SDF: Dark Front - Chapter 1 
SS Stellar Conveyor
Near Luna
January 10, 0120 R.C.
Visible was the glimmer of Luna in the nightened void of space, its unfinished orbital ring half-encompassing Plateia’s solitary moon.
Beautiful as it was barren, its surface was pockmarked by the scars of Mankind’s excess. Surface-side stations, vast lunar railways and sprawling mines coalesced into a constellation of lights across the lunar farside, a lasting testament to Man’s ingenuity.
Luitenant Andries van Orthen observed the selenian pearl from the comfort of his stateroom in anticipation of the inevitable. Soon, the moon would become a warzone and he would be a soldier upon its battlefield.
Certainly, he’d bloodied his hands before—the cockpit of an HGG-04 Vegter A being something he knew better than his own home—but never in an affair of this scale. Even now, every surface of the cockpit’s spherical space was practically etched into his mind, the form of the Vegter itself an extension of his body.
To Andries’ surprise, however, the terrible prospect of war with the Coalition of Congressional Nations wasn’t what worried him most while he clutched a crucifix. He wasn’t much of a faithful man, yet, from his bedside, he knelt for a brief prayer.
“O Soter, Great Son of God, have mercy on Thy servant.”
Andries didn’t remember many prayers growing up as a child, but of all of them, this formulaic recitation was the easiest to recall. Many times he’d heard it whispered from his mother’s lips, an otherwise minor thing that stuck out to him at a moment like this. He sincerely hoped the violence to come would be short-lived—and all would be right by the summer’s solstice. Yet Andries knew it was a naive expectation; parroted only by the most brash of fools and most shortsighted of generals.
Hawkish leaders had argued: this was mere “preemptive” action in the face of inevitable conflict. Whether or not the allied leaders of the newly-established Sovereign Compact would keep their word, however, he couldn’t say. Still, he held hope that it would go no further than it needed to, for his own sake, that of both sides, and of the innocent.
Andries stashed the cross into an empty pouch strapped to his uniform, reluctant to relinquish it completely. Part of him felt foolish worrying this much, though another part felt more confident going into this with a bit of faith—and some liquid courage. Standing upright, he sought out the nightstand, reaching for the whiskey bottle and shot glass that sat atop its wooden surface.
For a modified civilian vessel, artificial gravity was one of the more welcome amenities the Stellar Conveyor boasted, rotating centrifuges beneath the external protective armor layer maintaining the vessel’s interior amenities near 1g—just enough for simple luxuries, like keeping drinks comfortably anchored atop surfaces.
As Andries heartily downed his whiskey, he silently hoped it would be enough to steel himself against any further doubts. But as soon as the burning sensation eased itself into his chest, the crackle of the PA echoed throughout the halls of the ship.
“All mobile fencer pilots, report to the launch bay.”
Andries was already clad in his Grensland Defense Force-issue pilot’s suit, its hi-vis orange contrasting with layers of dark grey fabrics, polymers and other manufactured materials. All he needed was his matching full-face helmet, hung up for him on a rack right beside the doorway; he grabbed it on the way out without further hesitation.
Stationed in the adjoining rooms were the other pilots of his unit, the 7th Independent Squadron, one of the first Compact units independent of its member states’ chain of command. They too had answered the call with haste, forming up on each other as they walked through the Stellar Conveyor’s nexus of corridors.
They marched in utter radio silence, the ship crew stepping aside to make room as they passed them by. They knew better than to get in their way—the urgency of their mission was something everyone was painstakingly aware of.
It wasn’t until later, when they were standing clear of all the foot traffic, that one of the four pilots would try to break the painfully awkward silence.
“We’ve got the element of surprise. This’ll be a piece of cake!” Second Lieutenant Li Qingyan’s confidence was almost admirable. She stood out from the others in all aspects: doe-brown eyes, smooth black hair, petite, slender, attractive… and Kunlunese, from the eponymous collection of L4 space colonies liberated by Grensland the year before. Her energy and spirited attitude reflected well on that people’s fierce sense of freedom; her presence, a symbol of the unit’s function—the 7th’s acceptance of skilled pilots from anywhere in the newly-established, international Sovereign Colonies Compact. She was, nonetheless, a ‘rookie’, a natural consequence when most Kunlunese were outpaced by their Grenslander allies through raw experience.
