CHAPTER 13
Close-Quarters Battle
When Pitohui saw Tomtom’s HP bar vanish in the corner of her vision, she lamented, “Awww! I guess that’s the end of our defensive line.”
She made eye contact with Eva, who was lying behind cover about ten yards away. They were on their bellies on the helipad, while the bullet lines from Rosa’s PKM vanished as her shots flew over their heads.
“You’re going to let the enemy onto the ship?” Eva asked.
“That’s right,” Pitohui promptly replied. “We should meet up and retreat before we lose any more team members. We’ve done quite well so far.”
On the rear port side, David was stuck behind cover, due to the watchful eye of Lux. “And that’ll put us back into a proper battle-royale configuration. Works for me,” he agreed.
MMTM would be very close to the ship by now, and even if he could peek out and get some shots off, he wouldn’t be able to take out all of them. Though Lux, who was keeping him stuck in place, was likely to stay out there and die in the water before he could get to safety.
The bastards got me, David thought proudly. The ship combat that was to come would involve very short distances, which meant the expertise of a sniper was very limited.
By sacrificing himself and ensuring that the other four with machine guns and assault rifles got on board, he maximized the team’s chances. David would have signed off on such a strategy if he were there.
“Where should we rendezvous?” he asked.
“Let’s go to the bridge. Did you hear that, Ervin?”
“Ah yes!”
“You don’t have to come to the port side. Just spray one last magazine, then come inside. Go up the stairs, to the highest deck, all the way to the front.”
“G-got it.”
Ervin was on the starboard side focusing mightily on the pink dot. He let loose with thirty more shots, not bothering to aim too hard, then stood and ran from the spot. M got off another shot at him, but it only bounced off his shoulder protector.
“The enemy’s pulled back! Run, you two! No need to shoot.”
“Roger that!”
“Got it.”
Llenn and Fukaziroh zoomed across the field. A little over four hundred yards remained. If there wasn’t going to be any attacking, they could just make a straight beeline for it.
“I’ll be along right behind you,” M continued. He began running after them, holding his M14 EBR in front. The water was already over his ankles at this point.
His running speed and the advancing speed of the sea were the same. On the monitors in the bar, it was clear that he was desperately moving his large body as fast as it would go, yet, there was no difference in his position and the water’s edge. It was like some kind of visual illusion. The crowd was fully engaged.
“Whoa, is he gonna make it?”
“Hurry! Hurry!”
“M! I know you’re not the kind of guy who dies here!”
Different monitors displayed the whereabouts of BTRY. First was Cole, whose face was sleeping and peaceful in death. After he’d been blown apart, his corpse reconstituted atop the mast.
Next was Tomtom, who was unmoving on the rear deck, his head stuck inside his backpack on the ground, like some weird art installation.
Of the remaining four, Pitohui and Eva were climbing stairs inside the ship. This was the audience’s first view of the ship’s interior. It was filthy with age, but the power was still on, so it was fully illuminated.
David was running at full speed through the huge, lengthy courtyard area in the middle of the ship.
And Ervin’s bulky, armored body was running down a tight hallway, bouncing awkwardly off obstacles here and there.
The first to get inside the ship were the four remaining members of MMTM.
Kenta the G36K user was the first to reach the hole. Wary of what might be inside, he opened his inventory window as he ran and attached a powerful flashlight to the left side of his gun.
That was in expectation that the interior would be dark, but in fact, there were LED lights strung up every few yards on the inside. They must have hung them up when escaping the ship originally.
“We’ve got light inside. Pile in, guys!”
“Got it!” said Bold.
“You bet,” followed Summon.
“Whew…made it,” said Jake, bringing up the rear with his machine gun.
The quartet of MMTM rushed in through the hole.
About ten seconds later, four members of SHINC made it inside.
In the lead, of course, was Tanya, their point person. She entered with her silenced Bizon steadied at her shoulder; it barely swayed as she walked.
It was unlikely that any of the enemies who’d been shooting from the deck dozens of feet above would suddenly be down there, but it never hurt to be cautious.
Anna followed, pushing the slower Rosa, and turned back to yell “Hurry, Tohma!”
Tohma had been the farthest back, so she could shoot the PTRD-41, and was still running to catch up to the group. The sea was right on her heels—but Tohma was fairly quick, and her boots never got wet.
“Whew! Thanks for waiting! Give the orders now, Rosa!”
Llenn’s foot speed was the fastest of all surviving players. As she sprinted, the huge white structure grew larger and larger, until it was looming over her head.
“It’s massive…”
When Llenn—make that Karen—was in elementary school, she once took a ferry trip from Otaru Port in Hokkaido to Maizuru Port all the way down in Kyoto. It was during a family vacation to Kyoto.
The name of the ship was the Hanamasu.
According to its catalog, it was a bit under 730 feet long. When she and her sister gazed up at it from Otaru, it looked enormous. The space on board was stunning. She could go around searching every nook and cranny, and it would never end. It tuckered her out.
