Chapter 3: Shoot the Moon

Chapter 3: Shoot the Moon

CHAPTER 3

SHOOT THE MOON

The United Kingdom’s offensive was set to begin soon. This estimation was shared by all Legion set along the United Kingdom’s front lines. Just as the Eintagsfliege were being constantly deployed over the Legion’s territories to obfuscate their movements from the human side, the United Kingdom also kept its internal affairs and military operations hidden from the enemy.

And yet there was an increase in communications, as well as an increase in the volume of equipment and manpower being shifted around and in the transfer of units. Those were signs of an incoming attack, and they were hard to hide.

It happened on the second front, where the 1st Armored Corps used to be stationed. The United Kingdom attempted an offensive, but a retreat forced them back to this region, meaning they would have to attack here once again if they were to stand a chance. As such, the Legion increased their watch over the area and augmented their numbers as they lay in wait. Their intent was to crush the incoming attack just as they had before.

And should the human forces not launch an attack, the Legion would break through the Dragon Corpse mountain range and unleash a final offensive on the United Kingdom.

The sun rose on the anti–United Kingdom front, which had its skies closed off by a layer of silver extending from the south. The time was what humans referred to as early dawn—the point of time when the night was darkest. With the signs of sunrise not yet appearing, a large force of Eintagsfliege, made up of several hundred million butterflies, which had retreated into the territories to recharge their batteries during nightfall, began to move.

They crossed the skies, soaring through the Legion territories and into the contested zones, where they would cover up the airspace of the United Kingdom in a wide, thick blanket of silver.

When the sun did rise, its rays reflected off their shimmering wings, which coated the sky in an eerie shade of crimson. It was a similar phenomenon to what was observed in the Federacy’s western front during the large-scale offensive more than six months ago. A bloodred dawn that was similar to the evening glow but far more ominous.

That red shade eventually died down, and the sky soon assumed the same melancholic gray-silver shade it’d always had over the last few months. But then something crossed that silver horizon. It came from the rear of the reserve base the United Kingdom military currently occupied. Something shot up into the sky, from beyond the serrated peaks extending to the skies.

The Rabe governing over the skies, the Ameise on patrol, and the Stachelschwein hiding in the territories all detected it in their radar. The Ameise unit closest to the target took off in the direction it presumably flew in to secure visual information. Its antiair radar then lost its signal. It apparently wasn’t a flying object, not an aircraft or a missile. It was some kind of object that moved rapidly across the ground, but it didn’t seem to match anything in the Legion’s database.

It burst out of the conifer forest, and the Legion’s blue optical sensor looked up at the battlefield of pale snow. Before long, the Ameise’s composite sensor perceived it—prompting it to freeze in place in indecision.

What the Ameise optical sensor saw rolled down the slope at a maddening speed, billowing fire as it moved. It had a great number of what looked like large, all-too-massive wheels.

“Charging in. Ignition of all units confirmed.”

“Second wave, Strike Force Package fire-control detachment. Open fire. We have to finish this surprise attack while the enemy’s still caught off guard. Don’t allow them to get a handle on the situation.”

“Roger that. Fire-control detachment, open fire. Align sights. Electromagnetic catapults, connect capacitors. Thrones, second wave—fire!”

Deployed along the rear of the United Kingdom military’s reserve base, here and there over the slopes of the Dragon Corpse mountain range’s ridges, were rails. All of them were pointing south. Electromagnetic catapults had been loaded onto the backs of Zentaur units and were currently in operation. Their projectiles screeched as they slid over the rails and howled as they soared through the air. Released from their connectors, the projectiles were fired off, drawing arcs as they crested over the mountain.

The Zentaurs’ control centers had all been destroyed, but their rails currently had a large number of cords coiled around their connectors. The wires penetrated the Zentaurs’ interiors with a sickening invasiveness reminiscent of a parasitic plant, allowing operation of the catapults on their backs. The other side of those wires was connected to a large number of electric capacitors, and the fire-control detachment’s armored command vehicle. The wires also extended to a row of Juggernauts, which controlled the firing sequence from their cockpits.

They couldn’t control the Zentaurs themselves, but they could operate their electromagnetic catapults with relative ease. The Strike Package had hunted down and gathered a large number of ruined Zentaurs before this operation began. Or to be exact, they gathered the electromagnetic catapults they carried on their backs.

All in order to stage an aerial assault on a battlefield where the Legion controlled the skies.

The catapults howled. Masses with linked weights of several dozen tons accelerated to a velocity of thirty kilometers per hour in the blink of an eye. These attacks came at the cost of a reduced firing range and were done while knowing they would likely destroy the rails, but they allowed the Strike Package to add a great amount of weight to their projectiles. Though they would normally be far too heavy to fly through the air, they forcibly shook off the fetters of gravity, screeching off the rails as they were thrown into the open skies.

With their central processors ruined, the Zentaurs had been reduced to harmless tools. And now they were turned against the army they once served, launching projectiles with all their might. Their projectiles soared over the mountains and had their couplings undone in midair. They landed on the southern slopes of the mountain range, where the Legion’s defensive line was thickly concentrated.

These projectiles were pairs of steel wheels, with diameters of three meters. They were connected by two small cylinders, giving them the shape of bobbins or cable reels. They flew through the air one after another, slicing through the wind as they fell.

The sensors built into them detected their posture and corrected their bearings as they landed. Once they touched down, the circular objects naturally started rolling down the incline with the help of gravity. They accelerated, sometimes bouncing into the air as they hit a lump of solid ice or some other obstacle, and headed for the Legion’s defensive line set at the foot of the southern slope.

Their IFF devices and radars activated. Of course, the only things in sight were other wheels and the Legion. They set the enemy force ahead of them as their targets and began their pursuit.

The jet fuel they were equipped with ignited, granting the wheels further propulsion in addition to gravity pulling them down. Kicking up the snow as they rolled, or perhaps even riding on the waves of the snow they knocked down, the wheels became a fire-breathing avalanche of steel. They rushed down the slope with the speed of a swooping eagle.

The speed of their descent, coupled with the velocity afforded to them by the jet fuel, made them even faster than the Grauwolf, the most agile of the mass-produced Legion. They soon made contact with the Legion’s defensive line.