Chapter 2089 Ahead of It

For a moment, nothing happened. The gallery watched the display, where the white continued to churn and the wind continued to howl, and several of the cadets began to smirk.

Then, out of the whiteness, something enormous fell forward.

It was a Mekharan, its tall, humanoid body pitching slowly out of the storm with a smoking hole burned straight through the center of its chest.

It struck the snow face-first a short distance in front of Ning’s Mecha, sending up a great spray of white, and lay there without moving.

A score notification appeared in the corner of the display.

The observation gallery went completely silent.

Tobin’s mouth fell slightly open. Elena stared at the display without blinking. Among the cadets from the other two academies, the smirks had vanished, replaced by looks of bewildered disbelief.

Hale was no longer smiling.

Beside the railing, Naysha watched the display with her arms folded and a faint, knowing smile on her face, as though she had expected nothing less.

Inside the pod, Ning lowered his weapon arm and turned his attention back toward the storm. There were still a great many things moving out there in the white, and he had only just begun.

Ning did not stay where he was for long.

With the first Mekharan down and the picture of the battlefield steadily forming in his mind, he began to move, guiding the Mecha forward through the storm in slow, careful steps that kept its footing steady on the ice.

He did not head toward any of the allied units, nor toward the cluster of enemies to the north. Instead, he angled northeast, toward the ridge he had placed behind the first allied unit’s position.

A few seconds later, his objective display flickered.

<Objective: Hold the northern ridge.>

In the observation gallery, Tobin frowned at the display.

"Wait. He was already moving toward the ridge before the objective came through."

"Coincidence," one of the cadets from Hale’s academy said, though he did not sound entirely convinced.

It was not a coincidence.

Ning had seen it coming. The allied unit behind the ridge had been taking steady fire from the Mekharans to the north for nearly a minute, and its reports, delayed and broken as they were, had grown more urgent with each one.

The ridge was the only high ground he had been able to place in that part of the battlefield, and if the allied unit lost it, the enemy would be able to fire down on everything to the south.

The objective had been inevitable from the moment the battle began. He had simply worked it out before the simulation told him.

He reached the ridge, settled the Mecha behind its crest, and began firing into the storm toward the north.

He did not fire wildly. Each shot went toward a place where his mental picture told him an enemy stood, and while not every shot struck something, most of them did.

Mekharans began falling out of the whiteness one by one, and the pressure on the allied unit beside him eased noticeably.

The ridge held.

Then his objective display flickered again.

<Objective: Evacuate damaged allied unit.>

Ning was already moving.

He had heard the reports from the allied unit further east, the one he had placed moving slowly southward. Its messages had grown fainter and more broken over the last minute, and the last one had mentioned damage to its legs.

It was moving slowly because it could no longer move quickly, and the smaller group of Mekharans he had placed to the west had been angling toward it through the storm for some time.

It was only a matter of time before the simulation asked someone to go and get it out.

Ning reached the damaged unit before the enemy did, placed his Mecha between it and the approaching Mekharans, and began guiding it south toward the large, stationary shape he had placed earlier.

It turned out to be the wreck of a downed transport ship, half buried in the snow, its broken hull offering shelter from both the wind and the enemy’s fire.

By the time the Mekharans reached the place where the damaged unit had been, it was already gone.

<Objective complete.>

The objective display flickered once more, almost immediately.

<Objective: Reinforce the collapsing eastern line.>

In the observation gallery, nobody said it was a coincidence this time.

Ning had already turned his Mecha toward the east. He had been listening to the eastern allied line’s reports for the last two minutes, and he had heard them grow increasingly desperate, the messages breaking off mid-sentence and the gaps between them growing longer.

The line had been failing for some time. He had simply been waiting for the simulation to say so.

"He’s ahead of it," Elena said quietly, staring at the display. "Every time. He’s already where the objective is before it’s announced."

Tobin did not answer. He was gripping the railing so tightly that his knuckles had turned white.

As Ning moved east through the storm, a new allied unit joined him.

It came out of the whiteness from the south, a human Mecha broadcasting a standard allied identification signal, and fell into step beside him with a brief burst of static across the channel. Its signal was faint and slightly corrupted, which was not unusual given the storm, and it identified itself as a unit separated from the collapsing eastern line, returning to support.

Ning acknowledged it and kept moving.

A few seconds later, he sent a command through the allied channel, directing the units around him to spread out as they approached the eastern line.

The new unit moved first.

It shifted its position almost immediately, spreading to the left exactly as Ning had ordered, and the other allied units around him followed a moment later, as their messages finally arrived through the delayed channel.

Ning looked at the new unit for a long moment.

Every message in this storm arrived late. He had spent the first minute of the battle working out exactly how late. Every allied unit around him had responded to his command only after the delay had passed, because that was the earliest they could possibly have received it.

The new unit had moved before the delay had passed.