Petals of Titanium -- My Life as a Mecha Setting Bridge Bunny Quest

Space,
Titan's orbit,
The Outer Fleet's attack formation

The cost of the attack is hideous. As much carnage as the Outer Fleet is inflicting on the invaders — the concentrated attack breaking the Divine Navy's positions, scattering their ships in all directions, leaving enemy mecha shredded and destroyed in their wake — they are paying for every kilometre they travel toward the muddy yellow moon with countless lives. With ships and mecha that took vast amounts of time and labour to construct. With men and women who made it through Iapetus against the odds, who survived that sudden, nightmare raid on the way to Titan, when the enemy seemed intent on nothing so much as making the Outer Fleet bleed pilots, fighting with the desperation of those who knew they were going to die.

If this push succeeds, if it bolsters the defence of Titan enough to repel the Divine Navy, then history will paint this as glorious. Every spacer and pilot who dies this day will be a martyr, a patriotic hero to be solemnly exalted together as a collective paragon of Imperial service: The brave men and women of the Outer Fleet riding to their Empress's rescue, buying her safety with their own blood.

J6 is close enough to the allied pilot to see that blood misting out into space after a lucky shot crushed his cockpit. She riddles the enemy Banner responsible with automatic fire from two drones at once, but the allied pilot is still dead. His name was Burov. He was barely 25. There was a woman he regretted not marrying before the invasion. Privately, J6 thinks it's just as well he hadn't — losing a husband seems as though it would be harder on her, whoever she was, than whatever he had been to her. Maybe it would have been a comfort to him, but not much comforts a corpse. She'd overheard a lot, in dribs and drabs. Things about him and many of the other Hawthorne pilots, despite hardly having spoken a word to any of them.

Her Morrigan goes into a spin with blistering speed, weaving around a line of death sent her way by another two enemy Banners. Drone 3 takes one of them, focused fire punching through the mecha's torso from behind. The other, she boosts close faster than they expected, cutter nearly tearing the Banner diagonally in half. Two more corpses to keep the others company. J6 isn't in the speartip, but even in her position near the back of the Fleet's push, she and the rest of the rear guard are kept busy enough by enemy mecha attempting to encircle the fleet. In pointed fact, things are getting more than a little dire, the enemy mecha corps's superior number starting to show in a painful way. Her positioning is a necessity, however — she has to be close enough to the Hawthorne to fly to her princess's defence, should anything befall the carrier even at its distant remove from the rest of the fighting.

A Vespula scores a scratch along the side of one of her drones, before J6 guns the faster unit down from behind herself. There's no time to rest — she can see two of her allies about to be overwhelmed by a darting swarm of similar mechas.

J6 can see the entire fight laid out in detailed scans, but she's lost track of most of the Hawthorne pilots who are further ahead in the attack formation. When it comes to Milo Owusu, the SRI officer who always seems entirely too pleased with himself, she's just as glad to have. She hates being around him. The SRI as it exists now is not the same one that that hurt her in the Jupiter system while she was younger, Daystar says. "When I rule, they'll serve me, remember, Jaycee." As true as this might be, she still can't stand the sight of the uniform, or of the staring eye of their solar eclipse emblem.

In the scan map that J6 sees in her head, not merely projected onto a screen, she sees a worrisome shift in the enemy. As scattered as the well aimed push from both United Empire fleets had left parts of the enemy formation, they're beginning to obviously reorganise, and the pressure on every part of the Outer Fleet is turned up. A Banner tries to take her unit's main camera, and she dodges first down, then surges back up to impale it. Raking, automatic fire nearly hits her as she disentangles herself, for all that she destroys the source with her Drone 1. She loses that drone a second later, and she's too distracted to be entirely certain to what. There's no time, more enemy machines crowding into her space with every second, apparently singling her out as a particular threat. She feels Drone 2 be sliced in half, and continues to fight on in anticipation of losing the third.

Instead, a Banner slips under her guard by a hair's breadth, the Morrigan's cutter shaving off a line of armour on the top of its head. There's a harsh, jarring shock as the Banner's own cutter bites deeply into the Morrigan's bulky, mirrored torso armour. It doesn't pierce the cockpit. She's lucky it didn't pierce the cockpit. The experience of fear for herself, not for someone else, is almost novel at this point in J6's life. It spurs her onward as she twists around, plants the muzzle of her Morrigan's anti-mecha rifle against the latest Banner's cockpit, and turns the enemy pilot into particulate matter. At the same time, she's asking for help but no one is any less busy than she is.

