Mission 20 - Battle of the Compassionate - Part 1

  TA419 - 21/04,

  Orbit of Planet Bhaile, ‘No man’s land’ between Remembrance and TSU forces.

  The mechs of Kiyo Kigen’s battalion had launched a few minutes before the Defence Platform fired its first blast. Hours had passed since then; it was by far the longest battle since those heady days-long fleet engagements of The First War and Kigen’s people were thriving on that. Where TSU had rested in peacetime, the veterans of Remembrance had never really stopped. Always training, always fighting off the biting cold of their new home, always in a state of readiness. Their mechs were a force perfectly crafted for a prolonged close-range battle.

  For every warship the Platform or TSU home fleet shot down, a Remembrance mech would return the favour with a rifle bolt to a warship’s bridge or carving a hole through its armour to gouge out its generator. Despite inferior mechs (the trio of Chevaliers withstanding), the hundreds of Remembrance pilots at play that day were probably the highest concentration of skilled mecha operators in history.

  It wasn’t sustainable, of course. Even Kigen, Sesha and Scarlet’s battalions were only human, and they only had the three Casnels - other mechs had to return to their ships to refuel and resupply. Whenever a ship sunk, it was a task just to make sure its fighters had somewhere else to go. But it was working for now; each ship destroyed on either side also slowed the enemy down, their wreckage creating this physical no man’s land. TSU couldn’t come at them from below because of the planet's gravitational pull. If they moved above, they’d weaken the Platform’s surrounding forces. They had TSU struck firing in this one direction.

  “Kigen, how fare you?” Admiral Agitate’s grizzled voice spoke through a heavily static-filled line.

  “We approach the target, Sir. TSU forces are weak; they lack the will to stop a battalion in its tracks,” Kigen said back. It wasn’t pride that made him speak so boastfully. When the Admiral had given them an order thirty minutes ago, they had acted upon it immediately, heading straight into and through TSU lines. Mowing through enemy mechs with the ease of the very best elites on this battlefield of greats. It had almost been easy, as though the enemy had weaker units nearer the target. Now, his twenty machines were all but on top of the Defence Platform itself.

  “What of the enemy Casnels?” Admiral Agitate added.

  “No sign of them, sir. It’s possible they headed for Seth and the Magi…”

  “Aye, it is. That makes this contingency plan all the more vital. Good luck to you.”

  Not long after breaking contact with Agitate, the first-ranked’s forces busted through the final pathetic rows of MBTs and stopped right alongside the sloping walls of Defence Platform 1’s right wing. His men spread out in a cordon. They hadn’t arrived entirely unscathed; their Type A insertion ships were gone. That meant one of the pilots would have to try to complete the mission.

  “Sir, it shouldn’t be you!” Benson croaked over the close-range line, not for the first time. Kigen nearly smiled at him; “This is a contingency plan, so it can afford to fail. However, I would rather scout out this place. Something is bugging me about how fast we broke through.

  I shall take a look around and if I find the target, all the better. If not, we will return to the fleet and attempt this again with a second insertion team. Perhaps we could strap a Type-A to the Chevalier’s back for safer passage, eh?”

  “But couldn’t I do the scouting, Sir,” Benson insisted, ignoring Kigen's attempt at humour entirely.

  “I’ll be fine, old friend. I have more training for this than you or the others, worry not.” With that Kigen switched off the comm board, checked the seal on his helmet and pressed the release mechanism for the Chevalier’s door. As the once commander of the Knight Brigade, a mission like this was within his power, it was almost nostalgic; Kigen was to exit his mech during a battle for the second time in this war.

  The first had been to steal the Chevalier he wielded. Now, he did so to finish things rather more face to face.

  Swiftly busting the code on the airlock door, the first-ranked simply floated from his open cockpit doorway into the Platform. A cursory sweep of his head around the inside portal revealed no guards.

  ‘Strange,’ he thought, ‘no downright absurd - they’ve fallen to infiltration twice before - surely they would not make the same mistake thrice?’

  Kigen ran carefully through the long metallic hallways of the Defence Platform, weapon drawn, sweeping glances around every corner - 'Something is wrong'.

  He was following an optimal mental map based on the first two infiltration teams reports, sure, but there should be guards, lots of guards. The first place they had attacked, at the start of all this, Vanadis, had been better defended.

  He entered a long exterior wall corridor leading out of the wing and up to the central barrel. It was lined with massive floor-to-ceiling windows, a front row seat for the ongoing fleet battle. A blistering golden light cut across the sky, the cannon of this very Platform no less, closing in and scraping violently against one of the dwindling Remembrance ships. It was chaos out there, near a thousand ships shooting on what was now far less than a hundred, thousands of mecha a foot. But he didn't have time to admire the view.

