The wetware-equipped Daggers collided and tumbled backward through the void.
The last remaining functional wetware unit vaulted over its drifting comrades, leveling its beam saber for a desperate thrust toward the Unicorn. Simultaneously, the three pilot-controlled Daggers raised their beam rifles, unleashing a continuous barrage of suppressive fire.
At this distance, it was technically too late for the Unicorn to shift its posture to dodge or block all the incoming attacks through conventional means.
However, Roz had never been a textbook pilot. His combat style, forged in countless simulations against a virtual "Amuro Ray," was a brand of pure, unpredictable "street fighting" efficiency.
The thrusters on his backpack angled slightly, erupting in a burst of fire that forced the Unicorn into a violent spin, using its extended right leg as a pivot. The machine twisted elegantly through the lattice of beams, narrowly evading the wetware unit's saber thrust.
Using the centrifugal force of the spin, Roz lashed out with a heavy roundhouse kick. The Unicorn's foot slammed into the head of the lunging Dagger, shattering its main camera monitor instantly.
Even for an ACE pilot, losing the primary monitor causes a brief moment of disorientation. For a wetware unit—which has lost all other senses and relies entirely on its interface with the machine's optics—the loss of the head cameras was catastrophic.
Though the wetware unit in this particular Dagger was a veteran of many battles and quickly attempted to switch its feed to the auxiliary cameras, it was too late. The last thing it saw on its backup monitors was a sphere of swirling red and purple light.
With the roar of the Beam Magnum, the Dagger was vaporized. The beam's terrifying power continued forward, consuming the two drifting units behind it as well.
Now, only three Daggers—those piloted by human Earth Alliance soldiers—remained.
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"All unmanned combat platforms destroyed..."
"...It's just us now."
A heavy silence fell over the Dagger communication channel.
"Draw beam sabers," the temporary squad leader finally commanded. "We take him in close quarters."
"But... we can't win a melee, can we? All the wetware units were cut down by him..." His teammate's voice wavered with clear hesitation.
"If we let the White Devil keep using that beam rifle, we'll die even faster!" the leader barked. "I've been watching—that rifle is powerful, but the firing interval is long. If we close the distance and engage him in a dogfight, he won't be able to use it!"
Evidently, even in the heat of that slaughter, the leader had maintained enough composure to analyze the Unicorn's weakness.
The three remaining Daggers began firing their beam rifles in rapid succession. Under a rain of light, they charged toward the Unicorn with suicidal resolve.
"Close combat? Trying to seal off the Beam Magnum?"
Observing their movement, Roz frowned slightly. The Unicorn danced through the incoming fire, and as if complying with the Dagger squad's plan, Roz smoothly holstered the Beam Magnum into the specialized rack behind his shield.
This component had been designed back when the Beam Gatlings were first introduced. However, with the advent of the Armed Armor BS—which could fire both standard and Magnum-grade beams—Roz had used the handheld Magnum less frequently, and the rack had been sidelined. It wasn't until this sudden skirmish that it was redeployed alongside the spare shield.
Seeing the Unicorn stow its primary weapon, the Dagger squad reached the optimal distance and ignited their beam sabers, slashing toward the white machine.
The Unicorn raised its left arm. The shield caught the descending strike with a shower of sparks. But the other two Daggers peeled away, circling the locked machines at a sharp angle to thrust their blades into the Unicorn's flank.
Thump—
A missile launched from the underside of the spare shield. The resulting flash and shockwave pushed all four machines apart.
By the time the Dagger pilots recovered their vision, they were met with a surreal sight: the void was suddenly filled with "Unicorns"—or rather, decoy balloons in the shape of the Unicorn.
While these decoys weren't as lifelike as the custom ones Lacus had commissioned for the Freedom and Justice, their sheer numbers and built-in electronic warfare emitters were more than enough to overwhelm the Daggers' sensors.
"What is this? Balloons?!" The squad leader growled, swatting away a white decoy with his machine's hand.
"Probably... but the interference is too strong! The system is flagging all of them as enemy units. Are they stuffed with jammers?" a teammate analyzed, his brow furrowing. This was bad. The Unicorn was now in the shadows, while they were out in the open. If they were ambushed...
"My suggestion is we pull ba—bzzzt—"
The teammate's voice cut out abruptly, replaced by the harsh white noise of a lost signal.
