Collection 61

Collection

Chapter 61

-VB-

Precentor XII Mirajash Gunban

Earth

3005 October 20 (cont.)

Four battlemech regiments gathered around Hilton Head Island. Along with them were six aerospace wings, totaling one hundred twenty aerospace fighters. On top of this already impressive force were three conventional regiments of infantry and armored each.

And all of them watched as the Black Pillar of Death drew in close like a locust swarm.

Mesmerizing yet deadly. 

The black cloud of millions of “robots” swerved and whirled around like they were alive. Their movements were too … organic. Too natural. 

The mere idea that they had to fight that sent chills down everyone’s spine.

But what else could they do?

This was Terra. 

This was Earth. 

This was the homeworld of their entire race. Their civilization. 

If this place fell to some scavenger lord, then they would bring the same ruin they brought to the rest of the Inner Sphere. 

Every single one of the aerospace pilots and mechwarriors here were true believers. 

But being a true believer didn’t change the fact that they were looking at something that left them panting in fear. 

He’d been part of ComGuards for over three decades before his retirement. But the war was declared and he joined back in his previous role.

“Do not,” he spoke over the radio to the entire two divisions worth of soldiers. They were everything that ComStar could gather in the limited time they had. “Think about conserving ammo. You only stop if you run out of ammo to let the mechtechs replace your ammo right where you are standing. Understood?”

He got the affirmatives. 

But he knew that it was not going to work. 

None of them knew exactly how many shells those machines could take. One? Two? Three? Even if it was just one, that was a million shells. Did they have a million shells? He didn’t know, but that’s why he had lasers. A laser might just punch through more than one of those robots at a time. 

But he knew his duty. 

He knew his belief. 

So he was going to make his stand right here. 

“Vishnu, protect me,” he muttered to himself. “And Shiva, if you help me stop this invasion right here, then you can burn my next life for all I care.”

From the cockpit of his warhammer, he got ready to fight. 

Equipped with the best that money can buy and even a few things that money can’t, this was the best he was ever going to ride. And the best chance to bring this to an end. 

He looked up again. 

The very skies seemed to be covered with those monsters. There were so many of them that the sunlight was starting to get covered. 

And then …

“They’re coming…!” he hissed out. 

He raised his Warhammer’s ER Large Lasers and aimed the rest of his smaller laser armaments at the sky. 

Thankfully, the robots were coming in at an angle and not directly down toward them. 

“Hold…” he demanded over the radio.

His rangefinders told him exactly how far his lasers could reach. He didn’t care about the chance of hitting something because as soon as he fired his lasers, it would hit something in that mass of robots. 

“Hold…!” 

10 kilometers…! They were blitzing toward them…!

“Hold!”

5 kilometers!

“HOLD!”

3 kilometers -!

“NOW!”

The barrage sounded like thunder. 

He saw lasers, LRMs, and autocannons firing all at once, covering the sky like a smoky laserfest. His Warhammer began to heat up immediately. He didn’t dare to let it stop.

The skies filled with light. It filled with shells. 

Aerospace fighters fired everything they had as they made bombing runs into the sky.

And then it happened. 

If it hadn’t been for the cockpit, then his eyes would have been burned by the nuclear explosion that ripped through the upper atmosphere. 

He watched in horror. 

No one else but ComGuard was responsible for this, and with the way that the Union loved to film everything, it would get out. 

ComStar was the one who detonated a nuke on Terra. 

On Terra.

But he did not stop shooting.

Because the nuclear bomb burning in the sky only made things even more clear when it lit up the sky for everyone to see. 

There were more of the machines. 

“KEEP FIRING!” he roared. 

The only reason he wasn’t a cooked rotisserie chicken in his cockpit, soaking in his own sweats like a marinated chicken, was because his Warhammer had Double Heat Sinks. 

But even then, it was getting extremely uncomfortable. 

But he kept firing into the sky where the black shroud of death had merely shrunken in size. Minisculely. 

And then the robots lashed out. 

Mirajash heard the screams of the aerospace pilots as the tentacled robots grabbed onto their fighters and broke into the cockpits if they didn’t outright punch holes into the thrusters. Any fighters that got close to the shroud died. 

