Chương 526: 250.By Any Means Necessary 2

Jess's Perspective By the time Jess McCallow dropped out of the pod, Lan Weiss was already waiting outside. The wind on the Singing Clay Barrens was drier than expected, and louder. The ground was a wide field of dark pink and purple-brown clay — cracked, uneven, glowing, like a stained carpet someone had thrown up on one night and left for the sun to slow-bake dry. In the distance, several massive columnar formations stood straight and silent, like a row of bell towers that had taken quiet too seriously.

Whenever the wind cut through them, the whole plain hummed low, as if the earth itself were holding one long, reluctant breath. Lan stood in front of that bleak view, as composed as if she'd just finished filing an unremarkable set of charts rather than running an entire leg.

"I didn't run into anyone the whole way," she said. She opened the envelope and put the recorder in Jess's hand.

"I have a bad feeling. Watch yourself." Jess took the device, ran the verification, and sealed it back into its tube. One eyebrow went up, mouth already curving.

"Oh?" She drew the word out.

"Is that a suggestion?" Lan looked at her, expression flat.

"No," she said.

"That's a woman's intuition." Jess choked, then snapped back on reflex.

"Hey. I'm a woman too!" Something finally moved across Lan's face. Very faint — the reflection off the flat of a blade.

"You're right." A pause loaded with far more than it had any right to carry.

"Girl." Jess's eyes went wide.

"Wow, someone's spicy today!"

"Trust me." Lan pulled her gloves down, voice level.

"Run into enough disgusting fungal beasts, and you'll lose your patience the same way." Jess snorted, adjusting her AS buckle, smile turning a shade provoking.

"Too bad there's nothing left out here but this glorious wasteland." Lan gave her a look — the exact look a physician gives a patient holding their own test results while insisting they feel perfectly fine. In the end, she just raised a fist.

"Good luck." Jess smiled and knocked her knuckles against it.

"Right back at you." Handoff complete. Jess turned and ran, straight into the Barrens. Jess's Perspective Lan's bad feeling hadn't been idle talk. Jess ran for over two hours. Forget a direct clash — she barely caught sight of the remaining three houses at all. Which, on its own, was suspicious enough to come with a label: hey, the three of us are probably huddled somewhere setting up a joint ambush right now, good luck guessing where. Jess rolled her eyes internally, thoroughly ungracefully. Thanks so much.

That kind of unspoken coordination was like someone writing CONSPIRACY across their own forehead and then complaining the font wasn't big enough. By the third hour, Jess had developed a genuine, personal grudge against the Singing Clay Barrens. The fine pink clay carried a sickly soft glow from a distance. Up close it looked exactly like the aftermath of a bad night out — someone leaning on a wall, being sick down the side of it, and the sun very carefully baking the mess dry the next morning.

Worse, every time the wind picked up, the pores, cracks, and hollow chambers in the ground resonated together, producing something between a double bass and a hoarse, dry groan — like something buried in the dirt was still trying to complain. Not sharp. Just relentless. The kind of sound that files your nerves down a layer at a time, dragging you from this place is terrible to why did I ever sign up for this godforsaken relay. Jess was genuinely close to cracking.

If she'd known it would come to this, a moment of curiosity plus a badly timed competitive streak would never have talked her into entering. Her original life plan had been almost embarrassingly modest. Her family was poor — not the drama-novel kind of poor where the ancestors were secretly rich and just temporarily down on their luck. The real kind. Blue-collar, counting every bill, six kids in the house.

The Federation loved encouraging large families, all its slogans dressed up as if children were the flowers of civilization's continuity — but the flowers grow up, and the bills still arrive, and the conscription quotas never shrink to match. So Jess had done the math on herself early. Study administration. Make a solid NCO. Best case, hold a military rank for life and never actually see a front line.

If she got lucky, find a decent man, get married, and run the rest of her life like a low-risk, low-volatility, low-mortality standard operating procedure. Then. That short, white-haired girl with the stubborn little cowlick showed up. And kicked that whole modest, almost pitiable plan straight into the dirt. Jess had actually disliked Hoshino Shimo, at first.

Nothing deep — just the plain sense that the girl carried far too much hostility for one body, like the whole world owed her eight hundred thousand credits and had no intention of paying it back. Sharp mouth, sharp eyes, looking at people like she was already drafting the closing line of their lives. Then — once, twice, three times — the messes that should have crushed people kept getting dragged back from the edge, directly or indirectly, by that same unapologetic pair of hands.

Slowly, Jess had come to a realization. This woman was... interesting. A mound of clay ahead shifted, cutting the memory off cold. Jess's stride stopped. She dropped low, sliding behind a taller ridge, and peered ahead. Her expression soured immediately. A jointed creature, roughly two meters long, its shell dry and cracked, colored almost exactly like the surrounding clay — the kind of lazy camouflage you'd only catch two steps too late. Too many legs. Short, sharp forelimbs.

