"Stingers are active. Full-spectrum ECM blanket is hot. We own the airwaves for the next thirty minutes, people. Let's make it count."

  As soon as Captain Rashid gave the signal, the main assault force erupted from the jungle. The ground trembled as dozens of mechs charged forward, a thunderous, earth-shaking stampede of righteous fury. In the vanguard, a wave of missiles streaked through the night sky.

  Jack watched the launch on his tactical display and sighed with a strange sense of satisfaction. It always reminded him of the educational videos he'd watched back in the lab—a microscopic view of a billion frantic sperm assaulting an egg. He found the spectacle beautiful, a perfect, primal metaphor for war.

  The missiles struck the base's perimeter with pinpoint accuracy. The main gate and a hundred-meter section of the cheap, prefabricated steel wall were vaporized in a series of brilliant, deafening explosions. The breach opened directly onto the barracks and the adjacent mech parking area, where half-naked Imperial soldiers were scrambling from their bunks, their faces masks of panic and confusion.

  They never stood a chance. Jack's "Thor" was the first one through the breach, its movements no longer stealthy but a lurching, simian-like charge, like an ape in heat.

  "Light 'em up!" Rashid roared over the comms.

  The initial wave of an assault like this was never a fight; it was a slaughter. The combination of surprise, superior firepower, and the enemy's complete disorientation was devastating. The barracks were shredded by cannon fire before the Imperials inside could even find their pants. Not a single one of them made it to their mechs. It was Jack's personal combat philosophy in action: if you have the advantage, don't just win. Annihilate. Never give the other guy a chance to get back up.

  For a man who, before the war, had never been in a single fistfight, he was adapting with terrifying enthusiasm. The old Jack would have flinched. But out here, where the lines between killing and surviving blurred into a single, continuous act, he felt nothing. As "Thor's" cannons scythed through the scrambling, half-naked bodies, turning them into clouds of red mist, he felt no nausea, no fear. Just a cold, exhilarating thrill. He pushed his dilapidated machine deeper into the base, a lone, ugly harbinger of death.

  As the main Commonwealth force began to pour methodically through the breach, splitting into two arrow-head formations, Jack found himself face-to-face with the base's rapid-response element.

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  Twenty of them. One of them.

  Perfect, he thought.

  A missile streaked toward him, a beautiful, deadly firefly. Jack didn't even try to dodge. He let it hit him square in the chest.

  The explosion was spectacular. "Thor's" entire chest cavity blew outwards, a shower of shredded armor and sparking, ruined circuitry. The **century-old mech** collapsed to the ground, smoke pouring from its mangled torso. Dead.

  The Imperial pilots paused for a second, baffled. What the hell was that? Did the Commonwealth get so desperate they're sending museum pieces to the front line? But there was no time to ponder. The main enemy force was flooding their base. They charged past the smoking wreck, eager to meet the real threat. One of them, as an afterthought, fired a single laser blast into the downed mech. No reaction.

  The First Recon Company's private comm channel exploded with grief and rage. "XO IS DOWN! I REPEAT, FATTY IS DOWN!" "WHAT? HOW? He was right in front of us!" "The crazy bastard charged in alone! He went completely nuts!" "Cockpit is breached, massive damage to the torso. No way he survived that." "ALL UNITS! PUSH FORWARD! AVENGE THE LIEUTENANT!" "FOR FATTY!"

  Inspired by the heroic, if suicidal, sacrifice of their new Deputy Commander, the soldiers of First Company fought with a renewed, savage fury. The two "Juggernauts" at the rear unleashed hell, their cannons spitting hundreds of rounds that stitched fiery lines of death across the enemy ranks. Missiles rained down, turning the Imperial counter-attack into a maelstrom of fire and shrapnel.

  And then, behind the charging Imperial mechs, the smoking, broken piece of junk on the ground… stirred.

  With a groan of protesting metal, "Thor" climbed back to its feet. The Recon soldiers, in the middle of their vengeful charge, watched in stunned disbelief. It was a scene from a legend. The fallen hero, rising from the ashes. "Thor" raised its arms, two missiles launching from hidden pods and blowing the back of a nearby Imperial mech clean off. It then grabbed another mech, its powerful hands crushing the cockpit like a tin can.

  What a glorious, tragic last stand! Behind the resurrected "Thor," another wave of at least forty Imperial mechs was charging forward.

  Several plasma bolts slammed into "Thor's" back. It staggered, engulfed in flames, and collapsed to the ground once more.

  "FATTY!" a soldier screamed over the comms, his voice breaking. "PUSH! PUSH, YOU FUCKERS! MAKE THEM PAY!" "GIVE 'EM HELL! FOR THE XO!"

  Again, they fought with the strength of madmen, tearing into the enemy ranks.

  And again… the battered, burning wreck of "Thor" stood up.

  Several of the First Company soldiers actually started to cry. This is insane, they thought. The Lieutenant is too brave! He's fighting beyond death!

  Amidst the chaos, "Thor" was hit again… and fell.

  The Recon soldiers were starting to feel a strange sense of unease.

  "Thor" stood up again.

  It fell.

  It… stood up again, shot another unsuspecting Imperial in the back, and then fell over dramatically.

  Again. And again. Jack was having the time of his life, his mech's "play dead" routine becoming more theatrically perfect with each iteration. He had discovered that the "Beast III's" main chassis was essentially a hollow cage. The real guts of his machine—the compact nuclear battery, the AMS systems, and his heavily armored cockpit—were a tiny, self-contained unit he'd built deep within the torso. The explosions looked spectacular, but they were only blowing apart cosmetic, non-essential junk.

  The tears on the faces of the Commonwealth soldiers had dried. They now wore expressions of profound, dawning confusion. They were starting to feel like they'd been had.

  "FATTY!" Captain Rashid's voice finally roared over the channel, a sound of pure, unadulterated fury. "WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!"

  A moment of silence, and then a chorus of rage from the rest of the company.

  "YOU SON OF A BITCH!"