Chapter 1: Origins

I was twelve when the Grays fell from the sky. Sixteen red and yellow dropships, each transporting sixteen light or medium Mechs, plummeted to the ground in a star formation. The pods whistled in the distance as they descended from the outer atmosphere alerting the world that invaders were on the way. Those sixteen dropships were only the first wave to this part of the center continent on the rainforest world of Vista where I was born and raised.

At the time of the invasion, I was assisting my father with the repair of a 30-ton forest stalker Mech, which had its left foot nearly ripped off when it caught an exposed Ironwood root during maneuvers. My father, Chief Young, the head mechanic on our continent for the Blue Demons, a Mechanized Mercenary group which had accepted a twenty-year contract to guard the Alsatian continent, guided me all through my early years of education. He had taught me everything I needed to know in my childhood regarding both fixing and piloting Mechs.

This had been fourth renewal of the contract for the Blue Demons with the Federation regarding the protection of Vista, and it looked likely to be their last, from the strength of the Gray’s invasion heading down from the skies.

Everyone at the base, myself included, knew that the Grays would not stop with only one wave of planetfall.

“Leon, suit up and wait for me,” Chief Young ordered, or just Chief, as I was instructed to address my father while at work. He halted repairs on the Mech and began gathering supplies for me to take while I hid. Quickly suiting up in the customized Mechanic’s mini-Mech, a three-ton, eight-foot tall Mech specializing in Mech repair that had been altered to suit my growing body, I waited for dad to return with instructions. Even though we both knew what they would be.

During the five minutes I spent to enter and power up the mini-Mech, father loaded up my Go Pack, a Coilgun and my tool belt. “Leon, remember your training. Go hide for seven days. If you do not hear a recall then make your way to Exter. If the way is blocked then bunker down and wait them out.”

“Yes, Chief ... Dad, be safe.” I was terrified that my father wouldn’t leave the base if it was attacked. He couldn’t really, he was the Chief Mechanic here and one of three Mechanics certified to work on Mechs over 35 tons within a thousand kilometers. 35 tons being the dividing line between light and medium Mechs

“You too, son. You too.” With a strained smile, he opened the bay doors and watched me head into Nightshade Forest. I gave him a last wave, which he returned, before delving deep into the hostile jungle filled with the impossibly dense Ironwood trees.

Since the Grays claimed Janus System from the Federation, I had practiced evacuation and hiding out three times in the last year for seven days each time. This evac was for real though. As much as I wanted to hope for the best, the Blue Demons weren’t the best Pilots or warriors. Most of them never fought in a real battle and I knew that they were doomed to fall to the battle hardened Grays.

Additionally, they were under-supplied and poorly equipped. As a dedicated peacekeeping force, the majority of Mechs on the planet were light Mechs in the 20 to 25 ton range. The dense jungles, which made up the majority of the Alsatian continent, made those monster Mechs of greater tonnage infeasible and impractical.

Regardless of tonnage, Mechs would give way before the Ironwood trees would. Lighter and nimbler Mechs were needed just to be able to traverse between the trees.

Disabling my ID beacon, I sought out the familiar series of limestone and obsidian caves near a hundred-kilometer swamp twenty kilometers to the north. Killing the ten-meter croc that was resting near the cave entrance with my Coilgun, I moved its carcass to the nearby swampy shore and skinned the great beast, all the while trying to keep my mind off the invasion as much as possible. Unsuccessfully, of course.

I couldn’t stop worrying about dad and the rest of my friends in Rion.

Later, during the afternoon’s daily thirty-minute downpour (this section of the Alsatian Continent received an average of 320 cm of rainfall a year), I cleaned out the cave and checked the shelter in the back that dad and I had prepared when he first learned of the Grays push towards this set of systems.

I did what I could to make a home for me for the next few days or weeks and hopefully not longer. First aid kit, water purifier, three cases of dried food, a case of rations with nutrient supplements, shortwave radio, the usual hunting supplies, my persecomp ... and dad’s persecomp...

Tears fell at the implications ... he didn’t expect to live, otherwise he would have kept it, since all of his blueprints and notes for repairing the Company’s Mechs were included in his persecomp.

Dad would have never have parted with it for any other reason than to keep it out of the enemy hands. During my infrequent peeks out from the cave entrance, the canopy of the forest prevented me from seeing the subsequent waves of Grays land, but I knew they were out there and even more would follow.

Seven days later, I activated the comm and received only static, same with the shortwave. I needed to check on dad before heading to Exter, nine hundred kilometers to the west.

