Another team had engineered a sub-light-speed engine designed for advanced mechas. This drive could slip into sunlight mode and navigate between star sectors independently—an unprecedented leap in tactical flexibility.
But the engine came with a massive flaw: fuel.
The drive couldn't run on standard energy sources—no fusion, no antimatter, no quantum cores. It required something rare. Something found only in trace amounts within Federation-controlled space.
it needed what the locals called space water—a shimmering, semi-liquid plasma-fuel found in abundance only in distant sectors now controlled by the Servance Alliance, a former vassal turned hostile power. That made the fuel incredibly expensive, practically inaccessible.
So the breakthrough sat on the edge of viability—promising, and at the same time not. As
Yet they remained shackled by the scarcity of the most crucial resource—the core component of the sub-light speed engine.
