P.S: Rest in peace to the legendary Peter Cullen, whose unmistakable voice shaped generations of childhoods.
"Above all, do not lament my absence. For in my Spark, I know that this is not the end. But merely, a new beginning. Simply put, another transformation."
General Silae stared down at the tactical sandtable in absolute silence.
The defensive plan aimed at preserving their operational strength had not been drafted by him alone, but by his strategic staff working under his parameters.
Yet no combat model could be built out of nothing; it required solid variables.
Among those metrics, intelligence regarding the enemy forces was always the absolute anchor.
The distribution of forces across the five concentric defense rings had been completely optimized based on their existing files on the Sharkborn legions.
They had calculated the hostiles to be nothing more than basic infantry unversed in high-level tactics, making this sudden atmospheric variant an absolute surprise.
The variance didn't just mean the tactical layout was fracturing; it signaled that more unexpected anomalies could breach their projections down the line.
But the current phase left zero room to penalize the intelligence cells, as routing an immediate counter-measure was their highest priority.
After a brief micro-cycle of calculation, Silae finalized his decision to anchor the first defensive ring along the western sector.
"Your models are accurate. We will reinforce the western perimeter, as we cannot allow the vanguard line to collapse this early."
The surrounding commanders naturally supported the decree with absolute consensus.
However, the calculation of how many divisions to deploy remained highly volatile.
After all, the reports had verified that ordinary infantry stood zero chance against the flying variants of the Sharkborn.
"Deploy our mech assets," Silae commanded sharply.
The mech forces?
The announcement instantly restored the focus of every officer in the room.
Silae's lieutenant, who had been waiting silently behind his terminal, stepped forward to log the command.
"General, which specific mech detachment do we authorize?"
The mech units comprised the absolute elite of the Mindborn military.
While their research syndicates focused heavily on mech weaponry, it did not translate to high deployment rates across the regular legions.
Constrained by severe manufacturing limitations, mech pilots comprised less than one percent of the global military force, scaling to roughly ten thousand active units.
The alloy components required to forge the armor were exceptionally rare, the technical engineering was immensely complex, and the pilot qualification standards were brutally strict.
Out of a global army numbering a million troops, only ten thousand had cleared the filters.
They were the absolute best the empire could field.
"Authorize the Dreadbeast Mech Regiment," Silae ordered, his vocalizers hesitating slightly before cementing the data.
Since he had chosen to commit his mech assets to the field, he would cut through the knot cleanly by deploying one of their strongest hammers.
These heavy units were originally scheduled to anchor the mid-to-late phases of the global war model, but the volatile front lines left him zero choice.
"Right away, General," the lieutenant replied, moving rapidly to transmit the authorization codes.
Once the staff cleared the briefing room, Silae parsed a few more tactical variables with his remaining colonels before dismissing them under the pretext of physical exhaustion.
The sudden shift in variables had severely fractured his absolute confidence, even if calling it total panic was an exaggeration.
The average lifecycle of a Mindborn hovered around one hundred and fifty cycles, and Silae had already cleared his hundredth cycle, marking him as a true elder.
He should have been experiencing a peaceful retirement within the capital city of Menlo, yet an existential crisis had dragged his frame to anchor Tas City.
If the standard mech units were the apex of the imperial military, the Dreadbeast Mech Regiment stood as the absolute crown of that elite force.
To put it plainly, they were the elite among elites.
While they didn't occupy the absolute peak classification of the military, the Dreadbeast regiment easily held a top-tier standing.
Their active numbers were remarkably small, counting only eight hundred pilots in their roster.
Yet every single soldier operated a Type XS-52 heavy mech, universally designated as the Dreadbeast, which gave the regiment its legendary title.
The Type XS-52 operated as a super-heavy mechanized frame, built with a fully enclosed cockpit matrix.
The pilot sat deep within the core structure connecting the helm and upper chest armor, completely insulated from the exterior environment with zero exposed components.
The mechanoid frame was integrated with dual six-axis particle cannons across its arms, backed by a universal automated defense system.
Fusing heavy offensive metrics and thick shielding, it stood as a remarkably balanced implement of warfare.
The moment the activation directive cleared the lieutenant's console, Colonel Niru, the commander of the regiment, strode onto the primary assembly field.
"Man your systems, everyone! We have a live deployment script!"
The soldiers of the Dreadbeast regiment, who had already been maintaining a state of high alert, formed up instantly, showcasing the absolute discipline of a highly trained force.
The thunder of heavy artillery outside the walls had been rattling their sensors for a considerable duration, and they understood their signatures would eventually hit the battlefield, though they hadn't calculated the shift would materialize this rapidly.
A shared realization rippled through their thoughts: the front lines are fracturing far faster than the high command anticipated.
"General Silae has issued our execution orders!" Niru announced.
"Our parameters command an immediate deployment past the gates to reinforce the outermost western ring. We will cooperate with the adjacent defense layers to..."
Niru delivered a rapid overview of the mission variables, completely bypassing any standard motivational speeches before barking his final order.
