What's Junk? (The Mech Touch)

[Negation]

All those free 2nd rate mech samples for Bolt to play with.

 

[Thomisannoyed]

Hmm, pretty sure that after this battle is when Bolt is gonna start earning his Vulture Title.

 

[Pyro Hawk]

Well, the Hexxers have really stepped in it this time.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, combining this, the assassination or kidnapping of the designer of the Last Prayer just as it's impact likely starts to really be felt, with the fact the Hexxers stabbed the Fridays in the back just as it seemed like they were thinking of intervening to defeat the Sandman Invasion? This is the sort of thing where a narrative of 'The Hexxers just want all the 3rd Rates to die so they have an easier time killing off the Friday's is quite an easy narrative to emerge.

And whilst it normally takes lopsided ratios for a 3rd Rate to fight a 2nd Rate... There is a 2nd Rate already engaged and a lot of the surviving 3rd Rates are going to have an opinion along the lines of 'I already accepted I was going to die but I had a hope otherwise with my friends, and you bitches are the reason it died with my friends!'

 

[lost star]

Pup was an expert candidate. As a candidate, he got training every day, one-on-one mentorship with Lilly, and favored treatment in many areas. This favor did not get him out of normal every day duties though. In point of fact he sometimes got some extra chores just to keep him humble. Lilly had frequently and constantly told him to work on his mindset just as much as his skills while doing those chores. Something about willpower, focus, and so on. If he were to be honest, Pup really didn't get a lot of it.

What he did get was that he wasn't exempt from patrolling. He actually did a lot of guard duty for some reason. Sometimes they even had people try to mess with him too! Pup tried not to hold it against them, but he was getting really tired of being tested all the time! (Honing willpower required a lot of work, and the Rats lacked a lot of usual tools.)

That meant he wasn't that shocked when he picked up the scent of a mech. Or rather his mech picked up the scent. According to Lilly he had a surprisingly good talent with sensory systems. That was actually pretty rare and something they'd been trying to hone. To his mind this was just another test along that vein.

It was hard to track this one. Harder than usual. The ever-present mist they kept up as mild cover always sort of muted scents, but this was worse than normal. He had to press his mech's nose to the ground in some parts to follow it, and it seemed to split at several points. Annoying!

Then, when he finally got closer, he couldn't find the target visually! That meant they were going to ambush him somehow. Pup haaaated ambushes. They always shot at him and he still couldn't line up his shots as well as he wanted. He was getting better at it, but ick! Plodding into the area was a no-go too. He'd been scolded far too many times for that. 'Treat every training exercise like real life!' 'Don't walk into fights.' 'Pay attention Pup.'

Which meant that his next action was firing an napalm missile forward. The muddy ground would keep it from spreading, and he needed to illuminate the target. Napalm missiles were cheap, and he had lots of them, so they were great to just lob at areas when you needed to shoot something. The missile went into the mist, landed, and ignited some of the ground.

To his annoyance the fires didn't reveal anything.

That was when the first prickle of unease hit him. Pup fell back on pure instinct without questioning why every sense was blaring danger and threat at the same time. He jittered in place and switched to Hellfire, before firing two shots at different areas. Both missiles flew through the air. Whether chance or innate skill, one splashed against something.

"Alert!" Pup howled into his mic, to no response.

Which made no sense at all. He knew jamming. You always got static with jamming. This meant something! He just didn't know what.

He was also pretty sure that stealthy things were supposed to be caught when you got them with something. He could just barely see the foot. There was some blurring, but he could only see it because he could see the foot! Then the stealthy thing fired at him and the feedback from the hit made him scream.

Cerberus had decent armor. It was meant to take a hit rather than dodge. Even a pointblank shot shouldn't have done the damage it did. Pup could feel his mech staggering and then another shot hit it. That one ruptured his reactor and tore through half a dozen vital components.

Something was horribly, horribly wrong.

Unknown to Pup, he was fighting a second rate Hexxer mech. It was one of the less useful direct combat ones but still Second Rate. As a stealth mech meant to operate in areas of less supply it was weak compared to other Second Rate mechs. Its claim to fame was the near perfect stealth and long operational time. It was equipped with a singular dagger and a small suppressed handgun for offense. Both were relatively anemic weapons, for the tech level it came from. Against a Third Rate mech this meant it would merely break most of the armor with a few shots instead of causing catastrophic damage with one or two good hits.

As his mech slumped to the ground Pup saw his opponent approach on his fading sensors. Oddly, the only thing he felt was dread. Not for himself. He'd come to terms with death on his first sortie. The dread came from the fact that he knew his family was in trouble. He was supposed to warn them.

'Get up.'

Pup growled as he wrenched at the controls. The reactor was blown. There was no more power. There was just the dregs in the power cells. No amount of physical effort from him could move the mass of metal. He still tried.

'GET UP!'

"Damnit. At least work!" He jabbed at the comms in his cockpit. That had emergency internal cells. It could broadcast. Or at least it could if not for the jamming.

