In movies or anime, an experienced elite squad—even if they aren't the protagonists—would surely survive for a long time. They would participate in some grand, sweeping battle and meet a heroic end, bringing a legendary life to a dramatic conclusion.
But reality is no television drama. No matter how elite a soldier may be, they can die, and the manner of their passing is rarely theatrical.
The captain of this elite Dagger squadron died just like that—casually. There was no dramatic plot twist, no glorious final stand; he simply vanished, erased by a burst of Magnum light.
After losing their leader, the Dagger squadron fell into a brief moment of chaos. However, they quickly regained their composure and resumed their assault on the Unicorn.
With a casual swing of his shield, Roz crushed the chest plate of a Dagger, exposing the internal "wetware" platform. He didn't use his beam saber; instead, he simply and bluntly thrust the sharp tip of his shield forward, grinding the wetware platform into powder.
A faint, distorted electronic voice flickered in his ears—a word of thanks. It sounded like someone who had forgotten their own voice, remembering only the artificial tones produced by a speaker.
This shackled, tortured soul had finally found liberation. Unlike the souls filled with lingering resentment that remained drifting in space, it dissipated instantly into the cosmos. Even with mental sensitivity as strong as Roz's, he could no longer sense its presence.
Whenever he destroyed one of these wetware platforms, Roz would fall into a heavy silence.
Though these souls trapped within machines might curse or scream in agony, in the end, they all invariably expressed their gratitude to him.
For them, names and faces had long been forgotten. Their values had been twisted, and they had been brainwashed by Blue Cosmos until even the choice of suicide was taken from them. With their waking and sleeping cycles controlled by others, every day spent lingering in this world was ultimate torture.
Perhaps, for those still under the thumb of Blue Cosmos, death truly was the greatest reward.
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"Thank you..." "Thank you..." "Thank you..."
Those voices echoed incessantly in Roz's mind, punctuated occasionally by the curses and weary sighs of the human Earth Alliance pilots.
Distorted electronic gratitudes signaled the dissipation of tormented souls. Of the original Dagger squadron that had sought to corner Roz, only twelve units remained.
Wave after wave of vanguards had fallen; no matter how elite this Dagger squadron was, they were finally beginning to feel a crushing sense of powerlessness.
In the Dagger comms channel, nothing could be heard but the heavy, ragged breathing of the final three pilots.
Against the Unicorn, standard small-scale evasive maneuvers were useless—the splash damage from the Beam Magnum was simply too large. Unlike Roz, who was a "concrete pillar" capable of piloting a machine with its limiters removed without even activating a pharmacological anti-G suit, they were mere mortals.
By now, they knew that survival, let alone victory, was a fading dream.
"Heh... dying at the hands of the White Devil isn't the worst way to go."
"Everyone, how's your ammo?"
"Empty long ago. That White Devil is too slippery... maybe the automated MS have some left?"
"Then swap positions. Let the wetware units take point."
At the temporary squad leader's command, the nine remaining wetware Daggers traded places with the three pilots, handing over their beam rifles to the humans as they moved.
In the Earth Alliance's current doctrine, using wetware MS as shields to preserve human pilots was standard procedure. After all, their internal propaganda insisted these machines were merely robots equipped with AI.
Those who knew the truth of the wetware platforms kept their mouths shut, leading the pilots to truly believe they were accompanied by heartless, soulless steel rather than suffering human remnants.
The nine wetware MS drew their beam sabers and swarmed the Unicorn from all angles.
Roz didn't hesitate. He pulled the trigger of the Beam Magnum on one Dagger while the Unicorn's head-mounted Vulcans spat fire. Tracers carved brilliant arcs through the void, peppering another unit.
The Magnum beam vaporized its target instantly. A neighboring Dagger, caught in the purple high-energy discharge, was sliced from top to bottom and shattered into fragments.
The unit targeted by the Vulcans held out for a moment, but under the relentless, concentrated barrage, its outer armor tore open, and the shells shredded the wetware platform within.
'If I were in NT-D mode, the Vulcans would switch to beam-firing mode and melt that armor even faster,' Roz thought clinically.
As the blurred voices of the dying faded from his senses, Roz sighed. He raised the Unicorn's left shield, battering aside the arm of an attacking Dagger with a heavy strike, then delivered a brutal kick to another, sending it tumbling into its comrade.
He rotated the left shield slightly to clear the path for the beam saber mounted on his forearm. The blade swept through, bisecting a Dagger diagonally. The severed machine erupted in a blinding flash as its reactor went critical—the resulting explosion pushing the Unicorn back as Roz instinctively raised his shield.
Reactors. Ever since Rau Le Creuset had handed the N-Jammer Canceller data to the Earth Alliance, both sides had begun outfitting their MS with nuclear power. While PLANT's research was more refined, the Earth Alliance had adopted a "brute force" approach, churning out reactors that prioritized output over safety or elegance.
Roz frowned at the volatility. Using the momentum from the blast, he closed the distance to the two Daggers he had knocked together. The left-arm beam saber lunged forward like a skewer, impaling both machines in a single thrust.
In the blink of an eye, the once-formidable MS force had been whittled down to three human pilots and a few straggling wetware units.
Meanwhile, the small Alliance fleet was in tatters: the two Drake-class ships were silent husks, and the Nelson-class flagship was barely holding on under the Nahel Argama's overwhelming fire.
Anyone could see the end was near.
Roz maneuvered the Unicorn, casually grabbing a nearby Dagger by its head and hurling it bodily into another automated unit. The two machines collided with a deafening metallic clang that vibrated through the vacuum.
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