A mouth that opened and shut like a rock crusher. And the tail — worst of all, a hollow, raised bone cylinder, ringed with evenly spaced holes along its length, looking for all the world like a very poorly designed, aesthetically offensive saxophone. Jess swore under her breath. She knew this thing. Resonance Clay-Stalker. She'd already given it a private nickname: Broken Horn. Very apt. Apt enough that she couldn't laugh about it right now.

The thing didn't just ambush — it used that hollow tail to couple with the ground and throw off low-frequency vibrations that scrambled direction. In short: ugly, annoying, and this planet's own particular gift for hunting in packs. Jess decided to go around. She walked straight into a second one instead. This one was closer, lifting its head from behind a crack directly ahead, dry pink dust still clinging to its mouthparts.

Jess and the creature locked eyes for a fraction of a second, and her mind produced exactly one honest verdict: I'm done. Maki had said it plainly: Resonance Clay-Stalkers move in packs. If you meet one, disengage fast. Jess had one thought left. Run. She turned and sprinted. The Stalkers were fast — fast enough to justify every joint of that cheap-pottery frame of theirs. Jess was faster.

She pressed herself nearly flat to the ground, AS thrusters at full push, strides long enough to suggest something genuinely terrible was right behind her. Thinking about it — a venomous pack or a pack of dogs, caught means dead is the same conclusion either way. Behind her, the singing sand grew louder and more chaotic.

The Broken Horns were in full pursuit, their bone tails coupling with the ground resonance as they moved, throwing off a low, warped honk — an entire drunk funeral band running alongside her, scoring the soundtrack to her own bad decisions. Jess ran with tears she refused to let fall. Then, between two rising clay ridges ahead, she saw two figures. Deeply suspicious. Suspicious enough to come with a label attached. One positioned high, one to the side. Neither stood the way someone in a hurry stands.

That was ambush spacing. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. She swept them once and something in her chest laughed — not a kind laugh, the specific ugly grin that surfaced whenever her bad-kid instincts kicked in.

"Ah. So this is where you've been waiting for me." She changed direction hard. Not to dodge. Straight at them. The Yagi and Nanase competitors crouched behind those ridges probably believed, right up until the moment Jess cut into the center of their sightline, that everything was going according to plan. A target charging straight into your kill zone looks, from most angles, exactly like luck finally turning your way. The problem was — they hadn't seen what was following her. Jess McCallow wasn't coming in alone.

She was towing a dozen Resonance Clay-Stalkers behind her, a runaway freight train with terrible manners. In that instant, the whole idea of an ambush became genuinely funny. The Yagi student barely got a rifle up before the first Stalker hit him from the side and knocked him flat. The Nanase student reacted faster, turned to pull back — but the one thing you never do in that moment is show your back.

The second and third Broken Horns hit from behind and the flank together, clay cracking, mouths and bone tails pressing down, the whole scene collapsing into chaos in a single breath. Jess didn't stop. As she cut between the two of them, she even took the petty satisfaction of kicking a loose section of ridge into the pack's path, aiming the closest pursuers a little more accurately.

The Yagi and Nanase competitors probably never worked out, even at the end, how a carefully laid ambush had turned into their being served up as a side dish to the local wildlife. By the time the Stalkers converged to feed, Jess had already slipped into the shadow of the far slope. She looked back once. Not a civilized sight. Not something you'd pair with dinner.

On the cracked pink clay, a dozen Broken Horns clustered together, bone tails still droning low and crooked, as if the whole plain were playing two unlucky competitors a very cheap funeral march. Jess grinned, mean and pleased with herself.

"Thanks, boys," she murmured.

"Split the meal yourselves." Shimo's Perspective When the death notices came up, I wasn't even surprised. Then she put her head down and didn't look back again. Cold white text scrolled down the main screen.

"David Wallace, deceased. Yagi Heavy Industrial Defense Academy, eliminated."

"Aoi Hasegawa, deceased. Aquila Aerospace Technical School, eliminated." The control room held its breath for half a second. Akari spoke first.

"That sounds exactly like something Jess would do." Flat, like reading a character description we'd all already memorized. Emily laughed, thoroughly delighted.

"Wow. That's filthy." I watched the mess on the Barrens and felt nothing much at all. Because I wasn't surprised. Jess not causing trouble wouldn't be Jess. And this particular brand of trouble was very her — not necessarily the most glorious, definitely the most effective; not necessarily the bravest, absolutely the least likely to leave her on the losing end of anything. I crossed my arms and leaned back.

"At least she didn't send herself in with them."

