Giant Robots? Say no more. I’m in. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

…

Commissioned by Chaosbrain

Additional Wordcount: 2000

…

After five or so weeks of fighting bugs, it was time to fight against the squids.

Meaning that it was time to get Gray Corpse fitted out with an entirely new loadout.

Fighting the bugs is all about staying power and ammunition conservation. That’s why I focused on bringing along energy weapons. If you don’t burn out the emitters, you’re golden for the prolonged fights against them, especially when you’ve got enough point defense and armor. For their heavily armored units, the units that you’ll need to overcharge your lasers against, I used the electromagnetic pile driver to smash them apart, or used my shoulder-mounted artillery at point blank.

Trying to fight the squids with the same loadout and mindset is a surefire way to get killed.

First off, they have both energy shields and cloaking abilities.

The former was very effective against lasers, which made kinetic weapons with a lot of mass behind the shots more effective. Unlike the bugs, they didn’t have much armor or regeneration, so some mech-sized cannister shells are highly effective. Missiles were also very effective against them, though you had to remember to bring fragmentation or high explosive. SABOT over penetrated, while shaped charges were overkill.

Their weakness to heavy kinetic problems solving was why they had cloaking abilities. They didn’t want to get locked on and perforated by point defenses, nor did they want to get hit by a missile. The bugs made up for the fact that lock on was easy with them with sheer numbers. The giant squids practicing combined arms warfare with some of their own mechs did their best to avoid getting hit.

Then, there were their weapons.

They focused on precision and high armor penetration, meaning that dodging and not being detected are the best methods to not getting killed. Their standard mobs are squadrons of tanks with really big guns. Slow firing and easy to outmaneuver, sure, but if a few from the column get a few hits on you, you’re kissing parts or weapons goodbye. Whatever they shot glowed bright blue, immolated organic matter, and scorched through armor like nobody’s business, and humanity’s energy shield tech… is garbage.

It ran so hot that even the best heatsinks couldn’t keep the temperature down, it went down in a few hits from the tanks, let alone the big guns the squids had, and finally it took minutes to recharge. F-Tier equipment, at least for people on my level with my budget. There were rumors that the newer models were way better in every way, but they were out of my budget since I’d need a total overhaul to mount them, so I just didn’t think about them.

Anyway, fighting the squids is pretty great.

They go invisible, you set everything on fire.

Their shields flare up against the flames, then you shoot them with big bullets.

They explode into chunks of purple flesh and armor, popping like large balloons of flesh, and then they start calling in big ships that you need to kill with big guns before they fire on your position.

If you’ve got the right loadout to fight them, and go at them with the right mindset, then you’re golden.

What’s the mindset?

Glass cannon tactics as a bouncing, lightweight-frame mech with flamethrowers, shotguns, and as much high explosive as possible.

…

“This is your operation target. A psionic uplink that is protected by three shield generators.” Since the mission area was far away, I was moving towards it while my boss relayed the information. Cina was running systems checks for the fourth time to make sure all the new fittings and systems were working. I gave up on telling my operator to relax at her second check. “Estimates show that upon completion, the Propagation effect will increase in the region by ten percent. It is already at eighty percent. If you fail in your task, you lose the region.”

The Propagation effect used by the squids alters the surrounding area around a big tower of theirs with psionic energy to warp it to their needs, while protecting their new slice of real estate. If they hit the required threshold, they project a void-black shell around the area and effectively take it for their own dimension. Why they did this wasn’t known, but the spheres they created were massive, and could engulf whole arcologies.

Letting their tower complete was pretty much allowing them to import massive amounts of people and raw materials for them to use in their war.

It’s so important that I’m not dealing with the operation solo.

“Two knights will be separately attacking shield generator site one and three. They hail from House Steine and House Tuden. Middling houses, but both are Ranked.” So, there was politics at play here.  “Both have worked together for years as a strong pair. Do not get in their way. Care only for yourself.”

Never mind, they’re going to die within minutes of each other and I’ll have to deal with all three shield generators. Or, maybe, it’s going to be a double boss fight for the glory of taking down the psychic tower.

“How likely is it that they’ll pair together and try to kill me near the end of the mission?”

“Unlikely, they’re more likely to kidnap you, create a flash clone, and put its corpse in your machine.”  Lady Hariss answered and I gave a low whistle. “They are both houses eager to gain glory and prestige. You’ll be disappeared and dissected for your genetic stock.”

