Date:
A rare, clear morning broke over Epsilon Prime; sunlight spilled across Jack’s face. He had slept on the roof overnight; his heavy body rose and fell in rhythm with his heartbeat.
STARK-2 fixed his little optical sensors on the sky — the starfield seemed to rotate about the horizon in his view.
“How beautiful!” the little fellow exclaimed.
Epsilon Prime: global annual mean temperature 15.2–16.1°C, summer highs up to 32°C, winter lows down to ?12°C. Large diurnal swings. Rotational period 24.1 hours. Once a paradise suited to human colonization, with vast belts of verdant giant forests. Now… only scorched Earth and memories remained. Years of war between Empire and Federation had nearly destroyed everything — and how it all began remained a mystery.
A hovercar approached in the distance. STARK-2 grabbed the nearby telescope and looked: it was Nova. As soon as STARK-2 saw her, Nova made a shooting gesture in his direction.
A woman’s sixth sense can be terrifying — it is a gift from the gods. STARK-2 recoiled a few steps, dropped the telescope, which bounced off the big guy’s belly. The thick roll of fat sent STARK-2 skidding back; he tumbled down beside Jack.
“Who attacked me?” Jack blinked groggily and flailed a couple of hands. STARK-2 reappeared in his field of view.
“Big guy, you woke me up this early — that’s too much,” Jack grumbled, grabbing STARK-2’s metal torso and shaking him a couple of times.
“Boss, Nova’s here,” STARK-2’s voice trembled.
“Fuck, why didn’t you say so sooner?” Jack snapped, hauling STARK-2 down the roof stairs.
At the doorway, they saw Nova stepping down from the hovercar, out of her lab-issued uniform. Nova wore a loose white organic cotton T-shirt that slid off one shoulder, revealing a collarbone and a sliver of shoulder. The hem was casually tucked into high-waisted trousers; the curve of waist and hip showed faintly in the morning light.
Seeing the big guy standing there in disarray, hair a mess, it was obvious he’d slept on the roof.
STARK-2 clung to Jack’s pants partway down the stairs; his mechanical hand slipped, and he fell to the ground, retreating inside through the open door while blaring, “Alert, Alert — the Queen has arrived, Nova is here. Big guy, I’m retreating!”
“Come on, aren’t you going to welcome me in?” Nova teased.
Jack quickly stepped aside and let her in. He produced a chilled drink from the fridge and handed it to her.
Nova lounged sideways on the sofa, watched him for a beat, and asked, “When do we leave for Vespertine?”
“In two days. We take the Valkyrie — about two weeks to reach Vespertine’s periphery, then a private shuttle into the Draconian Imperium,” Jack replied from across the couch.
“Not considering a private smuggling freighter into the Empire?”
“Maybe once, but with the Empire’s defenses tightening, private ships’ stealth is weaker than the Valkyrie’s. I’m not suicidal — I don’t want to be carved into an ice sculpture by a carrier fleet’s missiles in deep space,” Jack said with a grin.
“So what’s the plan once you’re inside?”
“The plan… I’ve been thinking about that since I took the job. Cyril, my handler, gave me contacts in the clandestine intelligence network. We need to sow chaos in the imperial capital. Without resources from the Order of the Light, we can’t pull this off.” Jack stood, twisted his 280-pound frame a few times, and sighed. “Once, Stark and I watched old films of spies on Earth — handsome male leads surrounded by beautiful women and fast cars, using the era’s cutting-edge tech to do impossible jobs. Do I look like that kind of man?” He patted his waist affectionately.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Behind a telescope in the living room, a pair of small eyes listened to Jack and Nova’s chatter. STARK-2 muttered, “Too bad that handsome lead on the roof was vaporized by a missile. Big guy, may God spare you the coming hardships.”
A scream echoed from the room — Jack yelped: “Don’t hit my face! My hand’s going to break, Queen, I was faithful and true…”
— — —
On a violet planet elsewhere, in a mecha workshop, Anya Sharma (Meadow) and Isolde peered into the separated internal structure of a Goliath-class mech.
