The plan known as the Great Fraud of the Century was proceeding smoothly.
The androids' reaction had unfolded exactly as planned, almost perfectly.
After that, all that remained was the machine lifeforms' response.
And that response had truly gone beyond anything they had expected.
They had already considered the worst possible scenario, but they had never imagined things would develop into this.
They had not expected the machine lifeforms to be capable of going this far, nor that they had been hiding such a terrifying trump card.
It looked capable of swallowing, in three bites, something nearly the size of an android satellite base.
And that thing was clearly meant to pursue the starship that had just departed.
That absolutely could not be allowed to catch up.
If it did, then the truth would likely be exposed.
So the androids were preparing to launch the largest airborne operation in history.
But before that order could even be issued, fresh intelligence came in, and it turned the senior android commanders' faces ashen.
A five-hundred-kilometer radius centered on Atlantis, that super-extremely giant machine lifeform, had become a forbidden zone that no one could infiltrate.
That region had become a toxic space.
The moment anything entered, it would be infected by the enemy's virus, invaded, and brought under their control.
As for attacks launched from outside the area, the electromagnetic shield had rendered nearly all of their current strikes useless.
They had, in fact, long maintained contingency plans for defending against the machine lifeforms' electronic intrusion.
For example, if some location ever truly erupted with a large-scale invasion signal of this sort and they needed to force their way in, they would require equipment capable of isolating and blocking that intrusion, and development had been underway for that as well.
For instance, a nearly pure-mechanical aircraft.
But that would require fully manual operation, and signal isolation would not only block the machine lifeforms' network intrusion, it would also block their own communications. The interference would throw guidance systems into chaos as well.
Under those circumstances, unless the aircraft itself were absurdly durable and capable of simply tanking enemy fire all the way in, it would be nothing more than a target.
So development in that field had made little progress so far.
As for the new technology brought by the Distinguished Guest, it could provide protection on both the hardware and software levels, but that technology still could not be put into direct use yet.
Even on the software side, it could not be made operational immediately.
Because in his world, that software had originally been designed to target androids.
There was no way to just hack into it, connect to it, understand the technology, and directly download it into their brains. If they tried, it would be identified as a virus and purged on the spot.
It had to be operated physically.
Just like how humans learn to use a computer: by physically manipulating the keyboard and mouse, watching the screen with their eyes, and learning the contents step by step.
"Damn it, then we can only use that method!"
"What are you thinking? You want the Distinguished Guest to risk his life personally?"
The androids could not approach, but a human could.
That was exactly the obstacle the machine lifeforms had deliberately placed in the open.
And now one of the commanders was suggesting something so shockingly ungrateful?
"What kind of person do you think I am? How could I possibly ask Lord Kain to risk himself? I'm saying we should drop one of our satellite bases straight onto it!"
The commander who gave that answer sounded panicked as well, as if even one second of delay might cause the others to suspect she had truly meant to send him.
That proposal made everyone freeze for a moment, and then some of the tension in the room eased.
Because it really was a good plan.
Losing one satellite base would be absolutely worth it.
"Can we make it in time?"
A voice rang out.
Even if they intended to smash it with a base, the base was not directly above the target. It would need to shift orbit and move into position first.
"Twelve minutes!"
That was the fastest calculated time.
Since the base was already being treated as expendable, they could force it to move at maximum overload, with no regard for system failures, no concern for internal damage, and no concern for what might break.
But even with that, they still had no way of knowing whether twelve minutes was fast enough or too slow, because they had no idea how far along the machine lifeforms were in preparing their shot.
"There should be enough time."
"How do you figure?"
"The fact that they deployed such a massive virus field makes their intentions obvious. They're trying to keep androids away and lure a human over instead. If they're assuming there's a human in the nearest Resistance ground position, then even from there it would still take fifteen minutes at the earliest to arrive."
"So that means the enemy will wait at least fifteen minutes?"
"There's no guarantee."
"Is there a possibility they can't actually blast something that large into space at all? That this is just a bluff, meant to scare us and lure over the humans they crave?"
"But we can't afford to gamble on that!"
"No matter what, order that satellite base to begin moving!"
Aside from that, all armed spacecraft in space were also ordered into position to form an interception net.
"Lord Kain has already departed!"
Those words instantly plunged the command room into a silence so oppressive it felt almost unreal. One by one, they all turned to the speaker.
The commander of the YoRHa forces, White.
"…White, what did you just say? You didn't stop him?"
One of the commanders was furious.
Even though they now knew that man was not a human from their own world, they still regarded him almost as though he were this world's humanity itself.
Their creator.
And more than that, the only human creator.
Yet White had failed to keep watch over him?
"I couldn't stop him."
"Have you lost your mind?"
"Do the YoRHa troops not take your orders? Couldn't they help stop him?"
None of them believed White would have asked him to go. White was just like the rest of them. She would never want Lord Kain to do something so dangerous.
So if this had happened, it could only mean Lord Kain had gone of his own accord.
But even if he had gone voluntarily, how had they just let him go?
What exactly were they doing?
Back when he had first arrived, they should have assigned their own personnel to look after him, not left him in the care of YoRHa.
Just look at the result of that "care." They had let the man vanish right under their noses.
"I knew it. Those black-box bastards really do treat humans-!"
"Enough!"
White's icy voice cut off the one who still held such severe prejudice against YoRHa.
"Everyone, calm down. The situation won't be that bad. Even our most advanced fighter craft, launching at top speed from the lunar surface, has no way of making it in time, right?"
Those words made the more panicked among them freeze, then let out a breath of relief.
In their anxiety, they had forgotten that point.
After all, the distance between Earth and the moon was hundreds of thousands of kilometers. No matter how fast their aircraft were, they could not possibly arrive within fifteen minutes.
But before that freshly raised hope could settle, White waved her hand and projected a virtual window.
On it was an unfamiliar model of aircraft racing toward Earth.
The displayed speed left everyone staring in stunned silence.
The thing was not large, only around the same size as an Ho229 transport craft, roughly forty meters long.
And yet it possessed nearly sixty thousand tons of thrust.
At such a terrifying level of thrust, it could make it in time.
(End of Chapter)
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