History always repeats itself

According to the detailings of the report, half of the squadron had only one battery pack left to power their mechas for the next 24hrs. The sun was constantly covered by snow clouds, and now ash from the volcanoes Khylon thought were previously inactive; so the other rechargeable packs couldn't be used, either.

The more damning thing was that their photon guns operated on the same solar charge.

F*ck!

From now on they could only rely on cold weaponry to conserve what higher performing gear they had left. However doing so puts more of a strain on the neural link between user and mecha. This was one of the main reasons why cold weapons fell out of fashion so fast.

Khylon sighed. Heavily. Their current resources would make the trip back a bit strenuous; they'd pre-programmed the shuttle to pick them up from a specific destination ahead of time with this in mind. But honestly? They'd dealt with worse situations—been dealt worse hands—so Khylon is more than confident in his team's survival skills to make up for their lack of materials.

Khylon finishes reading the report when he suddenly goes on the move. His teammates aren't far behind him, and shouts of confirmation succinctly ring out on the comms from his earlier ordering for them to retreat: ['Understood, captain!'] ['Pulling back now.'] ['Roger that, boss!'] and then—['Can I just kill these last few-'] ['Hey, isn't this one a bit uglier..?'] ['Not as ugly as you though, [LOL].'] ['HUH!!? I'm more handsome than- don't just type LOL again!!'] ['[LOLOLOLOL]..'] ['Ahh! You fuc—']

He simply ignored that bunch of nonsense mixed in there, but still couldn't help tutting in disdain for those running their mouths.

Perhaps it was a bit cowardly to run away from what was obviously an active battle — but these Zerg were less vicious and more on the defensive side, so it was no surprise that when they saw them scattering out of their territory, they didn't choose to immediately follow.

Well. Perhaps the fact that they were being so easily overwhelmed played a part in it.

Ahem.

Ideally, they could take off on this barely-second day they'd arrived. The trek back would be simultaneously harder yet easier; there was no longer the same level threat of Zerg seeing as they'd wiped out any that so much as breathed too close to them. Yet, their ammo was running low, the sun to recharge their energy-saving particle guns hidden behind heavy, cloying clouds that let the barest of UV rays through. And half of them had burnt through one of two batteries on their Mechas far quicker than he'd hoped.

At some point they would have to switch to plain old Active Suits. Which was just awful; the last leg of the journey was practically meters deep snow.

However these were all hypotheses — or rather, 'best case scenarios'.

But of course, with what little hope, everything goes to sh*t.

It's as the snowy region once again comes into sight that he's unpleasantly surprised to find all his senses alerting him of a threat, the hairs on his arm standing on end. There was no way Khylon had gotten blindness from the endless plain of white, but it was still a bit uncomfortable to witness.

The clear distinction between the two temperature-locked territories did something funny to his stomach but it wasn't the source of his general unease.

Because despite being more than well-insulated, Khylon had… goosebumps.

Not soon after a violently cold shiver runs down the whole of his spine. Finally, something shows its presence by grinding across the surface of one of his dominated spaces.

Khylon quickly shook the distracting feeling off, and sneered.

There was no way he could and would ever forget that particular nauseating sense of intrusion. He'd only felt it once before, but the experience was deep enough to be unforgettable.

The 'space' that was currently in the process of being forcefully dissipated—not under someone else's control but destroyed in its entirety; it was the same one that was anchored miles in front of him that he'd station as a use for monitoring.

That uncomfortable violation of his 'territory' was because of a spatial blocker the Royal Family had created to keep the Galdiun clan in line. The worst thing about it though? Was that it worked.

Khylon didn't want it to.

At least he knew who their real enemy was now.

['Boss! Incoming!'] The shout from his lieutenant coincided with the sudden blaring noise from his mecha's navigation console. Khylon doesn't pause or slow down in running his mecha towards the shuttle. Beneath him, the top layer of thick snow melts from the high running engine.

Taking a quick glance at the warning screen that had popped up in the corner of his eyes, it seemed that something, strangely, had entered its range, and fast.

More Zerg.