Another Banner is behind her, and she barely avoids this cutter swing, is about to encircle it with her last remaining drone when she realises too late that this was merely a ploy to distract her from the real threat. There's no time to dodge, no time to block with a more expendable body part, no time to twist to lessen the impact. Automatic fire from a different mecha pounds against the damaged section of the Morrigan's armour, punching through into delicate internals. Something in side the Morrigan's torso explodes.


That day was permanently seared into J6's memory in a way few others from that early were. Her surrogate sister dying in front of her eyes. Thirty-Two's traumatised shaking as she refused to let go of J6's hand no matter how hard the handlers had tried to tug them apart: a vulnerability Thirty-Two would display precious few times after that as everything soft and gentle about her was erased by the combat conditioning that had worked on J32 a little too well. Telling everyone else in hushed whispers at the next meal time. Ten having a panic attack while thirteen had consoled her. Twenty-One so loudly overcome with grief and fury that sedation had been necessary.

Amongst all of those memories, the one thought that J6 had never been able to shake, no matter how many times she got into this much more advanced, much safer version of that same machine all these years later, was the horrified fascination she felt at a simple question: How had it really felt to J3, in the end?

J6 finally has her answer. The rushing blackness is a mercy.


Space,
Near the HIMS Titanium Rose

There was a moment or two in the chaos of it all where Gloriana truly expected to die. As the wings of the battle bowed out under the sheer weight of both United Empire Navy fleets pushing together, things only got more and more hectic. Time and again, she was forced to stow the powerful main gun of her Artemis, and instead use its outsized thrusting power to operate the long range support mecha as if it were a speedy, front-line skirmisher.

For the first time, here in the privacy of her cockpit, Gloriana admitted to herself that in her beloved old Huntress, she would not have survived this. Nor would, she suspects, the people who she's responsible for.

Gloriana accelerates hard, rushing perpendicularly past Loboda's damaged unit at speed, striking the Banner with rifle fire before it can attack her subordinate from behind. Loboda hasn't even had time to turn around.

"Thank you, ma'am!" Loboda's voice is a little frazzled over the comm.

"Are your scans broken as well, Ensign?" Gloriana snaps.

"... no, ma'am," Loboda admits. "I just— I didn't notice in time."

"No, you did not," Gloriana agrees. As close calls go, they've had closer. Her protective annoyance abates shortly, however, as a different friendly mecha hales her over comm:

"Attention, Commander Perbeck, this is Captain Shale of the HIMS Venter's second mecha wing, are you in need of assistance?"

Gloriana doesn't indulge in a sigh of relief, although the emotion is so profound in her that she lets the lack of her title go, under the circumstances. There are far more pressing concerns than someone calling her 'Commander'. "Yes, sir, we very much could," she says, even as she darts around more enemy fire. "The HIMS Titanium Rose is critically damaged, and my squad is being pressed hard. I could use anyone you can spare."

"Understood, Commander, you'll have support shortly," says Shale.

They might make it through this after all, Gloriana decides. The Rose is still operational, despite the depressurisation and fires, the escape pods that the mecha squad worked so hard to cover. Even now, it fires again, and an enemy Corvette crumples in the distance. Then she actually looks back at the Rose, and her heart is already plummeting even before she's contacted by the ship.


Onboard the HIMS Titanium Rose,
Bridge

Every second, it feels like another alarm is going off, a study in contrasts to the strained silence and clipped reports of the people in the room with you. It's all the Rose can do to keep supporting the mecha squad in fending off attacks long enough to evacuate non-essential personnel. Long enough to hopefully survive this.

"Friendly mecha incoming!" The voice is nearly hysterical with relief, and you feel that deep in the pit of your stomach even if you don't let it show to the world. Likewise, the rest of the bridge crew seems to indulge in a collective exhalation, a tiny fraction of the pent up fear and tension going out of you all.

Then it's all abruptly brought rushing back, as a deep, bass rumble — far more resonant than any of the hits the Rose has taken so far — shakes the ship's entire structure.

"We were hit?" Andre demands.

"No, captain. We... we thought we'd contained the fire, but it just spread to primary life support."

