Main Mission Complete

"Captain, Strike Gundam's launch preparations are complete. It can sortie at any time. But is that kid really going to be okay?"

When Xiao Ran returned to the bridge, he heard Mardock's lazy yet weighty voice coming through the bridge speakers. His arrival made Mwu turn her chair around, and when she saw the question in Xiao Ran's eyes, he gave a light nod.

"There's no problem. Right now, all we can do is trust that kid." Mwu let out a breath of relief at Xiao Ran's gesture and began issuing orders. "Prepare the Sword Striker Pack. Have him sortie with the Sword Striker Pack. We can't cause any more damage to this satellite."

"Understood, Captain," Mardock replied.

"This is really great. We can't attack at all, while they can shoot however they like." Mu curled his lip and made a sarcastic remark.

"Wait!" Xiao Ran walked over to Mwu's side and gently shook his head. "I don't know what the Sword Striker Pack looks like, but in this situation, are you really going to have my student charge through the firepower of seven enemy MS just to cut them down? Do you think that's realistic? This is obviously a defensive battle. Close-combat equipment isn't suitable."

"The equipment Kira used before should have been Gatling Gun Equipment, meant for long-range fire suppression. It's too powerful and would cause too much damage to the satellite. The Sword Striker Pack you mentioned is for close combat. While it won't affect the satellite, it also won't stand a chance against so many MS. Since it can switch equipment and already has long-range and close-range options, there's no reason it wouldn't have a mid-range equipment set with higher mobility."

After speaking, Xiao Ran frowned slightly. There had been a trace of uncertainty in his words, but his tone was full of confidence. Everyone on the bridge was stunned for a moment.

Mu stared at Xiao Ran in disbelief, looking him up and down before shaking his head and snapping back to his work. Bargyll turned to scrutinize Xiao Ran with an intensely suspicious gaze, as though she were wondering something. Mwu, however, gave him a deep look before reconnecting to the hangar. "Sergeant Mardock, prepare the Sky Striker Pack for Strike Gundam."

"Eh? Switching to the Sky Striker Pack again? Understood, Captain."

Bargyll shot to her feet and shouted angrily, "This is the bridge, and we are currently in combat! Unrelated personnel, leave immediately!"

"I won't hand my life over to people I don't know, Miss Lamias. If I were you, I'd have the ship's main guns aimed at the hole Kira blasted open." After saying that calmly, Xiao Ran turned and entered the fire control room. He dropped into the seat beside Mu, completely ignoring Bargyll's murderous stare, and casually asked Mu, "What shooting weapons can I try out?"

"Uh..." Mu turned toward Xiao Ran with his mouth hanging open in astonishment. In the end, he yielded to Xiao Ran's serious expression and quickly transferred control of one of the Vulcan Cannons mounted at the front of the Archangel to him.

After finishing, Mu wiped away sweat that did not exist from his face. There are sixteen Vulcan Cannons in total. It should be fine if he only operates one, right?

"Captain Mu!" Bargyll shouted when she saw what Mu had done. Mu could only shrug helplessly at her. Seeing that the farce seemed likely to escalate, Mwu covered her face and said weakly, "Lieutenant Bargyll, let it be. We don't have time to argue."

Faced with Mwu's order, Bargyll gave Xiao Ran an unwilling look before finally nodding reluctantly. "Yes, Captain."

Mwu took a deep breath. "Gottfried, activate. Aim at the breach in the outer hull. Clintus, load rounds 7 through 12 and 19 through 24. Lieutenant Bargyll, you decide when to fire. Captain Mu, the Variante is under your manual control."

"Gottfried activated. Raise the ship and aim at the breach in the outer hull. Clintus loading rounds 7 through 12 and 19 through 24." As Bargyll repeated the orders, the preparations were completed in an instant. The entire bridge fell into an eerie silence until Mardock's voice came through the speakers again.

"Strike Gundam is ready, Captain. When do we send it out?"

"Sorry for making things difficult for you with so few hands available." Mwu sighed softly. When she raised her head again, her eyes had become resolute. "I'll decide when it sorties. Kira, can you hear me?"

"I can hear you." Kira's voice sounded, though he did not seem to be in very good condition.

But Mwu had no time to concern herself with that. She said directly, "Follow my launch order."

"Okay." Kira answered softly, and no more sound came from his side.

Time slowly passed. One second, two seconds, three seconds. It was not just the bridge that had fallen silent; the entire Archangel had gone quiet. The abnormal silence of those brief moments made Xiao Ran's heart pound without pause.

"Beep! Beep! Beep!"

The urgent alarm suddenly sounded, tightening everyone's nerves. At the same time, Bargyll spotted flashing points of light on the bridge display. A loud, decisive voice announced the beginning of the battle.

"Gottfried, fire! Clintus, fire!"

At Bargyll's command, the Archangel's two main guns simultaneously fired four green beams of death. The beams shot through the hole in the outer hull and into space. Although they had been aimed carefully, the four beams inevitably enlarged the hole Kira had blasted open to nearly twice its original size. Aside from that, only a single spark could be vaguely seen flashing near the breach.

"Confirmed: one enemy unit destroyed. It was a Ginn."

"Only one?" Xiao Ran heard the curly-haired man in black glasses at the controller's station and felt somewhat disappointed.

"Kira, now!" The instant the Archangel's first wave of attacks ended, Mwu quickly called out to Kira.

"Understood. Kira Yamato, Strike Gundam, launching!"

Xiao Ran turned his head and watched the Sky Striker Pack-equipped Strike Gundam fly away into the distance on the Big Screen. It looked so dazzling that he silently murmured, Kira Yamato, the strongest Coordinator. Everything depends on you now.

