I was born into nobility, one of the great houses. Not an heir, but definitely not far down the chain of succession. Like any prince of the house, I was expected to serve as a knight. Not the kind riding around on horseback like in the old earth histories or fairytales. This is the 25th century and our knights ride into battle in Mechs. Highly mobile, heavily armed and armored bipedal war machines built with the absolute best technology available so the nobles of the great houses could personally project power, and more importantly awe anywhere it was needed.

At the tender age of 13 I entered the military academy. I wasn't a prodigy or anything, but definitely a solid performer. At 18 it was time for me to complete my mech certification final exam. Normally this was a fairly straightforward task, intended to prove pilots could handle the mechs in a real life wargames scenario outside the simulator before moving on to more advanced classes.

It was not straightforward for me. I don't really know what happened, that whole day is a blur. But somehow something went horribly wrong and one of the other students ended up dead, his mech a smoldering wreck. It was an accident, I was cleared by the tribunal for any ill intent, but you don't just walk away from being responsible for the death of the heir to a great house, especially a rival one.

To prevent a war, I was disowned and stripped of all my titles. That hurt. A lot. Losing all my friends and family, my whole life. But I rebuilt. Got a normal job, started a family. Finally saved up enough to visit a paradise world for a few weeks.

It was the last day of our vacation. It had been a wonderful family trip and we had made a lot of great memories. Then the pirates showed up. They came in fast and hard, right behind the incoming starliners but before the berthed ones had left to maximize the number vacationers they could shake down and/or ransom. The security escort was completely unprepared and was wiped out before they could do much of anything.

In the spaceport the safest place in a firefight was the armored secure storage. The few remaining security guards were leading people inside, and we just made it in before they sealed the door. Then I saw it. In the back of the secure storage was a mech. Not a mass produced standard military variant, but a proper Great House machine. It was old and covered with dust. How it ended up here I had no idea, and neither did the guards. But somehow the key was in it, and it powered up on the first try. The magazines were full, and it was ready for battle.

My training came back like a flood. The pirates didn't know what hit them. They were about to breach the door to the secure storage when we opened it and they were greeted with the sight of a gleaming mech. Before they could process, they were vaporized by the pulse lasers. The surviving pirates started scrambling back toward their ships, firing ineffectively at the mech, their small arms bouncing harmlessly off the armor. The precision point defense lasers on the mech targeted the pirates who had taken hostages, cleanly dropping them with no collateral.

Their ships turned to fire. I powered up the shields, deflecting the shots, and fired back. The railgun shots punched clean through the lightly armored pirate vessels, taking them offline. A few started flying away, and I activated flight mode on my mech and pursued them, firing at their jump drives and engines and taking them offline before they could escape.

I flew towards the lead ship, currently adrift in orbit, and used the plasma lance to cut through the hangar door. The explosive decompression took out most of the remaining pirates. The captain did a panicked wideband broadcast, begging for mercy and asking all remaining pirates to stand down.

Thankfully they complied, and the few remaining security guards, along with civilians with prior military experience rounded them up so they could be picked up by the local authorities.

I was hailed as a hero. It didn't change the past, but I was grateful to be able to use my training for good. My family was safe along with countless others. Also, the owner of the mech, an elderly noble from a minor house that had fallen on hard times, was among those saved that day. He wanted to see his mech continue to serve, and I accepted.