Chapter 15 - Nothing but Quiet Darkness

  This world was nothing like the great sprawl of Oceana II. No towering arcologies stretching into the heavens, no neon glow of civilization pulsing beneath the night sky. It was a forgotten rock wedged between the minor moons of Oceana II and III, far enough to avoid the pull of their gravity, yet close enough that, when the red sun crested the horizon, it could almost take your breath away.

  Almost.

  Two young men stood atop an ancient stone tower, weathered by time and war, its surface veined with ivy and rot. They were soldiers, though barely more than boys, cd in patchwork armor—pted limbs, a reinforced breastpte, and helmets slung around their necks. Their rifles, a mix of old-world steel and modern energy, hung heavy in their grips.

  The taller of the two, nky and hollow-eyed, held a Stubmaker—an old psma rifle, its orange core dull with overuse. The shorter one bore a radio assembly on his back, a relic of a time when communications still meant something. His helmet, a Crusader’s bucket helm, had seen no modification in centuries. The world had moved forward. He had not.

  Luis Lopez flicked his visor down, staring at the sky.

  The heavens wept fire.

  Comets of wreckage rained down in molten streaks, the broken husks of dead Warcaskets incinerated in reentry. Sg and ash scattered over the battlefield, mingling with the bck sand below. But it was the rger shape—a massive, burning wreck—that held their gaze, cleaving through the atmosphere, leaving a searing white trail in its wake.

  Chunks of metal spun loose, falling faster than the eye could follow.

  “Shit,” the taller one muttered, his grip tightening on his rifle.

  Beyond the descending wreckage, anti-air empcements roared to life, belching fk and ser fire into the sky. The battlefield below was already a maelstrom—bombers screamed overhead, dropping payloads into the trenches where men fought and died, their screams lost beneath the thunder of explosions.

  “Jamie?” Luis’s voice crackled from beneath his visor, his hand hovering over his radio.

  They could see it all from here. The trenches stretched like open wounds through the bckened mud, men swarming within them like insects, their bodies caked in soot and gore. The treads of Martian Heavy Nailers churned through the sludge, firing bursts of lethal metal into the charging Neptunian ranks. The enemy came in waves, faceless beneath their helmets, bayonets glinting as they vaulted over their dead.

  It was trench warfare at its purest. Machine-gun fire ripping bodies apart, mud swallowing the wounded, the stink of burning oil and flesh thick enough to choke a man.

  Not a true Martian Warcasket in sight. If there had been, the battle would already be over.

  “Who’s colors are they?” Jamie’s voice cut through the din, his sharp eyes locked on the descending wreck.

  Luis turned his head. Beyond the burning transport, a second shape was falling—smaller, controlled. An escape vessel? A lone pilot?

  Jamie’s patience snapped. “Luis! What colors are they?”

  Luis didn’t answer. Not at first. His fingers twisted the dials of his radio, his mind racing with encryption codes and callsigns. If it was friendly, they had to send word to the Fortress before anti-air cut them down with the rest of the Neptunian filth.

  Then, he saw it.

  The transport ship, still fming from its descent, emerged from the haze of battle. The bronze of its hull was scorched and stripped, its insignia nearly lost in the wreckage. And yet—

  Its hangar bay doors were opening.

  Luis watched, breathless, as the Warcaskets within were revealed. Their forms dark against the firestorm, their weapons gleaming.

  A grin split his face beneath the visor.

  “Fear not, Jamie,” Luis murmured. “The fight has turned.”

  Jamie frowned. “The hell are you talking about?”

  Luis exhaled, gripping his rifle tighter as the Martian machines dropped from the transport, their thrusters fring as they accelerated towards the Neptunian fnk.

  “The Academy,” Luis said, voice brimming with something almost like reverence. “The Sons of Mars. They still hunt.”

  He turned, already tuning his radio. “Tell the Fortress to hold their fire. The battle won’t st much longer.”

  Because the hunters had arrived.

  And the killing was about to begin.

  Piper

  Piper’s head lolled forward, her body heavy, her eyelids like lead. Even the cold, mechanical precision of her cybernetic eye did nothing to keep her awake. The buzzing in her skull was a low, ceaseless drone, like a failing power coil. She had ripped the neural link from her socket before reentry, severing the feedback loop, but the damage had already been done.

  A voice crackled in her comms. Desperate.

  “Piper! Are you okay?” Henryk’s voice, sharp with panic. “Piper, you’ve been silent for the st couple minutes. Please, please—”

  A ghost of a smirk pyed at her lips. “You’re really begging for me, huh?” she murmured, half-conscious. But then her mind snapped into focus, her breath hitching. Henryk wasn’t joking. His voice had the kind of raw, ragged edge that came only from real fear.