“Never underestimate your enemy, odjôsang,” a baritone rebuke came from under the impressive mustache of Kaptein Marinus Jager, the unit leader. “That kind of attitude gets people killed.”
Through the seasoned warrior’s stern mentorship of Qingyan, Andries was served a bitter reminder: never underestimate the “golden boy” with his absurd mahogany brown sideburns and otherwise jovial attitude again. He bit his tongue.
“Y-yes sir…” Qingyan answered his reprimands with a pout.
To ease his mind, Andries’ attention shifted to the woman beside him: Luitenant Gisela Swarthout.
“What do you say we keep score, hm? Think you’ll still do better outside of your beloved combat sims?” he taunted. His frontline experience in the Vasatian Wars was of little help in the face of Generaal Richard Hendrik Swarthout’s daughter. Her youthful looks, despite their time in that war, reminded well of the advantages she had over him.
“I have no intention of entertaining your silly games,” the blonde nag shot ice from her bright blue eyes. He’d had drill instructors taller, yet less stringent than her.
“I take it you fear being outperformed, then?” he quipped.
“You would better address that tone of yours, Van Orthen,” Gisela snapped in turn, meriting a chuckle from Andries.
“That’ll be enough, both of you.” whether Andries imagined the Kaptein softening his tone, he couldn’t tell.
“Y-Yes sir. My apologies,” the other blonde was quick to readjust to humorless neutrality.
“Sir… yes sir.” Andries stacked his voice away in his throat, neither remorseful nor willing to endure the Kaptein in his business mode. He knew better than to keep antagonizing the leader’s pet.
The corridor had led them to a pair of automatic doors that opened to reveal the hangar. Their mobile fencers awaited them, composite halcyonite armor bathed in the golden hue of the overhead lights. While others slipped their helmets on, so did Andries, as he leapt over to his HGG-04 Vegter A.
It was a humble machine compared to the far more potent, heavier HGG-06 Verpletterer A fencers operated by Qingyan and Marinus—often given the shorthand of Verp by their operators. On the other hand, the Vegter was made for the purpose of mass production, more maneuverable than it was survivable. Nonetheless, it was a potent and capable fighting machine in the hands of the right pilot. Andries, of course, believed himself to be the right kind of pilot.
“Here goes,” was all he thought to himself as he knelt above the mech’s hatch, situated adjacent to its head.
It opened to reveal a ladder leading down, one stop leading to the cockpit and another further below leading into the fusion reactor. He’d done this routine countless times before; it was akin to muscle memory by this point.
The cockpit welcomed him, the spherical arrangement of monitors offering a near-360 compound view of the machine’s surroundings, sourced from the mech’s head optical suite and various arrays of small cameras situated across the fencer’s body. It was a redundancy when accounting for the wireless brain-computer neural link shared between a pilot and his fencer’s systems, but it was nevertheless a fallback option if necessary.
Behind him, next to the door, was a wall-mounted Springbok R23 radio that he installed himself. The press of a button would get it booted up, and send Andries into a pleasant rhythm as he walked over to the center of the space—a large, ceiling-mounted mechanical arm supporting a harness that allowed for motion simulation in tandem with the fencer’s own movements.
His suit’s backpack connected to the hardpoint at the end of the supporting mechanical arm, which would serve as the metaphorical bridge between the sea of information flowing through the Vegter and his helmet’s wireless brain-computer interface.
Getting strapped in was easy. Next came hooking up the injector tubes to specific points along his suit’s wrist sections. When the situation demanded, they fed a cocktail of combat stimulants to the pilot. It boosted one’s reflexes, attention span and response speed exponentially.
Powering up his Vegter, Andries was greeted by the logo of the fencer’s proprietary Berghaan operating system as every screen in the cockpit came alive, bathing in white the previously dimly-lit space and quickly drowning away the faint red lights of the Vegter’s auxiliary power.