"Because she's mean, not stupid," Emily said.

"Is that a compliment?"

"Obviously." She smiled like it was the simplest thing in the world.

"The kind of mean that comes home alive is worth more than the kind of brave that dies looking pretty." Coming from her, there wasn't much room left to argue. Maki didn't join in. She was watching the updated standings and remaining roster, one fingertip sliding cleanly down the panel. The list shrank to two names. House Shinomiya. House Kushima. That was it. Just us and Shinomiya. I looked at those two names and drew a slow breath. The air had shifted.

Not just now — it had been shifting for a while — but this was the moment no one could pretend not to notice anymore. With four houses on the board, or even three, you could still tell yourself this was a crowded field. Not anymore. Two lines still alive, both narrowing toward the exact same point. And then — the main screen obliged with perfect timing.

"Leg eight complete. Two casualties. Leg nine, please prepare." Nobody joked. Nobody filled the silence. Because everyone understood exactly what leg nine meant. Kushima Maki. I turned and looked at her. She was already on her feet. No fire like Emily's. No composure polished enough to make you want to roll your eyes, like Hedwig's.

She just stood, quietly, handed her terminal to the nearest operator, smoothed the hem of her jacket, and tightened the tie at the back of her hair — like someone who'd finally reached the line on the bill with her own name written under it. For one instant, the weight in my chest doubled. I knew exactly how strong she was. Exactly how steady. Which was precisely why I understood: this leg wasn't going to be simple forward motion.

With only Shinomiya and Kushima left, with every bit of background noise swept away, the moment Maki went down, this whole race would tip into something else entirely. I breathed in. Let it out slowly.

"... Finally." I said it quietly. Not for anyone else. More like something I owed myself. Shimo's Perspective"Leg nine, prepare." I stared at the line without moving. Emily was already polishing the handle of her axe like someone settling in for the show. Lan sat by the console reviewing data, calm enough that you'd never guess she'd just run a full leg across the Barrens rather than simply walking next door to file a report.

Hedwig sat with perfect posture, her tea set already repacked, composed enough that the storm might as well have been a minor issue with the scenery. Maki stood. She didn't weight the moment. No I'm here to collect what's owed, the way Emily would have carried it. No I'm merely correcting the world's bad manners in passing, the way Hedwig would have. She just rose, ordinarily, handed her terminal to the nearest operator, smoothed her cuffs, and tightened her hair tie by one notch.

Which was exactly what made it worse. The calmer she was, the more it looked like she'd already run this leg through in her head and closed the file. I watched her, that knot in my chest refusing to settle. I wanted to say something. I had no idea which line to lead with that wouldn't make me sound like an idiot.

"Shimo." She got there first.

"... What."

"Come here a second." She said it and started for the prep corridor beside the deployment bay without waiting for an answer. Her tone was so ordinary it might as well have been asking me to look at paperwork. And yet I followed. That was the infuriating part. She never had to give an order. She just spoke, and I was already moving. The corridor lights were dimmer than the main control area. Cold white metal walls.

Somewhere ahead, the low hum of the pod preheating, and the slow, biting click of hydraulics locking into place. Neutral sounds, ordinarily — but tied to the words leg nine, they stopped being neutral at all. Maki stopped and turned. She was already in her AS. Dark armor cut clean along her frame, sharpening what had already been a narrow silhouette. Shoulder line precise, weapons fixed at her waist in immaculate rows, even the gauntlet seals fastened like she was walking into a formal reception.

This woman would probably straighten her collar before detonating a base. I leaned against the wall, hands in my pockets, probably looking impatient. I was, in fact, impatient — at the judges, at Shinomiya, at this rotten planet, at the fact that only two houses were left, and at how completely prepared she looked standing there.

"If you're going to say something, say it." I went first. She looked at me, and the corner of her eye curved — not quite a smile. The small, infuriating expression that meant of course you're exactly like this.

"You're tense." I nearly rolled my eyes on the spot.

"You're the one going down. Why are you talking like I'm the one stepping into the pod?"

"Because right now, you're the one who looks like she's about to bite someone."

"... I'm not."

"You are." Too fast. Too smug. For a second I had nothing ready. That was worse — something about her always knocked my usual sharpness sideways, as if the system worked fine for everyone else and she alone had found an extra button.

"You didn't drag me out here just to check my face."

"No." She shook her head and stepped closer. Close — not dramatically so, but in a corridor this narrow, there wasn't much difference. Close enough that I caught the faint cold-metal smell off her armor, and under it, a trace of tea she'd carried back from the observation deck. On anyone else, that combination would have been strange. On her, it made too much sense. She raised a hand and tugged at my collar. I froze.

"... What are you doing."

