“Y-Yeah...”
The group ran from the ballroom in a hurry, tearing down the corridor that led to the aft. There was no sign of enemy pursuit, but Sousuke and the others stayed alert in every direction—even up. The enemy could appear from literally anywhere.
They could hear the sound of continued gunfire in the distance; the other teams must be fighting. “They’re tough,” Sousuke said, continuing to walk swiftly.
“Right? Good thing I had a Hi-Power on me. My lucky day, I guess,” Kurz put in.
“You said there were about a dozen left, right? That’s trouble,” Sousuke said with a frown. “We can beat them, theoretically, but we don’t have the firepower available here. Our ammunition is lacking as well. Fighting them head-on will just get our men killed, and make it difficult to protect the hostages.”
“Ahh, dammit,” Kurz sighed. “So what’s their plan? Just to kill everyone?”
“I don’t think so,” Kaname said. “That’s not what those robots were after. It’s something else.”
“How do you know?” he replied. “The first one definitely didn’t think twice before it jumped me in the hold.”
“Well...” Kaname’s vague suspicion from earlier was starting to take a clearer form: the robot’s odd movements; the similarities and differences. What was everyone on the ship after from the start? The vault, of course—No, it wasn’t that. She stopped and looked up at a corner of the hall. “They’re looking for a certain physique,” she concluded.
Kurz watched her questioningly.
“They won’t attack girls around 165 centimeters tall, weighing about 50 kilograms,” Kaname observed. “If they find a girl who fits that category, the next thing they’ll do is scan her face—not just reading her external appearance, but patterns in bone structure, membranes, and blood vessels. If it matches the data they have for me on file, they’ll move to the next routine, which will be either to protect me and escape... or to kill everyone except for me.”
The out-of-her-depth high school girl from moments ago was gone without a trace. Sousuke, Kurz, and the others couldn’t help but be shocked by the sight of her explaining things so logically and coherently, even after everything she’d been through.
“You shot him after he grabbed me, right, Sousuke?” she asked. “Didn’t you think it was strange then?”
Sousuke, who had been distracted by the sudden change in Kaname’s demeanor, snapped back to reality and nodded his agreement. “It threw you out of the way, even though the standard tactic would be to use you as a shield.”
“Hey, hang on,” Kurz interrupted. “Are you saying they’re after Kaname-chan?”
“I think so... no, I’m sure of it,” Kaname told him. “That captain was after me from the start, remember?”
“Okay. So if that’s true, what do we do? Charge those dumb robots with you in the lead?”
Sousuke glared at Kurz. “We are not using Chidori as a shield.”
“I know, it was a joke,” Kurz protested. “Anyway, we can’t just stand here. For now, we just need to get away from them.”
“Wait.” Kurz and the others were about to hurry forward, but Kaname stopped them in their tracks. “You can’t use me as a shield, but I can act as a decoy,” she observed thoughtfully. “In fact, it might be our only way out of this.”
Sousuke’s brow wrinkled in response. “It’s too dangerous,” he protested. “Even if they won’t actually attack you, you might still be hit by stray fire, or a ricochet.”
“I don’t care if it’s dangerous!” Kaname shouted back. “I’m not the only one in trouble, remember?!”
She was right: it was a bad situation. There were still any number of those dangerous enemy robots on the ship, and while their schoolmates seemed to have gotten to safety for now, they were still on board. Without decisive action, sooner or later, a tragedy was going to take place. People were going to be hurt and killed, and it would be all her fault. Kaname couldn’t let that slide; she had to stop it, somehow.
“Please,” she begged. “If anything happens to my classmates, I could never show my face again. Is what I’m proposing really that unreasonable?”
Sousuke didn’t say anything at first, glaring hard at Kaname’s desperate expression. He really didn’t want to put her in danger, it seemed. He vacillated for a time, indecisive and questioning—and then, as if to clear it of all doubts, he at last shook his head and sighed. “Very well,” he conceded. “I’ll consult with the lieutenant. But for now, we need to get our distance.” Sousuke pressed the button of his radio.
Clouseau had just reached the starboard corridor on the second deck when the sound of unrelenting gunfire reached his ears. Team Echo, led by Sergeant Roger Sandraptor, was trading fire with the enemy. “Roger! What’s your status?” he called to the large Native American, who was kneeling behind a bend in the corridor and changing his clip.
“Two enemies. Two injured. Zero dead. Concentrated fire succeeds in holding it back, but we’ll be out of ammunition shortly,” Roger reported, sounding almost like an M9’s AI. The narrow, straight hallway appeared to be helping them to keep the things at bay; they were forced to take cover in a passenger cabin. If one peeked its head out even slightly, the soldiers would bathe it in fire.
“Lieutenant, these things are tough,” Roger continued. “They’re as aggressive as a pair of raging buffalo, but they’re smart enough to dodge bullets.”
“Can you beat them?” Clouseau wanted to know.
“If it’s just the two of them, probably. But we’re running low on ammo.”
Clouseau knew that this wasn’t sustainable. If someone as reliably objective as Roger was predicting doom, then it had to be so. They weren’t equipped to fight these things, and the ace in the hole he was keeping on standby in case of emergencies wasn’t compatible with the situation as it stood. We could lead the crew and passengers to the lifeboats,