And he could see it. 

Their firepower was putting a dent … but only a dent. 

The shroud kept on coming closer and closer. 

At this rate…

At this rate…! 

Autocannons cut out as they needed to reload.

It made a noticeable difference when the shroud’s approach grew faster. 

Then the autocannons finished their reloading and they added their fire into the laserbeam fest. 

And the shroud slowed down. A little. 

Not enough.

Not enough!

Less than five hundred meters now…! 

He could see all of their wiggling forms. 

Screeching. 

Squealing. 

Screaming. 

And t-.

“[Forced shutdown!]”

Despite the overwhelming heat in his cockpit, he paled. 

He heard it and saw it happen elsewhere in the battlefield. 

No.

The shroud… surged forward. 

A hundred meters disappeared in a second. 

Two hundred meters by the next moment. 

And when his mech was ready to fire again, they were right up on his face. 

“OOOHHH!” he roared as he fired all of his lasers. 

He saw in the periphery of his vision as his comrades … took a step forward. 

Hunchbacks with all medium laser load out came to the front. They fired in cycles. Light mechs like the Firestarters and Commandos came, unloaded their SRMs and Flamers, and fell back. 

Everyone was moving in perfect sync! 

Perfect …

But it didn’t matter. 

The shroud of death made out of metallic tentacles, red eyes, and murder broke through. 

He continued to roar as the squids - how fitting - slammed into his mech. Into other mechs. He kept firing by tilting his mech forward. 

His arms were ripped off. 

His cockpit glass cracked and shattered. 

And the tentacles…!

They snipped at him with their sharp ends. 

He continued to roar as they stabbed and burned. 

His Warhammer fired. 

But then the swarm passed by him. 

And then the battlefield was silent. 

---

Primus Allen Rusenstein

There were four people left in the First Circuit’s meeting room.

Him, Precentor Dieron, Precentor Sian. 

“So this is it? The end of ComStar?” Precentor Sian hummed as he pulled out a cigar, snipped off the end, and lit it. 

“... Got another one?” Precentor Dieron asked.

Sian pulled it out, snipped the end, and slid it across the table.

The entire room trembled while the alarm blared about the breach.

Allen stood up and went to the back. And came back with a bottle of whiskey and three cups. 

Dieron stared at him before grinning. “You’ve been holding out on us.”

“Maybe,” he smiled wryly as he poured. “This feels appropriate.”

“It is, I’d say,” Sian hummed as he accepted his cup.

Allen raised his cup.

“... For all that could have been.”

They toasted and they all drank.

“Ssshhiieettt…. That is a strong one,” he hissed out. Dieron and Sian both chuckled after their own hisses. 

The alarms got louder. Deeper breaches. Deaths in the thousands. Tens of thousands. All believers of ComStar’s dream of the future throwing their lives into the fray in the hopes that just maybe their sacrifice will have a meaning. 

But it wouldn’t. Not in the face of all of those machines. 

Then the alarm shrieked with finality as the lowest levels were breached. 

They all heard the rumbling just outside the meeting room’s rooms. 

Slams. 

Louder.

Harder. 

Closer. 

Then the doors flew open, literally flying away.

And the machines came. 

Allen closed his eyes.

It was quick.

-VB-

In the coming months, ComStar was attacked from every angle. Hidden Worlds which should have been safe were assaulted by the same monstrous warship fleets. They met the same end as ComStar on Terra except unlike ComStar on Terra, the Fleetmaster outright conquered these worlds. 

What was worse for ComStar was when the Fleetmaster revealed all that ComStar had hidden, including the recorded meetings of the First Circuit. 

After that, the Union didn’t need to do anything. Survivors of ComStar broke into two camps, not having enough firepower or will to go into a civil war. And neither side survived the wrath of the Inner Sphere and the Periphery as ComStar and ROM’s crimes came to light. 

Eventually, the final ComStar Hidden World fell to Union attack on December 20th, 3005, putting an end to the ComStar-Union War and ending ComStar as an organization.