They spun their machines around, only to see their comrade's Dagger held firmly in the Unicorn's left hand. The beam saber on the Unicorn's right arm had bypassed the reactor, thrusting directly through the waist and into the cockpit.
With a brutal kick, the Unicorn sent the hollowed-out Dagger tumbling toward the remaining two pilots.
Roz then slashed at a nearby decoy. As the balloon popped, a blinding white light flared. The ruptured decoy released a cloud of metallic chaff and a high-intensity flash-bang charge.
These were Roz's recently upgraded "Special Mark II" decoys. Some were modeled after the dormant Unicorn, others after the "Destroy Mode" with red frames. More importantly, they were packed with magnesium flares designed to blind enemy sensors and cameras.
Because the Unicorn's cockpit automatically filtered out sudden light spikes, this was a one-way flash. The Daggers weren't so lucky. As mass-production units, their pilots had to manually adjust sensor parameters. By the time they dimmed their screens to stop the glare, it was already too late.
"Back to back!" the leader shouted after his vision cleared. Seeing the wreckage of his teammates drifting among the balloons, he grit his teeth.
The two remaining Daggers stood together, covering each other's blind spots to prevent another ambush.
But Roz was done with ambushes.
Almost instinctively, the veteran leader looked in one direction just as a massive impact hit him. The Unicorn had lunged forward, grabbing the Dagger's arms and slamming into it at maximum thrust, dragging it away from its partner.
"Damn it! Don't you dare—!"
The last remaining wingman tried to give chase, but a violent impact from his side halted him. The Unicorn's spare shield had been detached and was operating as a Shield funnel. To his horror, the shield slammed into his Dagger, and the muzzle of the Beam Magnum—which was mounted to the shield's underside—began to glow.
A point-blank Magnum shot.
The thick beam turned the Dagger into a molten, unrecognizable husk in an instant.
"You monster...!"
The squad leader, finally losing his cool, screamed into the radio. But Roz couldn't hear him. He had closed the public channels long ago.
Roz pulled the trigger for the head Vulcans. The rounds hammered into the Dagger's torso like a pneumatic chisel. Because a certain Commissioner Smith in the Earth Alliance had been skimming off the top of the armor plating contracts, the Dagger's chest piece shattered after only a few seconds of sustained fire.
The exposed cockpit was shredded by the 60mm shells.
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While Roz was engaged in his duel, the battle surrounding the Nahel Argama pressed on.
Because the GP03D was docked to the hull, one of the quadruple-mounted Gottfried cannons was obstructed and unusable. However, the remaining two quadruple Gottfried batteries continued to rain fire upon the Nelson-class flagship.
To their credit, the Nelson-class was one of the Earth Alliance's primary main-line battleships. Backed by the grit of its veteran crew, the ship managed to withstand the Nahel Argama's relentless bombardment, stubbornly refusing to sink.
But now, the battered Nelson-class had reached its absolute limit.
"Activate the Heat Ram! Full speed ahead—ram them!"
Murrue watched the Nelson-class on her screen. It was clear the enemy captain was intentionally angling the ship's less vital sections to shield the ammunition depot from the Nahel Argama's fire. She fell silent for a moment.
She deeply admired the combat will of these soldiers, but unfortunately, today they were enemies.
The ram at the bow of the Nahel Argama began to glow with a searing orange-yellow light, radiating extreme thermal energy. The rear thrusters flared to maximum output, propelling the massive ship toward the tattered enemy vessel.
"...All hands, abandon ship."
Seeing the Nahel Argama closing in like a predatory beast, the captain of the Nelson-class let out a weary sigh.
"I will stay here with my ship. The rest of you, go. You must survive."
"There's nowhere left to go, Captain... I'm not leaving," the helmsman replied with a faint, peaceful smile.
"I'm staying too."
"Count me in."
"I won't leave either."
One by one, the crew spoke up, abandoning the escape pods. In their minds, even if they abandoned ship, the chances of being rescued in this contested sector were non-existent. Since death was inevitable, they chose to meet it with dignity. If they were to be recorded in the history books, they wanted it to read: "The crew fought to the last man and went down with their ship."
With a cataclysmic impact, the Nelson-class was torn in half by the thermal ram and erupted in a massive explosion alongside the Nahel Argama.
With that, the sudden skirmish came to a final, silent end.
.........................