Susumu and the Cosmo Tiger pilots ran up the wide stone steps and into the open space at the side of the Great Temple. Two pilots were shot and fell halfway up. Taking cover at the entrance, Susumu fired his Cosmogun back down at the enemy firing from the bottom. Only five other pilots, including Kato, made it to the entrance, rolling through to avoid enemy fire.

“Kato, let’s go!” Susumu said.

“Right behind you!”

They fired toward the bottom of the steps again, then ran inside. After only five meters, they came to a dead end. A thick iron door was closed in front of them.

“Damn.” Susumu took out a cosmo grenade. “Everyone, get down!” He yelled, then threw the grenade and dropped to the floor.

There was a thunderous sound that seemed to rupture their eardrums, and the door blew off. Shrapnel rained down on Susumu and the others, who were covering their heads. Susumu looked up. The door was completely gone.

“Let’s go!”

Susumu stood up and ran inside, holding his Cosmogun. As soon as they entered, they found an underground passageway stretching downward. It felt like a cave, and it was so narrow that no more than three people could walk abreast. The stairs curved halfway down.

“Is the sub-control room below?” asked Kato, who was standing to Susumu’s left. He held his Cosmogun in his right hand.

“I don’t know…but our only choice is to go down.”

Kato nodded. Susumu and Kato led the way down. They carefully followed the dark passage, which twisted and turned to the right and left. After a while, they saw an exit ahead. Susumu held out his left hand to stop the advance. Holding the Cosmogun close to his chest, he quietly peeked through the exit.

He saw a hall with a high ceiling, surrounded by walls with strange decorations. It felt like a temple from ancient Mesopotamia. But then Susumu noticed a modern elevator on the right and two guards moving slowly back and forth in front of it. Susumu pulled his head back and turned to Kato.

“There’s an elevator on the right,” he whispered.

“Then…”

“Yes. It seems that if there is a sub-control room, it’s above us. We’ll have to take that elevator up.”

“Let’s go!”

“Okay! I’ll jump out first, cover me.”

“Right!”

Susumu took a breath, then leapt out into the open. The guards noticed and immediately opened fire. Susumu dropped to the floor. As he rolled, he stretched out both arms and fired his Cosmogun. The guard on the right fell backward. The guard on the left took aim, but Kato jumped out and shot him, sending him flying.

Susumu got up and ran to the elevator. Then, apparently having heard the gunfire, seven or eight more guards came rushing in from another hall. They immediately started firing. Kato and the other four pilots returned fire with their Cosmoguns.

“Kodai! Leave this to us!” Kato shouted.

“I’m counting on you!”

Susumu ran to the elevator and it opened automatically. The metal doors that opened on both sides quickly closed. Just before they slammed shut, a small person rolled in like a pebble. The box began to rise automatically.

Susumu’s eyes widened as he saw who had joined him, and lowered his Cosmogun.

“Boy…!”

It was the boy from Dengil. He looked up at Susumu and smiled.

“Oh, no…” Susumu shook his head from side to side.

“I’ll go with you.” The boy spoke in Dengil, but the miniature automatic translator attached to Susumu’s belt allowed his words to be understood. The boy smiled again. “There’s no other way now that we’ve come this far.”

There was a thud, and the elevator stopped. The doors automatically opened to the left and right with a sighing sound. Susumu and the boy stepped out into a passageway and the door closed behind them.

Just beyond the passageway was a heavy round door like a hatch, about two meters in diameter. Susumu pressed the lever of the hatch and slowly pulled the door open. The front wall of the control room inside was filled with various machines. It was undoubtedly the sub-control room that managed the energy beam to Aquarius.

In front of the control panel, a man was seated with his back to Susumu, operating the instruments. Susumu went inside. Two guards on the left noticed and immediately started firing. Susumu jumped to avoid their laser beams, and fired his Cosmogun in succession. He hit the two Imperial Guards in the throat and chest without a hitch. They stumbled and fell. There seemed to be no other guards.

The tall figure sitting in front of the instrument panel still had his back turned. Susumu walked forward, holding his Cosmogun at the ready. Then, the person slowly rose from his chair, his cloak swaying, and turned around. It was Grand Commander Lugal.

Susumu adjusted the miniature automatic translator on his belt with one hand and asked, “Are you the king of Dengil?”

For a moment, Lugal stared at Susumu from head to toe, then spoke. “Yes. I am Lugal, Grand Commander and High Priest of the Dengil Empire.”

