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Prologue
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It always ended like this.
Soldiers fighting to bitter ends against odds they couldn't possibly overcome; yet never faltering in their bravery and dedication to the Abhailen race’s dream.
"Commodore Kigen, you must fall back! We'll buy you time," one of his men called over static ladden radio.
Kiyo Kigen gritted his teeth, clenching his fists tight against the control levers of his machine - a Vijiak Heavy. An Abhailein mech manufactured over five years ago during the greatest war of all time: the conflict that had claimed half the solar system's entire population, The First War in Space.
Five years was a long time for mech and man alike. Rust encroached throughout the cockpit; his chair was tattered with age, his monitors losing pixels here and there, and a lingering smell of must in the air. They,
The Abhailein Revolutionary Forces had lost that war, and in exchange, their planet was occupied, and their people made slaves mining mineral matter for no pay - but their armies, those had just barely survived. Hiding in the questionably habitable sub-continent of Remembrance and across small bases like this one, asteroids on the edge of controlled space. They had lost because they’d gone too far. Because they’d always been at a disadvantage, and perhaps most of all, because the Casnel had appeared.
He'd come today to call this small group of men home. The time was nearly upon them; the determination to go to war once more and free their home. That was the only thing that had held them together this long half-decade, the only thing staving off the mourning for those lost and the longing for what little family yet lived, now at the mercy of TSU - The States Union's - brutal occupation.
These five years had been long but necessary. They were outnumbered and outgunned to a laughable degree. They had to build, train, and plan, make each man worth a dozen of the enemy. TSU were no more than pigs, fat on a false peace. That would be their greatest weakness.
The scene around him proved they were prevailing in this endeavour. Around the feet of each of his nine allies lay a couple of the enemy: bland, beige MBT-Mk2s, with their blocky little limbs and cheap weapons. For all their lacklustre aesthetics, these enemy mechs were advanced machines with better specifications, yet not one of his men, with their antiquated mechs, had yet fallen.
But even so, it wouldn't be enough. It never was.
Kigen's Heavy, a machine whose name said it all - with massive feet, a plump chest of armour and a triangular head with a single glowing eye - drew its long, single-edged sword free of one more cubic MBT. The beige machine stumbled back haplessly, its almost bisected chest spluttering a shower of sparks. His seventh kill since the ambush on them began. In the exact moment he pulled the blade back, the Heavy’s sword fractured; its chainsaw teeth overtaxed, its metal spine giving way, the blade burst into myriad pieces as the MBT fell.
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"Damn!" Kigen cursed.
This was how it always ended.
The TSU sub-fleet must have followed him here; he had doomed these men, and now they wanted him to escape alone? These were good men. They were winning three to one, no five-to-one odds! But it wasn't five to one or even ten. They had collectively felled over twenty machines so far, yet all around them on the rocky surface of this tiny asteroid base were hundreds. Rows upon rows of square-chested MBTs surrounded them. A whole fleet had come, most likely just for the chance to try and ensnare Kigen.
They could never win in a fair fight - if the entire Abhailien remnant force were here, it'd be a toss-up if they could or not - and this was just one lousy TSU fleet, one poultry force.
A blistering bolt of orange light shot from the rows of enemy mechs, striking a friendly Vijiak Mk1. Its horribly dated triangular torso was no match for the blast's hyper-condensed energy. The eight-year-old mech’s armour melted before Kigen's eyes, sopping rivulets of molten metal streaming down the front, and the pilot inside instantly turned to a pulpy slush. The first Abhailien mech of the day collapsed.
"You must go now, Commodore; you can not die here. Our dream needs you!" the same voice from before called. Anger laced it, but also a genuine plea.
Kigen stopped clenching his teeth; it was unbecoming of a warrior, of the men these soldiers were willing to die for. He grabbed a cheap blade from one of his slain opponents and set his chunky mech to run in the one direction the encirclement had yet to reinforce properly.
It'd be a gamble if he even could escape, but the ship he'd come in on was faster than most, and its crew had a cause. The TSU dogs had numbers but lacked skill or spirit. He'd have to trust fate.
The base commander's voice echoed in his cockpit: "If you would, sir, remember us. When you cut our people free of this plague, spare us a thought."
Kigen nodded wordlessly. Of course, he would.
In just a week, the plan would be in motion; every little detail accounted for, they would make a path to free themselves. But today, they slipped up. Today, Kigen was reminded yet again that they had to be the best, that they had to be ready. That one tiny mistake and the enemy would swarm them like locusts.
The voices of the men he was leaving behind surrounded him. They roared battle cries as they charged their machines into the enemy's ranks to confuse them and buy their hero time to escape. They fought like tigers, hand over foot; they used every trick in the book to bridge the numbers. And then they cried in agony as, one by one, the locust swarm tore them limb from limb, burned out their hearts, crushed their limbs and claimed their lives.
He would never forget any of them.
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