“So, kill them, neutralize, or avoid?”

“Kill them.” Lady Hariss answered simply. “If they try anything, of course.”

“Of course, people are boring to fight, anyway.” I shrugged, and a shrill alarm blared. Gray Corpse usually didn’t shake when the hangar opened to the outside, but with the lighter frame, it rattled in its holding clamps. “Pilot’s always in the same place. No redundant systems. Nothing special to deal with. Bleh.”

“Hm. Cina-140, commence your duty. If there is any necessary support required not already provided, call me. This region cannot be lost.” Lady Hariss cut off at that, while I watched the altimeter. At the halfway point, I pulled the chutes. The decoys mimicking booster signatures were getting plucked by blasts of bright blue energy lances. With my heatsinks and with my boosters cold, I was able to stealthily insert with hundreds of tons of armor and weapons into enemy territory.

“Gray Corpse is at full operational status. Please manually verify the status of your new weaponry.” I landed, barely feeling the sensation, thanks to the reverse jointed nature of the legs giving excellent suspension. As spindly as they looked, they were geared for making up for the lack of boosters by giving running and jumping and sprinting more oomph. They also double as great support weapons. Legs that can send a mech flying up a hundred feet can easily send tanks flying or break armor. “Pilot, confirm?”

“Confirming.” I gave a hum, while running through the weapon systems. In each hand of my mech was a heavy shotgun. Each one was twin linked with immense drum magazines and double-barreled. They were just within the tolerances of the arms that fit the speed frame. Seventy shells for each gun, I had one reload for each weapon, giving me a total of two hundred shells filled with a combo of armor piercing flechette and high explosive with the gun able to fire them in tandem, one at a time, or staggered so one would fire before the other. “Handheld weapons show all green. Checking on launchers.”

Instead of my usual artillery, I went with racks of micro-missiles. They were micro in that they were only as long as a sedan, and they only had a range of five hundred meters. In the back-mounted missile racks, they were stacked tightly in separate chambers to prevent them from blowing up in a chain explosion when hit. I had about eighty in total, and each one had a specialized armor-piercing tip and a shaped charge that deposited a superheated material that burned like thermite into a target. Horrible weapon for the bugs, massive overkill for anything and low ammo count, but against the squids one missile could delete most of their units.

“All missiles green. Checking internal weapons.”

Unfortunately, a big drawback of the lighter and faster frame was that I couldn’t strap it up with reactive armor, claymore-style mines, and point defense cannons. It could only support so much weight… so I focused on smoke launchers to block the enemy’s line of sight and a lot of incendiary launchers. The former was if I couldn’t find any cover, but the latter was for finding the squids when they cloaked, or to put a constant strain on their shields, so that it didn’t recover fully.

“Internal weapons all good.” I finished my check ups and Cina-140 gave me the all clear on her end. “Give me the tactical overlay, please. Highlight the places where a resupply drone can be sent.”

Right.

Time to plan my sortie out, then it’ll be time to rock.

…

Interlude: Robert Stein: A Scarlet Knight

…

I’ve fought for a long time. Ever since my graduation, I barely spent a week between sorties. Most of my cadre called me mad. Or, a money-grubber. Both unfitting for a knight of a household. Still, while most of them started dropping like flies after letting their skills waste away with months between missions, I remained and Burgundy Lancer kept up with the newest gear and equipment.

Eventually, my work, my training, and my mech gave me a spot on the Rankings.

#9458 to be exact, barely within the top ten-thousand, but it was a Ranking.

Meaning, that I got trusted more, paid more, and given more dangerous assignments.

I’ve seen a lot in my day, but today took the cake.

The rumors about Gray Corpse and the Hariss’s new knight were plentiful, but this was beyond expectations.

“Hey, Hoss, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

“Yeah, Rob, I am.”

We both looked at the mission we were given, and pulled all the favors we had, and got our credits out the bank. Every missile we could get on target, every orbital strike, and every knight willing to risk their lives for credit. We worked together and got our shield generator locked in, obliterated them, and got ourselves in position to assault the Psionic Tower and waited for Gray Corpse.

We found Gray Corpse dancing in an inferno.