The enemy was going to kill him. They were taking their time doing it, but they were going to kill him. Trying to keep sound down? The shots had been muffled hadn't they? That shouldn't matter. His shots had been pretty loud, but there was a chance they hadn't been heard. He was a decent distance out, and the lack of radio meant bad things.

'Get up or everyone dies.'

"No." The young man growled out and grabbed at something. Maybe the eject system? If he got out, could he run to someone to warn them? His hand tapped at the Heart Crystal as he realized that he'd have to outrun the enemy mech, which was impossible. "Damnit!"

Something burned in his breast, and he felt something spike in his head. Pup grabbed at the controls again with nothing but instinct and his mech lurched. Resonance roared as his willpower demanded a response. The mech surged with electricity as its systems powered up for one last time.

Both the right and left heads of Cerberus exploded as the launchers were forced to function far beyond their capacity. Missiles were unloaded without regards to space or sense. A dozen Hellfire missiles roared into the air and ignited everything around the downed mech. The approaching stealth specialist was caught dead center of the entire mess.

Hellfire ate everything. Against a Second Rate being covered wasn't a death sentence. It was more than enough to cause serious damage still. The pilot did as trained and dashed out of the sudden inferno as fast as possible. It was enough to stop it from dying. Nothing else. The stealth system was absolutely fried and half it's systems were done from that one strike and it had to retreat out of the general area. A hit from literally anything else would likely spell its doom.

"WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!" Pup screamed out as the fires roared around him.

One miracle. That was what the universe owed Pup, and what he collected. His voice was heard. Through the jamming, through the lack of power, through the impossibilities that prevented him from being heard, the warning made it through.

The pilot of the stealth mech wasn't quite aware of that. Despite the shout, she was in a sealed mech and attuned to a specific tactical channel. She couldn't hear Pup's warning. Only the jammer could hear that the transmissions had been pierced.

Relaying that information turned out to be relatively pointless though. Pup's warning caused the mountain to go on red alert. The ones observing things could see the doors crashing down as the place was sealed. Shields were raised up, and mechs were scrambled.

It was too late to abort. The stealth mechs carrying the kill teams had already deployed them. Plan B was therefore moved up to the primary plan. The Kill Teams moved into the mountain and the mechs moved to intercept Wrench Rat forces. The swordsman moved forward and the battle began in earnest.

Pup's mech was left to burn with the semi-reasonable assumption that the Hellfire around him would eventually kill him as it spread. It was a semi-reasonable assumption. It might have been true had the pilot not been drilled repeatedly for scenarios like this. Pup's only regret was that it would take an hour to get back.

 

[Simonbob]

So....

Created a second Expert against them?

Should give the Hexxors a atomic thank you.

 

[foo-jin]

So....

Created a second Expert against them?

Should give the Hexxors a atomic thank you.

Click to shrink...

Are nukes still used in this setting? Regardless, I feel like the only way the rats can retaliate against the hexers is via the MTA putting pressure. Not sure if the rats have the pull to really affect things all that much on that front.

 

[Negation]

Regardless, I feel like the only way the rats can retaliate against the hexers is via the MTA putting pressure.

Click to shrink...

Remember all the holding back Bolt does with mech design working on other people's intellectual property? That just went out the window regarding Hexer technology.

 

[Mr.Feen3y!]

Additionally, isn't Ves a semi prisoner/collared collaborator of the Hexxers right now? So that means Bolt gets to rip apart some of his tech and not feel bad about it yeah?

 

[lost star]

The defenders had two problems and no ways of knowing about them. The Kill Teams forcing their way into the mountain, and the mechs outside. The jamming from the Second Rate mech absolutely overwhelmed all attempts at wireless communications on the mountain. Only Bolt's comm was able to penetrate it, and that was fairly useless without something to receive it. Neither Bolt, nor Lilly knew what was coming in. It should have been a very fatal scenario. Should have been.

Several factors prevented this from being a massacre. One was that the MTA had not skimped on making the mountain a fortress to pay for the masterwork they'd taken. The construction itself was mostly Third Rate materials, but they'd done it with First Rate technology and made it possible to upgrade. They had only underpaid compared to the usual bounty they gave for masterworks on the surface. In truth, their work on the fortress had been a textbook example of making a fortress capable of withstanding disproportionate assault with limited resources. There were enough redundant alerts that once the big alert had been sounded they were able to identify a vague area where the enemy was.

Breaking into the mountain was also not as simple as destroying the doors. Getting past the first set of doors after the alert had been sent out quickly required that the mechs take the time to break some of the shields in key areas and then ripping open the outer doors with their mech grade weapons. Getting past the second set of doors needed blasting charges and time. This significant delay and noise allowed for the Rats to respond and organize their response through the jamming. (Another black ops would have aborted by this point.)

Here was where another factor came into play. The Wrench Rats were very savvy and technologically inclined. They'd honed their art with the bare minimum of resources. They had a history of dealing with people trying to kill them in their bolt-holds. Everything in the mountain was hard wired and hardened against attacks assuming that the enemy would have a technological advantage. The Hexadric Hegemony forces had tried to hack the doors open and get into the internal network as their first steps. They'd failed because the Rats had compartmentalized everything with custom programs and outright physical triggers. The doors were all shut and could only be opened physically from the internal side. They were also simply physically thick and heavy enough that getting them open required an effort. All their hacking had done was make it harder for the defenders to pinpoint their position.

