Darlene sat in the cockpit, the infinite mass of the universe splayed out in front of her. Countless stars, a cosmos full of wonder and mystery, beautiful enough to lose herself in but far enough that she’d never quite reach it. Nobody in the Sol system would; jump technology had proven to be a dead end last year. Now, all 30.8 billion of humanity was in orbit around their mother star, the beautiful goddess. 

A quick glance at her starboard side would show a pale, blue dot, from this distance barely a speck of dust. Home, or at least, homeland. Polluted, yes, mostly water, yes, unlivable? Hopefully not forever, once Res Publica was gone. But for now, there was a reason that most of the scattered humanity lived on O’Neill Stations and the belt. 

A quick series of beeps made Darlene’s heart skip. Message from the captain: wake the fuck up and stay alert, they were being inspected. Not much else to go on, as it was radio silent until the attack signal was given. Not even generators for the frames were up, they were running on the 24 hours of life support until their standby shifts were over. Her frame - she hadn’t been running with this crew long enough to have it named - was situated on the hull of the merchant vessel PLS Messe. She was a trader in name only; in reality, she was a heavily armed raider with a half sized squadron of armed frames. 

Messe’ s job, in the scattered and organized alliance of pirate fleets that Darlene barely considered a “rebellion”, was simple: she was a q-ship. It was a pre DigiCal era idea that somebody above her station had read in an old tome; a supposed merchant vessel, really a battleship in disguise, designed to lure out Publica forces and sink them. The two previous engagements Darlene had been part of, Incident PE-84120 and PE-84222, were simple maneuvers that had been over in minutes. The routine was straightforward: let the Publica ship get close after she notices a mundane signaling violation, flood the area with Tomino particles and jam outgoing coms to blind and mute the target, launch, get the booty, and detonate explosive packs on thrusters to prevent any sort of chase. Not a scratch on anyone.

Darlene brought up an optical view from one of the scout drones the Messe kept around her to keep an eye on the Publica ship. She wasn’t much larger than Messe ; if she was remembering her spotting guide right, that was a Feles class, a cruiser typically meant to orbit carriers. Nothing to worry about; no frame compliment and drone anti-fighter was easy to get around. She must have broken off from the larger fleet to pursue; thank the goddess for whatever commodore was gifted a commission from their uncle to allow such a stupid fucking decision. Darlene was about to take a sip from a protein pack when another, much worse beep sounded from the console. She checked the optical view again: three tiny dots were moving out from the cruiser. They launched mobile frames. 

Public caught onto their game.

Darlene hit the generator on her frame, and, not even waiting for a system check, launched off the Messe and into the void. She already knew her loadout: autoflak on the shoulder mounts for incoming smart-rocket fire, flare if those fail on the back. In her manipulators was a raider classic: the old fashioned autocannon, non explosive ammo. Her frame would do most of the aiming and calculations on that girl; Darlene was here to keep the frame in one piece and pull the trigger. 

Messe had already started flooding the region with Tomino particles, so LIDAR was about to go down. No long range engagement here, this was a gunfight. She was close enough that a scout drone was already warning her of a lock on attempt from one of the enemies; Legionnaire type, standard shield and rifle, standard grey on black livery. Darlene had piloted one before her defection; they were easy prey. She started the spin on her autocannon a second before she was in effective range of  the Legionaire’s rifle, and, the moment she was informed of a lock onto her frame, hit the burners on a hard shift to port and a thrust on the retrogrades. The Legionnaire was out of position, but Darlene was in. She fired.

The first shot to hit the Legionnaire was in the shield, which sent it tumbling head over heels. The second was into the back and left a hole, straight through. The pilot was already dead; a scout drone showed a fine, red icy mist hovering coming out of the impact site. The third and fourth were the shoulders, and the fifth impacted the rifle. A spark from the magazine must have hit the internals, and the Legionnaire’s arm was torn clean off from the explosion. 

First kill of the day. She got to pick the liquor when they got back to the hideout.

Another pip made her check rear cameras. Something else had locked onto her; Darlene burst forward, starting the chase. She needed to get around and start hitting the cruiser; if she could do enough damage to their mothership, she’d be able to get the pilots to stand down. She tried to give an auto ping with her plans to the rest of the squad, but there wasn’t any acknowledgement. Shit. Darlene checked another scout drone; the two remaining Legionnaires were headed her way, and she didn’t see any of her squadron. Bad. She could pick off a loner that had gotten too far ahead, but two on her tail wasn’t going to be good. She killed the idea of attacking the mothership; that would just lead her to the same fate as the one she killed. She had to get back to Messe. 

It would be a minute to get in range of Messe’ s anti-air weapons to give her some safety, and her autoflaks would get her to help with any anti-ship missiles the two Publica troops were carrying. Darlene knew that a minute on her own was pushing it far more than she would have liked, so she jettisoned the remaining life support to clear out any mass. It would be less than five minutes until she began to suffocate. She did another check over of the two on her tail, and her heart sank. One of the Legionnaires was just like the one she took out, rifle and board. But the other…

The other had a red stripe along the torso, and was moving three times faster than the other. 