That memory was a vivid one for her, but the ship she saw now was over twice the size of the ferry. If she kept looking up at it, she felt she would flip over backward. Since she was near its prow, if she looked to the side, the stern was impossibly distant. She couldn’t see where it ended.
“It’s too massive…”
What was happening on this ship? She’d have to fight enemy squads on board? And she had to find Pitohui in the process? Thinking about all the challenges she had to juggle was making her woozy.
Once she was at the edge of the mountain-like ship, Llenn pointed her P90 at the hole before her. Part of the hole was underground at this point, but it was still large enough for a person to pass through, even one the size of M.
It looked like it had been forcefully, violently burned through the metal. On the inside was another layer of steel with the same hole through it. Beyond that, she could see hanging LED lights. No sign of any human presence.
Llenn turned back. Fukaziroh had started running from about the same spot, so she was close enough that her face was recognizable. Her dual MGL-140s were resting on her shoulders as she ran along, chanting like some kind of Edo-era palanquin bearer. “Ei-ho! Ei-ho!”
Behind her was nothing but green grass and gray seawater and, in the distance, the small form of M.
“You can do it, M!”
“What, no words of encouragement for me? I feel so left out. I’m gonna sulk now.”
“You’ve got plenty of time, Fuka! I’m worried about M!”
Fukaziroh turned to look at M behind her as she ran. “Good point… M, do you want me to end it all for you? I can shoot you. It’s cooler to get blown up than to drown, don’t you think?”
“Fuka!”
“I’m just trying to lighten the mood with a joke. I’m not gonna shoot him. Ei-ho! Ei-ho!” Fukaziroh said. She reached Llenn within a few more seconds. “Phew! I’m tired! Mentally.”
Both Llenn and Fukaziroh waited for M outside the ship. He could see them from his distant position, and he yelled, “Go in!”
“But—!”
“There’s no point if we all drown!”
“C’mon, you know M’s right,” said Fukaziroh, cool and collected. She started to go through the hole, but Llenn grabbed her arm.
“Wait!”
“C’mon, I don’t want to do a romantic group suicide. You know that Pito is smiling and waiting for us up there. There’s nothing left for us to do down here. We’re nothing more than useless lowlifes whose only skills are shooting guns.”
“That’s it! Fuka…prepare to fire Leftania!”
“Huh?”
“Oh, he’s not gonna make it…”
“Yeah… Is this it for M?”
The audience in the pub had a bird’s-eye view, so they could see the situation very well. Perhaps because the higher part of the island was also rather flat, the approach of the water was much faster now. In other words, it was no longer keeping pace with M’s top speed, but it was moving faster than he was toward the ship.
“Won’t the girls be in trouble if they don’t go inside the ship, too? There’s no guarantee that there are stairs right inside the hole, is there?”
“Exactly. And the water’s going to rush into the ship, obviously…”
They were very concerned about Llenn and Fukaziroh. Meaning that they’d already given up on M. It looked like the sea was picking up speed. He had about 250 feet to go, but there was no way he’d make it in time.
In another five seconds, M’s large body would be swallowed up by the enormous gray slime that was the ocean.
“Good-bye, M… We’ll never forget your heroic combat ability… Amen…,” said someone in the crowd. Just then, the ocean blew up.
“Huh?”
The giant slime exploded, right behind M.
No, it wasn’t the ocean that exploded…
“A plasma grenade!”
It was an explosive that created a brilliant-blue vortex of energy. The plasma grenade’s blast diameter was twenty yards across. Everything within that range was obliterated and sent flying outward.
Including enemies and even seawater.
“One more, Fuka!”
“You got it!”
Pomp.
Fukaziroh’s left-hand MGL-140 shot out another blue projectile.
Since the target was close, it shot at a low angle, barely passing over M’s head and exploding only twenty-five yards behind him.
Another blue orb erupted within the rushing sea. The blast pushed against M’s back.
“I can’t believe you thought of this…,” Fukaziroh gasped.
“See? You’ve got something to do after all, don’t you?” Llenn grinned.
The audience watched as two successive plasma-grenade blasts succeeded at bringing the seawater to a halt directly behind M.
Right after the surge of the explosions finished, the water rushed back from the sides and rear, but there was also a big hole gouged out of the ground, so the force was not enough to hit M and drag him away.
Llenn and Fukaziroh vanished into the hole in the ship just before M got there. He plunged through the opening at a full run.
Three seconds after the last member of the team disappeared from view, the water smashed against the hull of There Is Still Time.
Their crisis continued.
They were inside the ship but still at the same level as the water. Fortunately, or perhaps by design, just a few yards after getting through the hole in the outer ship wall, there was a hallway with a narrow staircase.
“Hurry and climb!”
“Hyaaaa!”
“C’mon, Llenn, go! Or we’ll run over you!”