Then kicked in the synchronization—and, after a moment, Andries felt his perception expand beyond his own body. He could perceive through each camera across his Vegter, nodes across his suit delivering sensory stimuli. Looking down at the machine’s hands, he moved them as if they were his own. In a sense, they were.
“Sealing hangar. Depressurization imminent,” said the voice on the PA.
Spinning red beacon-lights filled the hangar space as the overhead illumination cut out, the Vegter’s UI showing a steady decrease in atmosphere.
“Grab your weapons,” Marinus reminded the unit. “We've got a fireworks show waiting for us.”
Not needing to be told twice, Andries reached for the arsenal of weapons stacked beside his fencer. He selected the OKG-16 electrothermal-chemical assault cannon, raising it before his Vegter as he briefly inspected the oversized rifle. Chambered in 105mm, the primary weapon for the Compact’s fencers was ever-reliable, as he had found many times before.
While the unit finished readying themselves, the chamber completed its depressurization. A loud, weighty CLUNK followed as the doors opened beneath the grouping of fencers. Floating out of the confines of the Stellar Conveyor, they were welcomed by the weightlessness of space, with their Q-ship continuing on past them.
“Operation Egret has commenced.”
Marinus’ words were enough to bring Andries to attention. “Swarthout, you’re with me. Van Orthen, you’ll be handling the southern perimeter with Li.”
“Yes, sir,” Gisela responded.
“Got it, sir,” said Andries.
Looking to his right, he saw Qingyan’s Verp drift over to his side, guided by its ample suite of thrusters.
“I’m a little nervous, it’s my first time…” Qingyan spoke over the comm. “You’ll keep me covered, right?”
Andries chuckled nervously. “Uh, you’re the one with the stronger mech.”
Breaking formation with the rest of the unit, they persisted in their drop towards the lunar surface, making for the southern perimeter. From the other Q-ships, one could see the descent of more forces bringing themselves down upon the city of Trevelyan, adjacent to their own objective.
The mass drivers of Luna were a priority in their own right, but there was additional purpose to their action. For them, it was not solely the strategic position that was the mass driver, but rather, what was due to take off from it: a shuttle possessing special cargo—it would be in the Compact’s interests to guarantee it never took flight.
“Commence suppressive action. Load long-range ammunition,” instructed Marinus. Targets were fed to them by the passing Q-ships—presenting a broad array of various radars, as well as missile and ballistics-based point defense systems.
The magazine slotted comfortably into his assault cannon. With the pull of a trigger, he’d fired away the first of the guided nuclear shaped charge rounds, called “c-lances” in their jargon. The detonations lit up the void, casting down beams of pure energy at their targets. With the entire unit firing at once, it was akin to a lights show.
Half of their targets had been eviscerated in the span of a second. Those far enough to not be melted away were rendered useless by the accompanying electronic disruption, throwing the enemy into complete disarray.
The lunar surface was even closer now. A quick mag swap on the way down was in order, c-lances for APFSDS.
“You ready for this, Tweede Luitenant?” Andries questioned, briefly looking over to his partner’s fighting machine.
“Y-yes!” Qingyan affirmed. Her anxiety was palpable, but so too was her excitement.
“Good.”
Already, Andries quietly braced himself for the jolt of the coming landing. He’d never been to Luna beyond simulation battles. His Vegter’s thrusters slowed the pace of his descent, followed by a slight thud as the fencer’s feet met the rocky surface.
Audiovisual stimuli pointed his attention to his UI’s radar feed. They had stirred the hornet’s nest; the first Coalition MF-01 Titans were already being hastily deployed from facilities unravaged by the devastating first strike.
The first shots darted across the lunar horizon, round impacts ejecting clusters of rock into the void. Even with the absence of sound, the constant influx of data was enough to keep Andries critically aware of incoming fire. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, his maneuvers agile as he sought cover from the deluge of sabots.
The stimulant cocktail pumping through his bloodstream made this skirmish something of a dance—he could almost feel his grip tighten on the OKG-16 in the Vegter’s hands.