This meant things were not going as planned for the Hexxers. Every second meant they were losing time and advantages. They still had a lot of both, but aware targets were significantly more dangerous than unaware targets. Lilly and Bolt in particular were already enacting emergency plans. Lilly was sprinting to her mechs. Bolt was heading to a defensive position.

This was different than what others would suspect. There were many safe rooms. That was where the civilians and children moved to. Bolt's secured area was in different location by plan. He moved to a bay nearby where Lilly was deploying.

His wife grabbed Dowry. Morning Star was good defensively, but against unknown enemies she wanted something with speed and the ability to survive surprises. Dowry's full capabilities were also relatively unknown to the general population. The expert mech had not had a proper battle since its remodel. She left the mountain and to engage the enemy forces with nary a word but with a lot of love and determination.

Once she was gone Bolt made sure everything was secured behind her and began his own preparations. People thought of designers as weak and easy targets. They were morons. Most designers were morons too truthfully. They worked in places that built weapons. They never turned their thoughts as to how to defend themselves with that. Bolt specifically had.

On the Hexadric Hegemony's side, the Kill Teams had quickly realized that their poison gas was ineffective. It had been designed to propagate through filters of a Third Rate nation. It was not. It was either going inert or lingering around the deployment modules instead of spreading through the base properly. Unbeknownst to them, the Rats had a very long and very dark relationship with gas. A very frequent saying they had all heard was: 'The proper way to deal with Rats was poison.' They did not wear masks as a joke. They wore them because people frequently used it against them, and they frequently used it in turn. The one request they'd made towards the MTA was to have an excessive amount of proofing against gas attacks in the infrastructure. (Which they'd agreed to with something resembling amusement and a very tiny bit of actual First Rate tech.)

The team leads had a brief conversation and decided to switch back to a modified plan A. They had the location of Bolt thanks to advanced sensors and the limited system hacking they had accomplished. One team would go after him, and the other would have to intercept the oncoming security forces.

While this was occurring Bolt had secluded himself in the bay and had done some basic fortifications. At the moment he had no idea who was attacking, where they were attacking, why, and so on. All he knew was an alert had been given and some very powerful jamming was happening. Simple precautions had him seal the bay shut and set a few things to defend against intrusion. He was still very much in the dark.

So, in an effort to reassure himself and perhaps help, he warmed up the mech printer and started up a small designer program on his comm. His new idea was pretty sudden, but he felt like it would work. He finally had an idea of how to crack the stone shaper's mech technology! All he needed was one of the many, many spare Heart Crystals he had set aside and a bit of mental effort.

'Anyone care to help?' He first asked the spirits in the little sanctuary he made.

Gratifyingly, there were many volunteers. Bolt communed with them as he designed. The design itself was quite simple. Just a tiny man-sized mech. In fact, there were more than a few pre-made designs that did what he needed. Dubbed Fu-dogs, they were typically computer powered security things. Most of them were really crappy, putting it bluntly. The AI was horrible and they were prone to being hacked. Bolt could fix both of those issues! They just needed to be stripped of a few things, needed some more armor, the computer simplified and isolated. Bolt actually removed the weapons too. He'd re-add them later, but his intuition said he wanted something fast. It wasn't like they need weapons anyway. These were as large as a man. That much metal was a weapon in itself.

A few minutes later he had his new creation printed out and assembled. The big mass of metal was mostly inert and would stay that way without something special. It had a few batteries for power, and a simplified and very isolated computer that couldn't actually run anything. It was there to be a communication medium rather than the main AI.

His idea was fairly simple as well. Instead of having the spirit control something in a virtual environment he was going to have a spirit control something in a real environment. This was how the stone shapers had done their 'mechs,' sort of. They'd used something adjacent. The tech should be the same. Bolt charged the Crystal Heart containing the spirit some before he set it into the tiny mech and then placed a hand on it. The spirit that had volunteered was going to need a bit of a push and he needed to link it to the mountain conceptually...

The Fu-dog stood up without any order and the armor around the Heart Crystal clamped shut before Bolt could verify anything more than it was working. Just in time as well. To the side, the bay doors blew open as the kill team moved in. Dressed in black with faceless helmets and rifles, they were completely unidentifiable to him. Not that it mattered much. The weapons were all Bolt needed to know. He moved before they could even get close to getting a bead on him.

Bolt ducked behind some armor plating as they began to fire in his general direction. His precautions went off as several dead drops dropped several tons of metal plating in strategic places to break up sight lines. In between them the newly made dog pounded forward on four heavy legs. There was a flash of light as one of the attackers attempted to hack it with some sort of remote tool but it did absolutely nothing. If anything it allowed the dog to approach with even less opposition and it rammed into the leading woman with a chomp and a growl.

Clad as she was in compressed Second Rate armor, the operative did not die from the sudden bite. She probably wished she did, because the dog decided that the next thing to do would be to shake her like a rag-doll and then throw her into one of her teammates. The violent motion bowled both of the operatives over and caused them to hit the ground in a tangle of limbs that would have broken an unenhanced person's bones. The others spread out and began to fire.