Xiao Ran did not know how he got through the time that followed. He only knew that Mwu and Bargyll issued order after order, that Mu beside him kept cursing "bastard" over and over, and that the warship roared and shook time and time again. At some point, the wound on his treated right shoulder split open again and began seeping red blood, while even his lips had been bitten hard enough to bleed.

He was no longer merely controlling an insignificant Vulcan Cannon. While operating it, he was also assisting with targeting for the Variante's attacks. Mu, who had originally been responsible for that task, only took over to help whenever the main guns were cooling down.

The battle had already lasted more than ten minutes. The satellite's surface was in ruins, and the single breach that had once existed in the outer hull had become several. Of the five Ginns, one had been destroyed at the start. During the past ten minutes, Kira had only managed to take out another amid combat, while Mu had destroyed one with the main guns. The remaining two Ginns were still launching fierce attacks against the Archangel.

If Kira had not drawn the attention of both Aegis Gundam and Duel Gundam by himself, the Archangel—the ship known as the unsinkable vessel—might have been sunk inside this satellite on the very day it appeared. But even without Aegis Gundam and Duel Gundam joining the battle, the Archangel's situation remained grim. The Ginns had nearly broken through its firepower several times and reached the bridge. If the inside of the satellite had not also been outer space, with gravity weakening farther from the ground and allowing the Archangel to roll directly, Xiao Ran might already have died several times over.

Xiao Ran knew that warships were not especially effective against MS, but he had not expected them to be at such a disadvantage. After experiencing a warship battle for himself, he understood that scenes from the anime where a main cannon hit several MS at once had an extremely low chance of occurring in battles of this scale. In a close melee, they were practically impossible.

A warship turned slowly, could not burst forward as quickly as an MS, and had terrible maneuverability. The fact that it had held off several Ginns until now was entirely due to the Archangel's exceptional performance. Perhaps once the people aboard the Archangel gained more experience, dealing with them would become easier, but certainly not now.

Xiao Ran's mind had already gone numb, but when he saw a Ginn fire another high-explosive missile, his body reacted instantly. He operated the Vulcan Auto-Cannon and began sweeping fire across the missile's path. It was not that he was overly nervous. He had personally experienced one of those missiles exploding at close range, and the feeling had been terrible. The vibrations from the blast had left him dizzy and disoriented, even after the missile had been destroyed. What if it had not been destroyed? The Archangel might truly have suffered severe damage.

Of the four Ginns that had originally broken into the satellite, aside from the one Kira had destroyed that had not carried D-rank equipment, the others all carried ultra-explosive anti-fortress weapons. Each Ginn could carry four such weapons, making twelve altogether. Every one of those weapons could inflict massive damage on the satellite. The additional breaches had all been caused by them.

As though it had been arranged in advance, the MS Mu had destroyed had fired all its missiles before exploding, just as in the anime—but there had been even more than in the anime. All four missiles struck the satellite's central axis, pushing it directly to the brink of collapse. If the central axis suffered another attack of the same kind, the satellite would immediately collapse, and that moment would not be far away.

As for Kira, he had seemed flustered and even helpless when he first launched. The Archangel's main guns had repeatedly provided him support, yet achieved little. After several dangerous moments that even made Mwu cover her mouth and gasp, no one except Xiao Ran knew that Strike Gundam seemed to have changed pilots. The machine's movements underwent a tremendous transformation—decisive, calm, and swift. The Ginn Kira had destroyed had been cut cleanly in half at the waist with a Beam Saber in that state, taking Duel Gundam's shield with it.

Watching the fired missile draw closer and closer to the Archangel, having already entered the firing blind spot of more than half the Vulcan Cannons, even the increasingly numb Xiao Ran became terrified. He roared as he yanked hard on the Vulcan Cannon controls. "Hit it! You have to hit it!"

At that critical moment, Bargyll abandoned the Ginn she had already locked onto, stood up, and shouted, "Full left rudder! Raise forty-five degrees! Evade!"

At the last possible instant, the missile brushed past the Archangel's flank. Xiao Ran could not help letting out a breath of relief. He immediately switched the Variante, which had been computer-targeted, into manual mode and tried his best to aim at the enemy MS darting through space. At some point, a streak of flowing red had stained the once-clean control panel.

Suddenly, Xiao Ran felt a series of vibrations from his left wrist, while an emotionless voice simultaneously appeared in his mind:

"Main Mission One complete. Escape Heliopolis safely within eight hours. Mission completion rating: S."

"S-rank mission rating increases rewards by fifty percent and grants Golden Treasure Chest ×2. Increased mission rewards will be settled together after the mission ends. This rating may be accumulated."

"Ding. This world is a group Newbie Mission. Participants are newbie participants. Newbie participants may receive a one-time qualification to settle rewards early. This qualification is only valid during Newbie Missions. Settle this reward early: Golden Treasure Chest ×2?"

"Main Mission Two issued. Within ten days, choose to join a faction in this world. Within one month, learn mecha operation techniques and reach D-rank."

Hearing the voice in his mind, Xiao Ran nearly jumped up. An S-rank mission rating was enough to drive him mad. Just as he was about to claim this mission's rewards early, he heard Bargyll cry out in astonishment, "No! The missile's path is headed for the satellite's central axis!"

"Boom!" The deafening explosion made Xiao Ran's entire body jerk. No, it should have been said that the entire Archangel shook. It began rolling wildly in every direction without warning. Xiao Ran, who had just stood up, only had time to glimpse the apocalyptic scene inside the Colony Satellite before he suddenly felt weightless. Pain flashed through his head, darkness filled his vision, and he lost consciousness.