The lightweight build the pilot used was almost too fast to follow with the naked eye. Combinations of full bursts from the oversized engines and the double-jointed legs made it nauseating to keep track of. It burst between columns of pure-white, battle-saucers, multi-limbed mechs, and even patrol ships, leaving each one destroyed before going to the next.

One moment the pilot was engaging an enemy group or patrol.

The next that group was dead, and the next one was being dismantled.

The massive heavy shotguns spat out explosive rounds and armor piercing flechettes with every trigger pull firing both barrels. With their shields and optical camouflage disrupted by the constant output of incendiary bomblets from Gray Corpse, one trigger pool resulted in sprays of purple blood and shattered pure-white armor. When ships came into play, the mech leapt upward and landed on the deck of the ship, and blew apart the bridge with both its handheld weapons.

While descending, as those on the ground focused on it, it fired smoke and missiles at the same time.

“Do you think anyone can keep up with him in dance?” Hoss’s voice was low and steady. I could tell that he was focused on analyzing the rising star. We both knew that we were looking at someone beyond the norm. As we spoke, the mech landed amidst a column of saucer tanks. Their hulls opened, their middles revealing techno-organic psionic casters that can flay apart armor with ease. They turned on their axis to aim at him. They already made a mistake, or rather the landing decided their fate. He landed at the back of the column. The tanks had to spread out, had to turn to face their front at him, and that took precious seconds. Seconds that he used to place a homing missile in the center of each one and leap over them and boost to the next target. They were dead just as he landed again, and his weapons roared with heavy thumps that signaled the death of another enemy group. “Anyone that we know that can survive that hell?”

“At our ranking? No. Maybe, in the 1st Thousand.” From 1st to 999th were the elite Knights. Those who stood at the very height of warfare and who can achieve impossible missions. Taken aside, taken away from their Houses, they became true warriors of the nation. Entrusted with the bleeding edge of technology, supported fully by the nation, and deployed where all hope is lost. Many of them fight and keep the orbits ours, and are even sent in missions into enemy territory. At that thought, I realized that was exactly what this pilot was doing. “Yeah, he fits in that group the best. This is the sort of mission that they do. Impossible odds, limited support, and with no allies… and succeeding.”

Hoss grunted, and I turned to him, while he unsoldered the massive 230mm cannon on Blue Harbinger. The massive weapon required him to holster both his primary weapons, lock down his mech and push out supports that dug his mech into the ground, and he only carried half a dozen shells. A combination of chemical propellants and electromagnetic coils would launch the self-guiding, specialized projectile loaded with a custom warhead.

I didn’t see any big targets for him to hit in the field… besides one.

My blood froze.

“There’s a bounty?”

“Bring in alive for research and development.” Hoss replied simply, the massive weapon twisting and locking closed. The weapon began to charge and heat up, while mechanical armatures moved to feed a shell painted blue into the weapon. “Enough for me to get out of this meat grinder. You too, if you’re willing to join in.”

I barely had a moment consider the offer when warnings started blaring on my sensors.

Hoss cursed, while my blood ran cold.

Missile lock-ons from Gray Corpse.

I checked our distance.

We were well past the range of those missile’s autotargeting capabilities.

That meant… that we’ve been marked and painted long enough for a custom targeting pattern to be locked in.

My mind was awhirl. How long have we been painted? How far do I run? Were my boosters ready for the job?

And, finally, was a I ready to fight against the monster that just devastated an enemy complex with just his mech?

A message suddenly came up, just as I began calculating my chances.

“Don’t start anything and nothing happens.”  The words were concise, simple, and from a young voice. I barely recalled that the pilot used to be an OS. Someone meant to be placed in a mass-production unit or spare with parts that can no longer be refurbished. I looked towards Gray Corpse out of instinct with my optical sensors… and found the mech looking my way surrounded by destroyed wrecks burning blue, whilst covered in purple blood. “Choose.”

Hoss was silent for a while, before pinging my channel.

Finished with his own calculations and theorizing around Gray Corpse.

But not me.

Blue Harbinger’s ‘head’ turned my way as he realized that my assault cannon was pointed right at his cockpit.

At this distance, even with all his heavy armor and reinforced piloting pod, one trigger pull and he’ll be destroyed by a burst of armor piercing 120mm shells.