There is a split instant of horrified silence that seems to stretch on indefinitely, alarms grating on everyone's nerves even as all eyes turn to Captain Andre. She sits there for that mercilessly short stretch of time, digesting this news. "Are the emergency ventilation seals holding?" she asks.

"For now, ma'am."

Andre nods sharply, then opens a ship-wide channel. "Attention all hands," she says, "this is Captain Andre speaking. Initiate level one evacuation procedures. I repeat: Initiate level one evacuation procedures: Abandon ship."

To all your credit, everyone instantly springs into action. The numb surreality of the situation doesn't stop you from rushing through your level one procedure — making entirely certain that the ship's most recent scan data is available for the escape pods. That they'll have some chance of carrying their occupants to safety. Of carrying you. Beside you, Mazlo is updating command on what is happening, and you know Lori is being given a similar rundown at the same time, everyone performing exactly as you all rehearsed.

Then it's finished and your hands, almost of their own accord, are releasing the straps keeping you seated at your workstation. You push yourself up and fall into double file line behind the officer at the next station, just as Grayson's emergency override code opens the sealed bridge hatch. Grayson very obviously does not like going first out the hatch — obviously, bitterly aware that Captain Andre will be going last. But someone has to be in charge, if the worst happens. In a different kind of emergency, you might have all just holed up here and hoped that the bridge's seals held up even while the rest of the ship is destroyed. Clearly, this is not an acceptable risk. You recall dismally that such a decision not to evacuate is what led to Captain Andre getting her promotion to Commander, when it led to everyone above her on her ship being killed at the Battle of Ceres.

The familiar shaft outside the bridge — this same place where once you and Anja had hidden around a corner to eavesdrop on Grayson and Lori's argument a lifetime ago — is rendered strange and nightmarish by the red emergency light, the constant blare of the evacuation alarm. The keen fear hammering in your chest that, any moment now, the ship will be torn apart, and you'll die in vacuum. You cannot, for the life of you, stop yourself from recalling precisely what vacuum exposure does to a live human body before it kills someone.

You make it to the emergency shaft without being spaced. The special panel automatically slid open when the evacuation protocols were keyed in, and now all of you are going through, "falling" head-first down the shortest possible route to the outer hull and the escape pods. At least, the ones that haven't already launched. The remaining crew in the other vital departments, engineering, life support — probably not life support, you realise sickeningly — will be doing the same.

The lighting is even eerier in these tight confines, shoulder to shoulder with a technician you picked up after Iapetus, handholds flying by at regular intervals. It's not that long a trip, but it feels like it is, and an overactive part of your imagination wonders, absurdly, if maybe you're already dead. If this is just what it's like, just the last thing you saw, forever.

And then you're all emptying out of the emergency shaft, into a regular one, each grabbing the nearest hand hold in turn to oritentate yourselves to the new shaft without creating a pileup. The escape pods are up ahead, you know, and you resume your place in line, beginning to push yourself down the shaft as quickly as is safe. You're about halfway there when a loud, shuddering explosion shakes the ship again, and you miss your handhold, flying into the side of the shaft. You avoid foiling anyone else up by luck rather than by skill

You're uncharacteristically slow to reorientate yourself, but bony hands catch you by the shoulders, steadying you, forcibly twisting you around to the right direction. "Sorry, ma'am!" you exclaim.

"Keep it, North, there's no time to be proper." The captain has lost her hat, at some point. That, as much as anything, impresses upon you that things have gone very wrong for your little scouting ship.

"Yes, ma'am," you mutter, not letting it slow you down as the two of you start moving again, now a little ways behind the rest of the group, but catching up. The hatch to the escape pods is open ahead, the rest of the bridge crew filing through. Then, another explosion, closer and louder. Another alarm. The worst alarm: You watch, wide-eyed, as the light above the hatch you're heading for turns from steady amber to flashing red.

Pressure leak detected, emergency seals imminent.

You feel those same hands from a moment before grip the back of your uniform, and, using the wall of the shaft as a brace, Captain Andre hurls you toward the hatch as hard as she can. You're sailing down the shaft at unsafe speeds, but instead of bracing for an impact, you're twisting around, hoping to see her right behind you. You catch sight of her, lock eyes with that steely, grey gaze reflecting the red light, and then the hatch slams shut with bone crushing force. With you on one side, and Captain Lilian Andre on the other. There are more crashes, violent shuddering from nearby. As you watch, the indicator panels on this side of the hatch flashes to give an additional warning: Hard vacuum beyond.