A volley of return-fire on his part was followed swiftly by a bright flash in the distance, the eruption catapulting molten metal and scrap skywards. One of the Titans had been split in half by the destruction of its fusactor, leaving little more than the fragments of a lifeless mechanical husk in the low-grav environment.
The shock of it bought time, Andries supposed, as a shot from Qingyan’s fencer staggered their enemies further. The blast had cast a veritable tempest of shrapnel and micro-debris in the enemy’s direction, driving some of the Titans to hastily dart away from the environmental hazard.
A crater shared between him and Qingyan served as a momentary respite, allowing for a plot to be hatched. Above, still incoming fire pelted the pockmarked surface, keeping up a steady stream of suppressive fire.
“Four of them,” Qingyan reported.
“We’ll handle it,” assured Andries. “Launch decoys!”
From shoulder-mounted pods, both fencers fired away a swarm of decoys, hyper-maneuverable in the absence of gravity. The distraction warranted pause from their enemy, bright tracers filling the void as shoulder-mounted coilgun CIWS engaged the airborne radar presences.
With little hesitation, Andries rocketed his Vegter out of cover. While being above the field of battle left him vulnerable, it also gave him a birds-eye view on all beneath him. Even as the first few sabots whizzed past, he’d already managed a good kill, shifting downward into a nimble dive.
The shot in question, as he’d glimpsed in the moments before his maneuver, had pierced the head of one of the Titans. Penetrating downward, the round had ignited the thruster fuel of the enemy fencer and incinerated the doomed pilot within.
As Andries pitched upward to rise from the dive, Qingyan joined him in his steadfast assault upon the enemy, two shots of her 155mm assault cannon eliminating the remaining two in quick succession. The fighting machines were reduced to fiery coffins, standing idle as they burned from the inside-out.
The two fencer pilots touched down, opting to conserve fuel. Warning indicators quickly occupied Andries’ attention, as a pair of Titans leapt over to respond to the attacks. He fired sabots while the enemy was airborne, downing one instantly and sending the other crashing uselessly upon the surface.
Its arms were mangled beyond any effective ability to open fire, tubing and torn cables dangling freely from shattered joints. The rifle had exploded in its hands, effectively disabling much of its fighting capability. The damaged machine’s pilot was unwilling to go quietly, however, as the wrecked Titan veered its shoulder-mounted CIWS in Andries’ direction.
Qingyan’s reaction was swift, and before Andries could even respond to the sudden sounding of warning klaxons, she’d already put a round through the Titan’s shattered figure, eruptions of molten scrap surging from its back in turn. One final death rattle emanated from its failing joints, kicking up a plume of lunar regolith.
Andries looked back and offered a nod through his Vegter. “You almost make it look easy, rookie. Let’s keep moving.”
His attention shifted to their surroundings as he reloaded, noting their position. The spot where they’d landed had been an optimal one. Just ahead of them, the half-melted remnants of a phased-array radar station stood at the edge of a massive crater, where the mass driver resided. At the start of the fifteen kilometer-long track was its station, their objective.
Below, in the crater, the forms of Coalition MF-01 Titans and anti-armor troops clad in EVA hardsuits were beginning to manifest across the various facilities situated along the crater-basin, the enemy forces being roused to alertness while they still reeled from the initial spree of attacks.
“Five of them!” Qingyan called out.
“You know what to do!”
Any more waiting would’ve been counterproductive on their part. Two of the fencers below staggered back as they were felled by the 155mm rounds, Qingyan backing away to reload. Andries followed her attack with a decoy swarm, firing away from the crater’s edge.
Two down, the last of the five decapitated, left reeling without its primary optical suite. As the infantry on the ground scrambled to ready their ATGM launchers and lock on, a spray of 25mm cannon fire erupted from Andries’ Vegter. It spewed forth a cascade of rounds that pounded the regolith, obliterating Coalition troops where they stood. Leaping down as the klaxons alerted him of enemy tracking, Andries opened fire with his cannon once more.