"Suit up immediately!"
Every mech detachment was backed by a massive logistics support corps that vastly outnumbered the active pilots, tasked purely with securing the armor plates or running maintenance diagnostics.
Supported by rows of engineering technicians, the pilots successfully established a direct neural link with their heavy frames, lining up in tight rows across the central assembly square.
Looking across the formation, hundreds of towering, ice-cold mechanical giants stood in absolute alignment, presenting a terrifying display of military power.
"March!"
Along the western sector of Tas City, the first defensive ring was descending into chaos.
While the other three fronts remained locked in a high-intensity exchange of long-range ballistic fire, the western line had already dissolved into a brutal melee.
"Curse it! Watch the upper vectors!" a Mindborn soldier roared, firing his mag-rail rifle continuously into the sky while shouting to warn his comrades who were still trying to hold off the hostiles outside the trench.
A brief duration ago, the enemy drones sprinting across the plain had suddenly ignited their thrusters, taking flight to close the gap at immense speeds before dropping directly down onto their perimeters.
Caught completely off guard, the defense layers sustained heavy casualties, and numerous Sharkborn drones successfully breached the trenches.
One Mindborn soldier was single-mindedly targeting the hostiles drawing near his parapet when his sensors logged a rapid shadow dropping from above.
He snapped his helm up, his optics registering a dark silhouette expanding over his position.
"Not good!"
Panic throwing his targeting tracking into disarray, the soldier desperately tried to realign his heavy rail gun toward the sky.
Yet his response window had already closed; the moment he lifted the cumbersome frame of his weapon, the massive, disproportionate jaw plates of a Sharkborn drone snapped down over his torso.
A sickening crunch echoed through the trench as the soldier's frame was violently bitten in two, his mag-rail rifle shattered into useless fragments simultaneously.
Thud.
The advanced combat suit engineered to withstand explosive artillery blasts proved as fragile as thin paper before those specialized titanium teeth.
The Sharkborn drone chewed the metal debris carelessly before spitting the fragments onto the ground, ignoring the dark blue fluid splashing across his face armor as he rushed forward to target his next coordinate.
Another Mindborn soldier caught in his reticle refused to retreat, firing his rail gun frantically, yet the kinetic impacts failed to halt the drone's savage momentum.
Within a brief micro-cycle, a secondary defender suffered the exact same deactivation routine.
This was merely a tiny fragment of a sprawling battlefield, yet it perfectly illustrated the wider collapse.
The thousands of drones comprising the Flyshark Legion fully maximized their aerial ambush advantages, securing immediate tactical returns across the line.
Once half of his assault drones had successfully embedded themselves inside the first ring's trenches, Commander Razergill of the Flyshark Legion personally led the remaining reserves to mirror the attack pattern.
Although four secondary defense rings remained active behind this perimeter, the airborne swarm tactics of the Flyshark Legion were virtually impossible to counter without imperial starfighters holding the sky.
Razergill touched down smoothly inside a blood-slicked trench, immediately broadcasting execution commands to purge the remaining pockets of resistance.
Because they feared hitting their own infantry lines, the heavy gun batteries anchoring the secondary rings and concrete pillboxes dared not discharge their payloads into the first trench.
The Sharkborn drones moved like hyper-activated monsters, tearing through the transit corridors, while Razergill paced carelessly through the debris until his optics logged a lone Mindborn soldier.
The defender appeared entirely paralyzed by terror, standing completely still without registering any defensive maneuvers.
Razergill wasted zero time, his facial armor twisting into a cruel grin as he raised his barbed mace-spear.
Zing!
Just as Razergill and the Flyshark drones were executing their slaughter script, the massive western gates of Tas City suddenly groaned open, followed by a monumental, earth-shaking rumble.
The intensity of the rhythmic stomping easily drowned out the surrounding rattle of gunfire and concussive artillery blasts echoing across the plains.
Within the fifth defensive ring closest to the city walls, numerous Mindborn soldiers subroutinely turned their helms toward the source, their pupils contracting before a massive wave of cheers erupted across the lines.
"Our mech units have entered the field!"
Every citizen throughout the empire understood that the mech corps represented their ultimate trump card.
Their comrades had survived the calculation!
The sudden shift in variables quickly captured Razergill's focus, and he cleared the trench rim to scan the coordinates leading toward the city.
Matching his movement, multiple Sharkborn drones shifted their optics toward the open gates.
Hundreds of towering mechanical juggernauts were pouring out of the western threshold, every unit maintaining their dual arms perfectly level, the barrels of their heavy cannons tracking the field like dark voids.
An ordinary Sharkborn drone stood just over three meters tall, and even Razergill cleared a metric of three and a half meters, yet they were severely outscaled by the massive silhouettes of the approaching mechs.
"The Mindborn mechs!" Razergill muttered, his facial plates showing zero trace of panic as his predatory grin widened.
His databases indicated that this primitive planetary empire placed its absolute trust in its heavy mechanized divisions, meaning his first wave had driven them to commit their ultimate assets early.
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