  Rounding another corner, he passed through a massive doorway into the central tube, gravity fading in this area that lacked the rotational generation of the ‘wings’. He entered a small square space after a couple more turns: a ridiculously tall ceiling was above this space, but oppressive metalplate walls on all sides and a huge armoured door from floor to ceiling before him gave it a tight, claustrophobic feeling.

  Kigen kicked himself mentally; why had he come here of all places? His aim had been the Grand Admiral's office, not the command centre, a room he couldn't possibly hope to take solo. And yet, even here was strange: no guards in front of the door to what was effectively TSU's primary headquarters in space? The ships he'd caught a glimpse of in the windows, too, had been oddly far out, barely creating a net around the Platform, as though they were ready to abandon it at any moment…

  He'd come here by mistake, an unusual wrong turn. Still if he was here, he might as well have a look. Glancing around, Kigen looked for any conspicuous air ducts or the like when a voice called from a small panel on the door;

  "Unless you're carrying some fairly hefty equipment on your person, you won't be getting through the door, I'm afraid."

  Kigen's breath caught for a moment. He knew that voice - that voice everyone had heard at least once in interviews and press releases - Grand Lord Admiral Columbae.

  Kigen swept another look around, but it was true; the little panel with its speaker was the only non-smooth metal-anything in the space.

  "Tell me, are you not The Bane of Konpei himself?" the voice added.

  The ace pilot frowned. The tension kept building within him; something was wrong, and now it was clear he wouldn't be kidnapping or assassinating the admiral.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Perhaps. And you are the Grand Admiral, correct? Your headquarters is awfully quiet, and your fleet has begun to leave quiet the large openings."

  "Ah yes, I imagined you'd notice that. Your plan is sunk, you see," the old but authoritative voice said as though shrugging.

  Kigen’s heart dropped. It took all he had to keep his reaction and body language in check. No doubt the Grand Admiral was watching him from a camera somewhere.

  "Excuse me? What plan would that be," he replied, more than willing to test this bluff.

  "Oh, come now, you must have noticed the armada is barely defending this place anymore? You would have found it far more challenging if you tried to breach the lines an hour ago. You certainly wouldn’t have been able to run around my home unchecked.

  I and my assistant are all that's left. I planned to go down with the ‘ship’ alone, but I suppose I can't begrudge a servant's wish to die beside his master."

  "You're bluffing," Kigen said, the emotion rising by the second, but it wasn’t impossible, was it? The spies the Agitate had mentioned. The fact they had no way to contact Seth and Apahte protecting the Cabal without giving away its position. If something had happened to it, with the massive number of TSU ships, would a transmission even make it to them? Would they even know if everything had failed?

  "I have been known to gamble, I'll admit, but not this time. A single meteorite, that's how many your ‘Magi Cabal’ moved before they were eviscerated by one of my ships.

  Of course, one is still enough to destroy this stationary place, but the fleet will survive more or less unscathed. The loss of all three Defence Platforms is unquestionably your people’s win, but I doubt the cost of so many of your own ships and the survival of my home fleet will make that a very good 'win' for you."

  "What ship," Kigen growled.

  "Now why would I tell you-- oh," the Grand Admiral responded, realising with a speed Kigen had expected, the true meaning of the question. His answer would decide if Kigen believed the bluff or not, "The Curadh, of course, with both Casnels. Apparently, said mechs are already on their way back."

  For just a fragile, illusory moment, Kiyo Kigen saw red, desired to draw his sword and start hacking at the metal door, to scream and rage and tantrum.

  The moment passed, a calm returned to him; "Then it's over. The intricate plans and countermeasures. The loss of comrades, the gallons of innocent blood spilt to get here. Five years of waiting - all for nothing," he said simply, his hands falling softly to his side.

  As the Admiral replied, Kigen could almost detect a hint of sympathy, "Yes, the fact even one got through is pretty bad for us both, mind you. With this Platform gone and my death, be prepared for the harshest version of TSU imaginable to come after not you but your people.

  Had you succeeded in destroying the whole fleet, that would be one thing, but just the Platforms? I’m afraid you may have harmed your cause more than anything."

  Kigen earnestly wanted to cry. The Admiral went on all the same; "I should, for what it's worth, say I underestimated you. I thought this war was Synapse and me versus old Agitate and those within TSU who would like to see me fall. As it turns out, it seems he had a Synapse of his own in you."

  Half heartedly, Kigen looked up at the panel, "You speak as though you know my leader."

  "In a fashion, he was a student of mine for a short time."

  That managed to grab the first-ranked’s attention, "How?"

  "Heh, my planet neglected yours for four hundred years, for the most part. But there were trade deals here and there, and there was an exchange program. TSU thought so little of Abhaile’s ‘pretend’ military that we were training small classes of your officer cadets right up until the war. I spent some time at the academy when Agitate was a foreign student there decades ago.

