11 - Miscellany x Suggestions

[Attention all personnel! Halt immediately! Pilots disembark, and maintenance crews lock down all cages and units! Hurry up!]

Ratio was leisurely running through the pre-sortie checklist and watching the other machines cause a traffic jam.

Now, she was taken aback by her instructor’s sudden order.

“Huh?” Ratio asked.

[Ms. Ratio, please disembark for now,] her maintenance team Leader said.

“Oh, okay,” Ratio said.

The check is interrupted, the matrix opens, and Ratio disembarks from her unit.

In the maintenance passage, the maintenance team Leader was waiting for her with a bewildered expression.

“What happened?” Ratio asked.

“I don’t know,” the Leader said. “It’s just that the bulkhead to exit to the training ground seems to have closed.”

As Ratio leaned over the handrail of the passage and looked at the bulkhead in the distance, it was indeed shut.

When it was open earlier, she could see the wilderness of the training ground.

“Is something wrong?” Ratio asked.

“Maybe there is,” the Leader said.

They don’t know what’s happened, but the maintenance teams ran around frantically, and all the machines that had been taken out of their cages were rushed back in them.

The others still locked in are perplexed and making a fuss.

Suddenly, the Leader’s terminal activated its holo-monitor.

“Huh, a malfunction…!?” the Leader gasped.

“Huh?” Ratio asked.

The confusion only worsened.

On the screen was a spectacle of 4 Centurias chasing a lone Centuria.

“Huh? What’s the situation?” Ratio asked.

“… Ms. Glawis’s machine should be the only one that came out to the training ground,” the Leader said. “These 4 machines… they can’t be from another hangar? Impossible.”

“What… are they armed?!” Ratio said.

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“You’ve gotta be kidding me!?” the Leader yelled.

They can’t hide their astonishment at the 4 Centurias firing rifles, as seen through the holo-monitor.

Weapons use is not included in this exercise.

The lesson was only to operate a live machine and thoroughly experience the difference from the simulator.

Weapons training is still a long way off.

That’s why Regina didn’t have any weapons and went out with only her unit.

“What are these four machines?” Ratio asked.

“I don’t know,” the Leader said. “But I’m pretty sure these guys didn’t exit from this hangar. There are other hangars, so maybe from there? But, they’re not supposed to be active…” they said, shaking their head.

Ratio glances at the holo-monitor.

Regina managed to avoid their fire, but she was outnumbered. It’s overwhelmingly disadvantageous.

“I’m going to ask the instructor about it,” Ratio said.

“Ms. Ratio!?” the Leader yelled.

Ratio runs to the ladder on the side of the cage, grabs the rails, and slides down into the still-noisy hangar.

She can see the glow of a holo-monitor on many of the students in her vision.

Apparently, all the terminals held by the maintenance team are activating their holo-monitors and displaying visual feeds of the training ground.

“Ratio, where are you going?” Amicitia yelled as Ratio passed her by.

Ratio pointed ahead and kept running.

The students who saw her climbed down from the cages and started talking with each other.

(It’s so long!) Ratio thought.

She runs anyway.

She gasps as she keeps running.

The Stella Corpus is a gigantic machine. The cage that stores it is even larger. Such cages are lined up in a row, and the gap between them is also large, so the hangar is ridiculously long and wide.

If she were on a unit, it wouldn’t feel that way.

Then, while running, Ratio noticed a vehicle next to a cage. It’s used by maintenance crews to navigate these long and spacious hangars.

She should have used it! Or rather, she should have asked to use it! Although she regretted it, she continued running because she had already come this far.

“Ms. Ratio! Get on!” the Leader yelled as Ratio’s maintenance team rode one such machine next to her.

Ratio jumped on as instructed.

“You’re going to tire yourself out, you know?” the Leader said.

“That’s… exactly… what I did…” Ratio panted, a wry smile as she wrapped her arms around the roll bar.

The rest of the team riding in the back let out small snickers.

The vehicle runs quietly and lightly with an electric drive, and in no time it reaches the cage of the instructor’s machine, which is right next to the bulkhead.

“──That’s what I’m saying! Send a suppression team quickly before you start complaining!” Aloe yelled. “Hostages!? The Security Department is supposed to be for times like this!”

Right in front of the walkway before the matrix, they found their instructor angrily yelling into her communicator and overheard the disturbing content.

“Wait, what?” one of the maintenance team members whisper.

“She said the Security Department?” another asked.

“Hostages?” a third said.

“This sounds like a terrorist attack,” a fourth added.

They’re all anxious.

Still, Ratio jumped out of the vehicle and said,

“Instructor! Regina is in danger!”

“Tch, I know that!” Aloe barked intimidatingly. “Hold your position! And shut up, trainee!”

Ratio instinctively bowed her head.

“… That’s what I was talking about. All right, you guys, just do your jobs!” Aloe yelled, violently cutting off the transmission in frustration before she grabs the railing and looks down from her high position.

There were students gathering beneath her one after another.

Aloe clicked her tongue and then took a deep breath.

“Attention all personnel!” she yelled.

The confused students reflexively straightened up from the force of the yell.

“First of all, calm down and remain calm,” Aloe said. “Secondly, listen up! The training ground is currently a mess because of a stupid little girl making a fool of herself along with her friends!”

Huh? What? What does she mean?

The students started making noise again but fell silent when they witnessed Aloe punching the railing hard enough to dent it around her knuckles.

“The control room is solely responsible for the control of the training area,” Aloe said “That’s what these students targeted. Currently, the control room is occupied by a bunch of idiots. Thanks to that, the bulkhead is closed and it will not accept any commands from here.

