Federation Calendar, Year 58
The asteroid belt burned with the afterglow of annihilation. Jagged shards of rock and molten slag spun lazily in the void, remnants of a massacre that had turned Sector 279 into a graveyard. The Orcus Imperial Fleet, once 208 strong, was now a constellation of wreckage—twisted hulls venting plasma in ghostly tendrils, their shattered frames glinting under the faint light of distant stars. The 101st Combined Squadron, unscathed, held formation amidst the chaos, their 144 ships a silent testament to Adrian Vale's predatory brilliance.
Minutes earlier, the Orcus fleet had clawed its way out of the 101st's initial barrage, their superior engines pushing them beyond the Federation's firing arcs. Commander Rex, aboard the *Shadow's Fang*, had exhaled a shaky breath, believing the worst was over. Orcus warships outclassed humanity's in raw speed—capable of 4,000 kilometers per second to the Federation's 3,000—a fact that, outside the belt's confining maze, would have made them untouchable. But the belt's terrain had been their cage, and Adrian's trap was only beginning to snap shut.
"Losses?" Rex demanded, his voice hoarse over the bridge's crackling alarms, the air thick with the stench of fried circuits.
"Commander," a shaken officer replied, "98 ships down: three battleships, five battlecruisers, twelve carriers, eight cruisers, twenty-eight destroyers, forty-two frigates."
"All carriers gone?" Rex's gut twisted.
"Yes, sir."
His mind raced. Carriers, defenseless at long range, should've been low-priority in an ambush. Their drone swarms were a fleet's aerial fist, deadly only when deployed. Yet the Federation had gutted them first, a surgical strike that screamed intent. *Why?* Rex's instincts screamed trap, but the answer eluded him—until it was too late.
Twenty minutes later, the Orcus survivors—110 ships—closed on the 101st's rear, their arc complete. "Two minutes to firing range!" a tactics officer called, and Rex's eyes gleamed with predatory hunger. "Got you now," he growled. "You chase, we flee. Now it's our turn."
But the void had other plans. As the Orcus fleet threaded a dense asteroid cluster, the trap sprang. Dozens of buried penetrating nuclear warheads, seeded by Adrian's mechs, detonated in a synchronized cataclysm. Blinding white flashes erupted like miniature suns, vaporizing asteroids into storms of razor-sharp fragments. The blast waves, muted in vacuum, still hurled megatons of debris across the Orcus fleet's path, transforming their escape route into a lethal gauntlet. Engines screamed as ships decelerated, but momentum betrayed them—frigates and cruisers smashed into tumbling boulders, hulls crumpling in silent, fiery bursts, debris clouds blooming like blood in water. Dozens of vessels limped, scarred and venting, their formation shattered.
On the *Vanguard's Edge*, Adrian watched the holotank with cold satisfaction, the feed a mosaic of destruction. A minute prior, he'd given the order: "Arm nukes for one-minute detonation. Begin drilling."
"Yes, sir!" Lena Sterling had relayed, her voice steady despite the awe flickering in her gray eyes. The penetrating nukes—esoteric weapons designed to bore into planetary cores—were a rarity, with only a few dozen in the 101st's arsenal. Adrian had used them all, mech-planted deep in asteroid hearts, timed to perfection. Now, the Orcus fleet reeled in the chaos of his making, their navigation crippled by the debris storm.
"Unleash the mechs," Adrian commanded. "Full swarm, anti-ship loadouts. Wipe them out."
"Yes, sir!" Lena's fingers flew across her optic, relaying the order. From Sector X718, 9,000 mechs roared into the void, their thrusters blazing like fireflies in a hurricane. Small, agile, and armed with high-yield plasma lances, they danced through the debris where warships couldn't maneuver, weaving between jagged fragments with preternatural grace. They descended on the Orcus fleet like wolves on a wounded herd, lances searing through armor, detonating reactors in cascading explosions. Warships, sluggish and pinned, were sitting ducks—each mech strike a surgical gut-punch, hulls erupting in silent fireballs, crews vaporized before they could scream.