Under the bright light of the LEDs, Llenn sped up the stairs, Fukaziroh clunked and clonked the walls with her bulky grenade launchers, and last came M, hunching his large body as he climbed.
Once Llenn had gone up five stories’ worth, she came to a large mirror and a door. A figure appeared in the mirror.
“Eep!” Llenn flinched and even pointed the P90 at the mirror. “Hey, it’s me!”
In English, the mirrored door said GUEST FLOOR AHEAD, CHECK YOUR APPEARANCE. She pushed it open.
If anyone was there, they’d be an enemy, and she would have opened fire, but there was no one. It was just a slightly larger hallway, about five feet wide and seven and a half feet high, certainly not what anyone would call spacious. Even on a luxury cruise ship, internal space was at a premium.
The floor was covered in thick carpet. It was faded and flattened, of course. The wallpaper was once off-white, but now it was either degraded or peeling everywhere.
The hallway was straight and very long. There was nothing in it. It was so long, in fact, that no one could see to the end. The lights on the ceiling continued all the way down.
Behind her, it went about seventy feet to a dead end. There were doors on either wall set at regular intervals. That meant this was the lowest of the passenger cabin decks, on the right side of the ship, near the front.
Fukaziroh reached the hallway, then M arrived after her, and they closed the door firmly.
“Thanks. You two saved me,” M said, heaving a deep breath to ease his agitation.
“Are we safe here? Will the water come up?” Llenn wondered.
“We should be fine for a while. First the water will flood into the lower sections, bit by bit. But before that—” Suddenly a sound cut M off.
Grurrrrurrurrurrrrrrg.
It was a sound like the growling of some mammoth beast, and it seemed to envelop them from the outside. It continued without stopping, until Fukaziroh said, “What’s this? Are we in the belly of some beast?”
“No. But the ship is groaning.”
“Why?”
“It must be happy.”
“Excuse me? Don’t treat it like a person. Again, why?” Fukaziroh repeated.
For some reason, M sounded pleased. “It gets to be a ship again.”
The best vantage point for the situation, as usual, belonged to the audience watching from the safety of the pub. They were practically omniscient.
Immediately after M vanished into the ship, a huge amount of seawater enveloped its sides. The gray water went into the hole, of course, but the overall level quickly rose above it, so the hole was entirely hidden from view.
The rescue boats that Pitohui and David cut down simply sank rather pathetically. They certainly couldn’t float with their bottoms completely cracked from the fall. Instead, the boats’ equipment, like red-and-white life buoys and orange-painted boxes, floated unescorted to the surface like trash.
The water level rose and rose against the side of the cruise ship.
“Hang on. If the water keeps rising at this pace, the whole thing’s gonna be submerged within minutes. Everyone’s gonna die, y’know?” someone shrieked.
“That’s not happening, idiot,” another watcher snapped.
“What makes you so sure?”
“So what if there are holes? It’s a ship. What do you think happens when a ship is surrounded by water?”
As if in response to the question, the cruise ship budged. Suddenly, the water level rising against its side slowed. It stopped. Then it began to lower.
“Whoa!”
The diagonal aerial angle made it very clear. The enormous ship was slowly but surely rising within the water.
The part of the ship that was buried under the ground began to pull free with the power of the craft’s buoyancy. Dirt flooded the churning water around the base, and a great amount of grass floated to the surface.
Finally, the ship rose up high upon the water, then sank a bit and stabilized.
At last, the ship was a ship again.
“It’s floating!”
“Hya-hoo!”
“Onward!”
The audience cheered and roared, although they were nowhere near the actual ship.
It was 1:15. In an hour and fifteen minutes, the island six miles to a side had completely sunk beneath the waves. Now it was replaced by a new battlefield, 550 yards long and a hundred yards wide.
This was the final round of third Squad Jam.
At that point, only the bar audience had a precise knowledge of who made it to the final stage—which teams were left, and how many members each had.
There were four teams atop the ship.
First, the team made up of traitors from the other squads, Betrayers (BTRY).
Pitohui, David, Ervin, Eva.
Three assault rifles, one with a grenade launcher attached. One silenced sniper rifle. The Vintorez could fire full auto, though, so one might say they had four assault rifles.
Memento Mori (MMTM) had Kenta, Bold, Summon, and Jake.
Three assault rifles and one machine gun.
SHINC had Anna, Tohma, Rosa, and Tanya.
That was two snipers, one machine gunner, and one attacker with a submachine gun.
Lastly, LPFM had only three left, one fewer than the others: Llenn, M, Fukaziroh.
That was one attacker, one sniper, and one rapid-firing grenadier.
“If you were gonna bet on one of these teams, which would it be?”
An impromptu betting pool surfaced among the audience.
“I’m going Team Betrayers all the way. You got three ridiculously powerful players, and they’ve got the high ground!”
“I’d say MMTM. You saw their fight inside the spaceship in the first Squad Jam, right? They’re unstoppable in close quarters!”