 “Fuck. Fine. I give. We’ll finish the mission and that’ll be that.” Hoss knew the score and powered down first. The lock-ons disappeared from me, and I presumed him, so I lowered my own weapon. I closed my eyes, half-expecting the lock-ons to come back and for Gray Corpse to charge at us with those massive guns sending immense amounts of firepower our way. Instead… nothing happened. In fact, Gray Corpse just turned and started finishing off the rest of the base. “…Looks like I owe you a few drinks, Rob.”

“Fucking hell, Hoss. Don’t pull that sort of shit. That pilot’s out of our league. Hell, you should’ve realized it’s a suicide mission when they told you to offer me the same payout for going along with it.” Hoss grunted, suitably chastised, and finished unloading the shell from his cannon and finished powering down the massive weapon. He undeployed his mech and readied his primary weapons. I watched and found him keeping them pointed down, so I obliged and did the same.  Looks like we were both going to live. “Just forget the mission and report whoever sent it to you to the Ranking Association.”

Hoss promptly decided to hit me with a bombshell by saying nothing.

The silence was damning.

“Fuck. No. Don’t tell me a goddamn thing. Stay quiet and keep that shit to yourself.” The Ranking Association, or someone high up in there, must’ve placed the hit. That was why Hoss was willing to do it. He’d have been shielded from the people who would’ve brought him down. It made too much sense, I hated it, and didn’t want to deal with it. “I’m going to start helping the kid out to finish this fight faster. Keep your bullshit to yourself.”

I’m going to survive and toe the line as one of the lowest Rankers.

Low risk may mean low reward, but it also meant not having to handle the absurd amount of risk it takes to get the reward of being able to stop being a knight.

I’ll keep my head down and not die, thanks.

                                                                                            …

Damn, they really backed down.

That meant that whatever’s going to happen in the next half of this mission is going to come from the squids.

“Tactical fusion weapon armed and ready to destroy the shield generator. Moving out.”

“Confirmed.”

The squids were as fun to fight as always, but the bosses they offered are usually a pain in the butt. They committed a great sin of game design: the loadouts effective against them aren’t the same as those effective as the mobs and elites of the faction. A patrol gunship or a frigate can be dealt with fast with a combo of incendiary bomblets and heavy shotgun fire to the cockpit/bridge, but destroyers, cruisers, and battleships are all better dealt with via heavy armor and armor piercing weapons.

Meaning that my current loadout was on the weaker side if they popped out.

And, I’d thought I was being smart by going with a lightweight build to deal with both the squids and other human mechs.

Thankfully, I set aside my fire support for the mission towards dealing with ships.

“Hey, Cina, can you check on the fire support that I’ve asked for. I have a feeling that we’re going to be dealing with at least a cruiser. Maybe two or three destroyers.” Destroyers were above a frigate for the Squids and they sent them out in pairs or trios. One covered the others with defensive fire, while they sent in swarms of micro-missiles with superheated plasma payloads. They usually looked like flying saucers with wings that curved inward, and their command centers were reinforced as well as within the vessel itself. Dealing with a trio of them usually required a lot of armor and countermeasures. As good as I am at dodging at the last minute, to let the missile swarm hit the ground instead of circling back and hitting me, their salvos were massive. Even with point defense helping, armor was needed to sustain one or two hits. It’s always better to get rid of them fast. “Can you have them actively scanning these three points?”

Looking over the map, I was able to get a grasp on where the ships would enter our dimension. The three bases were smoking craters, which would obscure their vision even high up in the air. They also needed to protect the psionic tower, meaning that they had to be able to interdict shots aimed at it. That left a slim area where they can circle around their protection objective and didn’t obscure their vision of their battlefield.

I was going to have that area pre-sighted with anti-ship missiles and long-range coil-guns.

They’ll come to Earth from their dimension and basically go pop.

I gave a hum as I went over to where my two companion mechs for the rest of the operation were, and the fusion bomb went off. At that close of a range, the generated heat from the bomb was more than capable of melting the advanced armor and protective systems of the shield generator. After it went down, the protective dome around the area went down, allowing more high-energy weapons through the shields and letting us access our various support powers.

My two allies had elected to get some low-energy support, so that the shields wouldn’t bother them. From what I detected on my sensors, they used a lot of money to call in a lot of automated drones to swarm their enemy, while they provided support at key moments. They weren’t lazy, of course. In order to get their drones in, they needed to blow up the anti-air batteries in the area, and they did that on their own.