Isolde’s eyes shone with heat. “Anya, the Goliath has 220 mm multi-layer reactive armor and an adaptive nano-coating. With that protection, it can withstand a single-pulse energy strike of up to 400 kJ for about ten seconds.” She took Anya’s hand and rode the maintenance lift to the chest plate.
Isolde’s fingers traced the mech’s primary load-bearing frame: a titanium-based composite reinforced with graphene arranged as hollow beams for internal bracing.
Anya pointed at the cockpit: “So this is the pilot’s station?”
“Yes. The cockpit sits in the firm center-lower section of the Goliath’s chest, surrounded by the main frame and buffered by G-force damping gel.” Isolde guided Anya’s hand to that layer; Anya’s fingers brushed a fabric akin to Nya’s flight suit, a hybrid of soft and hard materials.
“Anya, with this protection, a mech pilot has over an 80% chance of survival.”
Anya’s left hand trembled slightly.
Isolde flipped the control panel switches. The cockpit interior was a cold, compact hemispheric brain — silver-gray walls studded with blue-white holographics; on each reactor start, the hull glowed a faint crimson pulse like a sleeping ancient demon.
“Isolde,” Anya watched the profile of her companion — pale cheek warmed by reflected light. “Do you think the Draconian Imperium’s campaign against Epsilon Prime is an act of aggression?”
“Anya, I’m a woman; I don’t make imperial policy. To Federation citizens, the Empire’s acts look like aggression. If the Empire stopped fighting now, would the Federation choose peace or take the offensive?” Isolde’s breath dropped away for a moment.
“For millennia, humanity has lived under the shadow of war. On ancient Earth and here too, no one escapes that curse.” Isolde sighed. “Only when I’m facing a mech do I feel truly alive. Do you understand?” Her eyes dropped.
Anya took Isolde’s left hand in her right; the touch was cool.
A murmur rose from below. Anya and Isolde peered out from the Goliath’s torso: a cluster of people, imperial soldiers and researchers, were gathered around a tall, striking man — clearly a senior Imperial officer.
He had sculpted features, pale skin, bronze tousled hair that shone in the lights, and amber eyes that seemed to pierce the soul with a dangerous beauty.
“He’s here,” Isolde breathed, gleeful like a schoolgirl; her face flushed.
Anya turned to Isolde and remembered something Isolde had once mused: “If… if Loki and that man were compared, who’d be stronger?”
“Cassius, commander of the Tartarus Legion,” Isolde whispered.
The man had seen them and gave Isolde a charming nod and smile.
For the first time, Anya noticed dampness in Isolde’s palm.
“She loves him.”
— — —
Somewhere in a Binar Imperium laboratory:
“T200 trials, begin.”
A nanoscale spherical device was eased by a manipulator probe into the nasal passage of a mech-warrior. The nano-sphere traversed the cribiform plate into the olfactory bulb, crawled along the olfactory nerve into the frontal lobe, and finally reached the cerebellum.
The soldier’s head jerked uncontrollably and, after tens of seconds, steadied.
“Begin test.”
The soldier’s hands flew across the virtual keyboard. APS rose from 30 to 40, then 50, and stabilized at 55.
“Speed up the commands.”
“This—his brain may not tolerate this rate of information processing.”
“Out of the way.” A young operator was shoved aside by strong hands, and another set of fingers moved quickly over the photonic console.
T200’s hands accelerated; APS leapt from 55 to 65.
The computer displayed the calculation: Latency ≈ C / APS, where C is the system response constant — the value shifted as processing continued; the data showed the mech could react instinctively like human tissue, even faster.
A scream rent the air. The T200 subject clutched his head and smashed it repeatedly onto the deck; after a dozen seconds, his body slumped, motionless.
After a few seconds’ echoing shriek, one voice — low and satisfied — said, “Succeeded.”
“Continue. Next. Analyze and organize all data.”
(End of Chapter 132)
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