Chapter 170 – There Is No Time to Think

Arden's and the Gordo's Photon Sabers clashed violently, scattering sparks in the black of space.

A dazzling glow of plasma lit up the two machines. At the very moment their fierce blade-lock began, Letaria noticed that the linear gun slung at the Gordo's waist was taking aim at Arden from point-blank range.

"I shall not let you...!"

In an instant Letaria opened Arden's chest armor and swept the built-in vulcans across at close range. While battering the Gordo's camera sensors, she reversed the thrusters in Arden's legs and evaded the linear gun's line of fire.

Under the vulcan fire hammered in by Arden, the Gordo's chest armor was ripped away in great gouges.

Its heavy armor kept the damage from being fatal, but the intense knockback from the hits sent the Gordo's huge frame badly off balance.

"You, too... must surely be suffering. What I can do for you is... this!"

Without an instant's hesitation, Letaria slipped Arden in beneath the Gordo's collapsed stance. To intercept, the Gordo raised the Photon Sabers on both its arms and swung them down.

Arden made a motion as if to catch the blades of light head-on, and at the same moment tilted the machine boldly upward and kicked up sharply with its right leg.

The solid blade built into Arden's leg armor cut the Gordo's descending left arm off at the joint.

Without a pause, Letaria drove continuous fire from the Photon Rifle in her left hand into the Gordo's torso.

High-energy photon rounds, fired in a stream.

The Gordo took them and still held on with its armor, but the damage that had built up inside the machine had already reached its limit.

Though its movements had grown markedly sluggish, the Gordo reactivated the Photon Saber on its remaining right arm. But Letaria's Arden had already circled around behind the Gordo, into its blind spot.

A blade of light flashed.

The linear gun at its waist and its right arm were cut away together in an instant, and the Gordo lost every means of attack. Yet the pilot, still silent, rammed the machine itself toward Arden.

Letaria's magic sensed the life signs of the pilot inside the Gordo's cramped cockpit. ...But what she felt of it on her skin was neither pain nor fear -- only complete "nothingness."

"...Then, at the very least...!"

Letaria's single stroke cleaved the Gordo in two, from top to bottom.

With its core precisely severed, the Gordo did not burst into a great explosion that would take its pilot with it; it quietly ceased to function and fell silent.

"There is no time to think. I must go..."

Letaria advanced Arden deeper into the battlefield.

◆◆◆

Meanwhile, on the battlefield where Aland and the other two stood against the enemy, the overwhelming firepower of the remaining two Gordo was scorching the darkness.

One poured fierce rapid fire from triple-barreled Photon Rifles on both arms. The other alternated thick beams of light from giant Photon Cannons mounted on both shoulders.

"Damn it... what firepower...!"

Aland slid his machine violently, shouting as he threaded through the barrage.

Against the overwhelming beams of the incoming Photon Cannon, Retta tilted his shield and deflected them at an angle.

"I'll draw all their lines of fire! The two of you, take them down one at a time, for certain!"

Retta's Baris raised its shield in front and leapt out ahead. The two Gordo reacted to the thrust forward and began to concentrate their firepower all at once on Baris.

"Now!"

As if answering Retta's desperate signal, the Rastas of Aland and Steshia moved at the same moment.

A precise sniper shot from the Arcian in Steshia's hands and a simultaneous volley of high-velocity solid rounds from Aland's shoulder rail cannon were hammered into the one on the right that they had marked.

The rail cannon's tremendous blow struck the head of the Gordo, whose attention had been taken up by Baris, and then the Arcian's high-energy bolt of light tore through the armor at its abdomen and burst.

"All right, we can do this!"

They had succeeded in stripping one enemy of much of its combat ability.

But Retta's Baris, which had taken the concentrated fire of two machines alone, did not escape unscathed.

Its upper body barely held its shape, but the left leg, struck directly, had been blown away below the knee and was sending up black smoke.

"Retta, that's enough! Leave the rest to us and fall back!"

Aland shouted over the comm.

"No, not yet...! I can't retreat here! We have to deal with these two at least...!"

Retta tightened his grip once more on the aching control stick and kept taking the Gordo's savage assault on his shield.

"I can't let Mr. Retta take any more of this!!"

Steshia shouted and sent her machine charging at top speed.

"Mr. Aland! Back me up, match my timing!"

"Hey, Steshia! ...All right, got it!"

Aland followed Steshia's back, firing his Photon Rifle and rail cannon together. He poured in covering fire to pin down the damaged Gordo's legs.

The instant the Gordo took evasive action, Steshia's Flode slipped in through the gap in its violent evasion.

"Yaaaah!!"

With Steshia's cry, the shining Photon Saber deployed on the left arm plunged deep, deep into the Gordo's damaged abdomen.

"Steshia! Behind you, get away!!"

Aland's voice rang out.

The other Gordo, which had gone undamaged, turned the muzzles of its triple-barreled Photon Rifles on Steshia's Rasta, now stilled at close range.

"I won't let you!!"

From the enemy's blind spot, Retta's battered Baris forced its way in.

With the shield it raised, it forcibly took the point-blank Photon Rifle fire. The shield, taking the high-powered photon bolts one after another head-on, melted and blew off Baris's right arm along with it.

"Not yet...! It isn't over!"

Baris raised the machine gun held in its remaining left arm and kept pouring rounds from point-blank range into the Gordo's head and sensors.

Under the violent rain of bullets, the Gordo, proud of its sturdy armor, paid no heed and began charging its next shot to smash Baris to pieces.

But then the Gordo's torso burst violently from within.

"Reckless fool...!"

Aland's rail cannon, arriving in the nick of time, had shot it through from behind.

"This is the end!!"

At the same moment as the rail cannon's direct hit, the arm grenade Aland fired struck the Gordo's chest. Flames rushed inside through the opening where Retta's machine-gun fire had concentrated and thinned the armor, and the Gordo scattered into space in a tremendous explosion.