A thunderous echo reverberated overhead followed by a whizzing sound and a flickering light of white and blue trail. It crashed, and from it a photonic bloom of cerulean flames erupted, followed by a deafening explosion that almost sounded like a muffled scream. From the sidelines, numerous glowing red sensors lit up in unison.

  "Eagle Squad!" said a man, his name patch reading "Lieutenant Leonard von Altair" in complex motifs embedded along his chest. Then, like an experienced pilot who has seen the exact thing happen over and over again, he dilated his irises, focused, and with lightning-fast speed, he pivoted the controls hard, pulling up multiple interfaces, and from them numerous cameras and external sensors appeared.

  "Contact! Contact!" he bellowed. "Four precursor armors spotted at nine o'clock of hill two one four!"

  The communication arrays fizzed into life, and from them new orders were relayed. "Eagle one, this is actual. Visual confirmation confirmed. Mission statistics updated. Proceed." The voice crackled, but was calm and firm.

  "Roger that, actual!" he replied.

  With fast and efficient movements, he browsed through the mission update, and with a confirmation, he opened up the communications interface once again.

  "Eagle Squad, mission update!" He bellowed through the communications array. "Mission updates have been uploaded through your neural links!"

  "Roger, Eagle one!" Confirmations started flooding in.

  Now with confirmation, he snapped back to the interface with laser-focused intensity. "Adjutant! Calculate the fastest route at sector two hundred twenty-five, right beside hill two one four!"

  "Roger that, Lieutenant!" The Adjutant whirred as it began to calculate.

  With sweat streaking across his cheeks, a set of numbers appeared in his peripheral vision.

  Three thousand four hundred twenty-three.

  "This time I will save you!" he vowed deep within his mind as he glanced towards the right side of his interface, near the set of numbers.

  With a single thought, memories came flooding in. He jerked as if he was suddenly reliving multiple lifetimes. With a sudden flash, he started to see things around him.

  He snapped towards the right side of his cockpit in muscle memory, and there, like a ghost that continuously haunted him, a woman appeared, fair complexion, slightly above average in height. Yet for him, she was the most beautiful woman in his life.

  "Elena!" he whispered as tears started to fall from his eyes.

  Like a gust of wind, the image suddenly disappeared, and his communication panel started to crackle again.

  "Honey, I am here!" A woman's voice crackled through the interface. "I am still alive! For God's sake don't kill me off yet!" She pouted as she said it.

  Numerous panels started to appear too, laughing and enjoying the view. "The Lieutenant just misses you so much, ma'am!" A voice whirred into life.

  Altair focused on the name on the communications panel: John Gilbert Santos, his junior from back his academy days, now a member of his spider-class mechanized brigade.

  With laborious breaths, he glanced around the cockpit, and just as when he gazed into the set of numbers back again, the Adjutant whirred back into life.

  "Memory sync has been complete, Lieutenant." He felt his heart drop, now profusely sweating and trembling. Moment by moment, he firmly locked onto the set of numbers, in denial as to what was happening.

  Three thousand four hundred twenty-four.

  Just as he started recalling things, he snapped back and replied in a desperate maneuver amid the voice chatters coming in and out of his communications array.

  "Perhaps you'd finally get married, after one hundred years of engagement, doctor Ele—" The manly voice was cut off by Altair.

  "All units, under my command." He beckoned. "Split into two pairs, and perform a pincer movement from the front and the back!" He said, desperate in voice.

  The communications array went silent for a heartbeat. Then a womanly voice buzzed through. "What's the holdup?"

  Still half lucid, he glanced down into his console, and from there his face contorted into that of pain and agony, then pivoted back up as fast as possible. He breathed in and closed his eyes, as if speaking to the love of his life for the first time in lifetimes.

  "Elena..." His voice cracked, then paused, as if wanting to say something, but chose not to. "Elena, make sure to monitor energy signatures above the holdout."

  "What do you mean, my love?" She asked, concern flowing through the arrays. "The great fortress of Terra had held up for more than ten years!" She said with pride, along with a puff of breath. "From the rivers of the stars of eternity to the seas of the Pacific, Terra would be free!" She continued, still jubilant in her voice.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Altair, still commanding his mechanized mech, gave a subtle, pleasant smile. "I know." His voice was soft, like a puppy. "There is nothing wrong with being prepared." He continued as if trying to hint at something.

  "This time..." He internally screamed, but at the same time felt so fatigued.

  "Alright, talk to you later... love." He cut off the communication as he was getting near the position, he paused and finally gave his one final message. "I... love you."

  A tense and deafening silence followed. "I know, I love you too, honey." She said, before cutting the communication off.

  At the same time she dropped the call off, he felt a searing pain through his chest, a scathing pain through his throat, as if a noose were being tightly closed around his neck. His body trembled as cold sweat struck the cold hard metallic surface of the cockpit.

  "Detecting emotional incapacity. Proceeding to inject pilot with beta blockers and psychotropic stabilizers." The Adjutant whirred.

  Right behind him, numerous needles appeared, and in the snap of a second, they plunged deep within his back as dozens of clear fluids were injected into his bloodstream.

  Almost instantly his vision cleared and his body rapidly calmed down, and with a long look, he gazed through the interface, indirectly acknowledging the Adjutant.