Still, though, I didn’t consider it a good move.

They wasted practically everything on drones to take care of the first objective, while the main objective was still ahead of us.

Well, at least they were fresh and had plenty of ammo and energy for the coming fight, so that was a plus.

I reached them and gave them a confirmation ping to continue our mission… only for a sudden shift to occur.

Well, that’s a bigger gate that I thought would appear.

To the left of the skyscraper-sized psionic tower, a line of energy formed in the air. It was like someone was taking a plasma cutter towards reality, tearing it apart like metal, and the air itself boiled while reality warped, stretched, and contorted around the line. Then, from its center, it began to turn and carve out a circle in the air. My sensors provided me all the information that I needed. The circle had fifty meters of width, meaning that we were about to be visited by a rarely sighted vessel: a battlecruiser.

Battlecruisers are jack-of-all-trades ships, unlike cruisers and battleships. Cruisers are geared for providing a defensive screen against mechs and laying waste to armored units. Battleships were for destroying high-value targets and spearheading assaults. I thought that the former would come, since for the squids this was a defensive mission. Putting a battleship here would endanger their own asset.

However, a battlecruiser made sense for the fight, since they were between the two in terms of firepower but also had plenty of defensive measures. No massive fuck-off guns that could level a building in one shot, but enough firepower to destroy superheavies that cruisers struggle with. They can’t provide a defense screen against a saturation attack, but they could most certainly defend against air-strikes called in by a strike force.  

I guess that getting these two onboard to fight with me was the right call.

Because with them, we can take the ship down faster.

“Cina?”

“Operator standing by.”

I was ready to ask her to gut the thing and help jumpstart the kill, but then a factoid about battlecruisers came to mind.

They have massive self-destruct radiuses.

That meant… this was my chance to do something really, really fucking awesome.

“Give me an overlay of the self-destruction mechanism of the battlecruiser.”

“Sir?”

“Do as he asks, Operator.” Lady Hariss must’ve picked up on the possibility. The squids made a mistake sending this brute in. On my screen, the self-destruction projection of the last battlecruisers slain by humanity were overlaid on the one that I was now looking at. It overlapped the Psi Tower. Meaning… “Operating System 549, your new mission is as follows: take that ship. I will muster a force to stop any pursuers. Operator, give him full access to House Hariss’s loadout. Operations center, consider this assignment the highest priority!”

I couldn’t help it.

I laughed.

“This is amazing! Those idiots probably brought that thing in thinking that they’ll secure their asset!” I did my best to plot out a course of attack. The sun was coming in from the ship’s flank, so I directed that side to be hit by coilguns and missiles to destroy as much of the close-in weapons as possible. That would make our approach a bit easier. With the new assets I was provided, I didn’t hesitate to call in orbital fighters to come in to attract attention from above. Finally, since I had them, I called in drones from orbit to arrive on the scene to hold the line once the squids realized what was happening. “This is the best!”

I designated multiple landing locations, put down stationary automated fortresses from orbit, and that’s when I remembered the other two mechs were still here.

“Lady Hariss, if you can buy these guys out—

“Already done. They’re yours.”

Fuck.

Yes.

On a screen that never came up before, I got the diagnostics and vitals of the two pilots and their mechs with me on the assignment.

Scarlet Knight and Blue Harbinger both connected to me… their sensors and Hariss’s operators feeding them information on what was happening.

So, I didn’t baby them.

“Well, guys. It’s time to make history. We’re in this together. Betray me and I blow both you and your mechs up. Fight with me and survive, and we get everything we’ve ever wanted.” I wasn’t one for speeches, but it was easy since I held the proverbial trigger to both of their heads. Scarlet Knight and Blue Harbinger’s signals lit up green at my statement, even as both stayed silent. I read through their schematics, while we waited on our hill and looked upon the immense tower guarded by squid’s battlecruiser. I sent them both our angle of attack, skimming close to the ground, then boosting up over five hundred meters in ten seconds right onto the ship’s deck. A deck filled with guns and hatches to release armored opponents. Perfect boss battle stage. “We start in three, two, and… mark!”

At my mark, from the horizon, streaks of coilgun rounds slammed into the sleek ship’s shields and blew them apart, then hypersonics screamed in to set it aflame and keep them off while destroying as much point-defense as possible.

This is going to be the best!