  They weren’t in space anymore. That deep, endless abyss was gone, peeled away into the blues and greens of Oceana.

  Below them, jungle-pines stretched for miles, their dark, spindly limbs draped in hanging leaves, clinging to sheer cliffs that knifed through the mist. Mountains, rolling like the backs of sleeping giants, converged into the distance. But that wasn’t what drew her attention.

  It was the structure.

  A monolith of metal and concrete buried within the jungle, its surface bristling with antennas, gun empcements, and industrial towers belching out smoke. Like a fortress. No, not a fortress.

  A base.

  Henryk’s voice was a thin whisper. “W-what is that?”

  Piper’s eyes flicked to her dispy as she fished out a rag, dabbing at the blood trickling from her nose. She could feel the sluggish pulse behind her eye, the telltale headache creeping in. Something was wrong with her, but that wasn’t the priority. Right now, she and Henryk were still alive.

  And that alone was a goddamn miracle.

  “I thought you’d know,” she muttered, eyes locked on the screen. “So this is where the rebels have been hiding.”

  She tightened her grip on the controls. Before, the Warcasket had moved almost entirely through thought-link. Now, without the neural interface, her hands had to do the work. Fingers zipped across the console, bringing up a diagnostic.

  “This Warcasket’s glide mod is solid, but in this state, I won’t be able to transform back,” she muttered, biting her lip. “I can crash it and disengage safely, though.”

  Henryk’s head snapped to her. “Wait, this thing can transform?”

  Piper tapped a finger against her cheek, feigning innocence. “W-well… sort of?” she admitted. “It’s nothing fancy. I kind of folded you into a box and now we’re gliding thanks to the aerodynamics of my shields.”

  Henryk didn’t respond. He was staring out through the slits of his visor, watching the sky come alive.

  From the ruined transport, figures were dropping—Warriors.

  “They’re jumping…” he breathed.

  Piper looked too. Henryk’s friends—Arthur, Axel, the others—had unched from the shuttle, free-falling through the atmosphere, cutting through the clouds like spearheads. The telltale fre of thrusters ignited beneath them, stabilizing their descent, parachutes coiling along their backs.

  Piper let out a low whistle. “Damn. That’s crazy.”

  Henryk’s eyes widened. “Arthur and Axel—” His voice caught. “They’ve got their Full Armored Variants. They’re complete?”

  Below them, the battle raged.

  The dark sky crackled with muzzle fshes and streaking missile trails. Explosions rippled through the valley, trees splintering under the force, the nd scarred by fire and war. The conflict had splintered into two forces—The Sons of Mars carving through one fnk, while the rebels surged from the other.

  Henryk gritted his teeth. “So you can’t drop me off? I can’t join them?”

  Piper exhaled sharply. “I get that you want to help, but if I drop you now, we’re both free-falling. The suit can’t handle it.”

  “Damn it,” Henryk growled, smming a fist against the side of the Warcasket.

  Piper didn’t argue. She could see the fight unfolding below—the chaos, the death, the hell of it all. Henryk wasn’t a man who could just watch. But neither of them had a choice.

  The trees and mountains loomed closer, swallowing them in their shadow.

  "Hold on!"

  Piper’s voice filled Henryk’s ears, barely cutting through the deafening howl of wind and the violent snap of branches breaking against metal. The Warcasket hurtled downward, punching through the canopy like a meteor, sending shattered wood and torn leaves spiraling in every direction. The sky above had vanished, swallowed by towering jungle-pines, their dark, drooping leaves a curtain over the wilderness below.

  “It’s gonna be a hard nding,” Piper shouted over the chaos, hands locked onto the controls. “But this thing’s built like a goddamn brick!”

  And she was ughing—giddy, breathless, running high on adrenaline like this was some kind of joyride instead of a freefall into the unknown.

  Henryk barely registered his own ugh slipping out, breathless and wild. His heart was pounding, his body weightless between the jarring hits of branches and the gut-wrenching drops—but somehow, he wasn’t afraid.

  They weren’t crashing into the battlefield. That firestorm of war, the hell of gunmetal and burning trees, was miles behind them. They were descending into something else—something untouched, something ancient.

  The jungle stretched in every direction, an ocean of green rolling over hills and cliffs, waterfalls cutting silver veins through the dense foliage. This pce had never known the weight of treads, the stomp of boots, the scream of war. It was alive in a way the battlefield wasn’t, whispering in rustling leaves and distant, unseen things moving in the underbrush.

  He turned to Piper—and for the first time, really looked at her.