“Yeah, but SHINC’s got a chance, too. If they can get into combat in the open, the combo of a machine gun and two snipers will keep anyone else away, plus they have a free-roaming attacker, too.”
There was clear personal preference and optimism at play, but each opinion had its logical backing.
“So who’s gonna bet on Llenn’s team to win?”
The bar went silent.
“What, nobody? The first champion and second runner-up?” the same person teased.
“I dunno, pink pip-squeak aside, their speed isn’t going to get them through this, right?”
“The grenadier’s got too much power; she can’t shoot indoors. There’s no point to her fighting up close. She’ll only be in the way.”
“M’s size is going to be a disadvantage. He’ll fill the entire hallway with a target when he walks. And because of the terrain, he won’t have time and space to set up his perfect shield wall, I bet.”
The nitpicks and quibbles came fast and furious. In the end, nobody would put their money where their mouth was for Llenn’s team.
The bridge of the ship was at the top of the structure and right at the front, bulging outward like a pop-eyed goldfish. It was about the size of a school classroom, rather compact for a ship this enormous. The floor was covered in thin carpet for good traction, and the outward window was spacious and curved for visibility.
Despite being the “bridge” of the ship, the only actual controls in the room were inside the console area, a three-sided section maybe sixteen feet to a side, with a number of monitors raised above the controls.
There were only six chairs in the room. Thanks to modernized automation, such ships could run on a shockingly small number of crew members, so that was all it needed. The rest of the bridge space was for visitors, if passengers wanted to come and observe.
And in the center of the console area, slightly higher than the others, was the fancy captain’s chair. In front of that, right before the window, was the helmsman’s seat with the ship’s wheel.
It was easy to imagine a ship having a giant wheel, but in recent days, they’d been designed so small that they looked like toys. This one wasn’t even as large as a truck’s steering wheel.
This ship had been dormant for so long that the bridge room changed over time, rusting and dirty here and there, but nothing seemed to be broken. Even the window glass was still perfectly intact.
But none of the ceiling lights were on. The many monitors were silent. And of course, there was no one in the room.
Then footsteps approached the bridge. The double doors were violently kicked open from outside.
The four members of Team BTRY came stomping into the bridge: Pitohui, Eva, David, and Ervin.
Instantly, the LED lights flickered on. Ervin even tensed, thinking in the moment that it was an enemy attack.
Then the console monitors popped on. The ship was still operational, in fact.
“Human response detected in bridge,” said a voice. It was a relaxed female voice, but they could tell it did not belong to a human.
Pitohui stood in front of the console and said, “Hi! I’m Pitohui.”
“Greetings, Pitohui and company. This is the main computer of There Is Still Time. I have been given a nickname. Please call me Clara. I welcome you to our control room. Please give me any instructions you have.”
The other three were quietly stunned. In GGO, they’d seen many Earth-made machines that had gone haywire and attacked them. They were common enemies to destroy or be killed by in the game.
But this was absolutely the first time they’d come across a machine that obeyed human commands. Obviously, it was only because this was under the unique circumstances of the Squad Jam event.
“Hi, Clara. Can you sail us?”
“I can. The engine is fully operational. I detect a large amount of water in various locations along both port and starboard sides of the ship, but the impact has been minimized by shutting the internal leak containment walls.”
“Okay. Then raise them again. I, Pitohui, give you, Clara, a direct order: Raise all leak-containment partitions. No matter what happens, do not prevent the ship from taking on any further water.”
Only the humans present were taken aback by this. For her part, Clara simply said, “Understood. Opening all containment walls. Walls will not be closed until further orders.”
One of the control monitors featured a representation of the ship. The image flickered, and the doors displayed in green turned red. Then the blue area of the diagram began to expand, starting from the outer part of the ship. That was clearly a display of the water level within the craft.
“So it’ll follow any order, huh? Even one that sinks itself…,” Ervin said, shocked.
“It just means it prioritizes human commands over self-preservation. A very faithful hound,” David murmured.
“Are you insane? Why would you sink the dry ground under our feet?” Eva gasped, but Pitohui ignored the question.
“How long will we hold up, Clara?”
“Predictions will change depending on sea conditions, but at the present rate of water intake, I would estimate between two hours and two hours, twenty minutes, until stability is permanently lost.”
Pitohui gave Eva a wink. “We’re in a death match here. It’s not going to take that long, is it?”
When Eva had no response, Ervin was the next to speak, at a louder volume than anything he’d produced so far.
“Miss Pitohui! I have a request!”
His full helmet buzzed with faint motor sounds and opened from the jaw upward along hinges at his temples. For the first time, his actual character’s face was revealed.
It was the face of a young, skinny man with light-brown skin. He looked earnest and desperate, like he was about to tell someone that he was in love with them.
“What is it?”
“This ship still works, right? Please, pilot it to the northwest!”
“Ah, I see. You want to help out your old teammates who are stuck on the roof of the building over there, right?”
