King of Mechs

Ten years ago, Alan Walker was a legendary mech pilot. He and his wife Hathaway, a fellow pilot, pushed back the swarm and hurt the Hive Mother. Hathaway died on the battlefield. Danny, Alan's comrade, took the credit and framed him for disobeying orders and getting a battalion killed. Alan spent ten years as a mechanic.

The swarm returns. An S-class breach hits the third defense line. Danny orders Nick, the maintenance department manager, to fix fifty combat-ready mechs by tonight; ten short means the whole department is discharged and shot. The crew fixes forty. Ten more appear in the shadows, fully operational. Exactly fifty. No one knows Alan repaired them.

At the second defense line, Danny pulls back. Lisa, a three-star pilot, holds her ground. An unregistered silver heavy mech enters the fight and kills a xenomorph king that an entire unit could not stop. The pilot is Alan. Military police find no pilot, no flight logs, no biometric data. Alan is asleep in the repair yard and denies knowing anything.

Danny claims the kill. He pressures witnesses to sign a false story, and high command approves him as a five-star legendary pilot. At the ceremony, Danny gives his speech. Alan laughs. Someone confronts him for laughing at a five-star hero, for drinking every day and doing nothing for the federation. Alan says: "I'm a drunk, that's true, but at least I don't run from a fight." Then Lisa questions the timeline and the king's attack direction. The ceremony resumes.

Then two xenomorph kings cross the wormhole and head for the second defense line. Danny is ordered to deploy as the five-star hero, but he admits he cannot even beat a high-rank xenomorph. His father forces the choice: board the mech, or the fraud comes out and they both go down. Danny boards and deploys.

Alan's return is about more than the swarm. The man who stole Hathaway's credit and framed him is still in uniform.