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sparklode · 6 months ago

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Echoes through the cosmos

My friend @cosmique-oddity had a brilliant idea about mecha AU Coswave and I had to write my own take on it. Make sure to check out his wondeful writing/art for this concept too! We're posting our works in tandem, so by the time you see this, it should be on his blog.

Aaanyway, this was supposed to be a short one-shot. It is not. Part two and three will be coming soon. As always, based on the Mecha AU by @keferon.

When he was a kid, the first book he’d ever gotten was a children’s space encyclopedia.

Secrets of the cosmos, it was titled, and he’d fallen in love with it at first glance. It talked about planets and stars and the possibilities of alien life, and he’d carried it around everywhere for years, so much so that it earned him the nickname Cosmos from his peers. It might have been a little mocking at the time, but he’d refused to take it as an insult - quite the opposite, really, and eventually, it stuck.

On clear nights, he’d sometimes sneak out of his house after bedtime, lie down on the grass and just look at the sky. He’d watch the stars flicker, thinking of distant planets filled with cool alien people. Imagined himself meeting them one day, leaving Earth behind for greater adventures and new friends, and whenever he saw a shooting star, only one wish ever came to mind – “I want to meet an alien someday!”

In retrospect, perhaps he should have wished for something else. Chocolate cake for breakfast, maybe.

Because the aliens came. And unlike in the movies, they came with little fanfare; no dramatic declarations of war, no menacing signals sent over the airwaves or bright lights in the sky. They just dropped down from atmo and started ripping humanity to pieces.

Cosmos, who at that point had been in his last year of college and working an internship at decently large observatory, got pretty much front row seats to the first planetfall. The quintessons hadn’t bothered to hide. Hadn’t needed to, really – they’d had too much of an upper hand to worry much about human defense forces.

Life after that was a bit of a blur. The shatterdomes sprung up in a matter of months, humanity started fighting back and actually winning sometimes. Cosmos graduated and got hired immediately as one of the many, many people monitoring satellite data, watching for any incoming quint dropships.

And while yes, even a few minutes of warning ahead of an incoming enemy drop could save thousands of lives, it was never quite enough. New mecha were being made constantly, but such things take time, and the losses kept mounting. Clearly, something else needed to be done.

Which is how Cosmos finds himself here, orbiting some twenty thousand kilometers away from Earth in a haphazard little shoebox of an observation station, all alone in the void between worlds.

Well, to be fair, the actual scientific equipment of the station is top of the line. It’s just the everything else that his bosses on Earth skimped out on. The interior is cramped, dull and grey, with only the bare necessities needed for his long-term functioning as a glorified space cameraman. His days are fairly monotone too – exercise routines to keep up his muscle and bone density twice a day, interspersed with long hours of going over telescope footage, checking for enemy signals and keeping an eye out for any potential anomalies.

Now, despite his occasional grumblings about the quality of life here, he’s not really bothered by most of it. Besides, he gets it – there’s only so many resources the world can spare. He’s fulfilling his dream and helping save lives in the process, so he can put up with a little discomfort. It’s still better than his old college dorm, that’s for sure.

He is in space. Actually in space. That little detail sort of makes up for a majority of the gripes he has about the station.

All except one.

When he signed up for this mission, he knew he’d be alone up here. He just didn’t know how much it would ache.

For the record, it’s not like he’s completely cut off from others- that’d be a one-way ticket to madness, and even the most heartless of higher-ups know it. They’d given him a fast internet connection and permission to make as many video calls as he needs, as long as it doesn’t affect his work. He has his parents back on Earth, and his fellow watchmen are usually up for a quick chat, but- It’s not the same. It’s not nearly enough.

Nothing can replace seeing another living being with his own eyes, a casual pat on the shoulder or just the simple warmth of a person existing in your general vicinity. The longer he stays here, the more chill seeps into his bones, into his very soul.

Soma days, it’s as if there’s a layer of frost underneath his skin, and he’s not sure how long he can take it before he shatters.

Cosmos is sipping on his breakfast coffee when the main console pings, the custom alert he’s set for this specific anomaly making him scramble for the railings immediately. Floating over, he goes to check the data, and- yeah, there it is again.

These signals have been a mystery for the past month now. As of yet, the only thing anyone knows about them is that they’re not from the quintessons and are seemingly completely random. Mission control stopped caring about them once they figured out they’re not of enemy origin, but he and a few of his fellow watchmen have been trying their best to learn more. Command hasn’t told them to quit it yet, so Cosmos assumes they don’t mind, at least.

