Drifting to an Alien Planet for a Slow Life After a Mutual Kill with the Enemy - Chapter 2

The enemy appeared first as a shimmer, a mirage in the blackness: distant starlight stretched and smeared across space, as if someone had run a wet brush across a canvas of dark velvet. It wasn’t natural; it was the Erebos’s outer sensing field rippling in the vacuum—like a sudden swell of the sea with no wind, like the entire star sector taking a deep, subtle breath.
“All teams, lock formation,” the Commander’s voice crackled. “First and Second Squadrons, maintain cross-fire coverage. Third Squadron, stand ready for insertion. Target: U–13. Insertion window: three hundred seconds.”
“Acknowledged,” replied LYS-23, assigned to the Third. His mech, ANTA–UR–N–07, overlaid the tactical map onto his HUD. Trajectories, risks, energy reserves—the battle unfolded in a constant stream of data.
The Central AI’s calm, synthetic female voice announced across all frequencies: “Array Suppression commencing. Countdown: Three, Two, One—”
The first devastating salvo tore the darkness apart.
The fleet’s main guns converged on a single point; thousands of energy beams braided into a luminous, white bloom. In the vacuum, the light was fleeting and brutal, like a shattering ice crystal. The Erebos vanguard units were hit, their black-and-blue mass exploding into shards, yet immediately dragged back together by layered magnetic fields. An unseen force seemed to be reassembling them, rapidly forming a tighter spiral, achieving near-instant self-repair.
“Energy recovery rate escalating. Enemy is initiating field stabilization,” ANTA–UR–N–07 reported.
The Erebos, perfectly adapted to space, showed their frightening resilience. They moved with a ritualistic quality: tightening ranks under fire, then rebuilding order from the damage—a terrifying, beautiful regularity that made them feel like living mathematics.
“Command reports: Vortex forming at the center of the enemy formation, spin velocity increasing. Preparing to initiate High-Speed Movement for breach,” ANTA–UR–N–07 warned. This was the moment.
“Received,” LYS-23 answered simply. He’d seen this countless times; his heart remained a steady, calm rhythm.
His unit surged forward. His vision blurred, the interior lights of the cockpit stretching into lines. His teammates, an avalanche of metal, bore down on the black-and-blue Erebos mass: glowing plasma blades and kinetic rounds cut screaming white lines into space.
“Left flank is overwhelmed, requesting support.” The voice of N–27, another pilot in the Third Squadron, came through the channel, a slight tremor hidden beneath his discipline. Not everyone could hold onto calm in this storm.
That stress in the voice resonated with LYS-23, and he instantly changed course.
“Relay these coordinates to the Second Squadron; tell them to target Delta–12 in 120 seconds,” he instructed ANTA-UR-N-07. “Squadron Leader, requesting permission to assist.”
“Permission granted,” came the response. “LYS–23, watch your distance.”
“Understood.”
ANTA-UR-N-07 adjusted its bearing in milliseconds. The mech spun, its plasma blade tracing a perfect, clean arc that precisely severed the Erebos units crowding the left flank. The immediate reaction of a damaged Erebos was always to repair—it was their strength, but also their fatal flaw against humanity. Creatures that feared death could never intimidate those who didn’t; LYS–23 had realized this long ago, and since then, had felt no fear of the Erebos.
A hundred and twenty seconds later, the Second Squadron’s supporting fire hit exactly as planned, utterly vaporizing the Erebos units still busy trying to re-form. The shattered material dissolved into a stream of silver particles, swept away by the shockwave from the main cannons.
“Cover complete.”
“Thanks, LYS-23… ah.” N–27 replied. But the moment his words finished, N–27’s unit was silently skewered by a distant energy beam; the pilot and the beam disintegrated together. There was no sound, no scream; their Constant Discipline training ensured they maintained control even in the face of annihilation.
“Pilot N–27, signal terminated,” ANTA-UR-N-07 reported. LYS–23 didn’t acknowledge the loss, simply fixing the fading light on his map into his memory.
N–27’s glorious sacrifice was inconsequential to the larger fight; the Third Squadron units snapped back into formation like clockwork, resolutely pushing the breach.
“Command confirms: Array stability has recovered and increased by eighteen per cent.”
ANTA–UR–N–07 reported in his ear: “Left flank suppression stable. Recommendation: Prioritize elimination of the Core Protector.”
“Agreed,” he replied.
