novelraw Chapter 28
Chapter 28
Chapter 28
Regardless of how the cadets reacted, Jin Crow did not step forward any further after finishing those words.
“…….”
On the surface, it was the kind of behavior that could easily be cursed as his trademark arrogance or an insincere attitude, but there was no one who dared to spit out such words in front of him.
That was only natural.
No matter what the fellow instructors thought of him, they maintained silence since they were in front of the cadets, and the cadets themselves had already been overwhelmed by the fact that he had killed that infamous Quad Gear, the Class-2 wanted criminal Liberto, along with his distinctive aura.
‘Even if I review the documents, there isn’t a cadet that stands out. Then there’s no reason to step in.’
Of course, Jin Crow’s inner thoughts were completely different.
Lieutenant General Regchap—he did not like that needlessly overfed bastard’s attitude.
Anyone who was not a fool would have already roughly grasped why friction was occurring between the Federal Army and the Defense Force.
But there was no other method either.
‘When they can’t even properly respond to the corrosion yet, there’s no way a Federal Army fleet could do anything.’
Creatures were enemies unlike anything before.
There was a possibility that Lieutenant General Regchap was lying, but the reason the 17th Fleet was trying to abandon Rermal Planet was because it was already too late to do anything.
Their reproductive power was beyond imagination.
Because of that, at least until all the circumstances became clear, remaining as silent as possible would be the best course of action.
“As you all know, we are all instructors from what is commonly called ‘top-tier special service academies.’ I think you all roughly know why we came here…….”
Of course, in the meantime, Instructor Hughes was chattering away to the cadets in a manner befitting his sly face.
“Now then, any questions?”
“Please feel free to ask.”
It was around the time when Dido, a bespectacled military policeman, began taking questions from the cadets on behalf of Instructor Miller from the Western Special Service Academy and Instructor Judith from the Northern Special Service Academy.
Tok tok-.
Feeling someone poke him from behind with a finger, he turned his head.
What came into view was none other than Obia.
With her characteristic mischievous expression, she winked and mouthed something.
-If you’re not interested anyway, want to slip out?
It seemed she had caught his indifferent expression.
‘What should I do.’
He briefly agonized over whether it would be fine to slip out here, but the 고민 did not last long.
If it was a matter already agreed upon among the factions, the other instructors who had come all the way here to take responsibility would have no way of not knowing that fact.
Because of that, leaving behind the short yet fervent reactions of the cadets, he quietly slipped away from his seat and moved outside the building together with Obia.
“Did you know?”
“Huh? Know what?”
“…….”
He felt this every time, but she was a woman who was not easy to converse with.
Quickly abandoning the thought of asking again, he stepped outside the building and called out to Captain Lee Hana, who wore an exhausted expression.
“Captain.”
“……Ah, I want to be discharged. Huh? Ah? Yes!”
“Please guide us to the quarters.”
“Ah, understood!”
She looked pitiful for some reason, but given the nature of a colony that was practically an entire city transplanted wholesale, if they happened to get lost, they could end up wasting time unnecessarily, so there was no real alternative.
“Why are you so nervous? We’re not scary people. Smile!”
“Ah, yes……. Ha, haha.”
“Oh? You’re really smiling?”
Of course, after being caught by Obia, she became even more pitiful.
‘Good thing I’m not the target.’
‘That almost got troublesome.’
The thoughts of Jin Crow and the military policemen as they watched Obia and Lee Hana were exactly the same.
“S-sorry…….”
In the mind of Captain Lee Hana, who was suffering in every possible way, only a single word lingered.
‘Discharge, discharge. Please, discharge……!’
“Th-then. I’ll be heading back now. Loyalty.”
“Good work. In many ways.”
After seeing off Captain Lee Hana, who had become living proof of a miracle that could utterly exhaust a person over the roughly 20 minutes it took to return to the quarters, Jin Crow closed the door and entered the room. What he saw next was yet another bizarre scene, and the curse that almost slipped out of his mouth was—
“This time, what kind of nonsense is this?”
—unable to be swallowed back down.
Indeed, all the blinds in the quarters were pulled down.
That was not all.
The military policemen were busily synchronizing their watches and projecting a beam projector onto the wall, and Obia, wearing an unidentified pair of glasses she had no idea where she had gotten, was clearing her throat.
“Ahem, um. Let’s begin.”
She spoke without caring in the slightest about Jin Crow’s incredulous expression, and one of the two military policemen, now wearing an expression of enlightenment, silently flipped through the screens.
Soon, what was projected onto the wall were short yet intense words.
「Live Report from Atla Colony」
“From now on, I will provide a full briefing on the contents of the investigation. Instructor, please take a seat.”
It was the same voice and behavior that reminded him of the adjutant who had reported in front of the instructors before.
At this point, Jin Crow had no choice but to raise both hands and feet in surrender.
When he sat down on the sofa, Obia nodded once with a satisfied look and gestured to the military policeman to advance the screen.
“At present, the situation in Atla Colony is quite complex. As we saw previously, the struggle for command authority between the Defense Force and the Federal Army’s 17th Fleet is continuing, and due to the unique nature of the situation, even the Ministry of Defense is having a hard time mediating the conflict.”
The Ministry of Defense of the Human Composite State, which projected its influence across the entire galaxy, struggling against a mere planetary defense force.
At first glance, it seemed absurd that they were having such difficulty even against a defense force that had, by now, effectively lost its planet, but the situation was, quite literally, far too exceptional.
“First, Atla Colony is unequivocally a material asset of Rermal Planet, created under the leadership of the Rermal planetary government. Although a portion of federal government subsidies was included, it does not even reach 5%, making it effectively impossible to exert real influence.”
