While Ves worked himself to the bone at Cloudy Curtain, elsewhere the Bright Republic began to enter the direst period of its existence.

The full might of the sandman race began to push against the defenses of the Bright Republic!

Sandman fleets began to batter the star systems at the Bright Republic's border with the former Coman Federation at a frightening frequency!

Even if the star system was only home to a couple of million people, the Mech Corps and the various auxiliary forces tried their best to hold the line!

As long as the systems at the border held, the more populated and strategic systems came under much less threat!

Intermediate star systems with populations in the billions simply couldn't be evacuated in a matter of months.

In addition, allocating valuable ships to evacuation would not only waste valuable shipping capacity that could be used to supply the frontlines, but also render a very valuable star system useless!

For these reasons, the state had long ago decided to commit minimal resources towards evacuation. The only time when it would do so was if the situation had become unsalvageable!

The only case where evacuation was warranted was emptying out the rural star systems at the border.

With populations ranging in the hundreds of thousands to a few million people, it didn't take too much effort to lift them elsewhere. The state contracted many transportation companies to evacuate as many people from the border systems as possible.

As for the more populated star systems where over a hundred million people resided, the Bright Republic did not consider the tradeoff to be worth it. While it was possible to empty them out entirely, it would take at least a few months to accomplish such a major operation.

It cost too much to pull these people out. Instead, the war planners decided to double down on these vulnerable star systems by fortifying them to an insane level.

A considerable amount of defensive platforms surrounded the populated planets. Every major city on the surface had undergone significant transformations to make them more 'sandproof'.

Even if the sandmen managed to make landfall, they could still be beaten off by landbound mechs supported by a considerable amount of turrets and defensive emplacements.

Due to the importance of the border systems, the Mech Corps and the Starfighter Corps stationed entire mech regiments and starfighter regiments at these places.

With thousands of mechs and thousands more starfighters ready to defend the Republic at its doorstep, the sandman fleets failed to break through!

Nonetheless, the defenders didn't grow complacent. The frequency of intrusion increased to the point where multiples of sandman fleets arrived at the fortified border systems every day!

The battles began to grow heated. Enormous laser strikes and multitudes of ballistic shells slammed against mechs and sandman vessels alike!

To the sandmen, a scary amount of sandman vessels perished every day, yet more arrived to keep up the pressure!

To the Brighters, attrition had begun to take its toll. Each battle, a handful of mechs and starfighter never returned.

At most, the salvaging parties managed to collect the scraps that had flung away once a powerful laser beam punched through a fighting machine.

Perhaps the only consolation was that the constant reinforcement of starfighters at the front alleviated the pressure on mechs.

With the cheap and flimsy starfighters acting as cannon fodder, the valuable mechs which still served as the mainstay of the Bright Republic's military lasted longer.

Though it seemed grossly unjust to sacrifice a multitude of starfighter pilots to preserve the life of a mech pilot, the Bright Republic had no choice.

Against a basic sandman fleet, the performance of a starfighter did not deviate too much from the performance of a mech.

For example, at one star system, several mech companies joined forces with an entire starfighter regiment.

The force adopted a grand formation of 400 mechs surrounded by 2,000 starfighters!

Facing a combined fleet of six sandman motherships and thirty-six sandman escorts, the mechs and starfighters pounded the motherships one at a time!

The fact that the sandman admirals began to join forces instead of ignoring each other was another detrimental evolution!

Even though the states that had fought against the sandmen before had significantly reduced their numbers, the surviving sandman admirals constantly grew wiser and more adept at warfare!

When several of them moved as one, defeating them was not so simple anymore!

"Fire!"

Thousands of shells and kinetic projectiles slammed against a single mothership! The sandman vessel shuddered as significant chunks of sand and exotic materials flew out in different directions!

A gaping hole had formed which the sandman mothership frantically tried to heal!

"Fire!"

Yet before the gap could be closed, thousands of rounds landed in the same hole, deepening the cavity and inflicting much more damage to the amalgamation!

Though the sandman motherships and sandman vessels struck out their lasers with fury, only a handful of starfighters and two unlucky mechs got hit!

"Fire!"

The valiant defenders quickly battered sandman mothership into pieces, giving no time for the sandman admiral to evacuate!

Dead!

A victorious roar rang out in the communication channels of the starfighter and mech units. The fall of a sandman admiral meant that its six escorts quickly lost control!

Without high-level direction, the escort vessels drifted away from the combined sandman fleet as they chaotically pursued different directions.

If the remaining sandman admirals gained some time, then they would have been able to convert these orphaned sandmen.

Yet that took time!

The defenders weren't stupid enough to give the surviving sandman admirals the time to beef up their numbers.

"Attack! One down, five to go!"

"For the Bright Republic!"

"We are the light in the dark!"

The sight of so many mechs and starfighters resisting the combined sandman fleet appeared incredibly valiant to the scouting ships assigned to record the battle in extensive detail.

The visual particle generators that the Bright Republic's forces adopted caused the performance of the machines to appear much more stunning!

"Wherever the Stripes of Humanity flies, the flame of civilization will never be extinguished!"