Someone catches you. "North!" You blink, twisting around to see who it is: Mazlo's face is drawn, his eyes verging on panic. "Escape pods now!" he snaps, and you don't need to be told more than that, in spite of what just happened to your commanding officer. You maneuver your way through the narrow quarters of the escape-pod bay, toward the nearest pod with Mazlo right behind you. Just as another explosion rocks the ship. This one feels like the Rose is about to be torn in two.


Space,
Titan orbit

Guardswoman First-Class J6 blearily regains consciousness, strapped in to the depressurised cockpit of a dying mecha. It hurts to move, to breath, to think, and she doesn't want to have to do any of those things. There's a voice in her ears, though, and she can't ignore it. Can't sleep yet while it goes unanswered. A face at the bottom of the display on her cracked visor — actually in her helmet, not through a neural interface, confusing her for a moment.

"Jaycee?" the fire-haired woman is asking, "Jaycee! Please answer!"

"Your... highness." And on a private feed, no less. She must have excused herself from the CIC for that — Daystar would never have let quite the level of desperate relief show on her face if she were around Sikes and the others.

"Oh, thank every star!" Daystar squeezes her eyes shut, steadying herself before she speaks again. Her composure feels thin and brittle, threatening to crack under the strain of everything it's holding back. "Are you alright? Are you hurt badly?"

Honesty falls out of J6's lips, unfettered by even what little tact she normally has. It's increasingly hard to force Daystar's face to stay in focus. Everything's hard. "No. And yes. Respectively."

Daystar does not react with surprise but she presses a hand over her chest, right where the words have just stabbed her. As always at times like this, J6 wishes she were different. That she knew what to say to soften this, to make it acceptable. "I'm... Jaycee, I'm so sorry," Daystar whispers. The words quaver at the end, but hold steady.

J6 manages a minute shake of her head, and the motion sends a wave of overwhelming exhaustion through her small body. "No," she manages, voice a croak.


"No?" Daystar frowns in confusion. "Jaycee? Jaycee! Jaycee!"

J6 blinks, only realising after the fact that she had blacked out. Her vision doesn't seem to want to work now. It's a wash of smudges of colour and blurs of light. The bright red-gold of Daystar's hair is still recognisable, though. It's something to watch as she makes her voice function well enough to answer, fumbling for the thought she'd been trying to voice before: "... no. Don't... don't apologise for this."

"You're here because of me!" Daystar exclaims. "I'm the one who put you in that thing! It's because of me that—" That she was dying. The end of the sentence hangs between the two of them, unvoiced but obvious.

"I'm here for you," J6 agrees. She forces herself to continue. Why is talking so hard? At least the pain is leaving. All sensation is leaving. "But it's... but... my choice, Daystar. Mine and no one else's." There's an exultant feeling to the words. For J6, the difference between being used as a weapon until she breaks, and choosing to give her life in service are so vast as to be wholly different. Even now. "I wish... I could have seen you... seen..."

In the end, the Guardswoman's body fails like the mecha it's still attached to: Bit by bit, then all at once. Something big enough finally gives out in her heavily augmented brain and the two of them, machine and cyborg, are left to drift, slowly cooling in space.

Kilometres away, onboard the HIMS Hawthorne, Imperial Princess Daystar Helios forces herself to stop shaking, schools her expression and returns to the CIC to observe the remainder of the battle. To see if, in the end, her truest friend in the world will have died for something.


The battle is at a turning point. The enemy is still out of position, even if they're not quite as divided as could be hoped. The Outer Fleet paid dearly for this progress, but they and the Inner Fleet have united. This is not what the invaders wanted.

What this has become is a brutal slog between two forces, one of which has Titan's orbital defences at its disposal. The drama playing out onboard the doomed HIMS Titanium Rose happens a hundred times over in as many different ways. The battle goes on, grinding away more lives, more priceless ships and mecha and infrastructure, until a breaking point finally arrives. What happens?

[ ] A tactical gambit by the United Empire forces manages to strike a devastating blow to the Divine Navy's forces

[ ] The Divine Navy's Admiral, Lord Grangier, is killed in combat, sending the enemy into chaos again

[ ] The battle of attrition reaches its ultimate outcome