  Her red hair, wild and tangled in the glow of the cockpit. The streak of blood at her nose, wiped away but still faint against her skin. The way her eyes, sharp and burning, stayed fixed on the controls, fearless, steady—like she was born for this.

  And somehow, despite the chaos, the shaking metal, the way the Warcasket screamed against gravity—Henryk felt a strange, inexplicable calm.

  Because he was thinking about her.

  Not about death, or fire, or the battlefield behind them.

  Just her.

  The ground surged up to meet them. The Warcasket smmed through the st of the trees, metal shrieking, dirt and stone exploding in a violent spray. Then—impact. A jarring, world-ending crash as they skidded, carved a trench into the earth, and finally—finally—came to a stop, metal hissing, the jungle settling into uneasy silence around them.

  Henryk let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

  Piper groaned, stretching her arms, grinning like a maniac.

  "Now that," she said, breathless, "was a nding."

  And Henryk just shook his head, a smirk pulling at his lips.

  Yeah. Maybe it was.

  Edward

  "I can still gear this thing into…"

  "More like turn this thing into a crash nding," Issac’s voice crackled through Edward’s comms, ced with urgency. "Get the hell out of there before the whole damn thing blows up."

  "The internals on this thing are holding up," Ed’s voice came back, steady but strained. "This is a Martian transport. We lose something like this, we ain’t gonna get it back…"

  "Here we go, the Sire making these sorts of decisions," Arthur’s voice, dry with sarcasm, cut through the tension.

  "These?" Ed chuckled, though it was hollow. "You always surprise me with that sense of humor."

  Axel’s sigh crackled in their comms, audible even through the distortion. Ed could hear the heavy doors of the Warcaskets opening in the background, the whir of hydraulics as the machines prepared for unch. "Just get out of there before the whole thing—"

  Axel’s voice was swallowed by a violent explosion that rattled the vessel, the sound like thunder tearing through the hull. This wasn’t a bst from any ser or anti-airfire—it was something worse. The internal systems were failing, and the ship was coming apart from within.

  Wordlessly, Ed threw himself into his seat, the straps biting into him as he clicked the seatbelt into pce. The ship lurched violently to the side, spinning in a harsh, disorienting dip that threatened to throw him out. He clenched his teeth as he steadied himself, hands gripping the arms of the seat as his body fought the overwhelming forces.

  "See," Ed muttered, trying to keep his composure, his voice shaking. "A rough nding, but a nding’s still a—" Another explosion ripped through the ship, the force sending him into the side of his harness. He screamed as the ship’s descent accelerated, the ground rushing up to meet them.

  "Woah… keep this fucking thing steady!" Issac shouted from the other side of the hangar. The sound of thrusters firing echoed through the comms as Issac and the others were ejected from the shuttle, hurtling into the grey sky.

  Arthur’s eyes, wide with an almost surreal calm, flicked past the chaos. His gaze caught the weapon cache hanging above them, tethered to the ship’s crane. Crates were stacked high, ready to be deployed. The harsh cng of metal scraping echoed from the empty space.

  "We’ve got everything assembled, Kieren," Arthur called out, his voice tinged with the gravity of the moment. "This is your first real engagement—save for the simutions."

  Kieren swallowed hard, the lump in his throat a cold stone. He had no words, only the sinking weight of terror that gripped his gut.

  "Kieren!" Arthur barked, his voice snapping like a whip. "Damn it, my boy, the Neptunians desire honorable combat. So, they shall have it! Are you ready?"

  Kieren didn’t speak. He merely froze, terror locking his body in pce, the dampness spreading under his suit. Arthur’s sneer deepened as his eyes flicked to the empty seat where Henryk should have been. The boy wasn’t here—another one had repced him. A fresh face. A green one. Why couldn’t they have taken someone like Henryk? Someone they could trust in the heat of battle?

  Arthur’s eyes wandered to the empty spot on the wall—the sword. Henryk’s father’s bde. He reached for it, his fingers brushing the hilt.

  "Edward," Arthur muttered, a tinge of disbelief creeping into his voice. "He left it behind?"

  Ed’s voice crackled through the haze of static. "W-what are you talking about?" His frustration was palpable. "Grab the damn thing and get out of there now!" He yelled. The urgency in his voice cut through the static.

  Arthur didn’t hesitate. He tapped the side of his cockpit, the controls glowing under his fingers as the crane above them moved. The massive, evisceration weapon—Henryk’s father’s bde—was locked into pce on Arthur’s back. The sharp metallic click echoed through the hangar as explosions rocked the vessel, but it was still there. Secure.

  "Everyone configured!" Ed’s voice came through again, sharp and commanding. "Everyone equipped! If this thing’s going to blow, damn it, take everything you can carry. We’re going to need it. Nothing can go to waste!"