"It's crooked." Her voice stayed level, as if this were more urgent than leg nine. I glanced down. One corner was, in fact, a little rumpled from where I'd grabbed at it earlier. But the collar wasn't the point. The point was that her fingers were steady, the touch light, doing nothing more than flattening fabric — and light enough that pulling away would have felt like making a scene out of nothing. She had an unfair talent for choosing exactly the wrong moment to make me uncomfortable.

"Can't this wait until after the race?"

"It can be done now too."

"I know it can be done now. The issue is—""Shimo." She cut across me. Not loud. I shut up anyway. Once she'd smoothed the wrinkle flat, her hand didn't move right away — fingertips resting against the fabric a moment longer, as if confirming something.

"When I'm down there, don't start from the worst outcome." I blinked. That wasn't how she usually talked. Too direct — direct enough that for a second I wondered if Emily had infected her with some inappropriate strain of honesty. I looked up.

"Is this you comforting me?"

"No." She said it plainly.

"It's a reminder."

"Is there a difference?"

"Yes." Her eyes didn't move.

"Once you start from the worst case, you start getting angry at things that haven't happened yet. When you're angry, your decisions come faster. They don't come better."... I had nothing to say to that. Because she was right. And the worse part was that she knew it. I held out for two seconds, then grunted, unwilling.

"You really do watch me too closely."

"Can't help it." Mildly.

"Some people wear their whole state of mind on their face. Hard not to read."

"Are you picking a fight with me on purpose today?"

"No." She paused, and this time she actually smiled.

"I wanted to hear you say something ordinary." It took me a second. Then I understood. She was deliberately provoking me — because she'd rather have me glaring, snapping, rolling my eyes, anything that proved I was still running normally, instead of swallowing it all down and letting it rot in silence. Being seen through like that didn't feel good. Like someone had taken all the mess you'd worked hard to hide, measured it with a ruler, and sorted it neatly into labeled bins.

My chest tightened, so my mouth got worse to match.

"You've got a lot of nerve being this calm."

"I'm fine."

"It's leg nine."

"I know."

"Only us and Shinomiya are left."

"I know that too."

"And you're still this calm?" She looked at me and didn't answer right away. The countdown indicator in the bay ticked another notch. The corridor lights shifted, the cold white edging toward a faint warning amber. Footsteps sounded somewhere down the passage, then faded. The whole ship felt like it was holding its breath while pretending to maintain order. After half a second, she said, "Because the anchor leg is you." Something hit me — light, but exact.

"... What?" That line was cheating. And she'd delivered it as evenly as if she were reading off tonight's menu. Maki dropped her eyes to adjust her own wrist guard, voice still level.

"So all I have to do is get you to where you're supposed to be." I opened my mouth. My head was full of things — don't define me without asking, that sounds exactly like something you'd say before doing something reckless, what gives you the right to be that sure about me — all of them jammed together at once. What actually came out was the weakest one available.

"You'd better not talk about yourself like a courier." She laughed. Short, quiet.

"If the cargo's expensive enough, handling it carefully seems reasonable." I nearly choked.

"You—""All right." She finally drew her hand back and stepped half a pace away. The distance that had been quietly unbearable opened up again, and the air moved. I should have felt relieved. Instead, my chest hurt worse — the way a wound feels once the bandage comes off. Not more painful. Just suddenly obvious about where it actually was. Maki looked at me, her expression back to its usual reasonable, infuriating calm.

"Shimo."

"What."

"If Shinomiya's route doesn't match our projections, don't try to fix it alone."

"That advice means very little coming from you."

"Which is exactly why you need to remember it for me."

"..."

"Did you hear me?" I stared at her, and finally muttered, "I heard you." She nodded, like something had finally slotted into the drawer it belonged in. The deployment countdown slid into its last minute. A soft system chime sounded from the main control area, nudging everyone back toward their stations. Maki didn't linger — she turned for the pod. I watched her back and had the sudden urge to grab her, or say something more, nothing dramatic, just one more sentence, any sentence at all. In the end I did nothing.

Because she walked steadily enough that the whole ship, the whole race, and even the mess still sitting in my chest all seemed to fold themselves quietly into that receding shape. She paused at the hatch and turned her head.

"Shimo."

"Now what."

"Wait until I've finished this leg." Her voice stayed light.

"Then go take the finish line back." She didn't wait for an answer. She stepped into the pod. The hatch closed. The lock engaged. I stood there for two seconds before realizing I'd been holding my breath the whole time. I let it out slowly, pressed a hand to the back of my neck, and found it annoyingly warm. The PA in the control area came back on. Leg-nine deployment sequence initiated. As I turned back toward the screens, only one thought remained — completely unreasonable, and perfectly clear.... Fine.

You clear the road first. I'll take the rest myself.