Intermission - Moncha Evaluates

  TA419 - 21/04,

  Orbit of Bhaile, Near Defence Platform 1’s Outer Defence Lines.

  Moncha let out a sigh of relief as his mech finally came to a stop - he couldn't say for sure that he'd remained conscious the entire hurried trip, but he was glad to be awake in time to stop - it had been a hell of a day. After locating and thoroughly sinking the warship the Magi Cabal were on and leaving the third-ranked with a few nasty wounds for good measure, the rouge unit had simply run away. Unfortunately, unless the current battle lasted for days, there was no chance of the Curadh making it back in time, so the decision was made to launch Moncha alone the same way Chas had been earlier. Even if the third-ranked’s remaining warships gave chase, Captain Synapse would have the clear numbers advantage now.

  With just a flip of a few switches to his right, the booster detached from the G-Type’s back. Moncha didn't like treating such a powerful tool as disposable but fighting with it on would be impossible, and the technicians had told him to do so. ‘Just prototypes’, they'd been told; Vanadis's next model would come with a miniaturised inbuilt version.

  'Their next model, huh?' Moncha frowned. He didn't have anything against the bird-like image that came to mind imagining the booster integrated or anything - it was the assuredness to which there would be more mechs that caught him.

  Of course, there would be. Today, whether it was a win or loss, it didn't matter; TSU would need new machines. Was that right? When all this had started, Kigen had stated the Cheaviliers were a clear display of TSU's desire not for peace but domination - could Moncha honestly deny that didn't resonate with him?

  He shook his head, he needed to focus, and luckily, the sight before him made that easy. Space was painted with a battlefield of a scale Moncha hadn't seen in five long years; it was almost a toxic sort of nostalgia.

  Not a second passed by without laser bolts painting the sky. Thick, rotund blue and gold bolts from the larger ships, mid-sized oranges and reds from smaller vessels, fighting desperate battles their tonnage was never designed for. A plethora of pink and yellow bolts from hundreds, no thousands of mecha.

  To the untrained eye, it was an utter maelstrom, warships and dogfights everywhere, bathed in the flame of constant fire - but to an experienced commander like Moncha, the noise had patterns, intent - a manufactured chaos.

  His journey here had not been a completely quiet one; he’d heard quite a bit and formed something of a timeline. Around five hours ago the Remembrance forces had launched their attack. About four hours in the G-Type of Major Elton had fallen. Moncha hadn’t gotten any more detail than that but presumed it must have been one of the Chevalier’s doing.

  Around the same time that was happening, the Curadh had engaged with the Magi Cabal. About an hour ago, Chas had supposedly arrived and was now out there on that battlefield somewhere.

  He'd picked up other odd details from the scrambled transmissions. The Curadh sending barely encrypted messages to Defence Platform 1, and some messages back the other way.

  Firstly, he’d heard the Remembrance force was larger than anyone could have guessed, a little under one-hundred and fifty ships and over four times that in Vijaiks. They were clearly holding nothing back. Moncha could make out their warships formations from here, small clusters spread out in a long line, spaced apart like an animal puffing out its coat to look bigger.

  That said, the gaps weren't too large, they were being careful not to spread themselves thin. Far opposite them, surrounding the Defence Platform, were nearly a thousand ships, the biggest fleet since the last war. This armada was raining utter hell down on Remembrance. In between was a sort of 'No-Man's Land', a deliberate one at that.

  Remembrance would have sent their mech forces to attack the TSU armada’s flanks and force those ships into close-quarters combat in front of the larger group around the station. In doing so, a 'screen' would be created, one that would restrict the TSU lines from firing freely lest they hit their own forces.

  That was evidently the strategy anyway, but it hadn't worked. There was a no man's land - even from here, Moncha could see Vijiak battalions dogfighting en masse, warships getting their bridges blown out by point-blank rifle fire - but it was too small, a screen but one with too many holes.

  No doubt the Remembrance admiral had been expecting this to some degree. While few would admit it, everyone had seen how good this enemy was these past months - but had he expected this much counterplay? As far as Moncha could see, the outer ranks of the TSU fleets had mostly fallen back; maybe fifty or so ships were trapped out of formation.

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  Meanwhile, he could see entire TSU battalions fighting Remembrance ones to a standstill.