Rex, aboard the *Shadow's Fang*, watched his fleet disintegrate, the tactical feed a nightmare of red icons blinking out. His bridge was a pandemonium of sparks and shouts, the deck trembling with each near-miss. "They knew," he whispered, realization dawning too late. The carrier purge, the nukes, the mechs—it was a lattice of death, each layer locking them tighter. *Is this Sterling's work?* The thought of facing Marcus Sterling, the Federation's butcher of Orcus armadas, chilled him.
"Get the Ninth Prince to an escape pod—now!" Rex barked, glancing at Doron Orcus. The prince, once swaggering, now sat frozen, his face pale as the void, eyes wide with terror. Two guards saluted, hauling the trembling royal toward the pod bay.
Rex stayed, knowing his duty ended here. The prince's blood was too precious to spill; his own was expendable.
Ten minutes later, the last Orcus warship erupted in a final, defiant flare, its reactor breach painting the belt in a fleeting aurora. The battle was over—208 enemy hulls reduced to slag, the 101st untouched.
"Major," Adrian said, voice calm amid the bridge's hum, "battle report."
Lena's optic flickered as she compiled. "Sir, we destroyed 208 Orcus warships. No losses to our fleet. Mech casualties: 528 units, 218 pilots ejected, 310 unrecovered."
Adrian's jaw tightened. Three hundred ten souls lost—heroes who'd traded their lives for victory. Mechs were warships' bane in close quarters, their numbers overwhelming, but the cost was steep. A single ship, worth hundreds of mechs in credits and carrying hundreds of crew, made the trade brutal but effective. Twenty mechs per ship was a grim calculus, but one the Federation had mastered.
"Clear the field," Adrian ordered. "Rescue all surviving pilots. Search for remains at last known positions—bring our people home."
"Yes, sir." Lena moved to comply, her efficiency unshaken.
"Once done, send the battle report to Mars Base."
"Understood."
An hour later, Lena returned. "Field cleared, sir. Of 218 ejected pilots, 185 rescued. Remains of 148 recovered. Total losses: 528 mechs, 343 pilots."
Adrian nodded, the weight settling in his chest. "Anything else?"
"We captured an Orcus escape pod," Lena reported. "One occupant—claims to be the Ninth Imperial Prince, demanding 'courteous treatment.'"
Adrian snorted. "Courteous, my ass. Lock him up as a POW. He's the admiral's problem back at base."
"Yes, sir."
"Set course for Mars."
"Aye, aye."
As the 101st pivoted, engines flaring for the return, Lena finalized the battle report and fired it to Mars Base. Adrian leaned back, the holotank dimming, the void outside a silent witness to his triumph.
---
At Mars Base, Admiral Marcus Sterling paced his office, the viewport framing the red planet's desolate curve. The battle's timeline gnawed at him—by now, the 101st should've clashed with Orcus. Was Adrian the prodigy he'd bet on, or just a theorist buckling under real fire?
"Report!" a knock broke his reverie.
"Enter!"
"Sir, 101st's battle report!" The adjutant thrust a tablet forward.
Sterling snatched it, eyes scanning the summary. A grin cracked his weathered face. "Hot damn, Adrian didn't just deliver—he obliterated. Zero ship losses, 208 enemy hulls down, 343 mech pilots lost, and they bagged the Ninth Prince!"
The adjutant blinked, stunned. "I thought it was a typo at first, sir."
"You forgot how he humiliated me at the Academy?" Sterling chuckled, a rare warmth in his tone. "That kid's a born general—made me eat dirt in sims. This? It tracks."
The adjutant nodded, recalling the Academy thrashing. No one else had ever outfoxed Sterling so thoroughly.
"The prince, sir?" the adjutant ventured. "What's the play?"
Sterling's grin turned sly. "That's above our pay grade. President Vale will squeeze every ounce of leverage from His Royal Highness. We just keep the kid alive."
As the 101st's engines burned for home, the belt's wreckage cooled behind them—a testament to a commander who didn't just fight wars but sculpted them.