Ahead, the Erebos’s ‘Core’ was opening like a strange blossom. The boundary between solid metal and fluid energy dissolved, the white spot at its center steadily breathing. Starlight curved around it, a testament to the energy it pumped into the rest of the Erebos. As long as the Core lived, the Erebos could not be permanently destroyed; even if fragmented, they would re-aggregate and repair.
The units hurtled forward, their blades carving shining arcs, slicing through the dark vanguard. The black-and-blue substance peeled back at the blade’s edge, silver sparks leaping from the tear. The energy ring on the blade’s spine rotated slowly, as if tearing open a pattern in space itself.
The Erebos wouldn’t let humanity attack the Core Body so recklessly, and soon the Core Protector materialized—pristine white, symmetrical, with pulses of light like petals. It guarded the edge of the Core, a deadly sentinel. The Core’s white spot breathed in and out, starlight bending around it, resembling the eye into which an asteroid is drawn. It was the source of their power, and a threat that could not be taken lightly.
“LYS–23,” the Squadron Leader ordered over the channel, “you are responsible for drawing the Core Protector away. The rest of you, focus fire on the Core.”
“Acknowledged,” LYS-23, already the closest, responded instantly. He piloted his mech to deploy its charged photon blade. The blue-white edge flared in the vacuum, the thrusters went to max power, and the unit synchronized its stability pulse.
“Mission time remaining: one hundred seconds. All units, move!” the Commander’s voice lifted with urgency.
ANTA-UR-N-07 dove. The photon blade narrowly grazed the Core Protector, sending silver sparks tearing through the black. In that instant, LYS–23 felt an extremely deep tremor—not sound, but the overlap and clash of two distinct life-frequencies. Sensing the threat, the Core Protector collapsed inward, its light pulse tightening into a deadly fan of energy. ANTA-UR-N-07 raised its shield instantly; the dynamic field rippled like a disturbed water surface, absorbing the blast and sending him spinning off course. Driven by pure attack instinct, the Core Protector surged after him.
“Left shoulder pressure at one zero four per cent. Structure holding,” ANTA-UR-N-07 reported calmly.
“Good, the left arm isn’t completely destroyed this time,” he chuckled. “Seems you’ve learned something, ANTA-UR-N-07.”
Even as they spoke, the second strike was launched with impossible speed. The photon blade swept up in a clean, vertical arc, cutting a deep fissure into the Core Protector, revealing its dazzling white internal material and the core node beneath. Giving the enemy no chance to repair, he jettisoned the electromagnetic launcher housing. The short barrel of the LWA–CG–M1 sprang from the side slot, the familiar weight of metal solid in his grip—it was matter, real and tangible.
“Target node exposed: nine seconds,” Uranos stated coolly. A countdown timer flashed on the screen.
“That’s all I need.” He took aim and fired. The kinetic rounds punched through the membrane with furious velocity, slamming into the core’s outer shell. The first shot caused a minute twitch; the second followed, and the third—with each impact, the Core’s pure white shell fractured like glass, a momentary flash of scattered light bursting from the cracks, like water disturbed by a sharp stone. Time seemed to slow; starlight near the fissure was pulled into fine, trembling threads.
Just as success felt assured, a cataclysmic event occurred in the main fight; the collapse of the Core Body, where the Third Squadron had concentrated its fire, was accompanied by a spatial anomaly—the white light imploded into blackness, as if pushed inward by a single fingertip, and a dark cone began to form. Surrounding starlight rushed toward it, and time itself began to twist near the apex.
“What is that?”
The fleet’s main AI rapidly reported its findings: “Battlefield distortion detected, non-natural—wormhole generation in progress. Position deviation 0.7 radians. Risk: Catastrophic.”
The Squadron Leader’s emergency command cut across the channel: “All teams evacuate! LYS–23, disengage immediately!”
“Understood,” he replied.
The critically damaged Core Protector, however, paused at that precise moment. Its halt was not hesitation, but a final, calculated commitment. It lunged at ANTA-UR-N-07, its light pulse contracting into a focused fan, bearing down on him like a deadly storm.
“Evasion path obstructed. Ineffective,” ANTA–UR–N–07 analyzed instantly.
“Yeah, too late,” he murmured calmly, watching the Core Protector lock onto him. “Mutual destruction? Never thought I’d meet an Erebos entity capable of defying its own instinct.”
At the moment of impact, all noise ceased. The blue energy grid of his shield shattered like fragile glass in the darkness. He and the Core Protector entity were simultaneously sucked into the apex of the black cone.
The watching main AI silently recorded the final message: “Pilot LYS–23, signal lost, designated missing.”