  The order was clear. There was no room for hesitation.

  And then, they were unched, shot out into the grey sky, their bodies weightless for a moment before the harsh pull of gravity took hold. They were armed to the teeth—each carrying anti-warship weapons, heavy and cumbersome, but necessary for what was to come. Arthur and Issac, fully kitted out, bore the weight of tank cannons and missile compartments, their silhouettes outlined against the blood-red sun.

  The rest had the standard Martian MP-01s. The weight was a burden, but one they carried without question.

  They fell. And fell. The ndscape below them swallowed them whole, the distant rumble of war already unfolding below as they plummeted toward the unknown.

  "Who was that?" Axel’s voice rang out through the comms, a question hanging in the air like a knife. "The one that saved Henryk and backed us up?"

  Ed sighed, the sound of his seatbelt unbuckling echoing over the radio. "That person was fshing Mercurian colors," he muttered, his voice tight as he moved toward the escape pod. You could almost hear the weight of his words. "One of the reasons we came through here instead of one of the pnets’ main cities is because the Neptunians would shoot us on sight. We needed to go to Mercurian-controlled territory."

  Isaac sneered, his eyes fixed on the expanse below them. The battlefield stretched out beneath them, a savage ndscape of fire, smoke, and crumbling earth. He took a shaky breath, pulling a fsk from his pocket, uncorking it with a sharp hiss. He tossed his head back, swallowing a mouthful of liquor that burned all the way down. "Fuck clearance… we could’ve got this shit done," he growled, shaking his head as he lowered the fsk.

  Axel’s voice dragged through the comms, rough and drained. "…and got shot to hell."

  Isaac snickered, his grin wild. "…Still happened, didn’t it?"

  Axel rubbed his hands over his face, frustration tightening his jaw. He tugged at his white hair, pulling it in frustration. "What’s got you agitated?"

  "Honorable combat is something to be appuded," Arthur’s voice came, carrying a weight that hung heavy in the air. He was calm, almost too calm.

  "Battlefield jitters," Isaac muttered, his voice thick with irony. "Even after so many, it still gets to me. But you’ve still gotta fight. Even now."

  Kieren was silent, as still as the mountain that towered over the battlefield. His mech lumbered forward, its movements slow and measured. The others noticed the silence, the boy too still for the chaos around him.

  "Kieren," Axel’s voice softened. "Don’t be afraid to hold back. This is your first time. We understand you’ve just received your spikes. Don’t overexert yourself. Don’t get yourself killed."

  Then it happened. The ground beneath them blurred into a wild smear as the world tilted and began to plummet. Their mobile suits dropped like stones, hurtling toward the earth at breakneck speed. The sheer velocity rattled their bodies, the ground growing closer, the distant sounds of battle echoing from below.

  They were coming in hot.

  Parachutes deployed with a mechanical roar, unfurling like massive white wings as their thrusters fired in tandem. The suits leveled out, but the descent remained bone-jarring. The air screamed around them, the wind a deafening howl that pressed against their bodies. They screamed in exhiration, or perhaps terror—there was no time to tell the difference.

  The earth raced toward them in a dizzying blur. Small figures, men no bigger than ants, scattered below, fleeing from the impending impact of the massive Warcaskets. The sight of the giant metal giants coming down was enough to send ripples of panic through the enemy lines. They clung to cover, shouting, scattering like rats.

  But Arthur’s voice cut through the chaos, firm and commanding. "Rest easy, Martians," he bellowed, the words amplified through the comms. His mech nded with a deafening crash, shaking the ground beneath them. The massive stone fortress behind him erupted in a hail of anti-air fire, mortar explosions, and machine gun fire—an unholy symphony of destruction. The sky darkened as the air thickened with the stench of gunpowder and fire.

  "The Knights of Mars have come!" Arthur shouted, raising his twin beam rifles high, the barrels gleaming under the light of the dying sun. He fired—a single, violent shot—and the purple beam sliced through the air, striking the trench below with a violent explosion. Men screamed as they were caught in the bst, their bodies disintegrating, reduced to nothing but ash in the blink of an eye.

  "Come forth and be sughtered!" Arthur howled, his voice filled with bloodlust. His mech’s cannons roared as they tore through the earth, ying waste to the enemy infantry. "Gentlemen, the enemy desires honorable combat, and they shall have it!"

  But Isaac’s voice was a razor, sharp with defiance. "Like hell you are." His hands flew over his console, clicking a sequence of commands. A button was pressed, and his suit's twin cannons fred to life, their thunderous bsts ringing out. The missiles embedded in his suit’s arms shot forward with a shriek, hurtling through the air to sm into the trench line below. Explosions erupted, tearing apart men and machines alike.