I adhered to the tree line and kept cover while approaching Rion City south of the Blue Demon’s base after dusk. The city and outpost were smoking ruins. The outpost’s walls were holed and the gate was completely destroyed. Seven destroyed Gray medium Mechs were left where they collapsed dozens of meters before entering the outpost. Not reading any movement or heat signatures, I ventured inside the base, only to find my worst nightmare. Fourteen devastated light Mechs and forty-two dead bodies, including my father holding a note in his non-severed arm.

Crying brokenly, minutes passed before I could clear my eyes to read his note to me. ‘Love you Leon, sorry I couldn’t do better for you.’ I screamed at the top of my lungs inside of my Mini Mech, “You were awesome dad. Awesome!”

He was the best father that I could ever wish for and I promised to make the Greys pay for his death one day. One day soon!

Crying, I wiped my tears and retook control of the mini-Mech. I didn’t know how much time I had before a scout or patrol returned to the devastated base, or if they would even bother.

He had hidden instructions and keycodes for the fabricators in his persecomp. The larger fabricator was damaged beyond my ability to fix, but the smaller one was intact. With that small fabricator, I could only make the small to mid-sized internals.

Or accessories...

Gently, I carried my father’s body with me and buried him next to mom a kilometer north of Rion, said my farewells, and returned to the ruined outpost to start scavenging parts after carrying the fabricator to my new cave home. Between the outpost and the warehouse from town, I had enough material to start my plan of revenge.

Anti-armor mines were easy to fabricate as long as I had the correct blueprint and materials to feed to the Fabricator. Dad had provided me with the master password for his persecomp, so schematics were not an issue.

The materials were abundant enough for me to make hundreds of the simple bombs. Two weeks after the invasion began, I started burying the pressure detonated anti-armor mines. I also constructed six of the remote-activated magnetized ones, knowing that just disabling the Grays’ Mechs wasn’t enough.

Hiding in the edge of the Forest, I waited for a small pair of the ten-meter-tall bipedal Mechs to approach the outpost. Grays counted by base eight and did everything in pairs or more, I didn’t understand why and didn’t have to. It was information that I needed to survive and hopefully use against my enemy.

Two Locusts pursued me. A pair of 28t fast dual-light-phaser Mechs came into my sights, both of those light phasers replaced the Mech’s arms, with a single slow-charging medium phaser in place of the head. After confirming both of their ranges, I released the pent-up tension of the day’s wait by aiming and shooting the closest Mech.

My anti-personal coilgun’s round bounced off the torso of my target, doing little other than marring the paint. Shooting again and deliberately missing, I dove to the ground as the first light phaser shot impacted the tree next to me. Scrambling into the forest, I consciously left tracks for them to follow. The Gray’s fast pursuit Mechs soon caught up to where I should have been, falling into my trap, and detonating the buried pressure sensitive anti-armor mines as expected.

The one on the left lost its right foot and half of its calf, before falling on its face. The right one lost its footing a step after the first mine detonated and fell into a second mine, exploding its Medium Phaser and chaining a ripple effect through its body, destroying the cockpit, the driver and most of the internals.

Knowing I had little time, I grabbed a stored magnetic mine and rushed to the still active Locust. The armless Mech was working its way to a single kneeing position when I reappeared and attached the mine to its cockpit. Sprinting off to its side, I detonated the explosive as soon as I cleared the front arc. I kept running away in case the explosive device didn’t work or a chain reaction happened. A small chance, but it was said to happen when the cockpit of a Grey was destroyed. I waited five minutes after the last explosion went off before returning to two face planted smoking Mechs.

Attaching a signal inhibitor to both of Mechs, I scurried to a prepared location and returned with six Levi-pods. Attaching the six to the first Mech, I pushed my prize to a prepared location in the hard mud of Lana’s Lake, eleven kilometers northeast.

Inside the cockpit was a dead Gray, bleeding black ooze from its orifices onto the shattered golden crystal pilot’s cage. Closing the hatch back up I sank the Locust three meters into the swamp, noted the location on my GPS and checked the second one that had tripped and had fallen into the mines. I didn’t even need to check the cockpit on that one since the medium phaser’s explosion shredded the internals, including the now exposed cockpit covered in gray and black sludge with pulverized bits of the gold crystals that the Grays used for syncing to their Mechs. That Mech too went into the same swamp fifteen meters further north of the first. I returned to my cave and brought back equipment to deal with the last issue.