“We can’t use the Stella Corpuses,” Aloe continued. “If it’s not locked, in the worst-case scenario, there is a risk of them remotely taking over the units here in the hangar and making them go wild.

“So, I just contacted the Security Department. There’s an independent system over there.

“Therefore, we are all on standby.”

The graveness of Aloe’s briefing struck the students with anxiety, they could only look at each other.

And with Aloe finished giving her briefing, she starts yelling at her communicator again.

“Situation report? Haah!?” she snapped. “You’re still briefing!? Respond quickly! The students are in danger right now! … If I could have, I would have done so by now!”

Again, she raises her fist in anger and dents the railing.

“…”

Confused by the sudden situation, the students make a fuss.

Among them, Ratio took a deep breath and rhythmically tapped the frame of her glasses several times.

[… Ah, Ratio? A weird video is being broadcast right now, are you watching it?]

“Rivera, can you deploy ‘Flos’’?” Ratio asked.

[Huh!?]

Ratio was calling Rivera, one of her relatives.

Rivera screams in surprise and remains panicked as she says, [What are you talking about all of a sudden!? That plan is still in the future, right?]

“My friend is in an emergency!” Ratio shouted.

[Even if you say something like that… wait, I’ll get the Chief on the line,] Rivera said.

[It’s me,] the Chief said.

“Granny! Let me use ‘Flos’!”

[Are you going to deploy it for personal use?] the Chief asked.

“… I think it’s bad for everyone, but I have to use ‘Flos’ right now,” Ratio said.

[Why are you going this far?] the Chief asked. [Mixture has its own defenses, doesn’t it? Do you want to show off a huge chunk of classified information in a place like this?]

“I want to protect my friend!” Ratio cried.

Emotions block reason.

What Ratio is trying to do now is to privately deploy the machine they’d brought with them.

Originally, they were brought in here by order of their company, and the purpose was to assemble, test run, and collect operational data.

Data is disclosed to the corporation and then to the military, but operations are done in secret. Because the unit is a mass of classified information for the company.

However, using it now means exposing it to the eyes of an unspecified number of witnesses.

The brutality on the training ground is broadcast throughout Mixture. It is unacceptable for the company to expose confidential information here.

The Chief can’t accept this as their project leader.

But,

[… Goodness sake, all my daughters are such shrews,] the Chief said with a huge sigh. [Where are you now?]

“The training ground’s hangar,” Ratio said.

[So you’re in class? Did you get permission from your instructor?] Ration said.

“Wait a minute! Instructor!” Ratio asked.

She was so focused on communicating with her family that she missed so many things.

She’s in class now, and if she’s going to operate a unit without permission, the administration will deny her.

When Ratio regained her senses and raised her downcast eyes, her classmates, her maintenance team, and Aloe had come down from her perch and were now all looking at Ratio.

“I have a suggestion, Instructor,” Ratio said.

“I am in a bad mood right now,” Aloe said, locking eyes with her. “I’m only willing to listen to nice ideas that involve beating the crap out of those idiots over there.”

With such intense eye contact, it would be intimidating.

Though, Ratio is not weak enough to be discouraged by that.

“Please let me use my machine at the training ground,” Ratio said.

“Hou,” Aloe hummed. “So what are you going to do?”

“My friend—I’ll help Regina,” Ratio said.

Aloe Ira narrows her eyes further and asks even more questions, her intimidating aura intensifying.

“Can you do it?”

“I’ll do it,” Ratio said as she showed her teeth and smiled.

“Then show me you can,” Aloe said. “You have permission to deploy by my authority.”

“He-Hey! Instructor Ira! What are you doing!” someone else yelled.

From a smile, Ratio’s expression clouded over.

The one who yelled was the Maintenance Department’s instructor.

“Let’s leave it to the Security Department! Didn’t you just say that!? Don’t put the students in danger!”

“It’s an emergency,” Aloe said. “Besides, this soldier has made up her mind. We can’t ignore that.”

“But that doesn’t mean…” the Maintenance Department Instructor said.

“Winkrum, wait a moment,” Aloe said as she waves them off and shouts at her communication device.

“You heard her, didn’t you?” Aloe said. “Open a direct route to the hangar now. You can do that with your authorization, right? What? I’ll take responsibility for it… are you still saying that?! Stop fucking around! You bet I’ll remember tonight! I’m going to work you that useless big (BEEP) of yours that I’ll make you (BEEP) just by rubbing up against each other, you hear me!? If you want me to do that, then hurry up already!”

Aloe cut off the line violently once more, the students turn red and fidget at the sudden erotic turn the conversation veered to.

These immature buds seem to be quite shy about adult matters.

“Winkrum, hurry to the hangar,” Aloe said. “Instructor, give her a lift through the maintenance shaft. It’s much faster to take that way than the normal route.”

“… You owe me later,” the Maintenance Department Instructor said.

“Fuhn, the Super Luxury Package for the beauty salon would be fine, won’t it?” Aloe said.

“Come on, Ms. Winkrum, get in!” the Maintenance Department Instructor said, going from complaining to changing their behavior on a dime.

They started up the maintenance vehicle and beckon to Ratio.

The students of the Pilot Department were stunned, and the students of the Maintenance Department put their hands on their foreheads in dismay at their teacher’s behavior.

“Ratio!” Ornit yelled, stopping Ratio as she was about to climb in.

Beside her were Amicitia, Ceru, and Ceno, each of whom was looking at Ratio anxiously.

“Good luck,” Ornit said.

“Yeah,” Ratio said, giving a thumbs up.

“Let’s fly!” the Maintenance Department Instructor yelled.

“I’m counting on you!” Ratio yelled.

With the vehicle’s speed limiter removed by Instructor’s Authority, it took off like a bullet.