Mission 21 - Lights Fading Out, Lights in the Sky Above - Part 1

  As the final battle of Casnels began, the rest of the battlefield slowed. Hours of fighting began to wind down. Remembrance ships sank in bright balls of light. Mechs malfunctioned from overuse, others swarming their weakened state.

  Light still traced all across the skies, but slowly, the lightning bolt's number dwindled. The leaders of both sides stared out their bridges forlornly. No one had won today, so then what had been the point? Such thoughts were banished with haste; nothing was over yet. Tomorrow would still come as long as you survived today.

  Another duel of Casnels was reaching its finale. The G-Type of Donal Moncha was losing joints and fast. His mech’s ‘elbow’ and wrist on one side served completely, the other side clutching its spear and barely hanging on. The Chevalier responsible was little better. Its once proud, pointed chest plate had been dented, inverted, and was now moments from breaking. It would be a matter of what fell first, arm or heart. It would come down to a single strike.

  TA419 21/04,

  Orbit of Planet Bhaile, Space Around Defence Platform 1.

  Of all the battalions in Remembrance, Kigen's 1st was undoubtedly the most powerful. Not only for being the personal force of the first-ranked but for having twenty members, all with an ace’s title. It was this elite among elite force that surrounded Chas and Kigen now - creating an undisturbed arena amid a fleet battle. Any TSU mechs that spotted and tried to come to the aid of the lone G-Type Casnel surrounded by twenty, was easily put down by the battalion. That said, twenty against one was not Kigen's intention; he would face Chas alone.

  The memory of that vision passed through his mind, what the Grand Admiral had called ‘hope’. It terrified Kiyo Kigen; the thought of all those young faces, a whole generation more, consumed in fiery conflict.

  He had to prevent it. He'd cut down this boy, make Chas the last child corrupted by this madness and prevent the vision somehow. He had to; there had to be a way to turn this all around!

  His Calabar katana slid smoothly from its sheath. Chas’s machine drew a glowing arc staff in one hand, his rifle in the other. Wise, in Kigen's opinion, the boy would stand no chance with the blade alone.

  Kigen set his mech to advance, moving perpendicular to Chas's G-type so that only his head and shoulders were in the boy's line of fire. The young ace didn't disappoint; bursts from the chaingun and rifle both slammed into Kigen’s shoulder guards, and one in particular smashed through his helmet.

  The ornate horned layer the top-brass had insisted on the Chevalier having was sent flying, while Kigen's cameras flickered, but that was all. The core helmet, albeit slightly melted, held.

  “Hiyahhhh!” the warrior roared as he pulled his mech up. The two machine’s chests nearly touched as Chas rapidly raised his blade to block.

  The katana swung overhead; the arc staff had barely risen in time, and the impact nearly shattered it. It would have if it were anything less than a Casnel's blade. No doubt the audio attack transmitted into Chas's cabin now, this would be over in an instant; a single blow would fell him like so many other TSU pilots - or it should have been.

  Involuntarily, Kigen's hand left the controls to clutch his face; “What is this?!” he roared.

  A vision, less defined than the last, murkily assailed his mind. He didn't focus on it; he feared what doing so might do to him. Instead, he reached for the control board and disabled the audio attack, and so too did the vision seize.

  “So, some esper reaction can travel back through the frequency? What sort of creature are you, boy?” Kigen growled as both mechs backed off from one another to regain their bearings.

  Without the sound-based assault, he wouldn't be able to give the lad the swift death he'd hoped to. He grimaced, trying to put a small voice out of his mind, one that wanted to like this kid, one that respected the boy's determination and spirit even if it conflicted so severely with his own worldviews. A voice that didn't want to cut down any more children.

  'Just one more, finish it,’ he affirmed.

  TA419 21/04,

  Orbit of Planet Bhaile, Edge of the ‘No Man’s Land’ Between Remembrance and TSU Forces.

  In a battle of attrition like this, it was hard to say the deciding factor. Had one mech simply been better built? One strategy greater than the other? Moncha couldn't be sure. Perhaps his enemy's empathy had blinded her, making her hesitate short of just one more blow. He didn't know.

