Giant Robots? Say no more. I’m in. [Oneshot]

Giant Robots? Say no more. I’m in. [Oneshot]

…

Let’s get this out of the way.

The world I’ve been reborn in? Absolutely fucked.

The arcologies where human life exists outside the wastelands are dystopic, corrupt, and ruled by neo-nobility who use regular people as disposable assets. Outside the arcologies there are multiple alien races, each with their own designs on the planet. These designs range from wanting to turn it into a hive, into a massive supercomputer, or a slave economy.

Most of humanity has had to be genetically altered and changed to avoid being killed by plagues, and in the process of being born, find themselves indebted from day one. Lots of people have no control over their own bodies and forty percent of the population are laborers or toys of the rich. Finally, I’ve been reborn saddled with debt, because my parents sold me off.

But there are giant robots, and I get to pilot them, so I really don’t care.

I gave a hum and a whistle, as I slunk out of my habitation pod into my piloting chair.

Ah, it’s like leaving my bed and slinking right into my gaming chair.

The communication system came online, while the rest of the system booted up.

“Good morning! Lovely day as usual, operator.”

“As chipper as ever, 549.”

The whole machine was rumbling itself awake. If I focused, I could hear the shed-sized fusion engine coming to full power as a gentle drone from the speakers. The engine was twenty percent of the mech, and heavily armored and insulated, so I couldn’t hear it. The sound was all programming to warn me of the important stuff, like if it was set to blow. The smooth gentle hum of 5 Megawatts was a soothing balm to my soul.

“Good morning, operator. What’d you have for dinner? I had a vanilla flavored nutrient pod. Very good. 10/10.”

“… Your mission today is an insertion into a bug hive. Estimated number of warriors is fifteen along with three honor guards. Chances of survival are 10%. Payout is 150,000 Credits.”

I gave a whistle, while flicking the switches to manually extend the heat radiators out. While I slept, the engine kept running, and the heat was gathered up in the sinks. Operator told me they were unnecessary, since I was fighting in atmosphere… but they looked cool. They jutted out of the back like wings and set off steam. They paid off, anyway. Just two tons and I get to hide from thermal vision and safely hunker down for the night with full life support systems? Mandatory upgrade, as far as I’m concerned.

“Sounds like a great start for morning. Anything lined up for the afternoon and the evening? Or are we finished with the region?” I roused the machine. The monitors and displays and readouts all became peripheral and digitized, as the optical displays targeted my eyes directly and shined in the readouts from all over the mech. “Any support weapons coming in, besides the nukes?”

With a quick flick, I switched to my preferred third-person view. I liked to go first-person when aiming down the sights or through a big scope for a big gun, but for the most part third-person was the way to go. After all, I wanted to always see my mech.

What’s that?

My life debt?

Pfft. I don’t want to stop piloting a mech. I just pay off the interest and everything else goes into making my mech better.

Sometimes, I upgrade my life pod and chair for ergonomics and comfort.

“You’ve been cleared for orbital support. Kinetic strikes and orbital artillery.”

“Rocket assisted orbital artillery?”

“No. Ten second arrival delay, but with proximity fuze and increased ordinance.”

“I’ll take that. Balanced.” Rocket assisted orbital artillery was fast. Two seconds after I mark a target, the system puts a 120mm high explosive shell on whatever I’m fighting. If they’re not rocket-assisted, that meant that they’ve just been shot out of the platform and speeding at the target barely past the sound barrier and probably on a trajectory instead of going straight and true. More high explosives in each shell, since there didn’t need to be an engine in it, and it exploding above the enemy was great for swarms. “Nukes on the way?”

“A minute away. Sending you the coordinates of the landing zone.” Operator… seemed more terse than usual. They were probably trying to kill me off again. I’m about done with the catalogue they offer for parts. Meaning that the mech I had was about ninety percent there in terms of what they were willing to give an indentured pilot. Most people didn’t get past the first couple pages, since the regular designs were more to just put armored bodies against the tides of monsters trying to take the planet. “Good luck.”

Yep, they’re definitely trying to kill me. Again.

That’s the only time Operator says that.

“Mhmm, I think I’ll go ahead and try that strategy I told you about. Call off the nukes and artillery.”

