It was certain that the missile was not carrying an ordinary warhead.
The only question was the yield of whatever was inside it.
And since the enemy's goal was clearly to destroy this submarine, there was no way they would use a strategic-class warhead. It could only be a tactical one.
That meant there was still a chance.
As for ordering the submarine to accelerate to top speed, even if it could reach one hundred twenty kilometers per hour, it would still be too late.
And diving immediately was even less possible.
If the warhead detonated in the sea, then because water was such a dense medium, the energy would not disperse quickly. Instead, it would produce horrifying pressure underwater.
When that happened, the submarine would be like an empty soda can, crushed and twisted flat with terrifying ease.
So he focused his mind and made this so-called Lambda Driver system operate, turning his will into energy, into a form that expressed exactly what Kain wanted.
He followed the feeling from when he had activated it just moments ago.
A shield, fixed in the air, but also elastic, like a springboard or a trampoline.
And then...
"It jumped... no, it flew?"
Melissa stared in astonishment as the Arbalest suddenly stepped onto empty air, as though it had kicked off an invisible platform and launched itself into the sky.
Her eyes tracked its figure and saw it step on empty air several more times, each step accelerating the machine further as it shot upward.
It was like a shell being fired, then fired again and again, continuously accelerating until it truly seemed to be flying.
Of course, she also noticed the abnormality where it stepped.
She saw faintly translucent barriers appear in the empty air. Whenever the machine stepped on one, it sank inward, then snapped back like memory metal and hurled the unit higher.
In only a few seconds, it had already climbed several hundred meters into the sky.
Melissa was dumbfounded.
Was this the power of the Lambda Driver system?
Was it really this absurd?
That light landing earlier had been done using the same principle too, right?
Then her pupils widened.
She had spotted the anomaly in the sky.
The ballistic missile was coming down toward them.
How was he planning to intercept it?
Was he seriously going to ram it head-on?
Could he even line that up correctly?
Could he really maneuver the Arbalest like a highly agile anti-air missile and intercept it mid-course?
How was that even possible?
And yet, no matter how unbelievable it seemed, they could only choose to believe, because if he succeeded, then the TDD-1 and all hands aboard would survive.
It was coming.
The warhead, traveling at nearly Mach 10, would hit in three seconds.
3... 2...
Before anyone could even finish counting the final second in their heads...
A blinding white radiance erupted, so bright that most people instinctively shut their eyes or turned away. Even through a screen, without looking at it directly, it felt as though that light had pierced right through the monitor itself.
"What's happening? What's happening, Tessa?!"
Trapped inside that strange tank, Kaname could only keep asking the girl beside her.
For some reason, she had the feeling Tessa could somehow understand what was happening outside.
That left her even more anxious.
Made her...
Huh?
W-What was this?
Kaname froze in shock as something strange surfaced in her mind.
She shut her eyes and focused on the strange window that had appeared in her consciousness.
This was...!!!
It was the scene outside.
She could see the dazzling white light in the sky above them.
What was happening?
Had a nuclear explosion gone off?
As the blinding light gradually faded, she saw the rupture in the sky.
The machine was standing in midair, both arms raised, holding up an inverted hemispherical energy shield. Under the pressure of that blinding white radiance, the shield shimmered with changing colors like a brilliant kaleidoscope.
At last, the white light vanished.
And the sky...
The sky, which had been packed with dark storm clouds, now had a vast gaping hole torn through it. Through that enormous opening, with no clouds to block it, the crystal-clear starlight and moonlight poured straight down.
It was a breathtakingly beautiful sight.
"H-He reflected it away?"
The first voice to break over the comms was Kurz's, trembling slightly, filled with disbelief.
The hemispherical defensive barrier he had deployed was upside down, like he was holding up a giant pot with the mouth facing the heavens. In doing so, he had redirected the force of the nuclear blast into the sky.
The dark storm clouds above, the same ones that had been pouring rain, had been vaporized into a vast empty hole.
"So this is the power of the Lambda Driver system?"
Melissa swallowed slightly.
If that kind of power could reach this level, then did that not mean nuclear deterrence was no longer absolute?
"No. Something's wrong. Very wrong. The Lambda Driver system should theoretically be capable of producing this phenomenon, but a human mind from this era shouldn't be able to activate it to this extent. Something's off."
That was Kaname's murmur.
At that moment, she seemed almost like the very developer of this technology, because she clearly understood the limitations this technology had in the current era.
The limitations were not just in manufacturing ability, material science, and so on. There was another critical factor in how much power it could display.
The user.
People of this era simply could not reach this level.
"Kaname, nothing is wrong."
"Nothing is wrong? But this era shouldn't be capable of..."
"That's right. In this era, our minds can't become that strong."
But Mr. Kain was not from this era.
To be more precise, he was not from this world.
Mr. Kain came from a far harsher world, a far worse age of interstellar war. To survive in a place like that, the strength of his will was on a level utterly beyond the people of this era.
But right now, there was something Tessa cared about even more.
"Kaname... you saw that display window just now, didn't you?"
That window had been her livestream window. By checking her own broadcast feed and pulling the camera farther out, Tessa had been able to observe what was happening outside.
"Huh? Yeah. What was that display window? Wait... it's gone?"
Now Kaname seemed back to normal again, reacting like an ordinary high school girl overwhelmed by something impossible and unbelievable.
"Can you see it now?"
"Huh? It's back...!"
"I knew it."
Tessa had not expected Whispered to be able to connect to each other like this.
A moment ago, she had realized she was being intruded upon, but that did not mean Hyperdimension Channel itself had been hacked by Kaname.
All control remained in Tessa's hands.
What Kaname had done was closer to screen-peeking.
Her consciousness had linked itself to Tessa's and simply peeked at what she was seeing.
However, resonance like this between Whispered involved one danger that had to be handled carefully. There was a risk they might assimilate into one another to some degree, until they could no longer clearly distinguish where one identity ended and the other began.
The reason Kaname had been able to resonate into her at all was because Tessa knew it was Kaname, and so, consciously or not, had not raised any mental defenses to block the connection.
"Tessa, the... the second one?"
Kaname's sharp voice made Tessa freeze for a second.
She immediately looked back at her livestream feed, at the camera pointed toward the sky, and saw another point of light plunging down at high speed.
Had they gone insane?
Wait, no.
This one did not seem to be falling here.
It looked like it was heading for the mountaintop that had been blown away earlier.
Yes, that had to be it.
Because Tessa had already understood the real reason the enemy had gone to such extremes.
And yet, just as the Arbalest should have been descending, it launched itself toward that second missile as well.
Was there really any need to intercept that one too?
Was he worried it might veer off course and turn this way?
But that did not make sense either. This place and that mountain were less than thirty kilometers apart, yes, but for a warhead in that stage of descent to alter its target so freely and swing over here, the technology simply would not allow it.
Just then, Tessa felt a sudden instinctive certainty.
Mr. Kain was about to perform some kind of experiment.
(End of Chapter)
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