"Tianming..." Ogsha's voice trembled, "we..."
At that moment, the fighter jet turned around and launched missiles. Zhou Tianming maneuvered the Mistral sideways to evade.
The sudden movement interrupted Ogsha's words.
Bullets from the automatic cannons beneath the fighter's wings came streaking toward them. "Maximum thrust!" Zhou Tianming shouted.
Ogsha instinctively slammed the throttle while Tianming pulled down on the controls.
The Mistral dipped sharply as bullets whizzed overhead, a few ricocheting off the cockpit canopy with sharp pings.
As the fighter zoomed past them in a close flyby, Tianming's fingers danced across the integrated controls.
The Mistral's front manipulator arms released as the rear arms swung the transportation board in a full 360-degree flip from behind.
Like an unexpected paddle, the board suddenly appeared behind the Mistral. The fighter had no time to react, slamming headfirst into the metal surface.
The impact sent the Mistral spinning violently backward, shearing off two rear manipulator arms and breaking the transportation board in half.
The fighter fared worse - its nose and cockpit compressed into a metallic pancake before the entire craft disintegrated in a fiery explosion.
Ogsha clung tightly to Tianming, preventing him from being thrown about as he desperately worked the controls to stabilize their tumbling mobile suit.
Tapping the attitude verniers precisely, Tianming gradually reduced their spin rate to prevent the massive forces from tearing them apart.
After a full minute, they finally regained balance.
Even Ogsha, a Coordinator, felt dizzy and nauseous from the violent spinning. Yet Tianming remained unaffected, his spatial awareness letting him clearly discern orientation in the void of space.
He realized this was his Ultimate Coordinator physiology rapidly awakening under extreme stress.
"Sister Ogsha," Tianming asked calmly, "should we flee? Or gamble everything?"
Ogsha shuddered, watching the distant battlefield's white-hot intensity on her screen. Her lips parted but no words came.
"If you can't trust me completely now, our only choice is to run," Tianming continued.
Turning, his deep brown eyes locked onto Ogsha's pale gray ones.
"Can we win?"
"I don't want to die."
"Why?"
"I didn't wake up to live in hardship. I want to give Mother a life of luxury." Tianming spoke with absolute seriousness. "Are you wealthy, sister?"
Ogsha's lips curled into a faint smile. "Filthy rich."
"The cockpit records everything, so no backing out of your word."
"How about I pawn Lacus to you as a child bride? She's super adorable, you know." Ogsha exhaled, her tone teasing.
Zhou Tianming froze for a moment before shaking his head. "No thanks. Arranged marriages never end well."
If he had been younger before his transmigration, he might have been overjoyed. But now, honestly, he felt nothing—he quite liked the pairing of Kira and Lacus.
Ogsha sighed. "What on earth does your mother usually talk to you about?"
Zhou Tianming flashed a mysterious smile.
Silence fell in the cockpit.
After a while, Zhou Tianming spoke up. "Are you ready? You'll need to trust me completely and execute my commands without hesitation."
"Ah, of course. Please help me save Siegel."
[Trust] activated. Mental Power increased by 39.
...
The main battlefield had reached a fever pitch.
Six fighters relentlessly ganged up on two Mistrals.
They weaved and spiraled around each other, bullets crisscrossing the void.
A momentary lapse was all it took—one Mistral was instantly obliterated under concentrated fire from all six attackers, torn into palm-sized metal fragments.
Its teammate didn't even have time to grieve before two fighters, having exhausted their missiles and bullets, charged straight into a suicide ramming attack.
The remaining Mistral dodged left and right, narrowly avoiding the kamikaze strikes, but the other four fighters closed in with synchronized fire.
The tightening net of bullets left no escape. The Mistral raised the half-shattered transportation board with its mechanical arm, using it as a shield to force a breakthrough.
But the next instant, two fighters slammed into it from front and back.
BOOM—
Three mobile armors were swallowed by flames.
With its escorts gone, the shuttle was left completely exposed.
To make matters worse, the black warship had closed the distance to just one kilometer, its main cannon crackling with electricity.
Inside the shuttle, Siegel remained eerily calm in the face of crisis. "I'm sorry for dragging you all into this."
"Lord Siegel! There's still a chance—run!"
Someone on the bridge unbuckled their harness and lunged forward, pulling Siegel toward the rear. Others, knowing it was futile, still threw themselves in front of him as shields.
"Ogsha... Lacus..."
Suddenly, Zhou Tianming's Mistral shot forward in a straight charge.
[Sure Hit 40] [Concentration 15] activated.
Time seemed to slow in Zhou Tianming's eyes. A phantom image appeared over the enemy units—first overlapping with their current position, then shifting ahead of their actual movements.
In that instant, he understood [Sure Hit]'s effect: it granted him a glimpse of the enemy's trajectory seconds into the future.
The next moment, under Zhou Tianming's control, the Mistral swung its remaining half of the transportation board like a knight's shield bash, smashing a passing fighter into the shuttle's side.
At that exact second, the black warship fired its main cannon—a streak of light tearing through the dark cosmos.
In the split second before impact, the fighter colliding with the shuttle exploded. The blast jolted the shuttle slightly to the left, while the Mistral was sent flying backward.
The electromagnetic cannon's projectile grazed the shuttle's left flank, shearing through armor and structural framework like a plow before veering off and exiting through the stern.
BOOM—
A chain of explosions erupted along the shuttle's left side. Emergency bulkheads slammed shut, barely keeping the vessel from breaking apart.
Captain Kent of the black battleship and the three fighter pilots froze in disbelief, shouting "Impossible!"
Inside the shuttle, Siegel's crew erupted in cheers. Several men grabbed Siegel's arms, pulling him toward the escape pod.
"Perfect chance! Counterattack! Counterattack!"
Siegel yelled before being forcibly dragged away.
The remaining crew on the bridge quickly returned to their stations.
The shuttle's last remaining automatic cannon opened fire. Bullets ricocheted off the black battleship's armor, but the weaker outer walls of the anti-aircraft turrets and missile bays were pierced, triggering explosions.
Half of the black battleship's armaments were destroyed, and the main cannon's outer plating was dented. The other side couldn't turn fast enough to retaliate, leaving them helpless under the barrage.
Meanwhile, Zhou Tianming hadn't stopped moving. After being flung backward, he used his mechanical arm to grab a piece of armor plating torn loose from the shuttle's explosion and hurled it with a spinning motion.
The armor fragment struck one of the fighters dead-on.
The remaining two fighters accelerated toward him, unleashing their last rounds of ammunition.
Tumbling through space, Zhou Tianming spotted a relatively intact transportation board nearby. Mid-roll, his mechanical arm shot out and seized it.
His attitude verniers fired, rapidly stabilizing his frame as he raised the transportation board like a shield, deflecting the automatic cannon fire.
The two fighters streaked past him in an instant.
In that split second, his left and right mechanical arms lashed out. The laser cutter generators at their tips—designed for splitting ore—flared to life, pinpointing the fighters' cockpits.
A moment later, the fighters' thrusters dimmed, silently coasting on inertia into the dark void.
Each cockpit bore a massive, molten gash, their pilots reduced to ashes inside.
"Impossible! Impossible! Impossible!"
Inside the black battleship, Kent's eyes burned red as he screamed.
"How can this be?! Is the one piloting that Mistral some kind of monster?!"