  He knew this didn't feel right, as his spear tip caved in Chavailer unit 003's cockpit, crushing the once proud and noble woman inside. She'd been strong and precise; both the G-type’s leg joints had utterly collapsed, rendering them useless and thruster balancing a herculean task.

  A thread attached his left arm, but it had lost function, the right not much better - but focusing his every strike on busting through the Chevalier's chest armour had simply been the faster result. Perhaps that was all there was to it.

  Wiping sweat from his brow, a ping on his sensors had Moncha reeling. His mech turned shakily to see another Chevalier, Unit 002. He readied himself for what must surely be his end, withdrawing the spear from Sesha's machine - the hole left behind a nondescript black with fleshy, gorey red patches.

  Could he win another fight like that alone, a third Casnel in one day? No chance. But then he realised the approaching mech looked somehow worse than he did. A leg and an arm had been burned clean through by some fierce weapon, and quite a chunk was missing from the main body. The machine looked like it was barely hanging in there.

  Held in the palm of its hand, Moncha realised the red mech was carrying a single escape pod. It approached but showed no signs of raising any weapons; instead, heading for Unit 003's remains.

  Moncha had one of those decisions to make. Start a fight, and they'd probably total one another, let it go, and by the looks of it, this machine planned to drag itself and 003 back to their fleet. Combined Remembrance could maybe make one machine whole again out of the two. He'd be leaving an enemy Casnel go free.

  One thing tipped the balance for Moncha: Chas. The boy was here somewhere, fighting desperately against most likely the first-ranked, a foe even worse than Sesha had been. Moncha decided he had to go to Chas and so he let the battered Chevaliers limp home. They had fought well. The fencer had been the most challenging fight he’d ever experienced - they deserved to go home - that's how Donald Moncha felt.

  One day, the TSU ace would ‘complete the set’ and face off against the sole remaining Great Ace he let go free, but that day was not today.

  TA419 - 21/04,

  Orbit of Planet Bhaile, Space Around Defence Platform 1.

  Chas's breathing had grown ragged as he manhandled the controls over and over. After multiple bouts, his rifle was sliced in two and his arc-staff looked liable to collapse at any time. Meanwhile, the first-ranked might as well have been unscathed, bar his superficial helmet damage.

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  Chas had been glad when the sound attack was repelled; by what, he wasn't sure, but it had given him hope. Now, though, it seemed the skill gap was just too overwhelming.

  'No,' he thought, 'I knew that going in, but I can't let that stop me. I have to be stronger than that, or I can't change anything, never mind the world!'

  The two mechs danced through the sky, the net of Kigen’s battalion acting as the border to their fight, the hellfire of the broader battle behind that, their backdrop.

  Each impact of katana against flaming telescopic arc-staff threatened to snap the weapons and arms of the mechs putting so much force into them. The two machines strove at each other again and again, trails of light following behind them with each contact’s break.

  Chas took a series of deep breaths while the Chevalier readied its blade for yet another exchange. Magi, was that what he was? Could he wield that somehow, use it as a cheat to bridge this gap in experience between them?

  He shook his head; that was too desperate, a last resort at most. No, instead, he'd use what he'd learned. He would steal from every fight he'd seen these past few months. He had to stop defending, or it would be over.

  Mind made up, he grabbed the controls and lunged forward. Kigen clearly hadn't expected the G-Type to lurch in a fencing thrust aimed squarely at his chest, a move Chas had seen from the fifth-ranked no less.

  The Chevalier brought its katana up to deflect the blow to one side - Chas went along with the movement, putting his mech into a full spin; his blade came right back around, the same spin he'd seen Kigen himself execute once.

  The Chevalier, this time, was forced to block outright; their blades clashed, and the katana bent. It wasn't major, but noticeable nonetheless.