  The strategy failed as soon as their mechs were pinned to one place.

  The result was the Remembrance ships being battered in a ten-to-one gunfight they couldn't possibly win. But of course, that was the point; they were just stalling, all the screen would have been good for, all a force this small could hope to achieve - stalling for a meteorite shower, one that wasn't coming… not exactly anyway.

  Moncha was trying very hard not to think about the last piece of information he’d received just an hour ago. The meteorite shower had passed into the solar system, still on its original course. All bar one single stupid rock. One meteorite had been moved before he’d blasted the Cabal. One deadly supersonic rock was still coming.

  He shook his head again. It wasn’t for Moncha to contemplate things a pilot could never change. The distance now from the nearest fighting was just a couple of kilometres, and Moncha spotted what looked awfully like a Chevalier with a funny helmet on the pixelated maximum zoom. He could report to the defence forces, but if asked to take command again, it'd be no different to the Platform 2 fiasco.

  No, he'd dive right in; find Chas ASAP, and together, the two of them would hunt the enemy’s Casnels.

  'That oughta break them,' he mused, pushing forward both command levers and accelerating into the maelstrom -- or at least that had been his intent.

  Barely one hundred metres forward, a mech appeared dead ahead. Even Moncha couldn't decelerate that fast and remain conscious; he chose instead to pull up and come to a stop that way. The enemy didn't.

  The sole Chevalier left in its base form, slim limbs but a pointed chest and head, a fencing blade in one hand, a general arc staff in the other. There was no time to draw his weapons; Moncha could only raise an arm. At blistering speed, the Chevalier stuck overhead with the arc-staff, its sizzling plasma arcs burned against the G-Type’s arm. Moncha yanked the control levers back, and the G-Type's arm flicked outwards.

  The Chevalier didn't miss a beat, letting the arc staff float away; it instead thrust forward with the rapier. A dull impact rang through Moncha's cabin, then another and another as the fencer rained a flurry of thrusts against him.

  He'd fought this mech once before, seen it several times, but only once had they clashed, at an asteroid base, he recalled, a brief testing of each other's abilities - he supposed this time was the real deal.

  Subconsciously, he licked his lips. This person was special. Vijaik Martial Arts had their charm but were fundamentally designed for a discontent between you, the practitioner and a hundred small mechanical parts, all leading to weapons too large for any human to hold. But this pilot before him wasn't just practising clean but simple strokes; no, they were fencing in a mech. Despite the gravity-less environment, they were using the footwork, nay! To Moncha's shock, they were using small amounts of thrust on each foot to forcefully make the footwork relevant. The calculations would be insane, but there it was.

  Each trust was smooth, and no movement was wasted. This person was a genius!

  Moncha grinned as his foe wound up their seventh consecutive thrust. He quickly shifted off his mounted spear. The shaft shot forward; the Chevalier keenly blocked the spearhead with the side of the rapier, and the spear shot harmlessly aside.

  Moncha immediately set the chain on its back to retract and swung his Casnel's arm simultaneously. The spear rushed back, swinging a wide arc through the air. The Chevalier raised its gauntlet shield, handily blocking but being pushed out a little. Moncha grabbed the shaft as it returned to him; a distance of eight metres had opened between them, practically nothing to mechs.

  Its initial surprise attack over, the fencer’s advantage was lost. They'd scored some notable dents on the G-Type’s frontal armour but nowhere near deep enough to fell a Casnel. Moncha’s spear had the better range, though the two-metre height difference between them probably balanced that out a little.

  The two mechs hung, staring at each other. Of course, internally, they were still fighting the fiercest of bouts, planning and picturing each other's next moves. All while less than a kilometre behind them, the true battle waged on, a thousand lightning bolts a minute flying through the sky - but to the two fighters, all either could see was the other - anything less would be suicide.

  The first strike would be tantamount; Moncha had no doubt this fencer, having tested his frontal armour, would probably decide damaging his limbs was easier; it was what a human swordsman would do. What would he do in turn?

  He smiled. His mech took the spear in both hands, spread its legs wide and shot ahead, "Go straight for the heart, that's what!" the TSU ace roared. His all too brief moment of reflection was over. The ‘busy day’ was far from finished with him.