He forcibly suppressed the impulse rising within him.
With all the DRAGOONs destroyed, pursuing the enemy's two-mobile-suit formation alone while they still had their mothership's fire support would have been no different from suicide.
Although an irritation surging from deep within his chest urged him to continue the pursuit, the remnants of his reason told him not to force the issue.
He withdrew the finger resting on the trigger.
"...So we will decide the victor next time?" Rau Le Creuset's voice was so low it was nearly a whisper. Beneath his silver mask, those ice-blue eyes flickered with complicated emotions. "Very well. A more fitting stage will come someday."
He leveled his mobile suit and set the thruster throttle to standby, watching as the exhaust flames of the Unicorn Gundam and Freedom Gundam gradually shrank into two points of light before finally disappearing into Archangel's open recovery bay.
He had no intention of continuing the pursuit. He merely hovered silently in place, watching the ships lurch through the flames of war.
Just then, the sensors registered a violent burst of heat and electromagnetic energy.
Rau Le Creuset turned his head.
At the far end of the starfield, Vesalius was being struck precisely by the concentrated fire of Eternal and Kusanagi.
Several beams pierced the bridge tower and main engine blocks at once. The intense heat instantly melted through layers of composite armor, igniting the propellant and ammunition stored within.
A chain of explosions began at the stern and spread forward section by section. Each blast erupted from the ship's internal compartments, tearing apart, twisting, and hurling away its metal framework.
At last, a shell struck the reactor core, and the entire warship was swallowed by an expanding sphere of light.
In that instant, the blaze illuminated the space around several