Her tone was uncharacteristically serious.
He wanted to tell her to just quit already, but the investigation was detailed and thorough enough to set that thought aside for the moment.
“Normally, the entity that would coordinate Atla Colony’s autonomy would be the planetary government’s assembly members, but the problem is that the majority of them were kidnapped by the Red Hand, who intervened during the early stages of the evacuation.”
However, the Red Hand’s involvement did not last very long.
Afterward, the Federal Army’s 17th Fleet appeared, and together with the defense fleets that maintained the front lines to the very end before escaping into space, they drove them off.
Tak-.
At that moment, Obia slowly pushed up her glasses, which had slid down slightly, and continued.
“The real problem lies right here.”
When all of Rermal Planet’s politicians fell into the Red Hand’s grasp, there was no way to control the nearly one hundred million refugees.
Some lower house assembly members did arrive at Atla Colony alive, but quite literally, they were mere lower house members, and to make matters worse, there were several whose defeat was already certain due to their unpopularity.
They survived because their relative importance was low.
-Lack of leadership.
At a glance, it was enough to make the 17th Fleet’s failure to seize initiative seem like severe incompetence.
At that moment, as if she had been waiting for his unspoken question, Obia added,
“Captain Satra. She is currently the core of the Defense Force.”
After delivering that rather radical statement, she brought up a video on the screen.
Beep-.
A short button sound rang out.
Soon, a video with poor resolution, as if filmed from far away, finished loading and began to play.
〔Core No. 7 meltdown!〕
〔Major General! The ship can’t hold on any longer!〕
The boundary between space and planet.
In front of violet void rifts opening in all directions, frantic transmissions echoed toward the flagship that was holding the line.
〔Th-there are too many of them!〕
The corrosive spikes pouring down like rain and the attacks of Creatures that covered the sky were so desperate that they would crush anyone’s will to fight.
Even as the ships formed squadrons and fired hundreds, thousands of beams per second and unleashed barrages, their numbers did not diminish.
〔Major General Sahim!〕
〔We’ll prepare a rescue ship! Please, at least you, Major General……!〕
Just as even those unable to survey the battlefield broadly were about to start chewing over the word defeat, a calm voice was spoken, as if responding to the desperate cries of the captains shouting toward the flagship.
〔Please take care of my daughter, Satra.〕
The moment those words were spoken, the flagship quickly turned its bow toward the void rift.
Kwaaaaaaang!
Before the captains who understood Major General Sahim’s words could send replies filled with shock, worry, or resentment, the video ended with the sight of the flagship colliding with the rift and exploding.
“…….”
Silently watching the final moments of the unknown soldier, Jin Crow slipped his hand into his coat and pulled out a cigarette, placing it between his lips.
Chiik, seup-.
Then, in a low voice, he recited the circumstances he had come to understand.
“So Satra is the daughter of Major General Sahim, who rammed himself into the rift?”
“Yes. And Major General Sahim was a key figure in the Defense Force, with his promotion to lieutenant general virtually confirmed!”
Obia added afterward, “He even had his own faction, apparently.”
Then, seemingly quite satisfied that her presentation had been a success, she returned to her usual tone as if nothing had happened.
Soon after, one of the military policemen, wearing an expression that said, ‘It’s finally over,’ opened the blinds that had been kept shut. As light filled the quarters, Jin Crow stubbed out the cigarette he had burned halfway in the ashtray and asked her the lingering question.
“Even so, a mere captain commanding over a hundred thousand Defense Force soldiers? No matter how influential her father was…….”
“That doesn’t make sense. Of course.”
She smiled softly, removed her glasses, handed them to the military policeman who had been acting as a beam projector, and sank into the sofa across from Jin Crow.
“Looking at the records, Captain Satra was an elite with quite a reputation even in nearby planetary systems. From what I hear, she entered the Planetary Defense Special Service Academy as valedictorian and graduated as valedictorian. A fully completed Triple Gear at the time of commissioning. Then four more years passed, and her father, a respected soldier, carried out a self-destructive charge for the planet and died gloriously……. What do you think?”
Then, in a whisper that looked interesting even at a glance, she said,
“At this point, even if commanding all one hundred thousand Defense Force troops is difficult, inheriting Major General Sahim’s faction doesn’t seem entirely impossible.”
Inside a not-so-spacious office.
Creeeak-.
Dragging her exhausted body inside, Satra pressed only the button of a softly glowing stand instead of turning on the lights, then sank into her chair.
“…….”
The throbbing headache showed no sign of subsiding.
As she reached out to take the medicine she had placed in the drawer, her fingertips stopped at the alarm from her watch that rang at that moment.
With a ‘beep’ sound, she opened the messenger.
What came into view was a short yet meaningful message from an unknown sender.
[There is not much time left.
Please, we hope for the captain’s wise choice.]
After staring blankly at the message for a long while, Satra opened the drawer and poured the headache pills into her mouth.
Crunch.
The bitter taste of the headache medicine she chewed without water jolted her mind awake.
Perhaps because of that, or perhaps in spite of it.
Her focus cleared somewhat, but there was no sign of brightness returning to her expression.
Soon, her gaze moved past the message and landed on an old, crackling hologram frame atop the worn desk.
[The day of commissioning. With Father.]
Behind her stiff, awkward smile, her father’s face overlapped, smiling brightly with pride.
“Father, what is the right choice?”
Of course, there was no reply from Major General Sahim.
“Haah…….”
Within the office, only her sigh, heavy with anguish, continued to linger.