The music drifted through my cockpit, its soft melody slowly curling across the otherwise cramped confines. I closed my eyes briefly and allowed myself to be taken away from reality, imagining myself in another world.

A world of more peaceful times. One where I didn’t have to run and hide from bombs dropping down on my city. One where my parents were still alive. One where the city where I used to live wasn’t a radioactive wasteland.

“Five minutes to contact. Rosewald, do you mind switching off that goddamned music?”

I was abruptly hauled back to reality when my squad leader’s voice crackled harshly in my earpiece. In my front screen, a hologram of a dark-haired man with grizzled features and scars appeared. Sergeant Marbas still sported several freshly-healed burns over his right cheek, but he had opted to let them heal naturally rather than undergo cosmetic changes.

Something about scaring the enemy to death if they ever ripped his cockpit open.

“Sorry, Sarge.”

I glanced up at a secondary screen that blinked into life beside Sergeant Marbas’s. Corporal Rosewald was grinning, not at all apologetically, as she brushed her fingers along the long, red hair that dangled from her helmet.

“I’ll switch it off a minute before we reach Falcas Facility.”

“You don’t seem to have any sense of urgency regarding our mission, do you?”

“Come on, Sarge. We only live once. I might not survive this battle to listen to Claire de Lune again. And besides, you have such terrible taste, not to appreciate classical music such as this.”

“Sarge, I see something launching from the facility.”

This time, a tertiary screen popped up, featuring the third member of our squad, Lance Corporal Armstrong. His face creased as he studied the readings on the long-range sensors inbuilt into his Ghost class Armored Mobile Suit.

“Enemy AMS?”

“Looks like it. I can’t tell.” Armstrong fiddled with several controls that were out of view and then sharpened his sensory display before beaming it into ours. I blinked as I saw three red triangles heading in our direction.

“Yeah, looks like enemy AMS,” Private Sharpe muttered. “But what the hell is with that speed?”

“All units, prepare for enemy contact. It looks like we’ve been spotted.”

Marbas’s voice was taut with tension. I noticed that the music was gone. Even Rosewald had turned serious, her eyes narrowed in concentration as she piloted her Falcon-class machine. I turned away as the holographic images of my teammates flickered away, replaced by a wide hologram of the outside.

A chilling wind howled through the audio filters and I shivered at the snowy image outside. There was a blizzard covering the facility, obscuring our view with tons of snow and more snow. I could hardly see anything, with only my radar indicating that there was any enemy approaching us. Tearing my eyes away from the visual screen, I glanced at the radar and was shocked to see how much nearer the three icons were to our position.

Five thousand meters in one minute…that’s three hundred kilometers an hour?

There was no Armored Mobile Suit that could move that fast…at least not among the arsenal of the Zenebas Empire.

I suddenly felt a chill that was not borne from the blizzard.

“Get into formation!”

I slightly decreased the speed of my Katana-class AMS and fell back. The ten members of my squad were falling into an arrowhead formation, with Marbas as the point. Being the rookie of the squad, I was at the very edge.

“Three against ten?” Private Scoffe scoffed. “Are they underestimating us? Even if they’re fast, there’s no way…”

He never finished his sentence. His predator-class AMS blossomed into a fireball that temporarily illuminated the dark, wintry landscape. A green icon indicating his AMS status blinked out and was replaced by with red lights.

“Scoffe! Are you all right? Scoffe!”

“Did anyone see him eject?”

“No.” Marbas’s voice was tense. “And even if he did, there’s no way he’ll survive in this weather. Not for long.”

“Did you see the enemy shoot?”

“What the hell did they do? How are they…?!”

Another fireball and flaming shrapnel rained down on the snow. I saw that it was Private Yugo this time.

“Where are they shooting from!?”

“Fuckers!”

“Spread out!” Marbas shouted, raising his voice over the panicked din. “It’s just three of them! Spread out! Rosewald, Sharpe, Armstrong! Lay down suppressing fire in their general direction!”

“Yes, sarge!”

The three of them braked, their AMS stopping to a hover. Raising their machine guns, the giant mechas unleashed three volleys of depleted uranium rounds in the direction of the triangular icons. Keeping one eye on the radar, I watched as the triangles deftly dodged and spread out. A staccato of return fire played out over the snow, but Rosewald, Sharpe, and Armstrong remained steady, holding their positions as they switched their aims.

“The rest of you, follow me! We’re going to flank them!”

The remaining four AMS swerved around and followed Marbas’s lead, their plasma jets flaring and vaporizing the snow. It appeared that at least one of our contacts had realized what we were doing, for it broke away from its comrades and turned to face us.

“Is he planning to take on all five of us by himself?” Private Part demanded. “Even if he has…”

He never finished his sentence. His grizzly-class AMS rocked as something struck it, and then the ruptured suit spiraled downward before exploding upon the snowy ground.