  The ground shook, and the rest of the Sons of Mars moved in, guns bzing, weapons roaring as they tore through the trenches. The infantry surged forward, using every weapon they could get their hands on—from old medieval swords, their edges gleaming under the blood-red sky, to sleek ser rifles that hummed with deadly energy.

  "Rally behind them! Rally behind the true bloods of House Mars!" The war cry of the infantry rang out like a primal roar, a battle cry that shook the heavens.

  And there, in the midst of it all, Isaac’s Warcasket rose above them—a towering silhouette, casting a long shadow that blocked out the sun. The men below surged forward, emboldened by the figure that led them, a moving mountain of steel. His silhouette bzed bright against the dark sky, a symbol of Martian pride, and the enemy could do nothing but watch as the tide of battle turned.

  Isaac raised his arm, the massive cannon aimed skyward, and fired. The shot tore through the enemy lines, sending men flying, their screams cut short by the deafening roar of his weapons. The Martians behind him surged forward, the infantry charging with wild abandon, their weapons cshing with the enemy in a brutal, unforgiving dance of death.

  The trench was breached. The earth cracked open beneath their feet as the Martian forces tore through the enemy defenses.

  Axel moved forward, the crackling hum of his ser rifle cutting through the air, each shot a promise of death. Then, in an instant, a fsh of red sliced through his vision—a ser bst that zipped past his monitor and struck the side of his mobile suit's head. The impact was jarring, but the damage was only superficial. "Shields... or cover!" Axel shouted, his voice strained as his fingers worked quickly, instinctively.

  With a sharp, metallic grind, Axel’s free hand reached over his shoulder, drawing the shield from its mount. The heavy piece of armor locked into pce, securing along his left arm with a satisfying click. He kept his rifle in both hands now, steadying his aim as he squeezed off another round. The air around him buzzed with the static of danger, the battlefield alive with chaos.

  "Shit," Issac muttered, his voice a growl of frustration. From somewhere in the haze, Kieren’s curses joined in, their fury lost in the smoke and fire. "Where the hell’s cover?" he snapped, just as a wild barrage of warcasket-patterned submachine gun fire cracked through the air, smming into his armored frame. The screech of impact was deafening as ser streaks sliced past like the whip of death itself.

  "Issac, over here!" Kieren’s voice rang through the haze, desperate, pulling Issac’s attention.

  They were in the heart of it now—sluggish, ft trenches carved into the earth by both nature and human hand. Explosions had pounded the ground, digging craters, while the stench of fire and metal saturated the air. The remnants of whatever once stood here were buried under mounds of dirt and debris. The ground was a sickly mix of scarred, pockmarked earth and mangled wreckage, painted in shades of smoke and blood.

  Issac twisted on his heel, his Warcasket moving in a full circle as his eyes scanned the horizon. The enemy was everywhere, unseen, hidden in the chaos. But then, through the smoke and fire, he saw it—a flicker of movement. A distant tracer line, marking the enemy's position.

  Kieren, meanwhile, had found a sanctuary. A thick hole, bsted deep into the earth, offered him temporary cover. His Warcasket dug deeper into the stone and dirt, its massive cws tearing through the earth effortlessly. "The hell…?" Issac's voice was ced with confusion as he watched Kieren’s Warcasket dig in, the boy not fighting but burying himself further.

  Before he could question it, Issac made his move. He flicked a button, and without hesitation, his missile pods fred to life. A torrent of ten missiles shot out, arcing upward into the air before plunging downward with deadly precision. The explosions detonated with a brutal wave of fire and shockwaves, filling the air with a deafening roar. The trench erupted in a violent cascade of fmes and destruction, a fiery nightmare that swallowed men and machines alike.

  The intercoms crackled with panicked voices, as comrades and enemies alike bore witness to the fiery horror unfurling in the trench. And in the wake of the explosion, the Neptunian Warcaskets began to converge, their angur, thin limbs cutting through the battlefield with cruel efficiency. The corpses of fallen soldiers and broken machines crunched beneath their feet, their twisted bodies trampled without mercy.

  "Keep firing!" Axel’s voice cut through the chaos, his command steady despite the gnashing of his teeth. His rifle shook in his hands, the recoil vibrating through his entire Warcasket. "Keep firing, damn it!"

  "Is there no end to this?" Kieren’s voice wavered, fear creeping into his words. The others ignored the tremor of uncertainty in his voice, too wrapped up in the violence of the moment.

  "There shall be an end," Axel shouted back, his resolve as sharp as the edge of a bde. "And we shall find it!" His words rang out, an unyielding promise amid the storm.

