The large door slowly opened in front of us as we came close enough for it to detect us, beyond it was a room the size of the docking area, with huge mechs next to each other by the walls, they were at least four meters tall and two wide, the room was filled with several people, mainly mechanics and a few commanders.

As soon as we stepped into the room, the woman we were following turned around and said: ‘’You will start by mounting weapons on mechs 45 through 50, you know how.’’ She started walking against said mechs and we followed. I was surprised though, at least 50 mechs, gives you a good idea of how huge the place is.

We quickly made it to the mechs, which were on the far side of the room, close to the deployment wall which is essentially a huge wall that can open and let out mechs, it has an oxygen shield though.

‘’Hey!’’ I heard a female voice say behind me, I turned alongside Troy and Lanier to face her, she was a young mechanic, what caught us most was how she held a large explosive round in one hand and a laser cutter in the other.

She smiled at us for a while before continuing: ‘’I’m sure you mechanics know what these two things can do together?’’ Create a very unpleasant explosion.

All of us nodded, the atmosphere was heavy as we had no idea of her intentions, behind us the commander shouted: ‘’Stop whatever you are doing now, if it’s a joke it’s not funny and if it isn’t it’ll be easier for all of us if you stop.’’

She looked past me at the commander in a creepy way, it was like her eyes were empty, like she didn’t care anymore, then she quickly said: ‘’Tough.’’ I jumped at her to stop her, I managed to tackle her to the floor, it was too late, I could just look back up in time for the bright red flash to fill my eyes.

We all fell back by the surprise of the huge explosion, and were blinded by the flash and deafened by the noise, it didn’t take us too long to come to our senses, and for me to stand up, after that it only took a couple of seconds for some people wearing red, combat, to come and take her. She still looked like she didn’t care about anything at all. It was all very confusing.

We all stood gathered in silence for a while, looking at the gaping hole into space she created, luckily the stations automatic oxygen shield deployed before anyone got sucked into the vacuum and died one of many painful ways out there.

Suddenly a much brighter flash blinded my eyes and a strong blow to my stomach knocked me to the floor moments before I was knocked unconscious, I wouldn’t  feel surprised if it was for the last time, I probably wouldn’t feel anything at all.

I did feel surprised when I woke up again though, I slowly stood up and looked around, the room was in ruins, Colleral drop pods everywhere, human corpses littered on the floor and filled with Colleral, most of them were gathered around the center of the room, they hadn’t noticed me as they seemed very preoccupied. I looked at the way out, even if I could get past the 200 or so Colleral it was sealed, someone must’ve gotten out. I wouldn’t get out of here, but I wasn’t just going to let them execute me too, I was going to do some damage, I was going to get a mech, perhaps get out alive if they weren’t armed enough.

I turned to face the Colleral, looked like there were over two hundred in their grey environmental suits, they were tall, two and a half meters each and through the top of their thin suits you could see their purple, crystalline faces showing no emotion, they wasn’t really faces, more like spheres actually. They were everywhere.

I ran over to a wall and grabbed the first laser cutter I could find, there was going to be trouble between me and a mech and I wanted to come out on top of it. As soon as I had the cutter I ran against a mech, there were at least three Colleral before it and I wouldn’t be surprised if the other 200 were going to try and stop me.

I started running as fast as I could, I had to get there while they were still dazed and confused by the impact, I lifted the cutter while running and activated it, I could hear the sound it made as it heated up and as soon as I approached the first Colleral I smashed it into the back of its suit, it burned a large hole in the suit and the Colleral in side of it.

I started running again as the first Colleral fell to ground, it couldn’t breathe oxygen. I could feel my blood pumping around in my body as I lifted the cutter again, the other two Colleral stood bunched together in front of me, I couldn’t see if they’d noticed me, if they had they weren’t fast enough.

When I reached them I burned completely through the middle of the first Colleral and watched the upper half of the body fall to the ground, a grave mistake.

I noticed the other Colleral through the corner of my eye a second before flying to the ground with incredible pain in my head, I felt the cutter fly out of my hand before I landed, hard, and that was the moment I felt fear, real fear, it wasn’t like anything I felt before, my life was actually in danger, it took me some time to realize that, to really realize it.

I stood up again and looked at the two and a half meter Colleral before me, then shoved aside my fears, I had to. It lunged for me and hit, hard, I almost fell over but managed to stay on my feet, now my entire body was covered in pain though, no one told me how strong the Colleral were.

I looked around, in the hopes of finding something, anything to get me away from here, all I did was giving the Colleral another chance to hit me, it did, this time I fell over again, I couldn’t feel my… I couldn’t feel anything, except for something my arm landed on, I looked at it and saw the laser cutter, or a miracle, depending on your way of looking at it.

It was still on, a decimeter further would’ve cost me an arm and probably my life. I looked back at the Colleral, it was pulling up some weapon, I wasted no time studying what before grabbing the cutter and throwing it against the Colleral, only to discover how painful it was to move after three punches.

The cutter hit well enough to make a hole in the environmental suit, right now I didn’t care about much else, I managed to stand up only to be engulfed in pain and almost falling over again, but I didn’t, I stood still for a moment, collected myself, and then shoved away the pain before heading for the mech again.

I wouldn’t last much longer, I knew that, but I had to make it to the mech, I walked for seconds? Minutes? Until suddenly I was there, time didn’t really make sense anymore, nothing did.

I climbed into the mech which detected me and activated, while I was waiting for the activation process to finish sense hit me again, in the form of an automatic painkiller injection from the mech.

I still wouldn’t last too long before fainting, but I’d last longer and think clearly until then, the mech closed around me to make sure I was completely protected, then slowly different panels lit up as the activation process continued. After all of them were on I looked out at the hundreds of Colleral, unknowingly awaiting their deaths.

I activated the mechs weapons and chose the personnel laser, specifically designed to gun down ground forces. I never used a mech before but figured that this is as good a time as any to learn. After a few misses with the laser I quickly got the hand of it and shed a lot of blood, or the Colleral equivalent that is. I managed to see what they were doing before killing them all, they were arming an explosive, a big one, but they were surprised and hardly armed, they’d hardly be any trouble for a mech.

For a moment after that, I just sat there, looking over the 200 Colleral corpses and several human in the ruins of the mech bay, I killed them all, could I have taken 200 human lives in these circumstances, I didn’t know, I just killed 200 sentient beings and I didn’t know!? What does that make me? A mass murderer? Or just a soldier?

The better question is which one of them I wanted to be, did the fact that I did this in a battle zone, a war, really excuse me? I don’t know!

But what I do know is that I can’t undo this and that I will probably have to do it again. I shook my head and waited for a while before activating the mechs thrusters and flying out the gaping hole in the wall only to be greeted with a terrifying sight.

There were two huge Colleral battle cruisers right there, the whole place was one huge battle with the unsuspecting humans trying to get their things together and the Colleral trying to stop them from doing just that.

I was preparing to dish out what little damage I could, doing my part of the battle I guess, but my vision was fading and I realized that I could do no such thing before slowly waiting for the darkness…