None of this mattered much ultimately. Their weapons were state of the art laser rifles meant for infantry grade armor. The Fu-Dog was a miniature mech piloted by a spirit that had once worked with an expert. The standard shots just got through the first layer of protection. The thing was solid mech-grade armor. They all had weapons capable of handling that much defense, and tried to use them once it became obvious the dog was un-hackable, but it was a futile effort. The dog was close enough only the armor penetrating swords they carried were useful, and the spirit piloting the dog was very familiar with how to deal with swords.

The miniature monster took great pleasure in proving that over the next few seconds. While it couldn't actually penetrate their armor easily, weight and mass were enough of a weapon that it didn't need to do so. It just crushed limbs, twisted parts, and broke bodies. It was not pleasant. It wasn't particularly fast either.

Bolt felt relatively pleased with the results anyway. He was a bit confused why his new defender bounded out of the room when it was finished, but decided to trust its judgement. He took a moment to close the doors behind it, and then moved to a different bay and secured that one as well. Now that he knew what was happening he was going to be sure to keep very secured behind a few doors, barricades, and heavy objects.

In the meantime the Fu-dog bounded through the corridors. Its target was the other kill team. They'd been having an easier time.

Easier time, not a good time. Rat ground forces were an entirely different beast than their mech forces. Mech pilots were valuable. Ground forces were a dime a dozen, so the good ones had remained on the planet. More importantly, they practiced, and frequently fought for their lives through sometimes bitter fighting. Several of the men had grown up warring through tunnels before finally achieving peace in the mountain. These were men who fought with all the grace and skill of cornered rats with families behind them. Fanaticism didn't even come close to the emotions they had at the moment.

This didn't mean they threw themselves at the enemy in an attempt to kill them. It meant that they got mean. Once they'd located the kill team they'd identified the tech and fallen back without orders. They'd then used grenades, trip wires, dead falls, gas, acids, and and barricaded doors to make the Hexxers pay for every step. Some had literally thrown themselves at the attackers were killed. No quarter was asked, nor was it given. The fighting was bitter, brutal, and obscenely bloody. Low tech solutions could kill just as well as high tech solutions in the proper situations.

Genetically augmented and indoctrinated, the Hexxers didn't lose morale at what they were dealing with. They didn't really get physically tired either. They were still losing women. The constant kill zones and deadly tricks were starting to add up. The armor could only do so much. Each attack only had to get lucky once. Some of the traps were outright vicious and disabling no matter what happened. Dead drops that dropped slabs of metal onto people might not have crushed them due to the reinforced armor, but it could most certainly pin them down and keep them from moving. Tunnel fighting was hell, and these defenders had been born in it.

The kill teams might have won still. The tech and training still told quite a bit, and the gas they'd brought was still viable if used properly. If the Hexxers had gotten to a few open vents they might have still accomplished some of their goals. They most certainly would have attempted it.

Sadly for them, Bolt's Fu-dog was not going to even the chance of that. Follow its directive to protect the fortress it found the backs of the invading forces and rammed into them like an oncoming train. They fared little better than the other group. They fared worse actually, because the Rats capitalized on that distraction immediately.

The last Hexxer commando died by the dog crushing her head with one paw. The defenders took the time to spit on her body before giving the dog a tentative pat. The mass of metal wagged his tail in response and got a chuckle.

"Bets on this being a special trick from our Wonder Boy?" Someone asked roughly.

"Suckers bet."

 

[Dan O'von]

Hexxer Go Home.

 

[SV-Knight-Radiant]

Who lets the Dogs out?

 

[Simonbob]

I knew the Rat's would be a really hard target.

Now, we just need to see what Lily does.



Huh.

All the Kill Squad's women. With the standard, but only for Hexxor's, gene edits. Obvious bad guys are obvious.

 

[lost star]

While Bolt was committing small war crimes with spirits, Lilly was heading out. Her job was significantly more difficult. The jamming combined with other factors made it impossible to relay information quickly, and against an unknown enemy that was risky to outright suicidal. Mech combat was where the tech disadvantage really told as well.

Fortunately, this was actually one of the times when the Rat's low tech start was mildly useful. The veterans were quite used to the lack of radio and had already pulled back to the main entrance to coordinate and defend. The prevailing thought was mostly that they'd try to keep around the area and deal with the attackers once they had more information. They had a vague idea of positioning thanks to a few sensors that still worked, but the lack of instant updates made it rather unreliable.

Once Lilly joined them there was a very quick debate on what they should do. Full on defense with the shields up was theoretically possible, but that would be conceding the initiative. However attacking with so little knowledge seemed foolish as well. The discussion became moot shortly due to enemy action.

There was no warning. No sounds of challenge. Just suppressed gunfire from the distance that impacted several waiting mechs. Several went down immediately. Lilly was hit twice before she orientated on the enemy and moved with an expert's reflexes towards them despite the fact that they were all but invisible. Dowry pinged their forms as she got closer, but even then they were blurred.