“What?”

“Remember? Going inside the hive and killing everything inside, until I threaten a queen? There’s a fat bounty out for one, right?” And, just like every time they try to kill me off, I go ahead and work on doing the impossible. It’s like a timer. Every couple of months, they decide that I’m getting too strong, so I increase my worth by doing something crazy. Get a piece of alien tech, secure a portal, and now capture a queen. Also, I had to do it without their ‘support.’ The nukes were probably set to blow up in my face and the artillery was probably going to fire a full barrage on my grid square if I used my targeting systems. Yeah, going to just turn those off now. “Should take a few hours, though. So, go ahead and clear up my day. Maybe two days.”

I waited across the line for a bit, and the next voice that came through wasn’t Operator.

“Operating System 549, if you accomplish your stated mission, I guarantee your freedom and ennoblement.”

Ooh, ennoblement.

Probably a big wig in the operating room, and probably the person who wanted me dead because I was becoming a vague threat.

“Instead of that, I can I get set up as a mercenary or something? I like being in a mech and fighting. Oh and an extension on the catalogue. I want more… everything.”

There was silence on the line for a bit, so I went ahead and got my mech through the rest of its startup sequence. Mechs here were fundamentally hard sci-fi, but the more you invested, the weirder it got. I was limited to mundane stuff. Directed energy weapons, kinetics, missiles, and sturdy armor plate. Since I was out on the field, I made sure to make a real sturdy box with lots of mobility and guns. Twin lasers for both shoulders, electromagnetic pile-driver on the left arm, and a big scatter laser emitter for the right hand. Smokescreen launchers, micro-missile launch systems wherever I could put them, and a few miniguns for short-range killing potential.

If I can’t turn my mech’s head somewhere and pepper it with 12.7 mm via face guns, it’s not my mech.

“I can arrange something to that end, but only if you do as you’ve said and capture the Queen alive. Do so and you will achieve your heart’s desire.”

My heart’s desire is to keep piloting giant robots… and this seemed like a good way to keep that going.

“One living Queen coming up. See you in a day! If I die, I’ll make sure the hive’s gone, so consider it dead!”

“Hmph. Your temperament, at the very least, is adequate for knighthood.”

With that statement, the line went dead for a moment, before Operator came back.

“549, you have been granted access to multiple support systems, including autonomous walker support. If you leave the mission area, you will be killed immediately. Do you understand?”

“Affirmative. All clear on my end!” Toys and cool stuff popped up all over my systems for me to call in, and set my mech to go ahead and head towards the hive, while pulling up the map screen and calling everything in. Support bots go in from the flanks. Orbital lasers clean up the surroundings. Shells on the spore towards and where they probably have defenses hidden underground. I put the marks on the map, predicting where the bugs probably are from experience, and let Operator handle the rest. Wait a moment. Almost forgot. “Operator, do we have a mission name yet?”

“No.”

Just what I wanted to hear!

“Call it Titania’s Fall!”

“…Operation name noted.”

Alright, time to rock!

…

Interlude: The Rising Heiress: Madelynn Harris

…

Father’s management of his duties pertaining to the security of our region was, much like his ventures pertaining to conflict, barely tolerable. His talents lay with politics and securing our household’s demesne against the machinations of the court. Rousing galas that raise our reputation and showcase our place in high society, along with aligning ourselves to the right people, was his purview.

Mother supporting him by being the technical mind of the family. She managed the various systems given to our family in our sector of the arcology with both talent and diligence. The manufactories were now fully automated and with lower costs in upkeep and meeting production goals. The shields of our section of the arcology were upgraded ahead of schedule and with new generators. Her praises were being sung and new grants and holdings were set to fall under her command.

However, we languished behind the other houses militarily.

We had no knights, relied upon masses to for operating systems of our war machines, and could only boast that we had truly massive amounts of military assets. Father and mother assembled autonomous weapons greedily, invested in orbital licenses and permissions, and built the finest sensors to link with the targeting computers of the masses we sent to hold the line. They sent in cheap, disposable machines to find targets for their true assets… and we were losing face for it.

We had no heroes earning us renown.

Only levees armed with the most basic of weapons.

We may as well be sending rabble armed with spears to kill the enemy.