The engagement was brutal, the difference in training between the Coalition garrison and the Compact special force more than apparent. Warning klaxons sounded as an anti-tank guided missile was launched, desperate infantrymen on the ground scrambling for cover as the 25mm cannons came blazing once more. The approach of the missile was unfathomably fast—even with its intercept by the Vegter’s coilgun CIWS, it still pelted shrapnel and micro-debris in Andries’ direction, something even his swift maneuvers could not deter at this range.
Audiovisual warnings directed Andries’ attention to his fighting machine’s right shoulder, revealing hundreds of tiny scrap fragments embedded into the metamaterial armor, one of the decoy launchers disabled by the damage sustained.
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath. That could’ve gone far worse.
A spree of shots from above would finish off the decapitated Titan, pelting the lunar battlefield with reactor ejecta. It was their cue to push onwards towards the station, and as they both drew near, a scene of combat became apparent. Compact troops were advancing on the ground, clad in their hardsuits. It seemed the further the Compact drew near, the more harsh and desperate the Coalition defense of the facility grew.
Outside of the enclosed, compressed space of the mass driver station’s amenities was the actual launchpoint, defining the start of the track. Ramps on the side led to the ground, while the launchpoint itself was defined by a number of hangars and a flat area for boarding and cargo loading.
The shuttle was in position at the track’s start, defended to the last by the Coalition troops on the ground, as well as three fencers.
“Pick up the pace, you two!” came a voice on the radio—Marinus. “They’re about to force a launch!”
Andries put a sabot in one as Compact troops advanced up the ramps, the machine practically bisected by its own explosion as its fragments fell to the wayside. Shrapnel and molten metal had pelted the shuttle on its imminent launch, staining its plain white exterior. Still, that did not seem to deter the launch process. As the other Titans turned to face Andries and Qingyan, they suddenly erupted as impacts pierced their far less armored rear sections, fire spitting from joints and hatches as internals came undone.
Yet the relief of rendezvous—and wiping out the remaining enemy forces—was immediately stifled by the bright flash of the shuttle’s thrusters as it was swiftly catapulted down the 15-kilometer stretch of the tracks. Their objective had strictly been to not damage the cargo aboard the shuttle, and thus they were left with nothing they could possibly do in response.
“Bliksem,” Marinus swore under his breath. “they shouldn’t have been ready for another hour!”
“No way for our Q-ships to intercept?” questioned Gisela.
“Not with that speed, not without risking the special target’s destruction. This was a recovery op, not a kill op.”
Another face appeared on the comm, revealing a gruff blonde man wearing a black beret, his face illuminated by the dim glow of a ship’s CIC. Majoor Willem Prinzhoorn, the man responsible for the 4th and 7th Independent Squadrons.
“The ship’s left port, Kaptein. This was not meant to happen.” he said. Their commanding officer sugarcoated nothing in the face of their failure.
“Sir—”
“It will reach Plateia in three days’ time,” said Prinzhoorn. “You will follow.”
For a moment, Andries questioned the how of this instruction—then, looking to the shuttle hangars adjacent to the launch station, he understood.
Three days had passed since their shuttle’s launch from Luna. In the distance, the pale blue dot that was Plateia drew nearer, beckoning to the shuttle. Yet as they closed the distance, the reality of the situation betrayed the beauty of Man’s cradle. Sporadic flashes lit the planet, from low orbit to its vast oceans, revealing a world burning in the fires of war.
The android crews, servile automata they were, maintained the SSTO’s trajectory while the fencer pilots awaited their orders. Andries had little better to do than kick back and relax in his own space—it’d be a sparse luxury after they made planetfall.
The room itself was nothing special. There was enough space for a zero-g sleeping bag strapped to the wall, a closet’s worth of clothes, and a modest bathroom stall adjacent to the narrow space. Despite the microgravity, the accommodations in question were lofty in comparison to typical GDF vessels of similar configuration.
His idle ruminations would prove short-lived, however, as a knocking came at his door.
“Come on in.” Andries called, unstrapping his sleeping bag and composing himself as he stood upright.
