A Distant Reverie

Chapter 98

"Commencing maintenance of peripheral systems."

"Running general diagnosis report."

Suisei was about to lose it. She was pacing back and forth aimlessly while glaring at the robots working in the hangar. There were barely two hours left before midnight and they still weren't ready to leave yet. Everyone involved in Marine's rescue were waiting in the hangar.

"...What's taking so long?" Suisei finally asked, unable to hold onto her silence.

She had been clenching and unclenching her fists repeatedly, trying to redirect the source of her ire. The nails on her fingers were visibly damaged. She had a bad habit of gnawing on them when she was stressed, and this was her alternative to fight against that instinct.

"The Exos have a higher failure rate after going through a salt storm. Ame's checking to make sure everything is intact," Shiori explained.

"How much longer is it going to take?"

Shiori leaned forward to take a closer look. "...She's halfway done. Maybe, give or take, another twenty minutes?"

Fuck off.

Suisei stomped towards Ame who was leading the maintenance crew. Shiori must have been yelling something at her, but nothing was registering.

Ame raised her head from the diagnosis machines at the sound of her approach. She had a weary, but expectant look almost as if she was expecting someone to finally lose their patience.

"We were supposed to be ready to go half an hour ago."

"The enemy is located in an underground bunker. Outfitting the Exos with specialized weaponry for infiltration took longer than expected. The routine maintenance checks should be done soon."

Suisei glanced at the screen beside Ame, which detailed the list of items that were still pending tests.

"...Can we limit these to the most essential modules? Like, do we really need to make sure that the Exo's sound system is perfectly calibrated?!"

"Yes, it's important, but I understand your point. Given that we're raiding an enemy, however, I want to minimize the risks and make sure that everyone's machines are as perfect as possible."

"We're going to run out of time!" Suisei yelled, indignant and desperate, "You speak as if you know exactly what the Gnostic Group's ritual involves. Do you?! You don't! For what we know, Marine could be going through the worst time of her life right this moment!"

"Suisei—"

"If Marine was here, she would have rushed in to rescue all of you no question! And she did! She put her life on the line and did exactly that! And yet, we're still here, tweaking a fucking sound system!"

"That's enough!"

Suisei froze. It was Calli. She strolled in between them with a pained look on her face. The entirety of the hangar was silent except for the continued whirl of the maintenance robots.

"You've made your point clear, Suisei," Calli said before turning to Ame, "She's not wrong. And I understand your hesitation, Ame. But there's no amount of perfect that can keep us safe. There's always going to be uncertainties and unexpected things that'll happen. If we dawdle too long, there might not be anymore of Ms. Houshou to save. I'm indebted to her. I don't know if I can live with myself if that happens."

Ame let out a long, uncertain sigh. She turned around and quickly reduced the number of remaining checks to perform.

"ETA three minutes. Everyone get ready to be deployed!"