Which was why they bid me to take control over it, after I graduated from the military academy.

And, upon my first day, I found an outlier that I bid to be quelled before others heard of it… and it proved to be a greater outlier than I believed after it refused our poisoned chalice.

“Have the manager of this department terminated from his position and his liberties rescinded. He misinformed me. Gravely.” The operating system piloted the war machine at his disposal with grace and precision, amidst a flaming inferno of a tunnel filled with corpses of his foes. In less than an hour, he breached the Zone of Death, where so many others died trying to enter a Hive. “Operator, explain, lest you find yourself bereft of employment and liberties as well.”

“Yes, my lady. 549 has been ordered killed multiple times to follow protocol. 549 was kept alive due to the results he gave.”

“The chief achievements over the last five years. The warp portal acquisition and the particle beam projector. It was operating system 549.” The Operator nodded at my words, while behind us the former manager screamed apologies and excuses. Incompetence. Outliers were supposed to be quelled, yes. It was to ensure they would not turn their guns against us. Outliers, however, are miscreants that are fortunate and earn nothing and who merely have better equipment through survival. This one grew strong through talent and skill and made achievements. “You argued for his survival?”

I asked the question, while placing a hand on the Operator’s neck, feeling his pulse.

Operators could not lie when the hands of nobility were upon them. They were simply bred as such.

“Yes, my lady. I did each time. I believe him an asset and… his temperament is amusing.” The Operator struggled not to admit the last portion. They were not meant to feel anything for the OS’s on the field. They monitored, they gave orders, and coordinated our indirect assets. Nothing more. Nothing less. “My apologies.”

“I shall overlook your emotion. The OS is amusing indeed.” I let go of his neck and watched with rapt attention at 549’s progress. “Very amusing.”

He saw through the duplicitous bugs with ease and smashed apart all their defenses before his arrival. The various assets we gave him were all expended, the moment it was granted to him. Millions expended in just the span of an hour, but I still saw the results as he crested the hill. He only knew the center of the Hive, our scanners able to find it even from orbit, and he predicted everything else. When he sighted it, nothing remained of the parasites trying to take our world, and the automated walkers were simply cleansing what they found with plasma.

He took everything, used it like a hammer, and entered the Hive.

And, now, the Hive was dying to him.

The hallways of the parasites were their domain. They skittered on its surfaces, sprung up from behind, and cared not for their own dead. From the ends of long tunnels, they shot superheat bile, hypersonic bone shards, and cared not for the swarms sent ahead. The last recorded attempt at piercing a Hive for its queen reached only five hundred meters, with over ten war machines working in concert, and purpose-built for the job. They were ripped apart, not even finding the Queen, and expended far more resources than should’ve been expended for one Hive.

549 was already a thousand meters in and closing into center.

How?

He flew through the tunnel, a tunnel barely able to fit two war machines side by side and barely half as much tall, at a hundred kilometers per hour.

They tried to stop him, but his machine fire upon everything like an avenging angel. With thrusters at full burn, his shoulder-mounted lasers still fired upon the largest parasites with uncanny accuracy. The scatter laser primary in his right hand was wielded like a flamethrower and killed thousands of the smallest of the creatures in mere instants.

 Missiles shot out from the sides of the machines’ arms, legs, and backs and countered globs of superheated plasma bile or found purchase in the bellies of those firing them. All the while, projectiles were shot down by various, primitive gunpower point defenses all over the machine.

Before I knew it, he was at the innermost chamber of the hive, where the Queen was protected by a Tyrant, their equivalent to our war machines and over two meters taller, three arms, and with the ability to regenerate… and 549 has used the modified construction equipment on his machine’s left arm to destroy its core with a single blow.

Then, of course, he grasped the meter-tall, living Queen parasite in the vessel we provided hastily to him and made to exit as he left a fusion bomb behind.

I almost laughed as the tunnel he went through exploded with mines he left behind amidst the corpses, and he raced through the flames into open skies.

Magnificent.

I searched for ineptitude to cut away, so that I may create something worthy of my household, but instead found a glittering pearl of potential.

549 will make me ascendant.

A/N: Finally have time to run oneshots again. This is up for commission if you want more of it 75$ for 2 2500 word chapters a month.