“Don’t stop!” Marbas barked, his machine twisting around and avoiding green energy beams that flashed from the front. He retaliated with a barrage of green projectiles from his own beam rifle, forcing the opponent into evasive maneuvers.

And then a missile detonated in his face, causing his suit to go down.

“Sarge!”

“Sergeant! Are you all right?”

“Yeah…caught by surprise…”

Marbas’s voice was shaky, but he managed to readjust his suit. It hovered unsteadily above the snow for a few seconds, and the enemy AMS seized the chance to lock on, refusing to waste the opportunity that had presented itself.

Fortunately, there were three of us left.

“Aaaaah!”

My two squadmates charged forward, firing wildly with their beam rifles and missile pods. The enemy AMS, by now visible, shook them off and ducked with incredible gracefulness. While I added my fire to their barrage, I studied it. If I wasn’t mistaken, the damned thing looked like a crane. Plasma jets flared out from sleek, wing-like thrusters, and while one hand held a beam rifle, the other held something. Small, but inactive.

“Got you!”

Lance Corporal Lance hollered as he swung down his AMS’s close combat weapon. Activating his beam saber, he thrust it into the seemingly defenseless machine…

…only for the tiny gadget that the enemy AMS was holding to flare to life. In a single, swift move, the enemy AMS sliced Lance’s lancer-type AMS into two. Lance was still screaming even as his red-hot cockpit was exposed to the cold air before twin explosions engulfed both halves of his robot.

“You…!”

My last squadmate, Lance Corporal Damon, shouted as he swung from the side and severed the arm with the beam rifle. The enemy AMS twisted around, and with an agility and flexibility that took us all completely by surprise, kicked Damon’s grizzly-class AMS in the abdomen. Damon managed to twist his machine out of the way to avoid a fatal thrust from the enemy’s beam saber. He brought up his beam rifle and blasted the AMS at pointblank range…

…only for the AMS to bend backward. Whirling in midair, the AMS kicked Damon’s machine back and slashed with its beam saber. Damon evaded that and delivered a riposte that cut off its leg. The AMS then reared upward, only to lose its head to a well-placed blast.

“Thanks, Private!”

I merely nodded as I lowered my smoking beam rifle. Damon then closed in for the kill, but the AMS displayed yet another astonishing feat of flexibility by planting its foot on Damon’s Grizzly and propelling itself away before he could finish him off.

Before he could get far, however, the enemy AMS vanished in an explosion.

Both Damon and I glanced at Marbas’s hovering predator-class AMS, who was lowering its smoking beam rifle.

“What took you both so long?”

“…”

The both of us glanced at each other but decided not to mention how the enemy had taken out 2 of us before we finally eliminated him.

“2 more. Remember, rookies, our mission is to survive. Once we cross the border behind the facility, they can’t chase us. Not unless they want to stray into our territory. So let’s get rid of the other 2 bastards and we can go home.”

“Yes, Sarge.”

The two of us followed his lead as we continued to flank the remaining two. So far, one of them had broken off to deal with Rosewald, Sharpe and Armstrong, and the second one turned to face us when it noticed our approach.

We fired a barrage of energy bolts from our beam rifles, forcing the white crane-like AMS into the evasive. It twisted around, spinning around gracefully in the snow and returned with an onslaught of its own. At this range, its white color allowed it to almost blend into the white snow, rendering it practically invisible. If it weren’t for our sensors and its thermal jets, we would find it difficult to pick it out visually. Still, its unprecedented agility was allowing it to duck our shots with astonishing ease, the lightweight frame bending at impossible angles for a traditional AMS.

“Damn it… I’ll see if you can still dodge this!”

Frustration creeping into his voice, Damon charged right at the enemy AMS, his beam saber blazing to life.

He never reached it.

“Gaaah!”

Missiles slammed into his grizzly’s frame, rocking it with tiny explosions. As he flailed about helplessly, the enemy AMS tackled him, using him as a shield.

Immediately, both Marbas and I ceased fire. We were forced into evasive maneuvers, spiraling away from the barrage of beam projectiles that the robot hurled our way.

“You…!”

Enraged that he was being used as a shield, Damon activated his beam saber and attempted to stab the enemy, only for it to suddenly kick him away. His pink beam sliced thin air, narrowly missing the white AMS, and it responded by stabbing his machine with its own beam saber.

Damon’s scream ended in a bloody gurgle, even as the enemy kicked his machine off its saber and sent him plummeting into an icy grave before he vanished in an explosion.

It was just me and Sarge left against this monster.

The enemy flew right at Sergeant Marbas, evidently recognizing him as the main threat. He immediately pulled a lever and allowed his suit into freefall, trying to actively discourage it from approaching, but it dodged his shots in a dazzling array of moves…

…until a fireball exploded against its head.

“?!”