Whether they also happened to be another 'evolved' strain — in fact, he didn't even want to think of the possibility. He quickly opened a direct call to those up on the main ship, and yelled, before they even got a word in; "This is Captain Diun to Midknight! Requesting emergency evacuation! Exact coordinates are…"

Earlier during the beginnings of the ground team's journey back to the landing shuttle, he'd heard Gabrielle express both of their doubts to the team. Almost at once, they opened an internal investigation of the mission data. In the end they had managed to prove that the sun in this solar system was indeed set to implode within the time estimate. However, it was not a natural occurrence — someone had artificially sped up its deterioration! And not even that, but the excuse given to him was that the planet was well within another country's sector, so there was very little they could do in terms of scouting, sans going down to the surface.

Before Khylon dutifully relayed their coordinates, he zoomed in on the photos he'd taken on a whim of the enemy ships up in space. He recognised what he shouldn't have recognised.

As it turned out, the large ship they'd seen circling this country's 'border' had a familiar logo painted beneath a holo-coat. It was a universally used method to hide from others, and you only had yourself to blame if you didn't have the skill to uncover the truth.

But not only was their logo exposed, but the soldiers onboard happened to be wearing the same uniform of a regiment Khylon knew for a fact no longer existed because…

… because he'd single-handedly obliterated it during the last Human War a decade ago!

...

Illegal hacking into what could've actually been enemy lines aside, Khylon is more afraid of the Zerg on this planet and just why they'd been used as a faucet for his demise! They were obviously too strange. And talking of war, the most recent and ongoing one had taught him that there really were scarier things than human nature, believe it or not.

The thudding of their mechas grew heavier with every step. For once the team chat is silent, only the sound of heavy breathing could be heard as they desperately kept up with their captain's almost frenzied running. Eerily, every heavy stomp happened to coincide with the stampede of vibrations coming from what could only be a horde of Zerg rushing over to them.

But nobody paid them a second glance.

Now that they were abandoning the mission, there was no longer a need to take caution with their traversing on foreign lands. The thick snow they'd previously complained about limiting them became nothing more than an obstacle to be crushed. They thundered across the antarctic terrain with an aura of death about them.

Nothing could break their uniformed stride.

".. 09W.." Finally, Khylon began to relay their coordinates.

{'Sir!'} The shrill voice of his third-in-command interrupts, {'We ca—we can't! We're not even able to send anything or anyone down— we're surrounded on all sides!'}

What!!?

"F*ck!" Khylon yanks his hand from the immersive display that were the mecha controls. His hand stops inches away from the rolling material; he'd barely managed to stop himself from slamming an angry hand down.

It was obvious that someone had made their move!

Of all times to interfere, it had to be when their team was the furthest away they could be from their shuttle? When their supplies have mostly been depleted, and with their main ship's captain and heavy hitters conveniently absent? To have them split up and stretched so thinly, if this wasn't their plan—no, if this wasn't their entire plan—then Khylon would eat his left shoe.

With the comms still open, he said; "Don't worry about those of us on the surface. Enter the leap!" Or, in other words: get the f*ck outta there.

Regardless of who was to blame for this entire thing—whether the Solar Empire and his own kingdom were working with one another or not—Khylon unsurprisingly wanted to keep the casualties for this whole incident as low as possible.

Even if that meant fleeing like a supposed 'coward'.

{'Sir?!'} {'That's—'} {'We can't leave you!'} {'Captain, no!'}

Multiple voices overlapped each other as they rushed to object. With bloodshot eyes flickering to an icon in the corner, Khylon noticed that these voices all came from the team left up on the main ship.

"Enough!" He barked, muting all their mics apart from one. "Sousuke, you want to graduate, don't you?!" There was a split second of silence before a quiet 'yes' came from the only intern whose application he had accepted.

"Then get my crew the hell out of there!"

To be honest, Khylon was more mad that it had taken him this long to realize he'd been set up than he was at the incident even happening in the first place; He had long known what kind of people mingled within the Army segment of the Galactic Union. The entire organisation, at its core, was simply an entanglement of politics.

For a while now, the tension had been building between him and other 'camps'. Not nearly enough of these soldiers and Generals were half as 'honourable' and 'brave' as their military department liked to advertise.

Khylon bared his teeth in a grin that was practically feral.

No one said anything. The majority of his crew knew when they could push and pull. But now that he had put his foot down, they knew that there was no use in arguing their captain's decision.

