Within New Continent, at the Dawn Nebula's narrow passage, the fortress known to the world as Unity Fortress was engulfed in raging war. This ancient fortress had been built to commemorate the "unbreakable friendship" between the Galactic Empire and the Blue Star Commonwealth, and now flames of battle blazed through its steel walls.
On the tenth floor of Section A, at an observation post beneath the landing craft's gangway, Colonel Kordi, commander of an Imperial armored grenadier regiment, surveyed the fierce fighting inside a rocky crater through electronic binoculars. It was a transportation hub situated between Imperial and Commonwealth-controlled territory, surrounded by natural meteorite stone beyond the fortress walls. It looked as though it had weathered the ages.
Since the area was relatively open, it had been put to use as the fortress's transportation hub, making it the equivalent of a central train station and civilian port combined within this militarized city.
Back when everyone had been happily discussing how to develop the Dawn Nebula, they had all agreed that the fortress's steel buildings encased in meteorite stone had the romantic, spacefaring feel of a bygone age. Some had even considered sprucing up the central station and turning it into a tourist attraction.
So a well-known Imperial aristocratic collector had donated to Unity Fortress a bronze statue of an early explorer from the Age of Interstellar Voyages. It had been placed in the center of the spacious concourse to serve as a landmark.
Now, however, the quaint and elegant statue had been melted down by a thermal lance into high-purity copper ore. A few meters away, the security robot control center had been reduced to rubble.
The control center and its accompanying security robots had supposedly been jointly developed by the Iron Army Consortium and the Blue Star Commonwealth. Their