Because the weather and climate were so poor, normally the stars could not be seen.
And yet, brilliant lights had truly appeared in the sky, as though starlight itself had pierced straight through the cloud cover.
But on closer inspection, those flashes had grown trailing tails of light. They looked almost like a meteor shower.
They were warheads fired by the orbital bombardment force, and their distribution was remarkably even.
"Who is that?"
"Which idiot dropped with them?"
A voice rang over the comms channel, equal parts speechless and furious.
The speechlessness came from the fact that the TSF drop had not even begun yet. They were supposed to wait until the special warheads dispersed their heavy-metal clouds, weakening the BETA's laser fire before beginning the descent. And yet one machine had stupidly dropped alongside the warheads meant to scatter the heavy-metal mist.
The anger seemed to come from the sheer pointlessness of such a foolish sacrifice. Everyone could already imagine the pilot's fate.
No. That thing was not descending in an orbital drop pod. It was punching through the atmosphere directly with the machine itself?
That made it even more idiotic.
A TSF could not break into the atmosphere alone like that. It would simply burn apart, and the person in the cockpit would be reduced to charcoal.
Which unit had produced that kind of fool? How had someone like that been allowed to go into space for an orbital drop mission?
"How utterly stupid."
Those words came from Tsukuyomi Mana, a member of the Imperial Royal Guard's 19th Independent Guard Flight.
She was piloting her own TSF toward the Sado Island coastline, and she had also heard those words over the command channel.
Her eyes narrowed.
They were here.
Straight ahead, from within Sado Island, more than a hundred beams of light tore through the sky and struck every "meteor" that had just pierced the cloud layer.
Some beams stabbed directly through the clouds as well, hitting warheads that had not yet broken through to the lower altitude.
In an instant, a vast field of fireballs bloomed in the air. The shock waves from the explosions scattered much of the cloud cover, revealing even more warheads following behind the first wave.
Those warheads would exploit the brief cooldown interval after the Laser-class BETA fired. They would break through to a certain altitude above the BETA and self-detonate, releasing heavy-metal powder.
That would interfere with the Laser-class attacks, reducing casualties among the TSF airborne units that followed. It would also give the naval bombardment a better chance of avoiding interception.
Suddenly, several dozen more beams fired upward.
Clearly, not all the Laser-class had attacked just now. That meant their numbers had exceeded the estimate.
But those several dozen beams made Mana freeze in shock.
"What...?!"
The sound that forced its way out of her throat was almost a cry. Her pupils dilated as she stared at the scene before her.
Not a single beam in this volley targeted the warheads. Instead, they all concentrated on one large fireball.
That had to be the TSF descending with them.
It looked as if the TSF attracted the Laser-class more than the warheads did. If that were all, it would have been fine.
But nothing like this had ever been observed before.
For one thing, an orbital-dropping TSF was slower than a missile. If it moved too fast, the orbital drop pod carrying the TSF would be unable to withstand the heat.
For another, the pilot inside the TSF could not endure the G-forces generated by that kind of velocity.
So under normal circumstances, the missiles should have reached the ground first and become the Laser-class's targets before any TSF did.
Yet right now, the Laser-class were prioritizing the TSF behind the missiles and concentrating their fire on it.
Even more abnormal was the result.
The beams did not destroy it. When they struck, they scattered apart.
It was like watching long strips of white glass smash into a hard object, shattering into countless specks of white powder.
"What the hell is going on?"
"Isn't that a TSF?"
"It blocked the Laser-class attacks? Don't tell me...!"
Voices of shock and fear rang across the comms channel.
Normally, blocking Laser-class fire should have been a good thing. But that fireball reminded some of them of something terrifying.
Mana suspected the same thing, and her face went pale.
"Damn it! Who dropped a G-Bomb?!"
A furious, teeth-gritted voice thundered over the comms channel. Its words named exactly what Mana had feared.
A G-Bomb's deployment created a kind of force field that could block Laser-class attacks.
When that fireball reached an altitude of roughly one thousand meters above the ground, more than a dozen even larger beams shot toward it.
It was an attack from the Heavy Laser-class.
The result was the same. Even the Heavy Laser-class failed to destroy it. Their beams scattered apart as well.
If anything, that attack seemed to slam the brakes on the G-Bomb's descent.
Then came an even stranger sight. Once the G-Bomb stopped, it neither rebounded back toward the sky nor fell under gravity. It simply hovered there in midair.
Mana's pupils widened, and she immediately magnified the image.
The distance made it blurry, but she could still confirm one thing.
It was a TSF.
A TSF could withstand Heavy Laser-class fire?
In the next instant, that machine, bulkier than a standard TSF by an entire size, suddenly erupted like a disturbed beehive, with all its bees swarming out at once.
Hundreds upon thousands of missiles launched from within it, plunging downward like a dense rainstorm.
Judging from their trajectories, those missiles were all falling in concentrated patterns toward the Laser-class zones.
After impact, the exact situation was impossible to discern. From this angle, the inland terrain could not be seen clearly.
Among the vast number of missiles fired, however, four appeared to be the largest. They seemed to be heading for the BETA Hive.
But as the lasers fired again, two were destroyed. The other two struck home.
At that moment, the flash that followed left Mana momentarily stunned.
It looked like a colossal firework blooming purely for admiration. It was beautiful.
Then the abnormal machine was swallowed by the heavy-metal cloud released by the warheads that caught up from behind.
Though it could no longer be seen clearly, there were faint signs that the machine was launching another attack from within the cloud. It was like a god of thunder releasing lightning from inside the clouds to bombard the ground, passing judgment on the earth below.
The sight was truly overwhelming.
Of course, the Laser-class BETA on the ground continued to retaliate. But fewer than thirty beams now fired upward, and as thunderous bombardments kept crashing down, the number of beams stabbing into the sky grew smaller and smaller.
That meant the Laser-class on the ground were being steadily cleared away.
"What are you all standing around for? If you don't attack now, when exactly are you planning to?"
The cold voice of Professor Kouzuki Yuuko, one of the key commanders of Operation Dawn, echoed through the channel.
In the next second, the commanders of the naval fleet issued bombardment orders one after another.
Boom, boom, boom, boom!
The sound of ten thousand guns firing at once shook heaven and earth.
At the same time, tens of thousands of trajectories shot from the warships.
The launch order appeared on the screens of the first wave of vanguard TSF landing units as well. Their thrusters roared to full output, and they advanced at maximum speed.
(End of Chapter)
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