“I am Susumu Kodai, combat team leader of the Space Battleship Yamato. I am deeply sorry about the flooding of Planet Dengil. If your survivors wish to emigrate to Earth, we Earthlings may consider accepting them. Anyway, stop this pointless fighting right now and halt the warp of Aquarius!”

Lugal’s expression immediately turned demonic upon hearing Susumu’s words. “Nonsense. I don’t need any sympathy or charity from Earthlings. Besides, if I had wanted to save Mother Dengil, I could have done it.”

“What!?” Susumu was shocked.

“I could have saved her. So why did I abandon her…?” Lugal’s mouth twisted with a sneer. “I have always dreamed of migrating from Dengil, which had become depleted of resources and energy, to another planet. To the legendary planet, Earth. When Aquarius approached Dengil, I took advantage of it. It didn’t matter if women, children, and other old people were submerged along with Dengil. I and the soldiers, the strong ones, survived. We will migrate to Earth…”

“That’s ridiculous. If you killed the women and children…”

Lugal laughed at Susumu’s words. “We don’t need women and children. We can do anything with cloning and artificial insemination. We just need to increase the number of strong people.”

Susumu was stunned. “That’s crazy…”

Lugal was completely unaware of the contradiction. “No one else knows this. Only I knew that Dengil could have been saved if I wished it.”

Lugal took advantage of Susumu’s surprise and quickly drew a laser gun from his waist. Susumu gasped, but it was too late. Before he knew it, the muzzle of Lugal’s laser gun was pointed directly at his chest. Susumu still held his Cosmogun, but it was pointed down.

Lugal laughed as he pointed his weapon at Susumu. “There’s less than a minute left until the final warp. Earth is practically mine! Foolish Earthling!”

Lugal laughed hysterically and pressed his finger against the trigger. At that moment, The boy from Dengil came running in, shouting. He had been hiding quietly beside the hatch, and now stood between Susumu and Lugal.

“Father! Stop it!”

The boy stood with his arms outstretched, as if to shield Susumu. Susumu was shocked by the boy’s words. Lugal looked at his son for a moment. But that was all. He fired his without any further hesitation.

The laser pierced the center of the boy’s chest. The boy was thrown back and fell to the floor. His eyes were wide open, and his mouth opened like a fish gulping for air. Susumu was so shocked that he just stood there, looking down at the boy.

“What have you done…?”

Lugal fired his laser gun again at the boy’s head, who was lying on the floor and twitching. The boy’s head burst, brain matter splattering across the floor.

“Boy!” Susumu screamed in shock.

While Susumu was staring at the boy’s body in a daze, Lugal pressed the switch on the instrument panel. And then, Lugal and part of the floor started to descend. Susumu came to his senses and charged forward, but Lugal had disappeared into the floor. Susumu quickly checked the control panel.

“No good! I was too late…”

Outside, Aquarius warped, shining brightly. It gradually disappeared like an image reflected in water.

Susumu turned from the control panel and once again stared at the boy’s corpse lying on the floor. His mind was clouded with rage.

“Damn Lugal…”

Lugal jumped out of an emergency escape chute, ran through a narrow passageway that resembled a maze with complex twists and turns, and got into a different elevator than the one Susumu had ascended. The elevator began to descend as if falling. Inside the silver metal box, he was breathing heavily. In his right hand, he was still holding the laser gun that had killed his son.

“Aquarius has already made its final warp. No one can stop it…” Lugal muttered to himself as he wiped sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. He even let out a small chuckle.

The elevator stopped with a light bump. Doors immediately opened on both sides. A corridor stretched out before his eyes. Lugal carefully stepped out, raising his laser gun, but no one was there. The inside of the temple was a complex maze. If an outsider were to wander in, he would surely get lost. There were many rooms and corridors that even Dengil’s soldiers did not know about.

Lugal sighed in relief and rushed down the corridor. The elevator door closed behind him. He turned right and left down the narrow passageway, then arrived at a secret command room in the basement of the temple. No one else knew where it was. He strode over to the instrument panel. There was only one chair, but instead of sitting on it, he activated various switches one by one.

The laser gun was now in its holster at his waist. A lamp on the instrument panel began to flash. Lugal laughed to himself again.

