Federation soldier's resilience.
"Rubedo has a question."
"Sure, sure. What is it?"
Lifted up like a child, Rubedo asked calmly, as if she were used to being treated this way by now.
"We came to the Furnace to replace the Gladiator Mijeong destroyed when she went berserk, right?"
"And restock ammunition and the like while we're at it."
"Right. If the goal is to restock supplies, isn't this an unnecessarily aggressive way of doing it? We could easily send the supplies up to the orbital station via the orbital elevator."
She raised both arms in a questioning gesture.
"We've already made an enemy of one planet. Do we really need to antagonize another planet in the same neighborhood……? Something like that."
It was a reasonable question.
It had only been a few hours since they'd exposed Fettuccine's secrets, been attacked in retaliation, and nearly been blown to pieces.
And now they were going to make an enemy of another colony planet in the Seventh Sindalot Multistar System, the same system as Fettuccine?
Even for the battle-hardened Task Force 42, that was a lot to take on.
They'd have enemies on both sides.
But Ramirez dismissed the reasonable question at once.
"We have no choice."
"What do you mean?"
"It's simple. The Furnace is rotten, too."
Which meant……
The Furnace was also colluding with Sigma?
Was that what she was supposed to take from it?
That answer only raised another question.
Ramirez's answer only left Rubedo more confused.
"Can you all see it?"
Following Ramirez's finger, the others looked up at the sky.
There, in the sky, was……
"……!"
"The Furnace is……"
The Razangriff had descended low enough for Rubedo to see it with her naked eye.
"A traitor to humanity who joined forces with elves."
Three figures floated around the Razangriff, firing plasma at it.
……No. They weren't human.
Pointy-ears, outdated silver full-body armor, and staffs that discharged plasma.
Humanity's archenemies.
They were Nkhilakarn, commonly derided as space elves.
-Brigadier General, they're elves. Please come to the landing site immediately.
"The Furnace's planetary marshal must be a coward, to reveal his hand over such a minor provocation."
The Razangriff landed safely at the spaceport, and the elves touched down after it.
Ramirez cradled Rubedo in his arms and ran for the landing site.
At full speed.
……
……
……
Ranpazyakan.
He was a veteran warrior who had shot down countless spaceships operated by humanity, the Nkhilakarn's archenemy. Humans had been a spacefaring civilization for less than three hundred years, yet they were more fearsome than any other species.
To him, the spaceships humans operated were nothing but oversized, sluggish targets, all bulk and no firepower.
If they put the resources used to build something like that into nourishing the World Tree……
He'd always looked down on spaceships with thoughts like that.
But the Razangriff was different.
It nimbly evaded the plasma he and his two subordinates fired at it all at once.
As if opposite poles of a magnet were repelling one another, not a single bolt of plasma could touch the Razangriff, despite the attacks coming from every angle.
What about a physical charge, using enhanced strength?
The ship's force field blocked them, and their charge trajectories were easily bent aside.
In the end, they failed to shoot down the Razangriff and could only watch it land at the spaceport.
-You incompetent elf!
The human who ruled this planet shouted in his ear, but he casually ignored him.
-You couldn't even shoot down one damn ship, and now you've let them set foot on my planet? Your mother's better at sucking my dick than that!
……He tried to ignore him.
Until the man dared to insult his family.
-Your superiors are all watching, too! I'm finished because of your incompetence—Hrrk!
He sent plasma through the connected communicator.
It was an innate ability of the Nkhilakarn, as natural as a bird flying through the sky or a fish breathing underwater.
-Agh, ah, ngh……!
"Now you're finally getting what you deserve."
The Furnace's planetary marshal, who'd hurled insults at Ranpazyakan, had his mouth melted by the plasma. Now he could do nothing but scream.
Satisfied with the sound of his screams, Ranpazyakan smashed the communicator.
"Lord Ranpazyakan."