  Issac, eyes scanning the horizon, flicked a button on his console. His Warcasket’s head turned sharply to take in what was behind them. The fortress stood tall, a bastion of steel and defiance. Soldiers, desperate and determined, armed with ser rifles, nailers, and anti-warcasket weapons, held the line. But it was the armor they wore that caught his attention—scraps of iron ptes, chains of mail, ancient armor that spoke of humanity’s return to a time before sers and death machines.

  A smirk tugged at the corner of Issac’s mouth, a cruel gleam in his eye. "No quarter!" he shouted, his voice an anthem of defiance. Without hesitation, he turned back to the fray, his rifle singing death with every shot.

  "Just like the military..." Issac muttered, his voice ced with bitter irony. His Warcasket's missile uncher locked onto its target, the heavy mechanism hissing as it aligned with the distant enemy. He took aim, and without hesitation, he squeezed the trigger. A fiery reddish haze trailed the missile as it shot forward, a streak of death that collided with one of the Neptunian Warcaskets storming from the trench line. The explosion was a violent bloom of fire, sending the enemy machine crashing to the ground in a twisted heap of metal and smoke.

  "There's gotta be over a dozen of them," Kieren’s voice came through, horrified, his words a tight, breathless whisper over the comms.

  "Fifteen, actually," Edward responded, his voice calm despite the chaos that surrounded them. The distant hum of the battle buzzed in the background.

  Issac’s eyes narrowed, instinctively drawn to the number on the screen. "You’re overseeing the whole battle?" he asked, his tone sharp, a hint of disbelief in it.

  Edward snorted, the sound harsh and humorless. "Gave the Martians our numbers," he said. "The Monolith. It’s practically unbreachable. And before now, it had remained in secret. Now, looks like we’ve come down on a bad time..." His voice trailed off, but the weight of his words hung in the air, the gravity of their situation sinking in.

  Axel, already in the thick of it, returned fire. A missile smmed into his shield with a deafening explosion that sent his Warcasket stumbling backward. But Axel’s reflexes were sharp. He countered quickly, boosting his thrusters and shaking off the remnants of his shield before powering forward. Beside him, Issac and Kieren fought to stay in motion, though Kieren’s suit was sluggish, its movements slow and bored.

  "We're Knights of Mars," Axel growled, his purple eyes hardening. "Nothing can stop us." He grinned, his teeth fshing in the dim light. "I was trained by my uncle. He knighted me!" His voice rang with pride, the intensity of his words pushing him forward with an adrenaline-fueled surge. He understood now why Henryk valued speed above all else.

  With a roar, Axel surged into the air, his Warcasket unching upwards, propelled by the full power of his thrusters. Below, the Neptunian Warcaskets fired, their sers streaking through the air—red and amethyst arcs of death that sshed through the void. Axel’s face twisted in focus, his purple eyes locking onto the targeting reticle. He squeezed the trigger, a barrage of fire ripping through the air.

  "Provide Axel cover fire! Suppressive fire, now, now, now!" Edward's voice barked over the comms, frantic with urgency. "You crazy fucking bastard! The spikes can't protect you forever!" he shouted, his words ced with fear and frustration.

  Axel's ughter echoed through the comms, wild and free. "Try to keep up, Ed!" he shouted back, as Issac, rising from cover, joined the fray. In a fluid motion, Issac drew both his beam rifle and submachine gun, unleashing a hail of fire. The two weapons roared in tandem, a vicious storm of bullets and energy beams. At the same time, he smmed a button, and with a mechanical screech, his missile pods emptied. The warcaskets now found themselves under a dual assault—both aerial and ground-based. The battlefield trembled as the air filled with the violence of their onsught.

  From afar, Henryk’s senses tingled—a sudden, gnawing awareness that something was wrong. His hand instinctively gripped the ser rifle at his side, the cool metal familiar beneath his fingers. He was miles away, far from the battlefield, but the crackling fire before him, the faint rustle of the wind—everything felt... off. He gnced down at Piper, still slumbering in the survival bnket and tent, unaware of the danger that loomed. Henryk had stripped out of his power armor hours ago, his body exhausted, his eyes heavy with sleep.

  Then, a branch snapped.

  Henryk rose, his body heavy with exhaustion. His ser rifle slipped from his grasp and fell to the ground with a dull ctter. “Shit...” The word barely escaped his lips before a figure—an alien, something out of a nightmare—lunged at him, its six centipede-like limbs moving in a blur. But what Henryk truly saw was primal human horror, the kind that haunted him in his nightmares.