Not that they’ve really gotten anywhere. A few times a day, the signal will originate from seemingly nowhere, just barely strong enough to be noted, bounce around a few satellites and disappear. No pattern that they can see, no changes in strength or even any indication as to its purpose. It’s just- there.

So far, it looks like he’s not figuring it out today either. Still, he logs the data into his personal file and straps himself into his chair; might as well get to work, since he’s already here.

The quintesson warships have their drop off point on the edge of the asteroid belt, about halfway between Jupiter and Mars. Same place every time. Scientists down on Earth have been throwing around theories as to why, talking about wormholes, string theory and weak spots in the time-space continuum, but it’s more speculation than anything for the most part. Faster than light travel was supposed to be the stuff of fiction after all, but here they are. One moment there’s empty space, and next there is a warship. Really exciting stuff, really! It would just be a lot better if it wasn’t being used to ruin his home.

The quints’ sub light engines reach some impressive speeds as well, but they’re still slow enough to give the people on Earth half a day’s notice before they make planetfall, provided they’re informed the moment the ships appear. Which is why Cosmos is here, watching both the space around both the planet itself and the drop-off zone, warning of incoming attacks. Or, well, to be more precise- he’s mostly watching over the equipment doing all those things, and making sure it keeps doing them no matter what. The human failsafe, so to speak.

It's a bit of a hurry up and wait sort of job. The few days after a drop, it’s constant reports and data being sent back and forth, trying to decipher enemy comms and a simmering worry in his gut as he hopes the pilots down there manage to fend off the quints without heavy casualties. Then, it’s back to long silences and practically twiddling his thumbs, waiting for the chaos to erupt once again.

Which brings him back to the signals. They’re something to break up the monotony, something to occupy his thought on the days when the systems have nothing else to report, like today. Or the past two weeks.

That is why, when a small group of quints suddenly peels off from behind Earth’s mass, heading full speed in his general direction, Cosmos nearly suffers a heart attack. The station’s sensors scream at him, and he may or may not begin panicking a little. He’s a sitting duck here- the station has no defensive capabilities, and no shuttle could get to him fast enough. That is, if they even bothered to try in the first place.

But- as he’s trying and failing to open a last call to his family with shaking fingers, he notices the quintessons slowing down to a stop, still nowhere near his position. Instead, they seem to be targeting - he types a few commands into the sensory array with clammy hands - a communications satellite? It looks like any of the thousands of others like it, ESA make, if he had to guess, so why-

And then the satellite- moves. Parts of it shift around each other, forming what looks like limbs and a head, and- no, okay, what?

The satellite, which is now very much not a satellite anymore, opens fire at the quints. Cosmos watches the scene through several sets of digital eyes, mind reeling as the small enemy platoon is- well, torn to shreds, to put it mildly. Whatever this mech is, it’s incredibly efficient, dodging between enemy strikes and dealing devastating blows of its own. His own? Is there a pilot in there? He doesn’t think so; if such technology was in use, he’d have known about it.

Then again, it could be a prototype of some sort. A secret project, maybe? That sounds slightly more plausible, but still- look, Cosmos is no mecha engineer, but even he can recognize something for being wildly out of human technological scope when he sees it. Which leaves only one remaining option, really.

Whatever this is, it’s not from Earth.

And yeah, alright, shit. That’s- well, it’s probably not a bad thing? Seeing as it just sliced through a bunch of quints like a knife through butter, it’s safe to assume it’s not aligned with them. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right? God, Cosmos certainly hopes so, at least.

As the last of the quintessons die, their bodies floating off into the distance, the station’s alarms turn off one by one. All except his custom one, that is. The cheery little chime keeps on ringing, one screen off to the side showing the same odd signal he’s been tracking for weeks now, only stronger. Much, much stronger. Having started the moment the satellite changed shape, the signal keeps going, now recognizable as a multi-layered frequency and coming directly from the alien mech itself.

He's not sure if it’s the adrenaline, his innate curiosity or just plain madness, but Cosmos does something very, very stupid. With still shaking fingers, he tunes into the frequency, puts his headset on, and calls out.

“Unknown craft, this is Cosmos of the Hermes-9, please-“ his voice hitches. Swallowing tightly, he continues, “please identify yourself. I repeat, this is Cosmos of the Hermes-9, unknows craft, please identify yourself. Over.”

For a few moments, the silence is deafening as Cosmos waits for an answer, fear and anticipation mixing in his gut. Then, the mech turns around. Two glowing red optics look straight at him, as if bypassing the hull of his station and piercing through his very soul. His screens black out one by one in rapid succession, words draping themselves across the darkened expanse like stars against the endless void of the universe.

[Designation: Soundwave.]

#tf mecha universe #tf mecha au #we love coswave

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