19 I Arrive

Author: Bishamon Mine
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n0664js/22/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

For now the talk seems settled, and the scary people stopped commenting.
After a while a deep-blue planet comes into view.

Alice tells us.

“We’ve arrived. This is resort planet Elias. Almost the same size as Earth, but 99.99% of the surface is ocean; even totaling the scattered land it’s only about the Hawaiian Islands. A water planet.”

Incidentally Elias is called a secondary planet, apparently.

The Galactic Union has five primary planets a lot of people live on, and secondary planets a few people live on.
Union population, primaries and secondaries together, is about 50 billion, they say.

The samurai-ish robot Alice rides starts atmospheric entry.

“Then, Shogun. Autopilot from here, please.”

❝Shogun?❞

Alice answers the comment question.

“It’s the ID I gave my frame and AI.”
“I see. Alice’s frame’s official name is WI36 TYPE-R1 Anchor Face, right?”

When I ask, Alice’s confused voice comes back.

“I-I don’t even remember the numbers. Sorry.”

❝Because there’s an anchor-like thing on the forehead, Anchor Face?❞

I answer the comment question quickly.

“Yes, the original WI36 without the anchor is called Round Face. Originally a frame that transforms into a plane, but Alice’s is TYPE-C so the transform function was omitted. Because it doesn’t transform, the movement is natural and humanlike. If the transform mechanism is complicated the joints get hard to move and brittle——”

❝……Insane fast talk lmao❞
❝I wonder. Does Suu-tan like machines in general? lmao❞

Pointed out, I cover my mouth.

……I did it again……

I faceplant in the cockpit and become gel.

“Aaaaaaaa”

While gel-me is wobbling, in a blink a whole sea comes into view.
We start flying over light like a blue jewel, shadows falling on a sea whose sparkle streams backward.

I fly near the surface lined up with flying-fish-like fish.

Alice’s Shogun is a little higher.
While doing that we head for the artificial island where the client is.

❝I wondered why a space fighter has not just a horizontal tail but even a vertical tail, but it’s because atmospheric combat is assumed too. Do you turn with ailerons like a normal plane?❞

“FateLege engines, in atmosphere, become normal jet engines. So it’s like a slightly fast Earth fighter.——In the first place FateLege engines, whether air or water or rocket propellant, just heat it in the photodisintegration furnace and spit it out.”

❝Then how do you turn in space❞

“That’s engine output adjustment, and wriggling the nozzles around. Like an amazing version of Earth fighters’ thrust-vectoring nozzles.”

❝……For real detailed. Why does a high-school girl know thrust-vectoring nozzles❞

Alice is doing G experiments, and there’s a considerable accel difference between Shogun and Swallow-san so I have room, so I show various ways of flying.

“If it’s rockets———when you raise the nose, the rocket nozzles on the back point up like this. Seesaw principle.”

Swallow-san loops gently.

❝Oh, exactly like a plane❞
❝A splendid loop❞

“Swallow-san has four rocket nozzles, but in humanoid form if you turn the rockets on the soles of the feet and bring them forward, reverse the spray direction from the rockets under the wings, and also rotate with the gyros,”

Swallow-san loops sharply, almost in place.

❝Fua!?❞
❝That ain’t plane movement!!❞
❝Miss Suu, what a dangerous thing in atmosphere!! That rotation just now could have snapped the main wings! Even a frame that uses 〈Excitation Wings〉 should be weak to pressure from an unintended direction!❞

I get why James-san is worried.

The lift a plane can get is extremely high; for the same area the resistance is higher than the buoyancy a human gets from water.
If the wings take that resistance head-on, Earth fighter wings can snap. FateLege fighter wings wouldn’t get off free either.

But,

“No. Swallow-san’s wings can fold up using the transform mechanism, so I can do a sharp rotation like just now without the main wings getting in the way or taking damage.”

❝……Wait, Miss Suu. In other words you…… while operating the robot in VR, in real you operated the stick and pedals……?❞

“Ah——right right, that’s it. The same feel as drinking juice while in VR.”

I use this to drift at acute angles. I also turn in space by moving the arms while staying in flight form.

❝Hah!?❞
❝What is this kid saying……❞

Heh……?

“D-did I say something weird?”

❝You can’t do that though❞
❝……Your brain will go weird, that❞

“I-I eat chips while VR-operating, though.”

❝Haaaaaaaa!?❞
❝What is this kid!?❞
❝……That’s like controlling two bodies at once❞

B-but.

“Because cutting VR every time to eat is a hassle, isn’t it……?”