  He moved on instinct, memories of his brief yet brutal time on Oceana flooding back. Fighting the GrimGar in their urban mazes had honed that instinct. With practiced ease, he drew the psma pistol from its holster, aimed, and fired. The bst tore through the creature, leaving a charred, blue-and-purple hole where its organs should have been. It fell with a sickening thud, lifeless.

  Henryk’s breath came in ragged gasps. His eyes darted over the woods and the makeshift shelter he had created. Then they nded on Piper, curled up under her bnket. Her pale, freckled skin contrasted sharply with the bright red of her hair, which spilled across the bnket. Her breathing was shallow, bored, and Henryk’s stomach twisted as he recalled the tears in her eyes—tears that had burned scarlet, coming from that damn grey eye of hers.

  He pushed the thought away, focusing instead on the feeling creeping through him. The sky had darkened, and a sensation, something wrong, crawled up his spine. His hand fumbled through his messy hair, and with his other, he gripped his revolver tightly.

  “Such fear...” he muttered, barely audible, but his voice caught in his throat. For a moment, the world around him seemed to warp. The stars, the universe—they all rushed toward him. He was in the center of it all, his senses overwhelmed. "So... it’s a cycle. The Sons of Mars... even now, their strength could be used to conquer everything."

  Then, Issac’s battle cry tore through his mind, the sound searing his thoughts. Henryk saw the beam bde in Issac’s hand, slicing through an enemy warcasket. The scream rang in his head, and Henryk was gripped by its force.

  He shook his head, trying to clear it. This—this feeling—had happened before, back on Oceana. It was both a strength and a curse, this hyper-sensitivity, this knowing that always seemed to overwhelm him in moments of mass death.

  “Keep firing!” Arthur’s voice was a bark of fury, his words cutting through the haze of the battlefield as he and Axel pushed forward, their guns bzing. One after another, the Neptune Warcaskets fell, their hulking forms torn apart by relentless fire.

  “Holly shit…” Issac’s voice cut through the carnage, sharp and worn. He gnced over his console, the grim reality sinking in. “I’m completely out…”

  Then, a rumble. A deep, gut-wrenching tremor, the ground vibrating underfoot.

  “What the hell is that?” Arthur’s head snapped toward the sound, his ears straining to catch the ominous noise.

  “Yeah, the shit,” Axel muttered, eyes narrowing in disbelief. “There can’t be any more…”

  Issac sneered, his frustration boiling over. “Radio the fortress. Get me an ammo drop and cache upgrades. Tank cannons for me. Now!” He smmed his fist against his console. He was the furthest out of all of them, but he didn’t care. He was going to get what he needed.

  “Oh god, I’ve heard that sound before…” Arthur’s voice trailed off, a chill creeping into his words.

  “W-what?” Kieren was the only one who dared to ask, his voice shaky.

  Issac threw his submachine gun aside and drew his beam bde with both hands, gripping it with fierce determination. The forest ahead had been lush, peaceful, but now it was trampled, torn apart by the massive tank treads of a monstrous mechanical behemoth that charged toward them like an unstoppable force.

  “I-I’ve seen that machine before…” Arthur’s voice trembled with recognition, and the words barely left his mouth before the war machine struck, smming into Issac’s Warcasket with such force that it sent him careening through the trees.

  “Issac!” Axel’s shout was raw, filled with panic. Both he and Arthur shot forward, weapons raised, as a tank cannon fired from the machine, its explosion sending shockwaves that rattled their machines. They shot forward, thrusters firing, pushing their mobile suits to the absolute limit, darting through the mud and trenches, their machines cutting through the terrain like it was nothing.

  “I’ve seen this machine before!” Arthur shouted again, his voice trembling with urgency. As they raced forward, the massive machine opened fire, miniguns roaring to life, twin barrels spitting tracer rounds. They veered and dodged, but behind them, the fortress was being obliterated.

  The ancient stone walls of the castle shattered under the assault, crumbling like dust. The drawbridge fell, and chaos erupted as vilgers and guards alike were caught in the crossfire, their screams lost in the roar of battle. “Fall back! Let the Knights fight the mechanical abomination!” someone screamed, but it was too te. Soldiers were clipped mid-run, torn apart by the barrage.

  Axel fired his missiles, Arthur right behind him, both of them raising their shields to deflect incoming fire. Arthur’s shield took the brunt of it, the force sending him stumbling back, but Axel pushed on, charging straight at the machine, determined to hold its attention.

  “We can’t let it destroy the fortress! There are peasants in there! We can’t let it fall!” Edward’s voice came through the comms, frantic and desperate.

  “We know! We know!” Arthur shouted back, his voice thick with rage as they circled the machine, their weapons useless against the thick pting. Each shot barely left a mark.