Her damage was already severe at this point. It would have been life threatening in another mech. Dowry was not any other mech. Her internal factory roared with power and will. The resonance materials flexed, and liquid flowed out of the wounds almost like blood. Like blood it clotted. In less time than it took to get to the enemy, Dowry was fully repaired.

It did not help as much as Lilly would have liked. The mech was barely visible even this close and she already knew there were going to be problems. She identified the mech as a Second Rate immediately after it moved in an attempt to avoid her pursuit. She had to dodge a nearly visible knife and several shots before she got close enough to grip. By the time she'd grabbed it, one of the shots had hit her, going through her willpower enhanced defenses and shattering one of the armor plates. She managed manhandle it to the ground before more could be done, but it was a temporary victory.

The unfortunate fact of the matter was that her opponent's mech was better than hers in every way. These stealth mechs might have sacrificed nearly everything for their unparalleled stealth, but they were still Second Rate. Her throw was a temporary victory. The mech pilot was already shifting and flaring her boosters to mitigate the poor position she'd forced it into. Worse was that Lilly couldn't just shred it with Dowry's claws like she would a third rate. She was the underdog here by a serious margin. Which was nothing new.

Perhaps another expert might have fumbled slightly, caught off guard by the power disparity. Lilly found these circumstances familiar. Dowry found these circumstances familiar. She couldn't shred the armor, but she could pry open just a bit. Chunks of the enemy's armor were torn off and shoved into her mech's mouth, and then Dowry ducked and dashed away as the others attempted to encircle her. It was very apparent that she was considered the only threat.

Behind her bullets just barely missed as she juked unpredictably. Lilly's skill and ability surpassed her opponents even if the tech didn't. The armor went down Dowry's throat like a sharp blade and the resonant enhanced nanomachines started to grind against it. As she moved and dodged the enemy's deadly shots the claws started to shift and change as her mech adapted quickly and silently.

Instinct had blasting her boosters to dodge to the side as a swordsman came roaring down from above in an attempt to decapitate her. The two handed blade it wielded just barely missed, and Lilly hissed as she readied herself. She was in serious trouble now. The stealth mechs were dangerous but somewhat manageable due to their specialty. A dedicated fighter like this one would take focus that she couldn't spare.

Missile and laser fire from the distance even things up slightly. The rest of the Wrench Rats had rallied and begun offering fire support. The flame from the Hellfire missiles licked at the stealth mechs sides and disrupted the visual distortion significantly, robbing them of a large advantage and letting the other mechs focus on them. Furthermore, a few flares were giving the artillery mechs an area to focus on. This forced the stealth mechs to shift targets just to keep from getting brought down by just weight.

The damage quickly became devistating. Only the weight of Rat reinforcements was letting them keep up with the return fire. They were hemorrhaging people from every shot. It was giving Lilly time though, and she would not let their sacrifice be in vain.

Dowry was far from a perfect mech. She was a specialized hit and run monster. One on one against a prepared target was a delicate dance. This went double for the Second Rate swordsman she was fighting, because the thing was not a purist model. It had a pair of lasers mounted on the shoulders that traced melted large sections of Dowry's armor after each swing. No amount of dodging was going to keep her from being hit against such a superior technology advantage.

Lilly was forced to burn precious willpower to repair Dowry every second of battle. Her opponent didn't even need to hit her with the sword. Enough damage from the lasers and she'd die, and her opponent knew it. They were faster, stronger, and more dangerous. The disparity was almost too much. Almost, because at the end of the day this was just a normal pilot versus an expert. There was a reason experts were precious.

Every swing showed her how her opponent thought and was trained. Every second became just a bit easier to predict and anticipate. Lilly dodged and dodged and dodged as she mapped out what the pilot was doing and thinking. She could feel the brainwashing. Every part of this opponent had been focused and trained to hate the other. Something about it was disgusting. Everything about it was predictable. Too predictable. The sword swung again and Lilly stepped into it. Reflexively the enemy boosted to dodge her attack, but Lilly had already started up her own boost, knowing exactly how they'd move.

One of Dowry's hands shot forward then. The elongated arms did their work in offering deceptive reach. The newly modified talons caught at the seam of once part of the armor and ripped. A chunk of armor went flying and then the other hand slammed forward. The claws dug into the innards of the mech and then dug deeper still.

Mercy was not an option today. Without a flinch or hesitation Lilly had Dowry's fingers grab around the cockpit and it crumpled like a can to her complete surprise. The mech went still before Lilly pulled back with a small frown. A proper cockpit could have ejected before she'd reached it. It would certainly have resisted more.

In the distance, one of the stealth mechs went down. The rest were still firing at with all their might. The Wrench Rats were not doing well. Their mechs littered the ground Their Second Rate opponents were stronger, better, and faster. Only the Wounded Angels and the Bloody Berserkers were still up at this point, and the Berserkers just barely. Unfortunately for them, with Lilly's victory they were caught between two attackers now, and Dowry was practically built for the rest of the fight. They couldn't run either. They'd been damaged just enough that they could not escape easily, especially with Dowry on the field.

