Draconian Imperium
Time: Late November, 2510, Deep Night
The jungle was a void of black. Torrential rain hammered down, and two hundred Paladin-SF Variant mechs prowled through the mire. The low hum of hydraulics echoed through the trees, steel feet sinking into the mud with wet slaps, each step cracking branches underfoot. Rain pelted their armor, blending with the clatter of servo motors into a relentless cacophony.
Jack flicked on Thor's shortwave laser multispectral sensor, rendering the close-range environment as clear as a sunny day. He watched the Warhounds unit's mechs move with uncanny agility through the sludge, his HUD flashing a data stream: [SCAN: Paladin-SF // Mass: 42t // Height: 11.0m // Width: 4.5m // Depth: 3.8m // Armor: Nano-CF 10cm // Shield: 50% Kinetic / 30% Energy // Speed: 120km/h // Fusion Core: DT-pB11 Hybrid // Output: 10^8 W // Operation Time: 36h]
Forty-two tons of hardware, Jack thought, grimacing. Wrapped in ten centimeters of nano-carbon fiber, shrugging off half the kinetic rounds and barely a spark from laser fire. Yet they slog through this mud without so much as a bubble.
Thor's sensor array switched to a subchannel, and he zoomed in on an energy signature—new gear, specially authorized by the Federation for this op: plasma autocannons, quad missile racks, and superconducting alloy blades vibrating at nearly 40kHz. The entire battalion was equipped to the exact specifications.
The brass really went all-in this time.
What made Jack's stomach churn was their sync. The HUD sidebar pulsed: [JANUS_LINK // Q-COMMS: 0.12s Delay // Unit-wide Sync Confirmed]. He remembered Janus cores being exclusive to command ships and elite squads. Now, even battalion-level mechs had a stripped-down version, moving the whole company like a single organism.
The ridge sloped downward, and Thor's nine nano-claws—six front, three rear—sprang out, gouging deep tracks into the muddy earth. Compared to the eleven-meter-tall Paladins with their inertia-dampening systems, his mech felt like a thief in tattered rain boots, slipping and sliding down the slope. Each step sent his HUD's inertia readings jittering: [Δv Threshold: Paladin +0.5 km/s // Torque Shift: Compensated]
The Warhounds grunts trailing him marveled over the comms, clearly unaccustomed to Thor's knack for self-repair and sheer survival.
"Are his leg joints held together with rubber bands or what?" one whispered over the channel.
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"Where'd he get those anti-slip claws? That's some steady grip," another chimed in.
Half an hour later, the company reached the gap between towering peaks. Then, out of nowhere, Leo's urgent voice crackled through Jack's encrypted channel.
"Sir! Big trouble! We intercepted a cleartext broadcast from Draconian Imperium High Command… they're declaring General Cyril a traitor and ordering his arrest!"
Jack froze. Before he could process it, Leo's voice cut in again, now laced with confusion.
"Hold on… something's off! We just picked up another cleartext from Cyril 's frontline HQ, claiming the Tartarus Legion turned traitor—along with both of Cyril 's lieutenant generals! Sir… the entire Imperium command structure's gone to hell! The front lines are like a fog bank—nobody knows who to trust. Our scans show their defenses under full attack, collapsing in seconds!"
Jack got it in a flash. His mission had just morphed from "find a hidden general" to "race the Tartarus Legion's best hounds through a crumbling, self-destructing army to nab a target who's now a free agent."
The mission's difficulty and uncertainty had skyrocketed.
"Slade," Jack patched into the battalion commander's channel, "tell everyone to pick up the pace. Our quarry might already be on the move."
Slade wasn't thrilled about taking orders from a staff officer, but pre-mission directives left him no room to argue. He barked the order, and the entire battalion of Paladins shifted to forced-march mode. HUDs flipped to swarm config, missile bays unlocked, plasma barrels preheated, all locked onto the unknown, perilous ravine ahead.
Unbeknownst to them, a close-quarters ambush was about to erupt in that very ravine.
Draconian Imperium, Low Ridge Jungle, Temporary Command Post
As the Free Front's urgent report, smuggled from deep within the Imperium's political bureau, burned to ash in the firelight, Cyril von Clausewitz shed every burden he'd carried.
It had taken him ages to grasp that relationships weren't just friend or foe. Sometimes, friends turned into enemies, and enemies into allies.
Militarily, he could play two nations like pawns on a board. But politically? He was no match for the seasoned schemers who called a deer a horse with a smile and a knife behind their backs.
He'd used the Tyren Federation, sure—but they'd been using him right back. Where there was profit, any "friend" could sell you out in a heartbeat. That was politics.
It clicked, and Cyril let out a booming laugh. He had to hand it to the Federation's politicos—lousy at reading maps, but sharp as hell at running the numbers.
He was no longer the Free Front's dreamer of a new order, nor the Imperium's revered general. Now, he was just a fugitive.
Without hesitation, he issued a string of orders. His loyal guard rounded up everyone in the frontline HQ still sworn to the crown—including both lieutenant generals—and executed them on the spot. Simultaneously, he broadcast the accusation that the Tartarus Legion had turned traitor, throwing the clueless Imperium forces into the meat grinder of the front lines, tangling the entire Epsilon Prime theater into an indecipherable mess.
Meanwhile, the Free Front fighters hidden within the ranks began to muster in secret, preparing to bolt for the Federation's controlled zone.
As the Tartarus Legion's Wraith and Kong mechs stormed into the ravine, Cyril, under the protection of a guard company, had already begun his escape.
(HUD: CAST LOT // LONG THROW // SEED A9C // RESULT: PROCEED)