That and none of them actively practiced insubordination.

{'Understood, sir! Lea..leap sequence initiated!'}, came the somewhat breathless reply. It was Sousuke. He was, after all, the only one who currently had access to the ship's warp engines and control of the navigation systems. Normally, one person wouldn't be in control of both functions; the other person who did was down on the ground. It was a bit awkward to do single handedly but.. Sousuke had to have some kind of special skill for Khylon to let him on board, right?

Right.

However, in the sparse moments before the ship was set the launch— 'Uncle!'

Khylon heard them before a fuzzy face was seen on his screen. The slight downward slant of her eyes; the deep furrow of her 'brow. They were reminiscent of his own.

'Uncle, you're—…co..me back—.. Right?!'

The connection was iffy, which was understandable seeing as her EVOS was still stabilizing. It was why she was even aboard his ship, so he could walk her through controlling it; spatial-orientated skills were always a pain to master on ones own.

Khylon just happened to be a special case because he—

Taking pity on her, despite all his instincts telling him it was a bad decision, Khylon located the empty space her Skill was trying to fill in order to connect to his monitors much like he did with those outside the range of normal communication devices. However, now that he was the dominant one of the space, he could control all that were in it. Namely, his niece's ability to transmit any sound.

He cut her voice.

"Rule number four," Khylon mercilessly said in the face of her bewilderment, "Don't jump to the end of a space and announce your arrival before you've finished constructing your path!" Immediately, he could see his niece open her mouth to say something—anything—but she couldn't.

If Khylon were a lesser man then he might've apologized the moment he saw her tearful eyes and wobbling lips.

As it stands, he wasn't.

Khylon stayed silent as her tears finally fell from her eyes. The realization seemed to have hit her that there was a high possibility the two of them were never going to see one another again.

"This is your last lesson, Emarellia." Khylon announced, not having the courage to look her in the eye. "You're a Galdiun so trust your instincts — a space tells you all there is to it the moment you touch it."

Her eyebrows scrunch up as a fresh set of tears drip off her chin. He nods to her, musters up the brightest grin he can manage, and for the first time since the beginning of this entire interaction, he meets her gaze. "See ya later, kid!"

At the last second she manages to push through and yell a distraught, 'Uncle, wai—!'

But it was too late.

With the decisiveness of a man prepared to die, Khylon permanently cuts the signal by collapsing the space so neither of them could use that channel again. Knowing the extent of his niece's skill, the only way for them to contact the other was if he initiated it.

And like hell was he going to do that.

He sucked in a sharp breath as his face went blank. Any vulnerability was deemed as a distraction, and on the battlefield, there was no room for tears or other such bothersome emotions.

"Switch your systems to priority use only!" Khylon barked at his remaining team members once the main ship had safely left orbit and the surrounding galaxy. "We're going full manual!"

Now, neither party could afford for the group down here on the surface's exact location to be discovered. If there were indeed hostiles above them, no matter how skilled Khylon and his team were, none could go against the force of an entire ship's array of weapons. So it was better to erase that possibility entirely by going completely dark.

But that also meant if they were discovered regardless, that no help would be coming.

It was, at this point, a risk they would have to take.

At his orders, various groans and weak protests sounded throughout the local comms.

['Boss, why…'] ['Please—! Anything but that, captain!?'] ['I can't do it! My fingers are too cold!']

With a dramatic roll of his eyes, the leader of this squadron halted and said; "who raised you b*stards?" And then took the opportunity to fire a few warning shots at the feet of their mechas before they could recover from his abrupt stop. "Children should do as they're told!"

..what? He never said he wasn't a b*stard himself.

['Ahh!'] ['Sh*t, the real boss has come out!'] ['Fuc—!']

Not once did the complaints and cries of this team quieten. However, what little light shone from each person's mechas had disappeared without a trace. This could only be due to the systems changing operations.

In the distance, the sun sinks beneath the horizon.

Khylon finally relaxed with a satisfied nod. His team had always been a little rowdy, but they listened when it counted, and anyway — he wasn't exactly a conventional captain so it would make sense for his subordinates to not be either.

"Let's go!"

Now in the cover of complete darkness, they silently forged on.