Chapter 1141: Chapter 140: Giant Beast (20)
Gypsy Danger is a third-generation Mark-3 Mecha originally based at the Alaskan Base of the United States, 79 meters tall, weighing 7,100 tons, nuclear-powered, with two pilots.
Before Storm Red and Eureka Raider entered service, Gypsy Danger used to be the Mecha with the highest kill count in the world,
and its pilots, the two brothers Yanxy Beckt and Raleigh Becket, were without a doubt human Heroes.
Until five years ago, when Anchorage, Alaska was attacked by deep-sea creatures, Gypsy was ordered to sortie and engaged in a fierce battle with a deep-sea Giant Beast called Sickle Head.
Although Sickle Head was eventually eliminated, one of Gypsy’s pilots, Yanxy Beckt, unfortunately died in action,
and Gypsy herself was severely damaged and extremely difficult to repair.
Yanxy Beckt’s death was something his brother Raleigh Becket could not accept,
Raleigh refused PPDC’s attempts to keep him, chose to leave, and for the past five years has been drifting from place to place across continents, working as an ordinary laborer building anti-monster walls.
In recent times, as the deep-sea Giant Beasts’ offensives have become more ferocious and frequent,
PPDC has been building more heavy Mechas on one hand,
and cutting costs on the other by taking those damaged Mechas sitting in storage, repairing them, and putting them back into service.
The Broken Dome Fortress managed to repair Gypsy, but ran into trouble when it came to choosing pilots,
none of the reserve pilots could properly adapt to Gypsy’s Drift Flow System configuration and couldn’t push the A.T. Force Field to its maximum.
According to Professor Newton Geizler of the Monster Science Department, it was likely that the Pineal Organs used in Gypsy had already formed a link with her former pilots Yanxy Beckt and Raleigh Becket,
and only they could fully unleash Gypsy’s A.T. Force Field potential.
So General Stake personally stepped in and brought Raleigh Becket back from some anti-monster wall construction site, and selected another pilot to pair with him,
namely his adopted daughter, Mori Masako.
Unfortunately, an accident occurred during the two pilots’ first attempt at synchronization.
Standing in the cockpit, Raleigh Becket was triggered by the familiar surroundings and thought of his dead brother,
and that surge of grief was transmitted through the Drift Flow System into Mori Masako’s mind, causing her in turn to recall her own parents who died under the feet of a deep-sea Giant Beast.
Mori Masako Lost Control on the spot and fell into a daze,
the intense emotions caused Gypsy Danger to generate a red A.T. Force Field, which directly destroyed all the maintenance gantries in the hangar at the time.
Fortunately, thanks to Raleigh Becket’s persuasion and the comforting of her foster father General Stake, Mori Masako came to her senses,
Gypsy Danger calmed down from the "Lose Control" state,
and no casualties or greater losses were caused,
but this incident also made everyone in PPDC, especially the other pilot teams,
develop a strong distrust of Raleigh Becket, Mori Masako, and Gypsy Danger, unwilling to entrust their backs to such unreliable teammates.
Precisely because of this,
in this battle,
the Broken Dome Fortress command had Raleigh Becket and Mori Masako remain on standby where they were, all the way until now.
"This is all we can do."
The Hansens took a deep breath, pulled the Mecha back half a step to dodge Ridgeback Turtle’s charge,
and at the same instant, as Ridgeback Turtle brushed past them, they suddenly swung both arms around and locked onto its ribs,
their feet grinding hard into the seafloor and twisting,
using the momentum of Ridgeback Turtle’s own charge to hurl it away.
Splaaash!
Ridgeback Turtle’s broad, thick back flattened the sea surface like a moving city wall, kicking up tsunami-sized waves.
The Hansens felt a surge of joy and drove Eureka Raider in pursuit,
and in the split second before Ridgeback Turtle could shake its head and lumber back to its feet,
they opened the chest armor, revealing the six-tube AKM Anti-Monster 2X90 missile launcher hidden in its torso.
Because of the A.T. Force Field,
whether humans or deep-sea Giant Beasts, both sides are forced into close-quarters combat; even with ranged firepower, they must fire at mid-to-close range where A.T. Force Fields can cancel each other out.
The six missiles in Eureka Raider’s chest are designed specifically for such situations,
their power is immense; if they hit a vital spot, they can even one-shot kill a Category IV deep-sea Giant Beast.
Correspondingly, launching the missiles requires a certain preparation time, making them vulnerable to attack during the process, and they can only fire one salvo per battle.
"Fire!"
The Hansens roared in unison, and the missiles from the six-barrel chest launcher flew straight into Ridgeback Turtle’s relatively soft abdomen.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
Columns of explosive fire shot skyward,
the Hansens closed the chest armor, assumed a defensive stance, and stared tensely at the thick smoke billowing over the sea.
Is it dead?
Bzzzz—
A strange sound cut through the Hansens’ thoughts.
Ridgeback Turtle burst out of the roiling smoke,
its body now shrouded in an A.T. Force Field even brighter and more dazzling than before, its abdomen completely unscathed,
the two armor plates on its head swung open to either side,
revealing the blue, seaweed-like nerves hidden beneath.
The blue nerves writhed and lashed like seaweed in a storm,
channeling all the bioelectricity inside Ridgeback Turtle into a single mass, forming a visible ball of lightning,
and then the ball of lightning exploded.
Bzzz-bzzz—
A ring-shaped electronic pulse raced out along the sea surface, spreading across a radius of several kilometers,
and wherever it passed,
all unmanned submarines on the seafloor went dead, countless fish died and floated to the surface,
a few helicopters flying a bit too low had their flight-control systems completely fail, forcing the crews to bail out by parachute.
"Aaaahhhh!"
The Hansens, who had never imagined that a deep-sea Giant Beast could unleash an Electromagnetic Pulse, were wracked with piercing screams as fine arcs of electricity danced wildly through the cockpit,
Eureka Raider staggered as if its soul had been sucked out, then went completely still, every external light going dark, and its A.T. Force Field ceased as the Pineal Organ lost power.
"Damn!"
In the Broken Dome command hall, Chief Technical Advisor Cai Tiantong was drenched in sweat. "Eureka Raider doesn’t have any built-in protection against Electromagnetic Pulse.
The transient voltage spike was too strong, shortwave comms are down, the fuses are blown, and I’ll need two hours to remotely reset the auxiliary systems."
"Two hours?"
Despair washed over everyone; in two hours, the deep-sea Giant Beast could tear Eureka Raider into scrap so small it’d barely be worth selling as junk.
General Stake barked urgently, "What about Gypsy? How much longer?"
"We’re on our way!"
Raleigh Becket’s voice came over the broadcast. "Gypsy Danger runs on analog circuits and nuclear power, so she’s immune to Electromagnetic Pulse.
But we may not make it in time. Can you reach the Hansens? Tell them to eject. Abandon Eureka Raider."
No way. Never mind whether the ejection system can even function after being hit by an Electromagnetic Pulse,
given the Hansens’ personalities, they’d never leave their Mecha; if the machine dies, they die with it. They’ll never abandon the Mecha they regard as their life.
Bitterness welled up in General Stake’s heart. As his gaze swept across the command hall, he saw the young man who called himself the Black Trojan press his lips together and pull a Primitive Mortar out of thin air.
