Even more despairing news came through.

The Star Alliance Joint Command's forward headquarters on Jade Stone Star, which had been in intermittent contact with the Thorny Bird and was responsible for overall planetary defense command, issued an order—

Not to New Bauhinia, but broadcast over an open channel:

"Attention all combat units on Jade Stone Star: in view of the intensifying Bug Race ground offensive, the continuously rising threat level of the main hive, and the severe delay in global evacuation progress, in order to preserve living combat power, the Star Alliance Joint Command orders: all combat units that remain structurally intact, including the main forces of the Planet Defense Army, the Star Alliance Marine Corps, and all participating task forces, are to immediately follow the 'Dawn' evacuation plan and converge on the designated 'Beacon' spaceport area to prepare for phased withdrawal from Jade Stone Star. Repeat, immediately converge on the 'Beacon' area and prepare to evacuate! This order carries the highest priority!" 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

This order was like an icy dagger, stabbing into the hearts of all the civilians still struggling bitterly on the surface, waiting for rescue.

It also came through the public channel into the ears of the New Bauhinia squad members fighting in various locations.

...

On the central plains of Jade Stone Star, at the edge of a town that had once prospered but was now mostly reduced to ruins, there was a makeshift shelter barely pieced together from broken walls and abandoned vehicles.

Engineer Leon clutched his seven-year-old daughter tightly, curled up in the corner of a half-collapsed cellar.

The cellar was crammed with civilians like him who had nowhere else to run—men and women, young and old, all sallow and emaciated, their eyes filled with terror or numbness.

Outside were the ceaseless sounds of explosions, the screeching of the Bug Race, and… increasingly sporadic human gunfire.

They could hear that cold, repetitive evacuation order on the public channel.

"...All structurally intact combat units… immediately converge on the 'Beacon' area… prepare for the final wave of evacuation…"

"Dad… those soldier uncles… are they leaving?" The girl tilted up her dirty little face and asked timidly.

Leon's throat tightened; he couldn't get a word out.

What could he say?

Say that the Star Alliance's troops, their own planet's defense forces, were going to abandon them?

Say that those lofty big shots had decided people like them weren't worth saving, that the useful troops had to be kept for somewhere else?

Stifled sobs and despairing curses broke out in the cellar.

"Bastards! They're just running off like this?!"

"What about the taxes we paid? What about the army we support?!"

"The Star Alliance… didn't the Star Alliance say it would protect all humans?!"

"It's over… all over… we've been abandoned…"

Despair surged like an icy tide, drowning everyone in the cellar.

The Order, the protection, the radiant glory of civilization they had once firmly believed in suddenly seemed so pale and hypocritical at this moment.

Invisible shadows closed over their hearts… and some deeper darkness seemed to be brewing within those shadows.

Yet just then, from above the cellar came a series of dull metallic impacts and the explosive roar of energy weapons, sounds very different from the Bug Race's screeches!

Immediately after, there were the sharp dying shrieks of Bug Race units.

The debris covering the cellar entrance was violently heaved aside by some force, and blinding daylight poured in.

A tall humanoid Mecha painted in deep-sea camouflage, its frame smeared with grime and battle scars, knelt on one knee at the mouth of the hole. Its head sensors swept over the terrified crowd inside the cellar, and a slightly hoarse but clear female voice came through its loudspeaker:

"Everyone inside! If you can still move, grab the kids and the wounded and come with me! Move! We don't have much time!"

It was those unfamiliar Mecha!

These past days, they had seen those Mecha around the outskirts of the town. They came and went like ghosts, always appearing at the most dangerous moments to drive back the Bug Race, then hurriedly leaving again.

Scattered rumors about these "foreign Mecha" had spread through the town, saying they didn't belong to the Jade Stone Star Planet Defense Army and didn't fully obey Star Alliance command, that they were just a squad that happened to be on a mission here.

Leon stared blankly at the steel giant at the entrance.

