Starship at Dawn

“The day Shepherd's Star fell, Jiang Che drove a twenty-year-old decommissioned engineering mech through the Terran fleet's barrage and dragged more than two hundred civilians to safety.

Later, he made it to the Sky Dome Fortress, where he piloted another old clunker: the Leopard-1, older than most of the garrison soldiers.

‘This old mech has no spatial shield, no particle cannon, and only half the thrust-to-weight ratio of a modern mech.’

‘But it can fight.’

Shen Rong taught him how to brake hard and swing the mech's rear around on the Iron Shoal. The old captain stashed a crate of assault cannon shells, three years past their expiration date, for him in the warehouse. Su Qingyuan strapped herself into the rear compartment with a safety line and helped him watch the sensors' blind spots during the fraction-of-a-second warning window.

When all twelve of the Terran destroyers focused their fire on the shield's weakest point, Jiang Che parked the Leopard-1 right in front of the gap.

‘Come on.’”