It was night, and the only light available came from the moon glowing faintly through the clouds. The Arbalest, painted a dark gray to blend in with the darkness, released the faintest of whines from its electromagnetic muscles as it scaled the rocky cliff.
Once he had gotten beyond the reach of the sea spray, Sousuke activated his machine’s ECS-enabled invisibility mode. The armor opened in places, revealing lens-shaped devices. These projected a hologram screen that enveloped the machine, and caused it to disappear into thin air.
Just then, he received a transmission from an allied machine. “Uruz-6 to 7. What’s the holdup? We’ve been waiting forever,” Sergeant Kurz Weber complained. He was in a sniping position on the south side of the island, where the waves were much calmer.
“Uruz-7 here,” Sousuke replied briefly. “I’m not there yet. Remain on standby.”
“So what’s the holdup? You’ve got a wire gun, right? Get up the damned cliff already.”
“If I knock any rocks down, the enemy foot soldiers will hear my approach.”
“Then shut ’em up with your taser. Just—”
“Transmission over,” Sousuke said, cutting him off, and then grumbled to himself. He’d worked hard to get this far unnoticed. A more mediocre operator would already be out of the fight after having triggered a mine, or he’d have ruined the whole mission after being discovered by a foot soldier.
《Alert message. You are fifteen minutes behind the expected attack time. Move to waypoint Foxtrot swiftly.》 It wasn’t just Kurz; the Arbalest’s AI was also hurrying him on.
“Shut up,” he snarled back.
《Roger. But first, a word of caution: statistics suggest that a sense of impatience doubles one’s potential for error. Singing is recommended to calm your mental state. I have prepared fifty of the latest hit songs. If you have any requests—》
It would have been one thing if he’d said it in a joking fashion, but Al’s voice remained matter-of-fact, and it just made Sousuke more annoyed. “I didn’t order you to prepare songs. Don’t waste your storage space without permission.”
《It is no issue. It’s a mere 1.2 gigabytes.》
“Delete it all, or I’ll destroy it myself, for the good of the mission.”
《I interpret this message to be a joke. Joking is also an effective countermeasure. I have prepared fifty jokes designed to make humans laugh. If you have any requests—》
“It’s not a joke, it’s a warning.”
《Excuse me.》 Al said nothing more.
In the cockpit, Sousuke shook his head irritably, and the Arbalest mimicked his motion. Who ever heard of such a pointlessly “helpful” AI, anyway? Imagine a machine’s control support system telling him to “sing,” of all things...
In the two months since Hong Kong, his AI’s behavior had gotten stranger and stranger by the day. It was making small talk regularly now, and lack of any obvious signs of malfunction made it all the more annoying. According to the maintenance crew, they’d hooked “him” up with FM radio and BS TV input on Al’s request, and he seemed to be receiving shows—now, Sousuke wondered if he should have stopped them.
The Arbalest used its manipulators and foot spikes to carefully scale the cliff. The machine’s ECS was working smoothly. He had to make countless stops to let foot soldiers on the cliff above pass by, and had a few close calls where he almost went plunging... but at last, five minutes later, Sousuke reached his designated location, and informed the team leader: “Uruz-7 to Uruz-2. I’ve arrived at waypoint Golf.”
A reply came after a pause. “Uruz-2, roger that. Let’s get the party started. Ready? Set your ADM to presets. All units run final checks, then give verbal confirmation.” It was their strike team leader, Second Lieutenant Melissa Mao, who showed no inclination to scold him for the delay.
“Uruz-6, no problems here.”
“Uruz-7, ready.”
“Gebo-3, ready.”
“Gebo-4, ready.”
After Kurz and Sousuke, the two “Gebo” responses were from transport helicopters, which were hovering on standby about a klick from the base. Thanks to their newly-integrated sound reduction systems, the Arbalest’s audio sensors could only barely make out the sound of their rotors and engines. The helicopters carried twenty infantry apiece, who would storm the island and lock it down after the ASes had finished their initial assault.
“Okay. Ahem.” Once everyone had reported in, Mao cleared her throat and shouted, “Then, attack commence! Go, go, go!”
“Al,” Sousuke ordered. “Drop ECS and switch to military power and combat mode.”
《Roger. ECS: Off. GPL: Military. Master Mode: 2.》
The ECS shut down, allowing all power to be diverted to combat functions. Blue sparks popped and hissed against the purple-black sky, and the white machine appeared, standing at the top of the rocky mountain.
A pirate dozing in a nearby watchtower stared in disbelief as he witnessed the phenomenon for the first time. He hesitated over whether to reach for the machine gun switch, the alarm, or both, but ended up collapsing with a howl before he could reach either of them. An electric pulse from the taser in the Arbalest’s hand had knocked him out cold.
“Starting up,” Sousuke said, without sparing the fallen man so much as a glance.
《Roger.》
Sousuke’s arm in the cockpit moved, and the Arbalest’s arm moved to match it. It pointed its Boxer shotcannon, made by the Italian OTO Melara corporation, directly at the pirate base right below. There were all kinds of targets to choose from: the control room, ammunition depot, old-fashioned ASes, SPAAGs...
He set his sights first on the roof of the depot and pulled the trigger. It hit hard. The 00 HEAT fired by the Boxer blew off the roof and set the ammunition ablaze. An explosion boomed out, and a pillar of flame raked the sky, acting like a starting gun for full hostilities.
《E3 destroyed. Great Balls of Fire!》
“Stop talking now,” Sousuke ordered, thinking that Al was sounding