Its body was covered in the marks of battle, and the armor on its left arm even had a deep gash, exposing crackling arcs of electricity inside.

Yet it was still here, extending a hand at the moment of their greatest despair, when everyone else had abandoned them.

"Move! What are you spacing out for? If you want to live, get out here!" Rose inside the Mecha urged, while warily rotating the machine's torso, the high-frequency blade in her hand pointing toward another Bug Race squad closing in from the distance.

The people in the cellar seemed to wake from a dream and scrambled out on hands and knees.

Leon scooped up his daughter and followed the crowd, stumbling along a makeshift path that had been hastily cleared outside the town, under the cover of that Mecha.

He could see that in other directions of the town, Mecha with similar paint schemes were also fighting and guiding civilians.

They were few in number, but like several lonely lamps in the darkness, stubbornly burning, trying to light a path for as many people as possible to escape alive.

They had been abandoned by their own country, abandoned by the Star Alliance coalition.

Even they themselves had begun to give up…

But it seemed there was still this group of foreign warriors who refused to give up.

...

Aisera V, a jungle world, codename "Green Abyss."

A small squad from the Holy Silver Church Country was using an ancient megalithic fortress as their strongpoint, locked in a brutal tug-of-war with Green-skinned Orcs outnumbering them several times over, all howling "WAAAGH!!!"

Power Swords smashed against rough metal plates, showering sparks, while the roar of Blast Bomb Guns interwove with the chattering fire of the Orcs' crudely made "dakka" guns.

Captain "Holy Hammer" Renado's armor was stained with blood, and the comms channel was filled with the ragged breathing and battle cries of his subordinates.

"For humanity! Hold the line! These green-skinned mongrels' assault is weakening!" Renado rallied their morale, swinging his Power Hammer to crush an Orc boy's skull.

However, in the very next second, the situation on the battlefield changed in a dramatic way that left every member of the "Green Abyss" squad dumbfounded.

Behind the Orc tide, a gigantic Orc they had never encountered before suddenly appeared, riding some kind of monstrous beast at full gallop, bellowing all the way, "waaaaagh!"

And then those Orcs who, a heartbeat earlier, had been charging with bloodshot eyes, brandishing rough cleavers and guns and howling, suddenly seemed to receive some irresistible command.

Their berserk charge came to an abrupt halt.

All the Orcs, big or small, jerked their heads up to stare at the ashen sky, a deep roar rising in their throats—meaning unclear, but carrying a fanatical, worshipful fervor: "waaaagh!!!"

Next, under the disbelieving gaze of the human warriors, these Orcs completely ignored the enemies at arm's length and turned to run like a retreating tide!

It wasn't a rout, but a purposeful rush toward the planet's various towering "garbage mountains" belching thick black smoke and piled high with all manner of scrap metal and dubious contraptions—

Those sites that Star Alliance intelligence had tagged as "suspected Orc junk-construction yards."

The ground began to shake violently.

Those bizarre "hand-built contraptions," cobbled together from scrap iron, rock, and even rusty starship wreckage into shapes that defied human engineering logic, actually shuddered free of the planet's gravity amidst deafening thunder and billowing black smoke, wobbling their way up into the sky!

One, two, ten… dozens of Orc "Warships" of various sizes, all battered and ragged, their hulls covered in ferocious graffiti, lurched through the atmosphere like a swarm of locusts blotting out the sun.

In space they gathered into a chaotic torrent, then… their engines spewed thick exhaust trails of various colors, their heading set straight toward Jade Stone Star!

"By the gods… they… they flew away?" a Holy Silver Warrior muttered, almost forgetting to deliver a finishing shot.

"They're going to… Jade Stone Star? What do they want to do?!" Captain Renado stared at the direction where the Orc fleet had vanished, his brows knitting under his helmet as a chill climbed up his spine.

That gigantic Orc that had just appeared—the one they had never seen before—where had it come from?

...

At the same time, the atmosphere on the coalition Warship's bridge had grown so heavy it felt like it could drip.