  You know, it was then that I first realised a war would someday come. Agitate was driven and passionate in the way of youth, but he was also aggressive, violent, and cunning - better than any Bhailen cadet in the class by tenfold - what did the Abhailen royal guard, the guard of the ‘Little King' as he used to be mocked, need with a man this skilful, enterprising and motivated, I thought. And I was right, sadly."

  Kigen stared at the faceless panel emitting the sound, trying to imagine the old man's expression as he reminisced forlornly, "To think TSU's dove would be looking so far ahead."

  "'TSU's-Dove' eh? I hear that from my allies more often than my foes these days. But it's wrong, you know. I've split my fair share of blood, sent more than enough to cruel deaths for the sake of victory. My wanting some kind of peace at some point, is that not the aim of all soldiers?"

  "I - Yes, I suppose by that logic I might as well be a dove too," Kigen laughed, a crooked throaty sound.

  "Do you have a family, ace pilot?"

  "...No, you?"

  "I'm afraid not. Yet I find myself thinking of the next generation all too frequently."

  "Then we really do share no few traits. To fight for vengeance or power lust might be some people’s drive - but I believe in fighting to make the past worthwhile and so the future won't have to fight at all. I suppose I've failed on both those counts."

  "It seems awfully like we both have," Columbae mused softly, "But it's not as if we're the end, kids or not, a next-generation rises to replace us. Perhaps they’ll have more luck."

  Kigen’s expression darkened. A certain young woman crossed his mind; "Pah, and for that, I would almost apologise to you, leader of TSU, for I fear my people’s next generation will be mad, manipulative and cold-hearted: Ruthless zealots, one and all.

  The lies you tell your people about mine could very well be about to come true."

  "Is that so? I have acquaintance with a young boy who's quite the opposite. Bright and talented. He knows his share of arrogance and ignorance, but he is trying to move past them. If it's kids like them who replace us, I still see hope."

  Kigen shook his head sadly, "I wish I could share in it, but such bright lights will surely be doused by the hands of corruption, as they always are."

  There was silence and Kigen thought about making a move for it. This conversation had at least given some information; it was time to retreat if what he'd been told was true.

  The Grand Admiral's voice cut him off once more, it had the tone of one of his public speeches now, "Then to our deaths we go. But if this is my destiny, to die at the hands of an old student's schemes while in turn foiling his chances of winning the greater war, then I shan't go without hope.

  I want to believe in a brighter future, Bane of Konpei! I want to believe that the planet I spent fifty years protecting will one day, however far away it may be, join hands with its sister and seize these futile conflicts, that a peace is possible. I'll pit that vision against the darkness you see with my dying breath."

  As he spoke, Kigen was suddenly assailed. There was no warning, no build-up. In chorus with the words of his greatest enemy, images flooded his mind as they resonated with the immense feelings of the Grand Admiral of The States Union.

  Perhaps they were faces from their joint memories or visions of the future - he couldn't possibly know - but they were overwhelmingly bright and beautiful, shining lights of a better place. A girl with purple hair, another with a brown ponytail. A stout young man with tired eyes, an Abhailien of unclear gender in mechanic’s overalls next to a lad with a hook-nose too big for his narrow face, and a silver-haired muse wrapped in strange clothes. A platinum blond cradling the crying face of an ashen young man. A face unlike any from this solar system. And finally, three at once, all with shades of red or ginger hair, three girls - sisters maybe - one Kigen could have sworn on some base level he knew - shining wonderfully.

  He could tell without words they would not all succeed; in fact, most of them would fail, many dying borderline pointless deaths. But they would keep trying, pushing for a brighter future, for one of them to save this sorry species of humanity someday.

  Kigen clutched his head at the bizarre experience. The sound of the Admiral coughing seemed to indicate he had felt or seen it, too.

  After a few moments of silence, once the phenomena had completely receded, Kigen righted himself, a grim stoicism on his face; "It's not over. I will fight to stop whatever the hell that future holds."

  "Y-you?! You saw it too, and yet that's your response?"

  "I don't know what that was, if not pain and suffering! If not a thousand brilliant lights fighting desperately to die in despair. I will prevent that!" the ace shot back, hand slamming into the metal right next to the little speaker panel, denting the wall and bruising his fist.

  "I see. I for one, will trust in those lights, trust in that future, however harsh and long their road may be, to guide us all to salvation. Goodbye, Remembrance Ace. I really hope you find something on your path," the Grand Admiral concluded.

  His breathing was ragged; Kigen wondered if it was the aged man's first supernatural experience. A divine revelation just before death? How very grim.

  "Yes, goodbye to you, bloodstained Dove."

  With far less caution than before, Kigen wasted no more time and began sprinting back the way he'd come. Ready to end it all.