“Yes!”
Eva grunted to herself. David grimaced. They understood the implication of this—and they knew Pitohui did, too.
If the other five members of T-S were unharmed and conveniently able to jump on board the cruise ship, they represented quite a lot of battle power.
It was known that T-S’s overall power was not that high, but they had extensive armor that gave them phenomenal defense. And unlike M’s shield, they could move and fight wearing their gear. That represented a real danger to the other teams in indoor combat.
But the leader of Team BTRY merely said, “Sure, let’s do that.” She addressed the ship. “Clara, put us on, heading three-one-five degrees, full speed ahead. There should be a tall building breaching the water, so inform me when we are approaching it.”
“Understood. I can perform this order.”
“Th-thank you! Thank you so much!” Ervin said, bowing.
The ship swayed a bit. There was a light sensation of moving backward that persisted for some time. It also tipped to the right briefly, then swung broadly to the left. That was evidence that the ship was making a hard right turn.
The other two were silent, but they implied a question about Pitohui’s judgment.
“The more the merrier, isn’t that what they say?” she asked. It was odd, given that she’d been fighting to lower the numbers just moments ago.
But she was already pushing all of this out of her mind. “All right, what will happen with the scan, now that we’re on the ship? Might be time to check this bad boy out.”
She pulled the Satellite Scanner from her waist pouch.
There are places within the ship displaying a large, lowercase i mark. By swiping this device near them, you can temporarily access the ship’s systems, said a message on Llenn’s Satellite Scanner when she brought it out to check it in the middle of the hallway.
“What does this mean?”
“It’ll be obvious when you try it. Like right there, for example,” said Fukaziroh, motioning to the side wall no more than fifteen feet away, where that very mark was displayed.
It was just before the corner where another hallway intersected this one—and next to an inactive monitor and broken phone receiver.
The three walked over to it, and Llenn swung her terminal over the mark on the wall. The screen turned on. Llenn set it to holographic display so all three could easily see the result.
It was the same thing that SHINC, MMTM, and the audience were seeing: a map of the ship.
From the lowest passenger cabins on Deck 1 to the uppermost Deck 20, every single floor was shown one by one like tomato slices.
The first five decks had the lower passenger cabins. It was easy to identify them because of the way the rooms were neatly crammed together, with two long hallways that ran the length of the ship. There was a large theater in the fore section of these decks.
Deck 6 to Deck 9 were non-cabin facilities. There was a spacious entrance hall and enormous restaurants. The smaller interior portions were probably stores. This was where the promenade deck was, too.
Deck 10 had the courtyard deck. From 10 to 16, the cabins were split on the port and starboard sides. In other words, every room had either an ocean view or an interior courtyard view, split by the hallway in between.
Deck 17 appeared to be a multipurpose space split into several large rooms. At the very front was the bridge, the ship’s brain.
Above that, Decks 18 to 20 were considered the rooftop, with bridges that spanned the courtyard between the two sides and large, flat areas containing pools, a basketball court, observation decks, and so on.
Since the island was submerged now, there was no need for any other information. This was the new field map.
“Ah, I see. Won’t get lost now. Also…”
Llenn pointed at the one dot on the map that was shining.
It was on the bottom deck, all the way at the fore starboard edge.
“That’s where we are now, I suppose.”
“So this place with the candle symbol is like the index of the ship, huh?” Rosa said.
“It’s not a candle, it’s a lowercase i for information,” pointed out Anna.
“I don’t really get the difference.”
“That’s all right. At least I can remember the ship map now! It’s way simpler than that underground labyrinth!” said Tanya confidently. As the point person, she had a good mind for directions.
“So I guess we can’t use the Satellite Scan feature the same way on the ship. How will we locate the enemy in that case?” Kenta wondered.
None of his teammates replied. Instead, the screen of the terminal answered his question.
Scans will happen every five minutes and display all player names and locations for sixty seconds, it read.
“Okay. And it’s 1:18 now,” Bold announced, reading the time off the screen. “No, wait, 1:19 now.”
Then the ship began to move.
Time passed, one second at a time, slowly but surely.
“What is this? Are we moving? Where are we going?” Llenn wondered, feeling the vibration of the ship.
Fukaziroh replied, “Who knows? Doesn’t really matter, does it? Where do you want to go, Llenn?”
Her answer was immediate: “Wherever Pito is.”
Forty seconds to go.
“As soon as it shows up, we attack the nearest squad! They won’t even need to show another scan.”
“You bet.”
“Got it!”
In the hallway, MMTM was preparing for a charge to wipe out their enemies.
In the lead was Kenta, with his G36K. Behind him to the right was Summon, who had the SCAR-L. They were a team that fired in unison when they attacked, but that meant that if Kenta was careless and moved his upper half, his back and head would get shot. Still, they’d done this many times before.
Behind them was Jake, the present leader of the squad, carrying an HK21 machine gun with a hundred-round ammo box attached.