As the AMS fumbled, I slashed at it with my beam katana. However, as I expected, the pilot reacted with superhuman reflexes and twisted its white machine out of the way. In the end, I only managed to chip off a small segment of those wing-like thrusters.

Bam!

I was unable to avoid the kick that the enemy delivered into my gut, and my katana-class AMS was sent tumbling helplessly into the air. I yanked a lever and my plasma thrusters flared, righting my direction.

And then an explosion sent shudders across my cockpit. My head hit the console in front of me, but thanks to my helmet I remained conscious. I could still feel warm blood trickling down my temple, the part where my head had grazed the inside of my helmet.

Through the hazy holograms, I could see the enemy AMS leveling its beam rifle to aim right at my cockpit…

“Forgetting about me?”

Marbas slashed at the AMS, but it managed to duck. Twisting away, almost like a ballet dancer, it lashed out with a beam saber and sliced off the arm that was holding the energy melee weapon. Marbas swore and then aimed with his rifle, but the enemy kicked it out of his hand.

“Gah!”

Before it could finish Marbas off, I dove in with a slash from my beam katana. The enemy backed away, training its rifle on us.

“Surrender. You can’t win.”

I blinked when the sudden transmission cut into my radio frequencies, a feminine voice speaking coldly into my earphones. A hologram of a girl materialized on my screen, an unfamiliar girl in a pristine, white and blue suit and long, blond hair. Her icy, cold eyes glared at me, and from the dignified posture she held herself in, I wondered if she was royalty, or at the very least, a noble. She looked coolly at me, probably receiving a hologram of both me and Sarge.

“I should probably offer you congratulations at least, though. You claim the first honor of damaging my Snow Crane. And…” she recoiled in shock when my image finally got through. “You’re bloodied up pretty badly!”

“No shit,” I muttered. “You’ve been killing my squad mates left and right, and you’re bothered by a little bit of blood?”

I didn’t blame her, though. Most likely she had been desensitized to the killing because her kills were portrayed not through the deaths of humans but the destruction of machines. She probably had never seen a person die firsthand, shielded from the grisly sight by explosions of AMS or the wreckage of robots. As I thought, she was probably a sheltered bitch.

“That’s…” the girl stared at me for a moment. She was so young, probably a year younger than me or so. “Anyway…I just thought it would be rude if I failed to introduce myself.”

“…”

I wanted to roll my eyes. Apparently, Sarge’s coms were down, because I was sure he would have responded with something rude and vulgar, not fit for the ears of a pretty princess such as her.

“And you don’t think trying to shoot my squad out of the sky is rude?”

“You invaded our territory. Do you think we’ll just let you fly around our airspace as you please?”

“No, no. I’m not questioning why you’re shooting at us. I’m just puzzled as to what your priorities and sense of politeness entails. Why are you pausing in the middle of battle and talking to us? Aren’t you trying to kill me? I’m definitely trying to kill you.”

I was trying to move my AMS out of her rifle’s range, but she was keeping it trained on me. Her message was clear. Make one move and she would vaporize my cockpit. Yet, instead of pulling the trigger, she decided to contact me.

I had no idea what she was trying to pull.

The girl cleared her throat, ignoring what she obviously thought was a crude remark, and continued.

“In any case, my name is Clarice. I am the first-ranked pilot in the Republic of Relic. This unit is my personal AMS, the Snow Crane. It is still in its prototypical stages, but it is one of the fastest AMS to exist in the present, with the ability to accelerate to up to 350 kilometers per hour in ten seconds. It is equipped with Staccato-class plasma thrusters, and built with a lightweight titanium alloy frame that allows unprecedented flexibility and mobility. Its armaments include a 20mm Sunfury Beam Rifle, Khadgas close-combat beam saber, Dragonfire Missile Pod and…”

“Uh…why are you telling me the specifications of your robot?” I blurted out, unable to listen further. It was unfortunate, but while I love mechas, I wasn’t that much of an otaku. “Do you want the Zenebas Empire to buy that AMS or something?”

Clarice flushed crimson. “No! I’m just telling you that if you want to live, you should surrender yourself and your AMS to us.”

“So basically you’re telling us to be a prisoner-of-war.”

“Perhaps. I’m telling you that if you don’t surrender, I will kill you. Consider that a…friendly warning.”

“Point taken.” I stared down the barrel. Then I cleared my throat to imitate her in a mocking manner. “And since you’ve so kindly provided me details about your AMS, maybe I should return the favor. Mine is an obsolete katana-class mecha that we scrounged up from the scrapyards in the Empire of the Rising Sun and salvaged it before they scrapped it. Since the model is no longer in production, I can’t get the right parts to repair this junk whenever it gets damaged in a fight, so I end up just patching it up with whatever unwanted spare parts I can get from the launching facility back in the empire. Speed-wise, it probably will be lucky to hit 150 kilometers per hour. And for its armament or frame, I don’t know and frankly I don’t give a fuck. If it fires beams, then I’ll use it. If it can cut through titanium frames, then I’ll use it. That said, they’re wearing down with constant use because I can’t afford to replace them. Basically, what I mean is that my AMS is a piece of junk that’s barely holding itself together.” I smirked. “And I managed to chip off a nice little piece from your lovely little special snowflake. Oh, I mean Snow Crane.”

