tortoise00

“You’ve been assigned to a mission. Recon only. No extraction. Good luck, Unit 404.”

In a galaxy fractured by war and ruled by bureaucrats, Unit 404 is a disaster squad of outcasts — a brawler, a hacker, and a tactician who don’t follow rules... or survive by them. Sent to investigate Planet C-17, a long-lost colony shrouded in blackout reports and forbidden protocols, the trio quickly realize this isn’t recon — it’s an execution.

Armed with nothing but their mechas and sheer audacity, they crash-land on a planet crawling with ancient Kaiju, toxic storms, and secrets buried by their own command. Worse still? Their fuel only covers a one-way trip.

Hunted by monsters and betrayed by the system that sent them, Unit 404 must uncover the truth of C-17 — and find a way off-world before the planet swallows them whole.

> In space, silence isn’t the scariest thing... it's what breaks it

swallowing space

The wind howled as the dropship descended, its thrusters screaming against the thick gravity-laced atmosphere of R22. Static crackled in the cockpit's comms as Tyren grinned behind the tinted glass of his helmet, tapping impatiently on the steel casing of his new mecha's forearm.

Inside the transport hold, Kael stood silently near the loading ramp. His eyes weren't fixed on the land below or the distant mountains that rippled like scars across the cursed planet's surface. They were locked on the display screen—on the blinking beacons that marked the other squad's location.

He didn't need to ask who was stationed at that position. One look at the active ident-signals confirmed it.

A short silence passed before he muttered, "So they really came back."

Tyren turned his head, narrowing his eyes. "That your old buddies?"

Kael didn't answer immediately. His jaw clenched, and the muscles in his face tightened until finally he said, "We're not here to be anyone's frontline."

Tyren tilted his head. "Damn right. But they'll expect us to save their asses again."

Kael's voice was low but clear. "We won't."

The dropship touched down with a hydraulic hiss, and the ramp slowly lowered. The four of them—Kael, Tyren, Ryssa, and Ziya—stood in silence, eyes adjusting to the low-light haze of the R22 sky. It was midday, but the clouds were so thick it might as well have been dusk.

From a distant ridge, figures moved—half-lit silhouettes of mecha standing at the perimeter of the camp Oris had established in the old cave.

Kael didn't move. His eyes locked on the blinking lights and sensor tags.

"I'll say it now," he said. "We don't help them. We don't answer their calls. We don't go out of our way. If they die, they die."

Ziya shifted awkwardly, clearly uneasy. "But what if—"

Tyren interrupted her, raising a hand. "No. I get it. We're not their saviors. Not this time."

Ryssa didn't speak either. She stared at Kael's face for a long second, her expression unreadable. But in her heart, she could feel it—the anger, the resolve, and the bitter truth that Kael had come here with a mission, not to play soldier for the people who once threw him into the dirt.

They set up their own base about half a kilometer away, far enough to keep distance but close enough for any potential conflict to unfold visibly.

Kael personally oversaw every structural beam driven into the ground. Every antenna calibrated. Every solar unit deployed. He wanted everything to be done by them, and only them.

Later that night, as the first comm hail came in from Oris's team—a formal request to coordinate patrols—Kael muted it without a word.

Ryssa approached him gently. "That might cause friction."

Kael didn't even look up. "Then let it."

Meanwhile, in the other camp, the message had gone unanswered.

Oris frowned, setting the tablet down.

Vireya crossed her arms. "He ignored it."

One of the junior officers—Roan—looked confused. "Aren't we all technically on the same side? Shouldn't we pool resources?"

"They're not on anyone's side," Vireya replied coldly. "They've earned that right."

Back at the Unit 404 camp, Tyren had set up a scanner on a nearby cliffside. He looked out into the distance, watching faint blue pulses on the scanner screen.

"Kael," he called out, "you sure we can handle it all ourselves?"

Kael nodded. "If we can't, no one can."

Ziya stood beside Tyren now, fiddling nervously with her comms.

"They'll resent us," she whispered. "You know they will."

Tyren gave a short, bitter laugh. "They already did. That's how we got here."

As night fell on R22, and red lightning flashed through the sky, one truth loomed unspoken among both camps:

Unit 404 had returned. But they had returned with their own rules.

And no one—not the commanders, not the former teammates, not even the planet itself—could tell them what to do now.

Return of the outcast