The thousands of starfighters and mechs flying backwards as they fired their weapons at the advancing sandmen each released an iconic trail.

Combined in an immense mass, the stripes combined in an enormous, semi-coordinated pattern that was shaped in the form of a torch!

The symbol of the Bright Republic lit up the surrounding space! With the base of the torch depicted in white and the oversized flame depicted vividly like actual fire, this humongous lifelike torch inspired every citizen that was watching the battle on the surface of the fortified planet!

"As long as as one hand remains to lift up this torch, the Bright Republic will never falter!"

Hope sprung from this majestic sight! Almost no panic had spread on the surface of the planet since the Mech Corps and the Starfighter Corps began to play around with the Stripes of Humanity.

Even though the vapor trails served no actual purpose in battle, when used creatively, they served as excellent means to keep hope alive!

"The Volari Starhawks have promised to protect the lives of every civilian! Not a single innocent must come to harm! This is our promise!"

The 1st Volari Starhawks of the 4th Bentheim Division put up a valiant defense. After the fall of the first sandman mothership, the second one fell at the cost of sacrificing a bunch more starfighters and mechs.

The immediate reduction in effective sandman forces caused the pressure on the human forces to decrease.

With the disparity in numbers widening, the outcome of the battle had already been set! All four remaining sandman admirals perished one after the other, and their orphaned escort vessels easily succumbed against the organized human starfighters which impeccably whittled them down at their leisure!

Standing by in the cockpit of his recently-developed expert mech, Captain Ghanso Larkinson witnessed the end of the battle with a touch of relief.

His Glittering Comet expert mech remained in the hangar bay of the fleet carrier throughout the battle.

His intervention wasn't needed this time.

An unsettling emotion soon affected his mood as he looked at the Stripes of Humanity.

Since when did the military turn into a giant circus troupe?

He knew the origin of the Stripes of Humanity which inspired every human in the states swept up in the Sand War.

His cousin's gimmick looked so mesmerizing in the battlefield that every participant in the Sand War quickly adopted the cheap module that generated the Stripes of Humanity!

Many Larkinsons took pride in this accomplishment. Ves Larkinson managed to influence the direction of the Sand War with a single invention!

Along with the sudden proliferation of the Desolate Soldiers, the reputation of the Larkinson Family had skyrocketed to the forefront of everyone's minds!

The amount of attention that the only successful mech designer of the Larkinson Family sucked up was so immense that every other notable Larkinson had become side characters all of a sudden.

Ghanso Larkinson did not mind the lack of focus on him. He was an expert pilot, and his will was incredibly firm. He did not chase after fame, glory, honor or reputation.

He merely wished to do his duty and protect the Bright Republic. He wanted to continue the legacy of his predecessors and stay true to the name of the Larkinsons.

Yet thinking about duty quickly caused his face to sour once he thought about those newfangled Desolate Soldiers that were taking the state by storm.

More and more private sector outfits began to field these middling mechs.

Ghanso saw nothing special about them. They were cheap, flimsy machines that performed no better than any other comparable mech in the market.

Their only merit was their so-called 'glow'.

Having approached a couple of Desolate Soldiers during shore leave, Ghanso's feelings on this popular new mech model had grown more complicated.

"What is up with those weird mechs?"

Though he heard some conspiracy theories about the new mechs, Ghanso personally didn't buy them. He believed in the MTA. Since the powerful association allowed the Desolate Soldiers to be sold on the open market, the mechs were obviously not as harmful as everyone feared.

The actual reason why Ghanso did not welcome their introduction in the market was because of how easy it was for their glows to inspire duty.

"Duty must come from the heart." Ghanso stated his beliefs. "When duty can only be compelled through the use of a tool, can it still be regarded as duty?"

In his own perspective, the so-called glow that inspired duty was nothing more than an abomination which turned the people affected by them into sheep.

Their mech pilots most of all became a lot more obedient to their superiors, to the point where they didn't object to being treated as cannon fodder. They also behaved disturbingly orderly, as if they were nothing but virtual intelligences that followed their instructions to the letter.

"Are they still even humans?" Ghanso muttered in vexation.

The proliferation of Desolate Soldiers cheapened the sanctity of duty. By making it so easy to induce, true soldiers and warriors got mixed up with amateurs who only persisted in battle with the help of artificial courage.

Everything was starting to become more and more fake, and it was all the fault of Ves Larkinson.

Even if Ghanso had no intention of piloting his cousin's mechs, he simply couldn't escape the richest Larkinson's influence!

Yesterday it was the Desolate Soldiers. Today it was the Stripes of Humanity. What would his greedy and power-hungry cousin push into his face tomorrow?

Through his connections with the higher ups, Ghanso already got wind that his cousin would soon release a military variant of his Desolate Soldier design!

Once that happened, the Volari Starhawks might very well field a number of those mechs, even though the Starhawks absolutely didn't need any additional encouragement!

Just the thought of it increased Ghanso's frustration!

"If not for this stupid crisis, I could have forced the steering committee to make a choice by now! It's not enough for Ves to corrupt the Larkinson Family!"

How long would it take for the Larkinsons to become known for their mech designers rather than mech pilots?

"Our heritage and traditions must be preserved, one way or another!"