There she was. Robin Cassia, Rubrum Stella. The Red Star of Res Publica. Robin sank the Balena. Robin held the current record for most frames shot down without assistance at 19. Robin was on every propaganda and recruitment poster for the Res Publica Navy. Even most of the motley crew of weirdos on Messe admired her, Robin once heard of a woman having a model kit of her Legionnaire on the flight deck. 

For a moment, Darlene achieved peace. She was going to die. Die in service of fighting fascism yes, but die. All thoughts and regrets left her body and mind, the thought of seeing her sisters again giving her a candle’s worth of warmth, before an animalistic urge fought its way to the top. Like hell she was going down. She was killing the Red Star. She hit the trigger on the autocannon, but Robin went vertical, high enough that Darlene had to adjust her facing to even keep her in view. Barrels were getting hot, so she had to disengage, and started going with the flak instead. A hit was a hit when traveling this fast. Robin instead went further down, out of the flak’s arc and further below, before u-ing up underneath. 

Gun overheated. Flak out of position. There was only one weapon left. 

Darlene charged downard, keeping her flaks aimed vertically to keep the other Legionnaire distant. This was a terrible idea in most circumstances, but the only real option here until Robin’s corpse was floating in space or she was in range of Messe’ s anti-air. She predicted Robin’s first shots with the rifle, banking to starboard and angling her thrusters to keep gaining speed towards her. Then, she angled the frame’s feet towards Robin and prayed. 

There was a crunch, that of metal on metal, as the frame’s leg cracked and compressed, shattering to uselessness. That was a dead thruster, yes, but with the way the Red Star was sent careening and spinning into the void of space, it wouldn’t matter too much in the long run. Robin’s frame’s manipulator’s had failed, and the rifle she was holding was going in a different direction. The leg was unimportant; salvage and repair could yell at her when she got back but killing Robin fuckin Cassia was more important. She kept an eye on the second legionnaire and, with a mostly cooled barrel, started the autocannon again. 

And missed.

The Red Star took a quick dart back upwards, same as before. Darlene was in disbelief. There was no way that she was able to move that fast. There was no way Robin was able to recover that fast. Darlene tried to do some quick calculations: g-forces, the impact, airbags causing concussions. None of it made sense. Robin should have been a brain dead corpse in a disabled frame.

Robin Cassia was just that good. 

The autocannon was overheating but Darlene didn’t care. She kept going, and Robin kept flying. The cannon’s barrels began to warp and twist, and eventually shells ripped through the slag that was once an autocannon. Darlene tossed it aside, right before the ammunition ignited. The shockwave sent her portward, and she angled herself fully towards Robin. Fuck the other Legionnaire; she’d deal with them later. She fired her flaks, hoping for at least one hit, but Robin once again hit the parabola arc underneath, right towards Darlene’s Frame. 

The last thing Darlene heard was the sickening crunch of metal on metal.

It was an uneasy step down from the frame for Robin Cassia. Months of VR retraining and physical therapy after the Messe incident, but she wasn’t used to the effect of real g-forces. Her Legionnaire had become a ghost to her, a cold unfeeling machine, rather than the comforting lover she had once been. 

Robin looked up at her lover, her body in the void of space. The Legionnaire was a mass manufactured frame, Publica’s bright face in a dark solar system. Like all frames, it was humanoid, 8 meters tall and equipped with the standard lancer rifle and oval steel composite shield. It had a hexagonal chest, with two large thrusters on the back and scattered maneuver thrusters scattered across the arms and legs. The chest cockpit was opened, the many monitors inside powered down. Its head was a dome, with a slight incline down around all areas except where the eye met. That was a single stalk, jutting out from the head that, when the frame was active, glowed a bright yellow. Robin’s Legionnaire, though armed to the standard, wasn’t built to it. To the casual observer, it was identical outside of the red stripe up the side of the torso and the star on the shield. 

But to those in the know, inside she was a different beast: high tech g-difusers, state of the art thrusters, and a generator twice the output of the Amuro-type. The high mobility model, the woman with fantastic arms had called it back when she first got promoted. Only for the best. 

Robin was the best. She had to be.

A snap of a camera lens turned Robin’s attention away. Her frame had become cold and unfeeling, but the public sure wasn’t. Station Commander Julius Lecke had called the press corps in to see the grand revival of the Red Star, ace of Publica fleet, hero of Side 2, sinker of the Balena. The Messe incident had caused a stir amongst the Publica public: she was the best the Publica had to offer. What chance did the civilized peoples of the solar system have if some pirate had knocked her into retirement? That’s why Robin wanted to get back into the cockpit as soon as possible. She refused the Honorable Discharge for injury, which would have come with her service debt paid off. The world was dangerous, with every step outside of the colony one into a pit of black, illuminated by only distant stars. Publica had chosen Robin to be a hero, so she had to be.

Another camera snap took Robin out of her thoughts, and she turned back to the press corps. She knew what they wanted. While on the ladder, she pointed a finger-gun at one of the reporters, gave a quick wink, and snapped her finger back as if firing. 