  “The Neptunians before… they could hardly resist our weaponry, and…” Axel’s voice trailed off, his words lost in the chaos. Before he could finish, the war machine’s massive legs moved like a tidal wave, cutting through the ground beneath them. A bst from the tank suit’s beam bde sliced through Axel’s Warcasket’s ankles, and a point-bnk shot to his chest sent him flying backward. His face smmed into the console, and the world around him went bck, the taste of blood and copper heavy on his tongue.

  “Axel has fallen!” Edward’s voice cracked with horror.

  Arthur’s eyes burned with fury. Without hesitation, he released every missile, every cannon he had. The explosion was deafening. His hands, trembling with rage, gripped Henryk’s father’s sword. He pulled the ignition, and the weapon hummed to life, its energy surging through his hands.

  Arthur’s thrusters roared as he shot forward, his Warcasket eating through the shattered ndscape. The machine’s towering form loomed before him, and with a shout of vengeance, he surged forward.

  “For Axel, with Henryk’s sword—vengeance!” Arthur bellowed, his voice a battle cry, as the ground trembled beneath him.

  Arthur moved like a blur, the air around him alive with the whine of minigun fire and the searing hiss of ser bsts. The battlefield was a chaos of noise and smoke. He didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. With a shout, he rocketed forward, soaring over the tank-treaded monstrosity beneath him. It was too slow, too lumbering—it couldn’t follow.

  "Glory to the Red Temprs!" Arthur roared, his voice rising in defiance, a primal cry that was swallowed by the din of battle. His rockets screamed to life, and with the force of a god, he smmed Henryk’s father’s sword into the front of the war machine. The eager chains buzzed, almost alive with energy as they bit into the metal like a ravenous beast.

  "I REMEMBER YOUR WEAKNESS!" He bellowed, his grip tight on the hilt, the sword thrumming with power.

  His heart hammered as he wrenched the bde upwards, slicing through the air like it was a part of him, until a new threat emerged. A port on the machine opened with a mechanical hiss, revealing a crane wielding a beam bde, its sharp edge fshing like the kiss of death.

  It lunged, the bde snaking towards Arthur’s cockpit. He felt the scrape, a sharp sting along his back, but before the damage could be too much, he spun the bde in his hands and cut through the machine's wrist with a vicious, practiced arc.

  He didn’t give it a second thought. The enemy wasn’t done, and neither was he. Without hesitation, he fired up his thrusters again, accelerating toward the heart of the beast. He knew where the head was—knew that red light was the machine’s one weak spot, the pce where the thing’s eyes would be, the center of its vision. It had to see to kill. It had to see to destroy.

  Arthur’s mind was empty of everything except the mission. The enemy’s roar. The screaming metal. His hands gripped the sword, and he smmed it forward into the heart of the warcasket.

  The impact was like an explosion of light, and for a moment, Arthur could hear the beast howl in his mind—a desperate, screeching thing that knew it was dying.

  "Death," Arthur shouted into the void. His voice was a storm. "Death! It is the Martian birthright to inherit the stars… You just don’t know it yet. The Neptunians… It all belongs to us!"

  As he shouted, the Neptunian machine fought back, still alive, still thrashing in its death throes. Two cranes emerged, their micro beam bdes fshing in the dim light, cutting into Arthur’s suit with precision, as if they were bdes of wrath incarnate. They sshed deep, the impact searing through his armor, and blood spurted, spttering across his console. He didn’t care. He couldn’t care. The pain, the blood, the vision clouded by red—nothing mattered.

  He screamed. He kept screaming.

  "For the Knights of Mars!" he roared, his voice cracking under the weight of his fury. "I remember you! You murdered my father and brother! DIE!" He gritted his teeth, and the words turned into a feral howl.

  The Neptunian machine lurched, its cws and cranes, those medusa-like arms, writhing in their death dance, until they finally stilled. Arthur stood amidst the wreckage, panting, shaking, his chest heaving with every breath he took.

  "Yeah… take that, you fucking, freakin' bastard…” He spat, blood and saliva dribbling from his lips as he gred at his shattered Martian armor, now torn and bloodied, the skin beneath it raw. His hand trembled as he looked at the mess, the wreckage of his own body, but his smirk remained—thin, bitter.

  The voices in his radio were muffled, distant, like a dream he was just waking from. The world around him seemed to slow.

  “I—I did it…” His voice was faint, his breath shallow. “Pa... Edgar... I killed the bastard.” His eyes fluttered closed, the weight of his words sinking into him like a lead weight. He felt himself slipping. “I’ll see you... and hopefully Ma again.”

  And then, there was nothing but the quiet darkness.