The Mecha Bay of the Vanguard didn't feel like a room; it felt like the inside of a drum being beaten by a giant. Every time the Drealius gravity webs lashed against the hull, the massive steel struts groaned in protest.
"General on deck!" a voice barked over the klaxons.
Harry Hampton didn't stop. He moved with a predatory grace that defied his years, his flight suit crinkling as he climbed the gantry of Vanguard-One. Around him, the bay was a hive of controlled chaos. This wasn't a lone scout mission anymore. Beyond the magnetic shielding of the bay doors, the United Sol Tenth Fleet—a thousand ships strong—was struggling to maintain formation in the face of the obsidian tide.
"Link confirmed. Neural sync at ninety-eight percent," the onboard AI, CALI, whispered directly into Harry's brain.
The cockpit closed with a hydraulic hiss, sealing Harry into a world of glowing amber HUDs and scrolling tactical data. He felt the machine wake up. The Vanguard-One wasn't just metal; it was an extension of his own nervous system. The familiar ache in his lower back vanished, replaced by the god-like sensation of fusion reactors and thruster arrays.
"Tenth Fleet, this is Vanguard Actual," Harry's voice broadcasted across every ship in the thousand-vessel line. "The Drealius think they can dismantle us like they did New Terra. They think space belongs to the old and the cold. Let's show them it belongs to the brave."
A roar of "Oorah!" and "Yes, General!" crackled back through his headset.
"Wings Alpha through Delta, deploy!" Harry commanded. "Break the webs. Protect the Carriers. I'm leading the drop."
The Iron Rain
The massive magnetic catapults hummed with a bone-shaking frequency. Then, the bay doors slammed open.
In an instant, the screaming sirens were replaced by the absolute, crushing silence of the vacuum. Harry felt the kick of the catapult—a four-G punch to the chest—as the Vanguard-One was flung into the dark. Beside him, three hundred other mechs streaked out like silver needles, their ion trails carving lines of blue fire across the stars.
Harry was "in the zone." The chaos of a thousand-ship battle didn't look like a mess to him; it looked like a chessboard. He saw the gravitational ley-lines the Drealius were using to snare the fleet. He saw the weak points in their obsidian hulls.
"Form up on me!" Harry barked. "Target the Lead Shard. We're cutting the tether!"
The Drealius Shards reacted with terrifying speed. They didn't turn; they simply drifted, their geometry shifting as if they were made of liquid glass. As Harry dived, a Shard the size of a skyscraper lunged forward, a violet beam of concentrated gravity erupting from its core.
"Evasive! Pattern Zebra!" Harry shouted, slamming his flight stick to the left.
The Vanguard-One spun, its thrusters firing in short, violent bursts. Harry felt the heat of the gravity beam pass inches from his cockpit, warping the very light around him.
The First Kill
"My turn," Harry whispered.
He leveled the massive, multi-barreled minigun. The barrels began to spin, a high-pitched whine that he felt in his marrow.
Vrrr—BRRRRRRRRT!
A stream of tungsten-cored, depleted uranium rounds screamed across the void. The shells impacted the obsidian skin of the Drealius Shard. For a second, nothing happened. Then, the black surface shattered like ice hit by a sledgehammer.
But they didn't explode. They bled.
Thick, viscous black oil erupted from the wounds in the ship, floating into space in giant, shimmering globs. It wasn't fuel. It was organic. It smelled, even through the filters, like ancient rot and wet earth.
"They're bleeding, General!" Alpha Lead cheered over the comms. "The bastards are alive!"
"If it lives, it can die!" Harry replied, his eyes darting across his HUD, locking onto three more targets. "Alpha Wing, keep their point-defense busy. I'm going for the heart of that swarm."
Behind him, the thousand ships of the United Sol fleet opened fire. The darkness of the Dead Zone was obliterated by a wall of railgun fire and missile salvos. The battle for the frontier had officially begun, and General Harry Hampton was right where he belonged—at the tip of the spear, covered in the black blood of his enemies.