  "Thank you, Adjutant." He said, as if he had experienced thousands of lifetimes with the monotonous artificial intelligence.

  "Just doing my job, Lieutenant." The Adjutant's voice crackled through communications, still monotonous and emotionless.

  Despite the enduring loneliness, he felt that the only thing that was keeping him sane was the Adjutant.

  With a tired face, he focused back on maneuvering the mech.

  Almost immediately, the array crackled back to life. "Eagle Three to Four, in position, Lieutenant!" A man's voice buzzed.

  Just in time as the next voices started reverberating through the cockpit, he too arrived at his position.

  "Lock on targets!" Altair commanded, paused and waited for a few moments. "Fire!" He bellowed through the arrays.

  From the outside, numerous bright cerulean glows erupted below hill two one four, and converged at the same time at the top. Its magnificent glow streaked across the ashen red skies of long-ruined Terra like falling stars.

  At the center of the hill were four automated precursor mechanized armors conducting routine patrols. They raised their glowing bright green sensors as numerous energy signatures came flooding through their sensors.

  Their processors moved at more than lightning-fast speeds, and with precise calculations, they realized it could not be avoided. Thus, with a sacrifice, their bright green eyes suddenly glowed bright red, and from the top of their hulls, array signals came out, and in less than a moment faster-than-light signals were sent, traveling light-years across in mere moments.

  Just as the messages were sent, a strict line of code flooded their internal modules, which could be roughly translated by those who were near as "Assimilation protocol, complete."

  Then, like a thundering echo from the clouds, the precursor mechs erupted into bright cerulean flames, their embers dancing through the rancid atmosphere of the once lush green hill. Now forever tainted, never to be restored.

  Then without a second of breath, Altair immediately opened the communications array. "All squads, move to intercept at twelve o'clock!"

  He narrowed his eyes. From this vantage point, he could see everything. The path towards the holdout. The testament of his entire life was right in front of him.

  The communication crackled to life. "I don't see any enemi—" The manly voice with the name Eagle Four suddenly paused.

  Above them, a sliver of photonic bloom of impossible colors streaked across the sky. Then the impossible happened. Dark matter came flowing out and stretched out the crack in space, as if it was being ordered to. It wasn't until it was covering the ashen sky that it stopped.

  Altair began to grow suspicious. "There's something wrong!" He bellowed through his mind.

  He clenched both of his hands into fists, and in a fit of anger, he raised his hands, and with the force of a mountain, slammed the consoles. Yet it didn't even budge. Only he was hurt; only he changed. Everything else, like those of the past and the future of tomorrow, it was the same, as always it has been.

  "Nothing ever mattered." He murmured as he looked back into the sky.

  A giant sleek ship that stretched out for miles and miles came out; it was porcelain white, extremely polished, as if it was a giant needle. He leaned forward into the interface, trying to take in everything that he saw so that next time, he would be able to counter it with all that he had.

  "It was supposed to be a massive armada..." he said under the silent air. "So why's there a single ship on—" he said as he was suddenly cut off.

  A pale blue light suddenly appeared from the tip of the precursor ship and started emitting a strange frequency of sound.

  "Agh!" He screamed in terror. "W-What is this sound frequency?!" His eyes wobbled as blood leaked from each of his orifices.

  "Warning. Warning. Numerous anomalies detected," the Adjutant repeated. "Error. Error. Error." Until the Adjutant malfunctioned.

  His heart was palpitating, adrenaline rushing forth. His body felt as if it were being skinned alive, and the heat, it was burning. Pain, it was unceasing, until he stopped hearing things as his eardrums exploded into a rain of blood.

  Suddenly a communication signal was received, and a womanly voice came. "My love... I should have lis—" It stopped abruptly, followed by a monotonous sound that flatlined too.

  Yet he didn't hear any of it.

  His vision was getting blurry, energy fading. With his last bit of strength, he glanced back at the interface. The names of Eagle Squad that were inscribed all over his HUD, that had been emitting radiant sky blue, lost their color and turned crimson, followed by a flatlining of their heart rates.

  His head was throbbing, and heart trembling; he felt alone. He longed for the bosom of his mother, the warm arms of Elena, and the laughter of his friends, until his vision began to fade.

  However, the vision didn't fully fade. A strange sensation came into his mind, as if someone were trying to communicate with him. He felt weird, yet he could understand the language.

  "Why do you resist assimilation?" were the words he mumbled before he lost consciousness.

  In a far-away corner of the galaxy, a robotic artificial intelligence suddenly awoke and started processing its surroundings. Beside the AI was what seemed like a corpse—battered, bloodied, and ancient.

  "Revival proce... initia..." A soft robotic voice hummed through the air. "Locati... positions... err... check... star... patter... unrecognizabl..." it continued to hum, trying to make sense of its surroundings.

  "Anomal..., triggeri... proto..." It revised its tactics. "Atmosphe... breatha... err... stran... atmosp... particl... rese... in the a..."

  "Warnin..." It detected another strange phenomenon. "Unconfirme... biologica... signatur... detecte..." It struggled to process data. "Waki... up operat... fo... assistan..."

  Throughout the cockpit, numerous needles once again appeared and struck deep towards the person sitting inside the cockpit.

  From outside the cockpit, strange runes were inscribed that could be roughly read as "United Earth Defense Force."

  - SPBasilio