Yakusoku to eiyo - 約束と栄誉

[Shelco]

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Location: Planet New Tokyo, Kusari teikokku

Date: November 4th, 814 A.S.

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The flashing lights of control panels and the explosions that occurred like a lightning in a dark rainy night put any person under stress, death and violence have no exceptions or mercy. There were no more brave contestants who dared something to prove their superiority towards others, everyone was equal in this one moment where they were all unified by one feeling: Fear. Dodging the fire of the hostile contacts that scurred around one's ship and made all the flashing lights go mad, paired with the constant movement of her eyes, Yukiyama felt already like she would pass out. From the distance, this would have truly looked like a scene from a movie, like fantasy, a horrible one nonetheless. The distorted voices of fallen comrades drained her ears, the suffering was even hearable when their voices sounded like the remains of hundred-year-old transmissions. A quick turn to the left to dodge the incoming gunfire, the enemy's tactics were smarter, they flew in packs, maximizing their lethality, hunting down each target one by one. How long until she was the last one? The only thought they all in their mind was"Survive." But how can one do that when all sides flash in the deadly red of the Blood Dragons? Why did they have the upper hand? The tactic of the Naval Forces seemed flawless, but what is a good plan with bad execution? She flew maneuvers, evasive maneuvers, the only ones that made sense right now, when the threat was not to face, especially not alone. Although she didn't want to take her eyes off the events that occurred right in front of her, on which she heavily focused on, she couldn't help but look on her radar and controls for a few seconds, catching a quick glimpse about the status of her comrades and, of course, herself. She realized, that she came off the course and lost the contact to her wing, two other ships of the Izu wing were no longer visible. Her breath got harder and the panic grew bigger, the whole situation seemed to be fruitless, a short look over the shoulder betrayed that she was already removed several clicks from the fight. "Izu one, Izu two, you are still in the breathing?" shouted Yukiyama by her communication device. No answer, nothing, except the distressing loud rushing which she got to hear, so loud as if somebody shouted to her directly in the ear, however, it was worse, because the thought about how hopelessly it seemed, spread out almost unkeepable open in her. However, nothing is helped by sinking into panic now and to die in the cold abysses of the universe, she thought. It was at the time once more to prove that she does not put her wellbeing over that of the others, and thus she turned, massive G-forces pressed her in the seat and pressed her whole body together, as if she was laying under a giant rock, it was painful, yet, also a feeling of duty and courage. Her looks darted from radar to her front, again and again, not long it lasted until she had caught herself again in the midst of the gun battle, now it was time to once more prove her eagerness to fight for her comrades.

She tried to find a loophole in the tactics of the hostile escorts, nobody was without a mistake and neither were them, there had to be a changing method. She turned her head around to catch the sight of an allied ships and there she saw one, a comrade who was followed by three Blood Dragon ships at once. They flew after each other and shot their red shining salvos into the back of the Naval ship. Yukiyama turned her ship once more and tried to catch up with them, they were fast and so was she. She eventually managed to catch up with them. "Inu two, I am covering your six." She yelled to make sure her comrade would understand in the blasting sounds of the shots hitting his hull. "Un-stood, get 'em - my back!" She heard, again, the sound of the distortion, the voice that was barely hearable. She was eager to do it, no matter what he would have said, she opened fire and blasted as many shots into the first hostile ship she could hit. To her own surprise, it seemed to work for now, although she didn't destroy the ship, it turned away from the fight, she looked at it for one second as it slowly disappeared out of her sight and quickly snapped back to the next target, two ships to go, one down. Again she unleashed the chain fire from her ship which damaged the left engine of the enemies Tachi, this caused it to make wild rolls and disband the target as well, it turned down to the left side and lowered its height, suddenly, another ship crashed inside the Blood Dragon, Yukiyama couldn't see if it was one of her own comrades or one of the enemy ships, all she saw was fire and pieces of the ships clashing against her ship, luckily, her shield was still up. She swallowed, had she really just caused this accident? No time to think, now it's time to shoot. The last ship already stopped the fire and turned away from Inu two, who brought himself into the safer distance. A light smile appeared on her face, although she shot a ship down, she saved a life, a life of a fellow pilot. Her short time of happiness was interrupted by the missile alarm in her ship, which flashed up in red lights and blasted the warning in her ear, she couldn't see where it was coming from, though. She had to react fast, otherwise, the missile would rip her ship in pieces. "Imaimashīdesu!" she screamed and closed her eyes, knowing it would end now.

Everything went dark, all lights slowly faded away and so did her vision. For about ten seconds it was absolutely quiet, no sound of alarms, screams of dying people or gunfire, just the sweet moment of silence. Then, the capsule opened and Yukiyama looked up into the lamps of the Flight simulator hall on the ceiling, The lights hurt her eyes and she held her hands in front of them before slowly sitting up. They were all lying down and had to get used to the normal physical conditions. She sat at the edge of her station and stared at the floor, realizing what just happened. It would have been her certain death, if this was real, her young life would be eradicated in this very second of impact, the hard realization made her feel depressed for a moment, this kind of feeling was new to her, it was a true feeling of failing. "Arigato, Minako-san." a young voice said, coming from her front. She looked up at the silhouette that covered the light in front of her, making her able to open her eyes completely, it was one of her comrades. "You have saved me from those ships, arigato." He said kindly and bowed down from his neck a little. Yukiyama wanted to answer, she opened her mouth but no word came out as she was instantly disturbed by the Kaigun-Chusa who carefully watched this whole operation. All eyes were focused on him, as he started speaking from his elevated position next to all the simulation controlling computers. "I must say..." he started quietly and glimpsed over the crows of recruits. "I am very.... disappointed by the way you faired out there." Many of the Shoi's looked down and felt ashamed, Yukiyama's glance stayed focused on the Chusa. "You have not fought as a unit, you fought as a lone wolf and this is exactly why each of you would have died in space, our strength comes not from one person, it comes from us all. Each of you has to look out for one another, I have never seen such an arrogance in a battle of life and death. If this was not a simulation, then a whole unit of the Naval Forces would be dead now, killed by the Blood Dragons." he paused for a good ten seconds and examined the mostly identical reactions across the hall. "But I have also seen regret and... compensation." he looked over to Yukiyama, despite him being far away, she could feel his eyes piercing through hers. "There was a case of braveness, the person knows I mean them." He paused again and nodded slightly to each of them. "Look out for your brethren, tomorrow, same time, I want to see a better result." With those words he turned to the side and walked towards the door, the crowd in the hall slowly followed, it was already late and they were tired, Yukiyama sat there for a moment longer, realizing the possible outcome of such a battle and thinking how to prevent it again. The only way was to overcome fear... fear of what she knew she would face.

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