❝This kid became a freak because it’s a hassle❞
❝Or rather before that, the function that wriggles a fighter’s rocket engines, the angle adjustment is too hard and normally you can’t master it? That’s something you have the auto do, right?❞

A comm window opened from Alice. She was looking at me like I wasn’t human——.

“Master, heart rate rising. Anomaly detected in the hypothalamus.”

Ill-san in a doctor outfit is putting a stethoscope to my forehead.

“I-Ill-san, I know……”

“Suu-san…… if it’s all right, please teach me how next time……”
“Y-yeah———but Alice’s frame doesn’t transform, right.”
“———Ah…… too bad.——Shall I make the frame I use one that’s strong in flight form too. Watching Suu-san I feel planes are way stronger.”
“No, humanoid is just bad at flying; it’s strong. Humanoid is basically a flying tank with turrets you can move freely.——And being able to move it intuitively in VR is good.”

And even in atmosphere——if you take a seiza (or rather, girl-sit? petan-sit?) kind of posture, you can fly with the upper body still humanoid.

This is both Swallow-san and Anchor Face.
By girl-sitting the legs you can treat the lower body like a certain Gun○am ‘Dodai.’

Well if you don’t fly like this, humanoid aerial control feels like riding a flyboard (the thing that floats by blasting water from near the soles), and it’s hard to operate.

——Lots of humanoid aerial maneuvers were born too, but almost all of them in the early days were born from flyboard athletes.

In video circles, a genre of trying to dance floating in Versus Frame humanoid.——A genre called “I tried dancing in a Versus Frame” is pretty popular. I could never do it, but Alice, who can sing and dance in real life and is good at Versus Frame humanoid mode, probably could.

“Um then I’ll teach flying that Alice’s frame could probably do too…… Alice’s frame has wings on the legs and nozzles on the shoulders so I think this works.——Girl-sit the legs like this and place the sole rockets and shoulder rockets in a circle-ish———”

❝Don’t spin like a top!!❞
❝Eh…… Versus Frames can fly that stably still humanoid if you just girl-sit without fully transforming to flight form!?❞
❝I’ve never seen flying like that……❞
❝……For sure with that you don’t have to force-fly a humanoid-only frame. Force is like a flyboard and is seriously hard❞
❝That thing Suu showed, isn’t that a huge new technique? It’ll change the common sense of atmospheric flying!? Is it okay to reveal a technique that’ll cause an uproar this casually!?❞

Eh…… it was that unexpected a way of flying!? I used it as obvious in the simulator.
……Because without this, an environment like the planet that appears early in 〈Insanity〉 Death Road.——Flying humanoid on a planet with 1.5× Earth gravity and air pressure, even a Versus Frame had trouble force-flying.

❝And the control surfaces are moving, she went and operated the stick again while VR-connected……❞
❝I-I’ve never seen movement that even uses control surfaces in humanoid……❞
❝The rotation she showed in the first half of 〈Insanity〉 Death Road was this❞
❝This means nobody but Suu can ride Swallow-san❞

Then Alice muttered.

“Monster……”
“Master, hypothalamus (cont.”
“Hiiin.”

Having apparently taken fatal hypothalamus damage, I become gel and arrive at the destination.
The target hotel comes into view.

The hotel building is cylindrical, like a baumkuchen before you cut it, or a chikuwa, that kind of shape.

Around it a transparent sea spreads. Truly a resort.

After landing I drive Swallow-san a while to the hotel’s plane parking——the airfield.

Alice follows walking in Shogun.

(Such a pretty view——I want to stay here someday)

I park watching a sight that could turn the brain to vacation just by looking, and go down Swallow-san’s gangway.
When my shoes are sounding———

“——————I finally met you.”

“Eh?”

(———A voice?)

Suddenly I felt someone call me.——Not Alice, a girl’s voice I don’t know at all.

I keep looking at the southern sea for a while, still hanging on the gangway.
A mint-blue horizon.——I felt like I heard it from over there.

No, wait…… someone’s standing on the sea!
A crying silver-haired girl——desperately wiping flowing tears with her hands.

“Met you? Me? ——”

When I say that and try to reach out, her figure vanishes as if melting into the wind.

“——Eh?”

❝Met you?❞
❝Suu-tan what’s wrong?❞
❝I can’t hear anything though❞

“Vanished? A-a hallucination? ———My imagination?”

Thinking maybe auditory and visual hallucination, I jump off the gangway.
Well, experiencing hallucinations in the first place is a rare experience.

❝You okay Suu-tan❞
❝Rest at the hotel?❞
❝Crimson Flash Alice and Suu’s break……❞
❝Because she flew weird her brain took damage……❞

No, it feels like a dice roll hit the hypothalamus…… the rest I think is fine——probably.