The hangar trembled.
Boots slammed against corroded steel. Voices barked orders. Weapon safeties clicked off in rapid succession. The silence that had ruled Sector 17 for decades shattered beneath the sudden intrusion of human hostility.
Arjun sat within the battered cockpit of the Aegis-T7, his spine rigid, his breathing slow.
His heartbeat thundered.
Not from fear.
From anticipation.
Through the fractured sensor suite, red silhouettes painted themselves across his vision. Dozens of them. They spread outward in a practiced formation, securing entry points, flanking along broken gantries, scaling collapsed walls with magnetic grapples.
Black Iron.
One of the dominant gangs of the Outer Ring.
They weren't scavengers.
They were predators.
At their center advanced a towering figure clad in crimson exo-armor. Hydraulic pistons hissed with every step. The armor was bulky, industrial-grade, covered in layered plating scavenged from mining rigs and riot-control frames. In his right hand, he carried a magnetically stabilized shock-maul. In his left, a heavy pulse carbine.
The gang boss.
Kael's memories supplied the name.
Brask.
Arjun inhaled slowly.
Forty-one percent integrity.
Minimal actuator responsiveness.
Compromised sensor array.
Degraded power routing.
Against twenty-three armed hostiles.
On paper, suicide.
Yet Arjun felt no panic.
Because the system had already begun calculating.
[Combat Optimization Protocol — Passive]
Streams of data cascaded through his mind. Force vectors. Structural stress tolerances. Impact dissipation paths. Target threat rankings.
The mech was crippled.
But it was still a mech.
And these were only men.
Brask stepped forward, voice booming through external amplifiers.
"Power down and climb out."
His lips curled in a grin visible even through the armored visor.
"I might let you keep your legs."
Arjun said nothing.
He flexed the mech's fingers.
Metal joints whined in protest.
The Aegis-T7 shifted its stance, planting its feet into the debris-littered floor.
Brask's grin vanished.
"So that's how you want it."
He raised his fist.
"Kill him."
Gunfire erupted.
Pulse rounds streaked across the hangar, incandescent bolts tearing through stagnant air. The first volley slammed into the mech's chest, detonating in violent flashes of blue-white energy.
Arjun gritted his teeth.
The cockpit rattled violently.
Warning indicators flooded his vision.
[Armor Plating — 17% Structural Loss]
[Power Redistribution Engaged]
He forced the mech forward.
Every step felt like dragging a mountain.
Yet the sheer mass of the frame granted him momentum.
He charged.
The gang scattered.
A mercenary lunged from the right, shock-blade igniting with a violent hum. Arjun pivoted, barely in time, and caught the blade against his forearm plating. Sparks detonated as energy clashed against alloy.
The impact nearly tore the mech's arm free.
Arjun countered instinctively.
He twisted, slamming the mech's elbow downward.
The blow crushed the attacker into the floor.
Concrete shattered.
The man screamed once.
Then went silent.
Another hostile leapt from above.
Arjun angled his shoulder, letting the attacker collide with reinforced plating, then swept his leg sideways.
The mech's foot smashed into the man's torso.
Bones imploded.
Blood sprayed.
System alerts scrolled.
[Hostiles Neutralized: 2]
Brask roared.
"He's slow! Surround him!"
The hangar erupted into chaos.
Pulse fire stitched across the mech's limbs. Explosive charges detonated against its joints. Shock nets deployed, crackling with paralyzing energy.
Arjun's vision blurred.
Pain screamed through neural feedback dampeners.
Yet his mind remained cold.
He rotated power to his left leg.
The mech surged forward.
A cluster of enemies vanished beneath a thunderous stomp.
Steel met flesh.
The floor cratered.
Three silhouettes winked out.
Arjun spun, swinging the mech's arm in a wide arc.
The blow tore through a collapsed scaffold, turning it into a storm of shrapnel.
Two Black Iron soldiers were ripped apart.
Yet the damage mounted.
[Left Knee Actuator — 61% Degradation]
[Energy Reserves — 28% Remaining]
Brask advanced through the smoke.
His exo-armor absorbed the chaos, shield generators flaring as debris and pulse fire deflected harmlessly away.
He laughed.
"Is that all?"
He raised his carbine.
The weapon screamed.
A concentrated beam of compressed plasma slammed into the mech's chest.
Arjun's vision went white.
The cockpit shook violently.
Alarms shrieked.
[Core Conduit Breach — Emergency Rerouting Engaged]
Arjun tasted blood.
He wiped it away.
Then he smiled.
"System," he whispered. "Override safety limiters."
[Warning: Structural Collapse Risk — 73%]
"Do it."
The world slowed.
Every mechanical movement clarified.
The mech's motors screamed as power surged beyond design parameters.
Arjun launched forward.
The distance vanished.
Brask barely had time to react before thirty tons of alloy collided with his shield.
The impact detonated.
Shockwaves rippled through the hangar.
Brask skidded backward, carving trenches through the floor.
He roared, slamming his maul into the mech's knee.
Metal buckled.
Arjun countered with a head-on charge.
The mech's shoulder crashed into Brask's chest.
The exo-armor shattered.
Brask flew.
He slammed into a distant wall, embedding himself several meters deep.
Silence fell.
Smoke drifted.
The remaining Black Iron members froze.
Their confidence collapsed.
Arjun straightened.
The mech stood battered, scorched, leaking coolant and hydraulic fluid.
Yet it stood.
He took one step.
They broke.
Some fled.
Some dropped their weapons.
Some collapsed to their knees.
System notifications cascaded.
[Combat Evaluation Complete]
[Performance Rating: S+]
[System Synchronization +3.2%]
[New Module Unlocked: Tactical Prediction (Basic)]
Arjun exhaled slowly.
Inside the shattered hangar, amid twisted metal and fallen bodies, something fundamental changed.
For the first time, the slums felt small.
For the first time, the Outer Ring felt conquerable.
And for the first time since his rebirth —
Arjun believed, with absolute certainty, that the galaxy itself was within reach.