There was a quick cheer from the non-press civilians gathered round. Civilization loved a hero. When she hopped off the ladder, two MPs quickly got to her side to keep reporters and fans away. The journalists tried to shout over the noise of the hanger and the public.

“How did it feel getting back in the cockpit?”

“Like I was never gone!” Robin said. A lie. She had never felt more isolated.

“Any further issues?”

“Jack shit!” Robin said. Another lie. Every night the Messe incident haunted her dreams. The sound of metal on metal, the air rushing out the cockpit, every alarm blaring at once before the generator shut down.

“Marry me!”

Robin stopped for a second, the two MPs bumping into her back. They didn’t seem to mind. She looked out into the crowd; a non-press civvy was holding up a sign, a thick red line leading to a star, the cartoonish, five pointed kind. It didn’t look anything like the crimson compass rose stenciled onto the Legionnaire shield, but Robin found it charming. She was a younger woman, just out of Collegio and a bright look in her eyes and fashionably plump. As part of station rules, her hair was kept in a bun, but Robin could see that her red-dyed hair would have gone down to the shoulders.

Another reason Robin elected to go back rather than get discharged. Perk of being a hero. 

Robin turned to look directly at the woman, gave a smirk, and reached into a pocket of her flight suit. She pulled out a pair of oversized aviators and, in one motion, put them on, all without breaking eye contact from across the hanger. Robin gave a finger gun, a quick “call me motion”, and didn’t even look to see how the woman reacted. It was practically a signature of hers; when the press corps snapped a photo of her after the Battle of Side 2, it was that exact pose. It’s what the people wanted. 

Robin had just gotten out of the hanger and into the personnel only hallway when another person spoke up behind her. 

“I’m glad to see your lechery has returned to you as well. I was worried we had accidentally left out that part of your brain.”

Robin already knew who it was, but turned around anyway, beaming. 

“And I’m shocked you let them keep that part of my brain in, Doc.”

Doctor Leta Cinna was an older woman, in her mid 50s, and if she wasn’t helping treat Robin there was a strong chance that their relationship would no longer be considered professional. Leta had a sharp face, the type intimidating to most, but only on the surface. Years of stress in operating rooms and battlefields taking her locs from a deep black to an almost silver. 

When Robin came back from a coma, head split open and barely conscious from morphine and muscle relaxers, Leta was the first person she saw. Robin was convinced that her chaplain was right, that the sun favored those who died for the Publica, because she was convinced that she was staring into the Goddess’s face at that very moment. When Robin was transferred to Vallum station, Doctor Cinna came with. She had become so involved with Robin’s treatment that simply transferring the files over to the on station medical officer could have been disastrous. 

It didn’t hurt that Cinna spent her off time as an unlicensed bartender and had a damn good stock of earthborne liquor. 

“And if I recall,” Cinna continued, "your immediate order after docking was to come to my office to see how g-forces would affect your continued healing.”

Robin gave a quick sigh. “Yeah. Yeah no worries, doc, everything up here’s good. Don’t feel jack shit.”

Leta giggled. It was a beautiful thing, to watch a woman of that age have a laugh so girlish. Robin’s heart jumped, just a beat. “Just because you admit to being brainless doesn’t mean that Commander Lecke’s orders suddenly vanish.”

Robin held up her hands in defeat. “Anything that gets me flying again, doc.”

The two entered a small elevator and, when they reached Layer 5, Robin followed the doctor. In truth, the examination room wasn’t too different from the other one Robin had been treated in. Bulwark style stations were mass manufactured after all; the inside of one matched the inside of all. The main difference here was a large mirror on the back wall; unusual, yes, but not too difficult to install. Leta had already started loading up the tablet with the exam questions, so Robin paced a bit. It was bad form, yes, and a member of the Publica Navy should know well to have learned to keep still and be quiet, yes. The part of Robin’s brain that lit up when she was in the line of fire and had to dodge or die was screaming at her. Run. 

That’s normal, right? Pre-doc jitters. Happens to the best of us. 

There was a droning, one that Robin hadn’t noticed. The air filters, maybe. Some junior tech hadn’t gotten around to swapping. Had to be. Robin wandered towards the mirror. They were luxuries in orbit, something not seen out of officer’s quarters. Too fragile for space travel. It had been a while since she’d been allowed to really look in one, not a screen with a facing camera. It was her in the mirror; the colony born pale and peroxide blonde hair slicked back with a double undercut, the scar on her right cheek after a training accident, the kind of blue eyes that the oceans on Homeworld used to be. The kind of butch heartbreaker that women would over to light her cigarettes. 

Robin blinked. 

Those weren’t her eyes.

She needed to get out. Her body was screaming, but Robin’s body refused to move. Someone else was looking at her, she knew, not just Leta but a ghost. Something had died here, something that refused to leave. Robin tried to breathe, the exercises she had been taught since basic, but instead gave a large gulp of air. Leta was calling her name, at first with confusion, then concern. Robin couldn’t move. The nerves in her body lit up with orders but all she could do was stare at the ghost in the mirror. 

A hand grabbed Robin’s shoulder and turned her around, and the world went dark.