A Distant Reverie

Chapter 104

"Mr. Vesper, there's a small Incursion pocket about ten minutes away from your position."

Vesper glanced at the mini-map upon Cecilia's prompt. A small array of red dots indicating Incursion signatures suddenly emerged on the upper corner of the display.

"Can we sneak past them?"

"Unlikely. The road ahead will soon converge onto their path. Recommendation is to take them out early with an ambush."

"Alright. I still have spare rounds."

"Ms. Kiara will accompany you. Sending over environment data and recommended path," Cecilia reported.

Vesper accelerated his Type-B Exo as he broke away from their formation. Kiara was already ahead of him. The young lady was piloting the humanoid Type-A Exo. After losing her arm during the incident with the Gnostic Group, Ame had created a mechanical replacement for her using Cecilia's designs. Despite having just over a week to practice with it, Kiara seemed to have already gotten used to her new limb.

"How do you want to approach this?" Vesper asked over a private voice channel between her and Cecilia.

"Based on Cecilia's environment data, this is likely a scouting group. There shouldn't be any major threats. We're go with Bait and Switch," Kiara replied.

"Not a fan of variety, are you?" Vesper joked.

"Oh, please. There's plenty of excitement coming up. Not only do you get the pleasure of braving a salt storm out in the open, but we also get to run head-first into an entire nest of Incursions."

"True, true," Vesper said while Cecilia sent over the updated environment data.

Along with the real-time locations of the oncoming on the Incursion pocket, there was also predictive data that simulated the Incursion's relative positions as time passed. Such was the benefits provided by the observation drones that Cecilia and Fuwamoco were operating to assist them in this mission.

This world is always surprising me.

The technologies of this world turned many of the inconveniences of daily life into a trivial matter. Cleaning, cooking, lighting, temperature control—everything that he could think of had been automated and improved with machinery and electronics. But what amazed Vesper the most were the applications in war and combat.

Just being able to communicate with each other remotely at a distance was already an unfathomable advantage. And then there was the maps that displayed the locations of enemies and allies alike in real-time.

During their first field mission, Vesper had been too overwhelmed with piloting the Exo to process everything. Now that he had more familiarity with these systems, the power and potential of the technologies before him finally settled in.

Imagine if we had these tools to help us during the Fort Nyak defense.
Vesper grimaced as he was once again reminded of Kobo's fate. Aside from their overwhelming numbers disadvantage, what ended up destroying them during that defense was having to fight multiple battles on several fronts alone. He was stuck atop of the castle walls with Kobo. Marine had separated from Suisei to rally the defective royal knights. Suisei was left to fend for herself against Duke Calon's elite vanguards. If they had been able to communicate and coordinate better, then perhaps—

"Vesper, are you ready?" Kiara's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

"...Yeah," he replied with a bitter smile, "I see them."

He was hiding behind a set of dense trees—the pale surface of his Exo blended perfectly with the snowy backdrop. The Incursions were approximately one hundred meters in front of them. The machines stomped along the muddy snow, sending ripples down the sloped terrain. Despite their inorganic construct, the machine's appearances were bestial, resembling the fantastical monsters that they had encountered in the wilderness of Prosperia.