The remaining forces did their best to sell their lives dearly, but against an expert and the rest of the rats they didn't have much hope. The Wrench Rats were victorious before reinforcements could appear. That is if one called losing most of their mechs and more than a few pilots victory. The Second Rate mechs had not been shy about cockpit targeting, and their armaments had made it easy to penetrate the extra armor meant to defend the pilots. Lilly and the others couldn't even be happy about capturing them, because the pilots had suicided themselves with self destruct charges when it became apparent they'd lose. More than a few were bitter about that. They'd wanted better salvage!

 

[Negation]

Lilly and the others couldn't even be happy about capturing them, because the pilots had suicided themselves with self destruct charges when it became apparent they'd lose. More than a few were bitter about that. They'd wanted better salvage!

Click to shrink...

So the only viable salvage would be the stealth swordsman. Ghost Knight or Death Knight for the Undead Legion next?

 

[foo-jin]

More than a few were bitter about that. They'd wanted better salvage!

Click to shrink...

The only good hexer is a dead hexer, and even then they don't even make for good salvage. Bah!

 

[Simonbob]

I see the mind warped Hexxers Kill Team is willing to die for "their" cause.

Mercy was not an option today. Without a flinch or hesitation Lilly had Dowry's fingers grab around the cockpit and it crumpled like a can to her complete surprise. The mech went still before Lilly pulled back with a small frown. A proper cockpit could have ejected before she'd reached it. It would certainly have resisted more.

Click to shrink...

Even their mechs are primed to let the pilots die for their owners.


What a mess.

 

[Golgotha]

All I can imagine is a berserk Eva crushing an entry plug. Even had the theme music playing in my head

 

[lost star]

"Who the fuck attacked us?!"

That was the general question on everyone's mind. Getting assaulted was one thing. Getting assaulted by Second Rate mechs in this area was another thing. That was both extremely expensive and something that was only possible through government backing. This cost was compounded by the stealth mechs. Stealth mechs were always something that people hid the designs on. You didn't get the good ones out in the public domain because that would just invite easy counters. Stealth mechs were always best as hidden daggers. There were a grand total of two possible states in the sector capable of an operation like this.

It was obvious which of the two it was. It was also equally obvious that it didn't matter. The mechs had been stripped of identifying markings and they weren't in general databases. The pilots and attackers, all women, were all dead and likewise lacked markings. It might have been obvious, but there was also just enough deniability that the Hexadric Hegemony could disavow the entire operation. Even the stealth mechs were just unusual since the primary designer wasn't in the public databases.

"It's almost generically standard Hexxer tech." Bolt told Lilly as he looked over the ruined machinery. "They use a specific set and number of bolts in all their works, frequently to the point of causing structural issues."

"Seriously?" The expert asked as she patted the Fu-Dog next to her.

The new defensive 'mech' had rapidly become a favorite of the mountain. So much so that Bolt had made two more of them. (With spirit consent of course.) He'd done some refinement on the design and added a few small infantry scale weapons to complete the setup. They could actually work in the mountain indefinitely if the population kept active due to various reasons, but would be utterly useless outside. This was more than acceptable and made them a very useful new defensive measure.

"Yes. They're obsessed with the number six and hexes. So much so that you could probably tell if I showed you a few bits." The designer snorted. "It also doesn't matter that much. I reported it to Bubbles, and she's going to try to get something done, but officially the MTA has no statement to make."

"So that's it then. They try to kill us and we just have to take it?" Lilly's pat turned into a grip that fortunately couldn't hurt the metal monster she'd been stroking.

"There will be something. It's just going to take time and likely not specifically pay us. There's a reason I'm looking through this aside from the obvious." Bolt responded quietly and with very real anger in his voice. "They killed a lot of good people. We both have seen that shit happen and can almost accept it. It was going after the kids and families that really pisses me off. That's when you go for the eyes and nuts and make sure they bleed."

"Ya think ya can get proof?" Lilly asked with wide eyes.

"Not quite. Ya see, a lotta stealth systems aren't public." Bolt explained with a shake of his head. "There's a lotta reasons, but mostly cause the big guys like ta keep it close to the chest. I'm gonna figure it out and then sell it to the Fridays. It will net us some money, and give them a big middle finger too."

Lilly stared at him. "I don't get it?" She said.

Bolt chuckled. He didn't blame her. It required a fair bit of cultural context. The surface of it was really simple though. "Basically, cause I'm a guy, they'll hate me fer proving that their tech is something I can understand. Little rat like me getting his grubby hands on their stuff? That's like Satan himself walking up and dragging his balls over their face."

"Seems like a good way of getting them pissed off more then." Lilly observed the big problem.

"What are they gonna do, try ta kill us harder?" Bolt then nodded. "You are right though. It's just that while the MTA might not be doing anything right away they did inform me that they've taken steps to prevent this from happening again. If some more Second Rate mechs are dropped in they'll have more than words."

In point of fact, Bolt was fairly sure that the MTA would nail the Hegemony to the wall with great relish if they tried something so blatant again. Bubbles hadn't outright told him to hurt them, but officially had the MTA's blessing to do whatever he could do in retaliation. The Hexxers were just shy of being put on the MTA's formal shit list. Something like that would be outright crippling to the nation.