“Aquarius’ twentieth warp has finally been completed. All that remains is to watch the Earth be submerged…”

Lugal pressed several keys on the instrument panel one by one. A small square hole appeared and a red flashing button rose up from it. He stared at it for a while, then swallowed and stretched out the fingers of his right hand.

“Yamato. You too will meet your end here.”

Lugal pressed the button. Suddenly, emergency sirens began to ring intermittently throughout the entire city. He had activated the self-destruct device of Uruk itself. Lugal raised his chin and laughed hysterically, then turned around and left the command room, heading for a hangar containing an old-type UFO spaceship.

On the surface of Uruk, explosions burst outward in various places and buildings collapsed one after another. It was as if a major earthquake had hit. People inside the buildings were being crushed to death with no time to escape.

On Yamato‘s first bridge, the crew stared blankly out the window. A dull rumble could be heard from outside.

“What’s going on? The city is exploding!” Aihara shouted.

The inside of the bridge shook violently from the shock of a nearby building being shattered.

“The enemy must be trying to destroy this city itself, and bury Yamato along with it!” Sanada realized.

Captain Okita looked at Sanada and frowned. Then he saw Shima, who was lying face down at the helm. A suspicious look crossed his face, but he immediately gave an order.

“Shima.”

But Shima didn’t answer. He was in a daze, half daydreaming. He was playing soccer on a hill with his younger brother Jiro.

“Shima!”

Suddenly, Shima came back to his senses at the echo of Captain Okita’s voice. He turned to look back. His face was pale.

“Prepare for takeoff immediately,” Okita ordered.

“Y-Yes…”

Shima turned forward. Suddenly, a sharp pain hit him in the right chest, and he fainted again. Unaware of Shima’s condition, Okita addressed the crew.

“Even if Aquarius warps, we still have 24 hours to go.”

They looked up at Captain Okita in surprise. But he spoke in a firm tone.

“We must try every possibility during those 24 hours.”

Shima shook his head vigorously and regained consciousness.

“Yamato, preparing for launch…”

Hearing Shima’s weak voice, Yuki, who had just returned from the medical room, frowned suspiciously and walked over to him.

“What’s wrong, Shima?”

The crew all looked to Yuki at once, and Sanada and Aihara rushed over.

“Shima-kun…” she said with her hands covering here mouth, “something’s wrong!”

Sanada pulled on Shima’s shoulder, lifting him upright in his seat. Shima cried out in pain.

“What are you doing, Sanada-san…?”

“You…you’re injured in the chest? Why were you silent?”

Captain Okita spoke up. “Take him to the medical room immediately.”

Shima turned his head and looked at Captain Okita.

“Captain…Sanada-san…please let me take charge of this launch. I’m still okay. Please…”

After saying that, Shima coughed loudly. He quickly covered his mouth with his palm, but a large amount of blood poured into it.

“Shima…” Sanada muttered, stunned.

Kato and the other Cosmo Tiger members came running out of the exit at the side of the Great Temple. The surrounding structures were shaking, and cracks appeared everywhere. Kato stopped, shielded his head from falling debris, and looked back at the temple.

“Kodai-san…” he muttered, but immediately yelled to the pilots who had stopped with him.

“Move out, fast!”

They ran toward the Cosmo Tigers and Kato followed after them. They powered up and took off one after another.

Susumu jumped out of the elevator inside the temple and ran desperately past the collapsing ceiling and walls, as if he was being chased. The entire ceiling fell behind him as he ran. Suddenly, a crack appeared in the floor, and Susumu jumped. He nearly lost his balance and fell into the suddenly gaping chasm, but somehow managed to hold on.

He ran up the stairs and saw an exit. He lunged through it just before the ceiling and wall collapsed, blocking the exit with a cloud of dust. He threw himself down the stone steps, which cracked and split in his wake, and ran as fast as he could toward his Cosmo Zero. He could see the Cosmo Tigers already taking off and rising into the smoke-filled sky.

Susumu jumped into the cockpit. A few Cosmo Tigers were parked around him, but their pilots had been killed in the gunfight. He pulled the control handle and took off. As soon as the Cosmo Zero rose and turned around, there was an enormous explosion in the Great Temple, accompanied by an awful roar that seemed to split heaven and earth.

The Temple collapsed in an instant, like a castle made of blocks, and an old-style disc spaceship appeared from within. To Susumu’s surprise, rock-shaped spaceships, looking just like temple debris, launched one after the other and rose into the sky after the disc. Susumu turned forward and headed for Yamato.

Continue to Act 24

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