Bringing up the rear was Bold, of the ARX160. His job was to watch their six and be their backup when they were out of ammo.
Twenty seconds to go.
“Hmm, so that’s the deal. Verrry interesting,” murmured Pitohui in the bridge as she read the message. “It’s kind of too bad,” she added.
“Too bad? What do you mean?” Eva asked.
Pitohui waved the device and said, “I don’t think any other teams will make it up here within five minutes. We’re going to be so bored without any battle.”
Ten seconds to go.
The first onboard scan was underway.
It started from above. Scan lines ran through the Deck 20 outline starting from the prow and passing through the stern in the span of a single second.
From there, it scanned each deck separately, going down the ranks. The first positive response came from Deck 17, where the bridge was. It displayed Pitohui and her three companions. The shining dots showed the character’s name when touched. Since they were standing in close proximity, the dots were practically overlapping. They did not disappear, even after the scan moved on to lower decks.
“Well, well, first-class seating,” Fukaziroh opined lazily.
“Pito’s right there! And Eva!” Llenn shouted.
This was the first moment she became aware that Eva, aka Boss, was on Team Betrayers.
What do I do now…? she wondered, question marks flying.
That was her opponent to defeat in SJ3, but she was honestly at a loss for what to do. If she beat Eva when she wasn’t with SHINC, did that really count as fulfilling the promise?
But more importantly!
Llenn got her head back in gear and examined the screen again. She had no idea exactly how many players were on the ship at the moment.
Did all the teams get on board safely, the way her team did?
Did they lose one or two along the way?
Did they all get stuck outside the ship and drown in the ocean?
Hopefully, it was the latter.
Then the scan reached Deck 8, and Llenn’s hopes were dashed.
It showed the members of MMTM on the aft port side. But there were only four of them. David, their leader, was on the betrayers’ team, so apparently one was gone from SJ3 now.
From that point on, the scan was a total whiff. Nobody showed up. There were six teams approaching the ship, so how could there only be one showing up so far?
At last, the scan reached the bottom, Deck 1.
Llenn and LPFM saw the results.
Rosa and SHINC saw the results.
“Huh?”
“Huh?”
They both squawked at the same time.
LPFM’s trio was near the front of the ship, at the end of the long right-hand hallway.
SHINC’s quartet was near the front of the ship, at the end of the long left-hand hallway.
And both were standing right before the shorter side hallway that connected both long vertical hallways.
They were no more than fifty yards apart.
“Run! Get beyond that intersection!” M shouted.
“Hya!” “Yo!”
Llenn and Fukaziroh sprang forward.
On the opposite side of the ship, Rosa bellowed and leaped out in front of the side corridor.
“Raaaah!”
Dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut!
She blasted her PKM machine gun.
If Llenn and Fukaziroh had been one step slower in leaping across, they would have been caught in Rosa’s hail of bullets. Fukaziroh in particular, lacking Llenn’s burst, barely made it in time. Two shots hit her bulging backpack, throwing off her balance and causing her to tumble wildly.
If the plasma grenades had still been inside, the chain explosion might have killed them all at once.
“Yeowww!”
Fukaziroh’s spill was so violent that her two grenade launchers fell and clattered away. But to their good fortune, they had the ability to flee down toward the aft side of the ship now. Only M, the one who ordered them to do it, was left behind on the fore side.
The bullets flew just fifty yards before blasting through the far wall of the hallway. Red bullet lines and the projectiles that followed them carved up the wall. There was no way for M to get past them unharmed.
Rosa lowered the PKM she was firing from her waist to the floor, setting it up on the low bipod so she could lie down behind it.
“Now go!” she yelled as she resumed firing.
“Yeah!” replied Tanya without missing a beat.
While machine-gun bullets hurtled down the side hallway at speeds over Mach 2, Tanya ran alongside them, a few inches away from their path—toward the enemy.
Just from hearing the machine-gun fire pause for an instant, M intuited SHINC’s strategy. “Attacker coming!” he bellowed.
Right in front of him, the bullets were coming down the side hallway from the right. Llenn and Fukaziroh were on the other side of them, with the latter being closer to the corner.
“Fuka! Shoot one into the hallway!”
“Hell yeah!”
She grabbed one of the MGL-140s off the ground before her, crawled back toward the hallway the bullets were coming down, and poked the launcher’s gaping muzzle around the corner, down low.
“Take this!”
Pomp! She fired once.
A grenade shot from a launcher would not explode on impact if it landed within seventy-five feet of the gun. That was to protect the shooter from the effect of the blast. The method of determining this was simple but effective: The explosive rotated like a bullet as it flew and would not activate unless it crossed a certain number of rotations.
But even if it didn’t explode, it was a hunk of metal an inch and a half across, so it could do plenty of damage to a human body just as a physical projectile.
If it was lucky enough to hit the charging attacker—unseen, but almost certainly Tanya—it could probably knock her unconscious.
“Ai-hya!”