"It ain't blood, but I suppose it will have ta do." Lilly eventually said before sighing. "I'm going to see about kicking up morale a bit."

The young man nodded at his wife. They didn't do elaborate funerals and things like that, but there was going to be a lot of drinking over the next few days. Lilly would fit in better on that end than hovering around him. Morale wasn't actually that low though. They'd fought and won against Second Rate mechs while also gaining a new expert. They had lost enough that it hurt, but it was still a win. They had pulled off something near impossible in the conventional sense.

What Bolt was doing was just another near impossibility. Trying to decipher secrets from destroyed mechs was hard. Trying to do it from things that had been deliberately destroyed was harder. Trying to do it from a level above him would have been impossible for anyone else.

Bolt did have several advantages though. This was probably the pinnacle of what his personal design ethos was meant to do. He had also already worked with Second Rate tech, and even had a small grounding in First Rate technology thanks to MTA lessons. Furthermore, he had spiritual nonsense!

The last part was something he was putting together on the fly really. It felt right. Every since he'd returned from the Stone Shaper world he'd been studying and doing small tests. It was time to try something unique and completely his.

It started with the normal recovery.

Picking apart and identifying the parts of the mechs. All of them were pretty damaged. The self destruct was pretty good at totaling the big parts of a mech. It wasn't meant to really destroy everything though. It couldn't. Mech were weapons of war. They needed to be able to take damage. Self destruction was contrary to that. Having a good self sabotaged option meant you had a mech that could be damaged.

He had four stealth mechs. All of their internals were fried in various ways. They were fried in various different ways though. If you took all the working parts and merged them together, you had about... Half a working mech.

This was actually a good sign from a salvagers perspective. Very typically you had to pull from something like five or six broken mechs to get something that could run, and that was if you got lucky. Typically you needed a good dozen or so. Inoperable mechs were inoperable for a reason after all. Good designers made sure they took a lot of damage before they dropped. You typically had one or two good parts from each wreck, unless the cockpit had been pierced. (Then you had a ghost mech that was both lucky and unlucky at the same time.)

After he finished pulling out the good parts from the wrecks Bolt moved onto the next part. This was basically filling in the gaps and where a lot of reverse engineering struggled. Since Bolt wasn't trying to get a fully functional mech he could skip a lot. He didn't care about the reactor for instance, and that was probably the only thing he couldn't recreate. Reactors were one of the biggest physical separators between tiers, and self destructs used them to destroy the rest of the mech typically. He lacked everything, from materials to expertise, to remake one. Which wasn't really a bad thing. If he could make a Second Rate reactor with his materials and setup he wouldn't be making Third Rate mechs!

His restoration wasn't like coloring the blank spots on a coloring book. There were significant chunks missing in the mech. That was fine. Bolt very carefully started to pick at the feel of the mech rather than the form. He defined the designer. He took the feelings they'd put through the mech, the hopes and dreams, and pulled them out. He 'devoured' them, though that was being dramatic. There were just trace elements to go off. Paltry base thoughts and impressions that were hidden under who'd made the mech. It gave him information though, and let him almost see the one that had created this design.

The core design system wasn't made by a master. It was made by a senior at best. The entire pattern reeked of indoctrination. The person that made them was dedicated to the state above all else, and this mech had suffered for it. Sequestered away in the dark, alone, and with only their superiors as points of contact. She had scribbled away and learned not because she wanted to, but just because. There was no soul or passion here. Only absolute and mindless dedication. A slave in everything but name. The design was crude, unimaginative, and souless.

Bolt had never met the woman who'd designed this mech. He didn't know her. He couldn't. He really and genuinely pitied her. He'd also put her down like a mad dog if he met her. This was seeing scribbles on a wall written in blood. The words might have been valid, but the writer was not well.

Once he had a feel of the designers mindset he was able to almost finish the design. He could identify what decisions she'd made and where she'd placed important components. The sound mufflers were in the ankles, a bit above the joints there and threaded through the soles. The vision obscuring was actually a set of shield emitters in several points, also nearby the joints. The radar obscurement was mostly paint and physical design with a side of emissions around the back.

Bit by bit Bolt identified it all. He picked apart the mech's strengths and weaknesses. He verified how it worked and what the flaws were.

Neither the technology nor the mech were particularly innovative. Stealth was never just one system. It was multiple ones. The tricky part was always in coordinating it all in one package and keeping ahead of the local sensory package. His people had lucked out that scent had been a low priority for this stealth system.

Despite the flaws, this was a mech he couldn't really replicate. As a designer of Third Rate mechs, Bolt could tell that a stealth system was functionally impossible for Third Rate. There just wasn't enough room to do it. Even this mech had struggled with it. There had been several very critical tradeoffs to make it work.

By this point Bolt had mostly recreated the mech. It was still missing a few parts due to his lack of the appropriate exotic materials, but that was fine. He had notes. If he were to hook it up to a reactor, the mech would be functional and have about ninety percent of it's original performance. He had already written up an analysis and a breakdown of everything about it.