The door slid open. Qingyan floated at the doorway, arms crossed. “The briefing’s in five minutes, Van Orthen…” she trailed off, noting the sleeping bag. “Were you dozing off?”
“Must’ve lost track of the time…” he replied with a half-truth as he moved past her.
Andries was quick to focus on the matter at hand, taking the lead as they both made their way down the corridor. Still, she caught up to him, keeping parallel as if wishing to speak.
“So, uhh… what’s it like?” Qingyan asked naively.
“Pardon?”
“You know, being on a planet and all. I’ve only experienced the simulations. You fought in Vasati, didn’t you?”
“I saw my fair share over there.” Andries shrugged, hiding his discontent with that chapter of his past. “It’s not too different in principle. Just a whole lot less worrying about collateral damage. You’ll be fine.”
The assurance seemed to mildly ease her concerns. “Right. I’ll do my best.”
The promise warranted a smile from Andries. Qingyan’s spirited nature was contagious at times.
Entering the shuttle’s comms room, now an impromptu briefing space, the two were greeted by the other half of the squadron.
“There you two are,” said Marinus. “Almost late, at that.”
There was no time to offer apologies, as the commscreen monitor crackled to life with a burst of static. Illuminating the cathode ray tube monitor was the straight-faced glare of Prinzhoorn.
“Hostilities have commenced across the board since your time in the void. All three major Plateian political blocs are now at war with one another. Our own struggle for Spacer independence is… but a singular aspect in what is now a far greater conflict.” He declared matter-of-factly.
Andries could see some visibly tense up at the thought, in particular Qingyan.
“What of the escaped shuttle?” inquired Marinus.
“We’ve been tracking it since the lunar operation. They’ve been forced to land in Telfair.”
“Uhh… I’m unfamiliar with Plateian geography, sir.” Qingyan said half-jokingly.
“A federal republic in the north of the Esmarian continent. A constituent entity within the Emerald Alliance, one of the primary pillars of the Coalition.” Prinzhoorn elaborated. “Coalition military presence in the region is significant. Your goal is to secure the special cargo of this shuttle. Fortunately, that should coincide with the general Compact objective to disable Coalition military infrastructure in the region.”
“You haven’t told us what this ‘special cargo’ is.” Marinus pointed out, meriting a moment’s pause from the group’s superior.
“It is a new model of mobile fencer. Designation XF/E-05, Dragoon Bennu. Intelligence reports suggest its specs to be beyond anything in our current arsenal.”
A grainy, low-res image of the machine was presented on the screen. Its face was visible in the shot, and Andries observed carefully. Two optical units, a radar snout narrower than the Vegter’s, and twin antennae from its head, akin to horns.
“The pilots of the 4th Independent Squadron await you at the beachhead—you will work alongside them, coordinating amongst yourselves until I arrive to directly assume command. So long as the Dragoon’s position remains unknown, you will both operate alongside conventional Compact forces. Once its location is discovered, your objective is to capture the mobile fencer.”
Marinus raised a brow. “And our operations would entail?”
“Eliminating Coalition forces, disabling their military infrastructure and securing facilities in the region. Our fight is not with any particular member state of the Coalition, or Esmaria, or the people living in the Republic of Telfair. It is hardly a war: rather, it is a military operation to disable the infrastructure of the Coalition as an organization, so that the freedom of the Sovereign Colonies will not be infringed.”
“Of course, your operations will not solely be defined by combat. Telfair is more vast and complex than any theater previously fought by Spacer forces.” Prinzhoorn continued. “Image is essential in such a densely populated theater of war. You are to labor towards humanitarian endeavors that will no doubt arise as a result of this conflict.”
“Are we to be… errand boys?” Andries remarked cynically.
“We do not wish to be perceived as a military occupation, and these methods of public outreach will help build a positive image of the Compact’s forces. We will intervene in local politics as little as possible.”
Andries dwelled on this point with a hint of skepticism. From his own experiences, he understood these matters to be complicated affairs in their own right. Surely, he supposed, this would be no different.