I could see the girl biting her lip as she tried to suppress her irritation. Not bad. Despite my provocations, she knew that I was right. I did damage her AMS. Underestimating me could prove to be fatal.

I offered her a last smile, and then I pulled the lever. Enough talking. It was time to dance.

Seeing that I had made my move, Clarice pulled the trigger. Anticipating that, I flashed my beam saber to life, gambling on my reflexes.

I won the bet.

The beam projectile deflected off the beam katana, dissipating harmlessly. Swearing at the unexpected counter, Clarice fire several missiles from her missile pod. Cocking my beam rifle back, I hurled it at the missiles. My aim struck true, my beam rifle slamming into the lead missile and blowing it up. The explosion engulfed the other missiles, causing a chain reaction that turned the space between us into an inferno.

“He got rid of his weapon?”

Clarice’s voice had risen in shock. Ignoring her, I slammed on my pedal and accelerated. Meanwhile, Clarice looked around, her sensors in disarray from the sudden thermal signatures that flared up from the explosions. Snow obscured her view, covering her visual display in a shower of white. Realizing my intent, she swung around and fired wildly into the snow, hoping to land a hit.

But I had also anticipated that. Swerving around the curtain of snow, I lashed out with my beam katana and severed both her arms.

“Aaah!”

Clarice’s Snow Crane rocked backward, the stumps of both arms crackling with electricity. She twisted her machine around to fire the missile pods, but I had stabbed them with my beam katana, letting loose secondary implosions within the hatch. The enemy AMS buckled, trembling as the interior detonations wrung the missile racks loose from its shoulders, damaging one of the thrusters.

“You…!”

Just as I swung the beam katana to finish her off, Clarice reacted by twisting around her machine and kicking at me. I just managed to barely dodge her AMS’s foot, and my beam katana missed her cockpit. Instead, it neatly slicked through the thrusters, extinguishing the plasma flares and sending her now wingless AMS tumbling down into the snow and rolling down a slope.

I was about to go after her, but Sergeant Marbas’s voice crackled to life in my earpiece.

“Finally got the blasted coms fixed. Time to go, Private. Reinforcements are being launched from the facility. We’re getting out of here. Our ticket’s home just across that valley.”

“Yes, Sarge.”

My machine whirled around, its plasma jets flaring as I launched it toward friendly territory, but one last transmission cut in.

It was Clarice. She was glaring at me, her eyes wide in disbelief.

“How… how did a degenerate imperial defeat me…? With an obsolete katana-model?”

“Face the facts, lady,” I replied. “I won, and you lost. Be thankful I didn’t kill you.”

“This is impossible!” she gripped her lever so hard that her fingers whitened. For a moment, I thought it would snap off. “I’m the first-ranked pilot in the Falcas Facility. I’m piloting the latest and most advanced AMS, the Snow Crane! There’s no way I can lose like this!”

I scratched my head, not wanting to deal with the tantrum of a spoiled, sheltered lady whose worldview was so narrow even I felt constricted.

“The man makes the machine,” I replied finally. “It doesn’t matter what you pilot. You said you’re first-ranked in the Falcas Facility? Big deal. Big fish in a small pond. I’ll let you know, there are way better pilots than me in the Empire.”

“Three years… I’ve spent three years training to be the best AMS pilot I can be. To think that…”

“Three years,” I scoffed. “Big deal. Before I was recruited into the imperial guard, I spent about four times that amount scrounging through battlefields and surviving by whatever means necessary. Just because you’ve a cool toy doesn’t mean you can beat everyone.”

I cut off the transmission before I could listen to the girl rage. Wiping the trickle of blood that had leaked out from my helmet, I focused on catching up with Sarge. Apparently Rosewald, Sharpe and Armstrong had downed the third suit and were boosting their jets toward the facility.

“Will we be able to avoid them?”

I glanced at my visual display. Rosewald’s machine was damaged, sparks flying from her falcon-class chassis. If we thought the battle against three enemies were bad, we weren’t going to last against ten more.

At least that was what I thought, until the ten triangles flew past us, their frames barely visible in the snow.

“They’re ignoring us and heading for the downed suit,” Armstrong reported, his voice filled with astonishment.

“We were due a break,” Marbas replied with a grin. “Now let’s go home.”

The five of us accelerated toward the border, the sun slowly rising from the horizon to illuminate the gray, wintry skies.