The grenade unleashed down the hallway missed Tanya’s head by less than an inch. But while it didn’t hit her…
“Uh-oh, that might be bad,” she muttered as she ran.
For having been shot blind, the grenade traveled in a perfect arc down the hallway. It did not hit either of the side walls, but it flew almost exactly straight down the corridor—passing over Rosa’s head where she was firing the PKM—and struck the back wall of the port-side hallway.
That was a shot of at least fifty yards.
Naturally, the detonator activated.
The result was a blue explosion.
Rosa, who was lying in the middle of the side hallway, and Anna and Tohma, who were in wait for support whenever she ran out of ammo, all found themselves helpless at the whim of a world of blue.
Their hit points and avatars evaporated into nothingness.
The diameter of the blast was over sixty feet. Tanya was farther than that down the hallway, so she was not affected, but when an explosion happens in an enclosed space, what happens to the surroundings is obvious—it creates a much more focused blast.
The tailwind of the tremendous blast of air shot through the hallway, inescapable, and punched Tanya in the back as though with an air gun.
“Byaaa!”
She traveled through the remaining sixty feet of hallway in the air.
The blast exhaust passed down the side hallway and reached the starboard-side long hallway, where it split in two down either direction.
“Hyaa!” shrieked small, light Llenn, who tumbled over thirty feet backward. Even Fukaziroh, who was slightly heavier, uttered a “Bwoof!” and tumbled back off the floor.
A normal grenade would have been plenty powerful, but Fukaziroh had shot her plasma grenades instead. As she tumbled, she wailed, “Oh nooo! I shot Leftania by mistake!”
“You dummyyyyyyyyyy!” screamed Llenn as she bounced off the walls of the hallway like a Ping-Pong ball.
“Bwuhb!”
Tossed by the explosion, Tanya slammed into the bullet-ridden far wall on the starboard-side hallway, face and stomach first. She flattened there like a frog that had been stepped on.
Her plan to toss a hand grenade as she approached the corner, then leap in behind the blast and fire in both directions, had been accelerated in a most unexpected manner.
The impact cost her quite a lot of HP, but she still had half of her health left. Tanya fell off the wall and landed on her back in the hallway. Very close by, M was crouched to withstand the force of the explosion.
It was clear that her three companions had died instantly, so Tanya leaped up to take revenge against this enemy. “Damn youuuu!”
She’d never let go of the Bizon through all the force of the explosion, and she turned it toward him and tugged on the trigger.
Sh-pang!
One bullet, quieted through the suppressor, hit M’s right leg.
Tanya thought, Huh? I had it on semiauto?
It was her normal style to always have it on full auto and use the timing of her finger to put together three-to-four-shot bursts.
It seemed that hitting the wall had somehow shifted her Bizon’s selector to semiauto.
Well, no problem! Die, M! This is revenge for last time! she thought, placing the bullet circle over M’s forehead.
He was only ten feet away. It would take a miracle for her to miss. Even tough-looking M wouldn’t survive thirty rounds of 9 mm bullets. She had him.
Tanya pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked. No bullet emerged from the Bizon.
“Eh?”
She looked down at her gun—and finally realized what was missing.
A magazine.
The cylindrical magazine that should be attached to the lower part of the Bizon’s front had completely fallen out of the gun. It must have happened when she hit the wall. The only reason she hadn’t noticed earlier was that the first time she pulled the trigger, it was able to shoot the single bullet in the chamber.
“Rnng,” grunted M, who suffered only a shot to the leg. He looked up, right as Llenn shouted “M!”
Realizing that Llenn was still alive behind her, Tanya acted without hesitation.
She leaped as high as her agility could get, headfirst, barely clearing M as he made to stand up. One of his thick arms reached up to grab her leg, but he wasn’t in time.
“Move, M!” cried Llenn, who could no longer shoot at Tanya.
“Hissss!” Tanya twisted like a cat as she landed, turning around to pounce and attack.
She had the Strizh pistol at her side, but she did not use it this time. She already had a weapon that she could use more quickly and effectively within her hands.
Tanya jumped onto M’s backpack and used the Bizon’s sling, a strip of nylon, to tug on M’s neck. Then she rotated the Bizon a full turn, tangling the sling strap, and used all her weight to hang on to it.
“Gfh!”
The inch-wide nylon strap caught on M’s throat, and the full weight of the five-foot-five Tanya, still the smallest member of SHINC, dragged him backward.
“Hey! M!”
All Llenn could see, with her P90 at the ready, was M choking and struggling about fifteen yards away. He was so big that she couldn’t see Tanya behind him at all. She couldn’t shoot.
“Rrrgh…”
M was in pain. He wriggled and writhed, but Tanya clung to the strap behind him like it was a swing, screeching, “I’ll never let go, even after death!”
His hands were free from the M14 EBR so he could grab at the sling around his neck. But it was crossed—and so tight that his large fingers couldn’t work their way under the material. Still, he scrabbled at the skin so hard that the system calculated he broke through and suffered damage as a result.