  'It's weak as a defence?' Chas realised, but that was for later. Before his foe could reposition, he stayed close and went for an uppercut with his smaller mech. Fist impacted the Chevalier's chestplate, and, mimicking the first mech fight he’d ever seen Moncha in, Chas let loose a barrage of point-blank chain gun fire.

  It lasted only a second before Kigen slammed the pommel of his blade down on the G-type's back, forcing the two mechs apart. Chas shuddered in his seat but wasted no time turning to look at the result with a grin on his face. Surely, those back-to-back moves had done something.

  To his credit, it had; the torso of the Chevalier was blackened and dented, the eastern characters for ‘Remember’ emboldened there had been covered by dents. A genuine blow to the top-spec machine, and yet, that was all.

  A punch to the gut, nothing near a knockout.

  'Still, it's something,' Chas reassured himself, ready to keep up the momentum. He took the controls firmly and contemplated what other moves he could steal from next.

  But he didn't get the chance.

  “Kigen-School sole technique,” a voice said, spooking the young man.

  They weren't touching, and the radio was off, yet he could hear a voice. When he looked at the screen, the Chevalier almost seemed to glow with an aura like nothing he'd ever witnessed. It held its blade at the waist, thrusters flared from zero to max output a second before the following words entered Chas's rapidly panicking mind,

  “Bane of Honour.”

  The Chevalier simply disappeared; no, it blasted at such speed in a zigzag pattern that it left his field of view faster than Chas could adjust the camera.

  Before he could do anything, his whole mech shook violently as the quick-drawn blade collided with his machine’s torso.

  “Wha?” was all Chas could manage as the blade dug deep into his mech, being dragged through by the Chevalier's thrusters - cutting further bit by bit with exceptional heat and friction through even Gobhnui armour.

  In moments, the blade cut halfway into the frozen mech before finally, the much-abused katana, with the smallest of cracks, shattered into pieces, and the Chevalier passed by.

  The damage was immense, a seething gouge burrowing deep into the G-Type’s flesh. A single strike so powerful it snapped the blade that made it and could pierce any armour. A move few had ever seen, the technique at the heart of Clan Kigen.

  A crack.

  Chas stared blankly at a crack in his cockpit's wall. Cautiously, he picked up his helmet and, with a slight stroke of his scared cheek, secured it tightly on his head.

  He intently watched the crack for a few seconds, hands trembling. Would it grow? Would all the air suddenly get sucked out? No, just barely it held. Chas took a long, grateful breath of air.

  Turning his mech’s head gradually, the G-Type - its chest barely a step away from being cleaved in half, a smouldering red line cut into it - stared at the back of the Chevalier.

  Chas took another deep breath. It wasn't over yet. “That's right, his sword broke, and he's weak to magi powers; maybe I can do something like that? I have one more hit before my blade breaks, maybe two. Even he can't fight without a weapon. I can do this,” Chas said.

  He meant it, too. Not out of pressure or revenge anymore. Not duty or pride, but for Uncle Tom and little Al to have a better life. For the people in Vandis who called him a hero. For the Captain and crew, he was coming to respect, for the Admiral who'd given so much; for Gemon and Yazan who'd never failed to watch his back. For Moncha, who did so much to help him, more he realised, than he'd probably seen.

  He couldn't give up, not now. Chas took the controls in his hands once more, but there was something strange; the Chevalier, Kigen, still hadn't turned to face him again. His back was wide open, surrounded by the glistening shards of the shattered katana.

  Not just that, aside from the head, why weren't the controls responding?

  There was a light flashing on the Chevalier, Chas realised, a very old-school visual communication. Chas read it aloud, “You. Did. Well. Young. Warrior. Now. Rest.”

  “Oh…” Chas murmured.

  He let go of the inearth controls and sat back in his chair. That made sense after all; that's why every light was flashing red, why a blaring alarm had been sounding that he'd been too out of it to register, why the air smelled of faint ozone, why his side monitors all said something about deactivating the generators and escape having been disabled by the damage.

  A tear trickled from Chas's eye, down over his scar; “I really wanted to save them, ya know.”

  The G-Type exploded; the Chevalier with its back to that blinding light.