"Right. We failed to shoot them down, but we'll annihilate them here, just as Lord Yata ordered."
They'd landed behind the Razangriff and aimed their staffs at the ship.
'At this distance, there's no way I'll miss.'
Plasma gathered at the tip of his staff. Just as he was about to fire……
"That's enough of your bullshit, elf!"
"……!"
A knife came flying and struck his staff, interrupting the attack.
A familiar face stepped in front of him.
"You……!"
"Do I know you?"
How could he not?
White hair and beard.
A steel left arm.
The most hateful human of all, who showed up with an obnoxious-looking man and a dangerous woman, thwarting their great cause at every turn.
"Ramirez!"
"Brigadier General, do you know him?"
"No. How would I know? All those elves look alike. I can't tell one from another."
"Well, at your age, I suppose that's fair."
……And there was a human girl he'd never seen before, cradled in Ramirez's arms.
When her red eyes met his, he felt as if a bug were crawling down his spine.
Without thinking, Ranpazyakan charged at her.
Startled by their leader's sudden action, his two subordinates hurried after him.
"Not so fast!"
After tossing Rubedo to Kang Chanwoo, who'd come after her, Ramirez braced himself for the impact with his left arm raised.
Bam!
The Federation's finest soldier and Ranpazyakan collided.
Ramirez was the one who was driven back.
No matter how much a Federation soldier's body had been enhanced through surgery, without armor, he couldn't overpower an Nkhilakarn whose body was strengthened with plasma.
But strength was only one element of combat.
The prosthetic on Ramirez's left arm split open and vented steam.
"Fall back!"
Ranpazyakan hurriedly retreated and tried to hold his subordinates back, but his order came too late. Unable to overcome their own momentum, they charged Ramirez.
Boom.
A shock wave burst from the prosthetic and blew them apart.
Blue blood and chunks of flesh flew in every direction.
"Lucky you."
"……Tch. I've got good instincts."
Plasma condensed at the end of the staff thrust toward him.
Seeing it, Ramirez didn't retreat. He quickly closed the distance.
Pzing. Ping.
Watching the angle of the staff's tip, he dodged the light-speed beams and grabbed the tip with his prosthetic.
"Got you."
Plasma condensed once more at the tip of the staff……
Boom!
A massive explosion erupted at point-blank range.
"Brigadier General!"
"Don't worry, Miss Rubedo."
"How can I not worry when you just took a direct hit from plasma? You'll die!"
When the smoke cleared, the sight that emerged……
Left Rubedo in shock.
No, rather than the smoke clearing……
"……What on earth is that prosthetic?"
The explosion was being sucked into the cracks in the prosthetic.
"I wonder that myself."
The prosthetic that had devoured the explosion glowed a menacing gold, like the eyes of a beast.
"Who made something like that, and how did he get it? ……Could the Federation's technology even make something like that?"
"You don't know either, Sergeant?"
"That's right. I don't know about that prosthetic, or even what caused the Brigadier General to lose his left arm. He already had only one arm when I first met him. No matter how many times I asked, he never said a word about how he'd lost it, and at some point, he started wearing that prosthetic."
Since his point-blank plasma explosion hadn't worked, Ranpazyakan looked more than a little surprised.
If his opponent had been another Nkhilakarn like himself, he wouldn't have been surprised.
Nkhilakarn were naturally highly resistant to plasma and heat.
But for a human to withstand a plasma explosion at such close range?
The human species he knew was weak, unable even to breathe in space without the cumbersome armor suits they wore.
Ramirez was practically bare-skinned, so he couldn't make sense of what he was seeing.
But whether Ranpazyakan could understand it or not, it was a clear fact that Ramirez was unharmed.
"Damn it, one more time……"
As Ranpazyakan faltered, Ramirez aimed his left hand at him and……
"Citrinitas."
"……!"
"Fire."
-Citrinitas. READY.
Kaaaaang!
A torrent of golden energy engulfed Ranpazyakan.