“Grugh…”
Ten seconds of thrashing later, M had used up all his oxygen, and his hit points began to dwindle. He was suffocating. At this rate, he was going to die in well under a minute.
“Wh-what should I do?!” Llenn wailed.
“He’s obviously saying Forget me, just shoot!” observed Fukaziroh rather casually.
“You dummy! I’m only going to hit M!”
“Huh? You mean the bullets won’t go through him?”
“They might, but he’s got the backpack with the shield inside right behind him!”
“Oh yeah, that’s no good. M’s guardian spirit has ruined the day. The thing that protects him will be his downfall. Cruel, cruel irony. Really encapsulates the whole tragedy of the human condition in one image.”
“Stop acting so nonchalant!”
“Hey, you want me to finish the job, then? That’s the only surviving Amazon, right? We could pull back, then I’ll shoot six grenades once we’re a few dozen yards away. They’ll both die.”
“You—”
Dummy! Llenn was going to say, but something gave her pause.
Perhaps Fukaziroh’s cold, callous strategy had some logic behind it. If M was going to get killed, and Tanya escaped to be a huge hassle with her indoor speed, then maybe it would be best to end it here…
“No, we can’t do that!” Llenn said, shaking her head. When Llenn, with her outrageously high agility, did this, it looked like her head was creating afterimages, it was moving so fast. If there was a world championship for head-shaking rotation speed, she would wipe out the competition.
Instead, she shouted, “M, you can do it!”
“You can do it, Silver! Choke M out!”
“You got this!”
“Hang in there!”
The audience in the pub cheered and roared at the valiant effort of SHINC’s last surviving member. In a world of guns, the method of strangling earned some fanatical excitement from the crowd.
Since the hallway was narrow, the camera had to be close, too. It caught the look of anguish on M’s features and fox-faced Tanya gritting her canines with enjoyment, all in close-up.
“…”
M struggled, unable to get any air through his throat. His large body flailed left and right, but he could not throw Tanya off. Then he tried smashing her against the walls of the hallway.
“Daaah!” She was too agile, however. She twisted to avoid contact.
Oh no, M’s in trouble… He’s in major trouble…
All Llenn could see was huge M struggling. On the left edge of her vision, his hit points were dropping, picking up speed, and were now under a third of their original value.
Then he fell to his knees. He slumped, powerless.
Too late…, Llenn thought, a split second before M jumped up. It was a huge jump, using all his strength. He made contact with the ceiling, back first.
“Gerf!”
Tanya ended up squashed between the ceiling and his backpack. There was enough power in the blow that the ceiling tiles were damaged by it.
“Ooh!” Llenn cheered.
Once M landed, he jumped again.
“Gahk!”
He jumped.
“Gurg!”
He jumped.
“Bwuh!”
At last, Tanya officially took numerical damage from hitting the ceiling. Still, she kept a tight grip and continued choking him, so M fought through his anguish and kept jumping.
“……”
All Llenn could do was watch it happen.
After she had lost track of the number of jumps, Tanya finally screamed an “Aaaah!” and let go. M immediately ripped aside the loosened sling strap.
“Bwaaaah!”
He sucked in a huge breath, and his hit points stopped decreasing. He had about 20 percent of his health left.
Slumped on the carpet, half-alive and half-dead, Tanya muttered “Dammit…” and reached for her waist, grabbing loose a hand grenade and pulling the safety pin.
“Hmph!”
Immediately after, M’s thick, horselike leg completely bowled Tanya over backward. She flew several yards down the hallway but kept her grip on the grenade. She tried to throw it but couldn’t manage to do more than weakly drop it in front of her.
“Ahhh, shit, it didn’t work…,” Tanya muttered. Then she vanished into graphical polygon shards and bounced out of SJ3 altogether.
A number of the grenade’s shrapnel pieces hit M’s leg, causing even more HP damage.
“M! You’re all right!”
“Yeah…somehow.”
The damage stopped at 10 percent. M had avoided death, and he immediately stuck an emergency healing kit into his hand.
For a brief instant, M’s entire form, gear included, shone. That was the beginning of the healing process, which would slowly recover 30 percent of his health over a span of 180 seconds.
From the scan revealing their locations to now, the entire battle took less than two minutes.
“Way to go, M! I knew you would do it!” said Fukaziroh, who moments ago had suggested killing them both to save trouble.
“Ha-ha-ha…” Llenn’s laugh was dry. But at least he survived…, she thought, truly relieved.
“You know, I was wondering, though,” Fukaziroh said, tilting her head to the side. “Why didn’t you just turn around, M? Then Llenn could have shot her from behind.”
“……”
M’s craggy face seemed to hitch a little bit. Llenn chose to speak in his stead.
“Why didn’t you say that earlierrrr?!”
Her scream came at the same moment the ship silently tilted to the left.
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