Bolt didn't feel satisfied though. He had a near rebuilt mech and he felt more frustrated than anything else. He debated a moment internally before he decided he needed to do something more with this knowledge. But what?

He couldn't make a stealth mech at Third Rate. Well, he could, but it wouldn't be able to do anything. The power requirements alone would cause the thing to be barely functional. Perhaps if he cut most of the functions and did the bare minimum, but that would take thought and likely cost far too much to be worth it.

Bolt sent a message to his father. His family would contact a few neutral brokers and see if there were buyers out there. The Friday Coalition should be interested in both the near intact stealth mech and the swordsman. Getting that sort of thing always helped in war and even if they didn't want them, someone else would.

He still felt frustrated.

The young designer sighed and tried to put it out of his mind. He'd figure out something later. Just like he had to figure out how he was going to get a senior designer or above to help with Pup's new expert mech.

 

[Simonbob]

Man.

The Hexxers get worse and worse.


Still, stealing their secrets, and selling them to their enemies is a pretty reasonable vengance. Well, that, and making sure all your contacts know about it, and that they might be on the target list.

 

[Negation]

Wasn't Bolt trying to figure out how to replicate that Knight with the Invisible Sword from Cold Grave? He can't make a Stealth mech but he should have enough to make an Invisible Sword for a mech now right?

 

[Thomisannoyed]

Looks like Bolts most pressing and consistent need is to upgrade Rust bucket into a 2nd rate planet.
Is that something possible to do? Or would he have to pay someone to reposition it into somewhere with more resources.

 

[lost star]

Bolt tapped at the design pad. He then tapped some more. He took a deep breath. What should he do? What should he do?

He lacked inspiration. He also sort of lacked a crucial factor. He couldn't make an expert mech without a senior or greater help, and he didn't have that at the moment. This wasn't going to happen in the future either. Designing felt pointless with that in mind. He turned the pad off and began to wander.

The mountain hallways had not changed aside from a few scrapes here and there from the new Fu-dogs patrolling. The things had decided that the best way to defend the place was continuous patrol. When they weren't recharging at their little shrines / recharging stations, they were roaming the halls. There were a few complaints about that, but most people seemed to like the security it implied. The spirits in the mechs loved it as well. Something about the purpose and duty combined with the reverence was strengthening them.

Bolt was reminded again that he still knew so little about, well everything. It a heady feeling that washed away a lot of his current frustration. There was so much to learn and discover! It was like when he was first learning. The horizons were endless and the possibilities infinite.

"How do you work?" The words reached him before the designer could see the speaker.

The voice was familiar and around the corner. A few steps later and they were in view. Gadget had almost crawled up one of the Fu-dogs and was poking at various things in an attempt to plot out the machine's functions. She looked more than a little frustrated as she climbed down and brought up the blueprint on her comm. The Fu-dog looked as amused as a machine could look at the situation.

"Ya aren't gonna figure it out that way." Bolt called out.

"Brother!" Gadget blew out a frustrated breath of air. "How?!" She gestured emphatically to the guardian.

"Well first, quit bothering the war machine." The older tech said with a small grin. "Then I suppose yer old big bro can tell you a few things."

"Nothing about it makes sense." The young girl complained as she slowly followed his lead.

"Course nothing about it makes sense. We're missing like half the equations for reality." Bolt shot back before he amended himself quickly. "No, more like... Hmm. How would I describe it really?"

Gadget gave him a sour look as he continued to dither. "You are supposed to be explaining things not confusing me more."

"I'm trying, but I haven't done it verbally yet." The designer led them into his designing room and took a seat. He also had a few things he had to keep secret and non-verbal. Which was good practice really. "Let's go with this. So far as I can tell there's a bit of a second layer on reality."

"Are we getting into FTL physics?" The girl asked almost eagerly.

"No." Bolt said before wincing. "Though maybe? I'm really just an amateur. Can't call myself an expert. But basically there's the physical, and a layer alongside it. The powers that be call it psionics. I call it spiritual. The name doesn't matter so much as what the stuff does. For all I know, FTL uses some of it."

"So magic." Gadget concluded with far less enthusiasm.

That got a chuckle. "I think it's called that too." Bolt said while chuckling again and continuing. "But the core of it is that something is created when living things live, die, think, and have other emotions. Really hard ta define cause it's not visible and humans can't touch it at all. Tis what gives a lotta aliens freaky special powers. Humans got nothing compared ta them."

Gadget stared at him. "We got nothing?" She asked incredulously.

"Reality is haves and have nots. Humans as a race have absolutely no sense that feel it and no abilities that touch that energy by default." Bolt advised back while taking a seat and revving up a few of the displays. "Doesn't mean we can't use it. It just means we need to do more than squishing our faces up and wishing hard. Humans make tools. Ain't like we can see heat fer instance, but I can bring up a heat camera in a few seconds." He did so as an example.

Gadget frowned at the screens. "So why lecture? Give me the tools and let me try!" She half asked and half demanded while making grabbing motions.

"Still workin' on that part. The Heart System I have in mechs does a lotta it right now." Bolt explained and very carefully didn't even hint at his guesses on why it worked so well. "That stuff only works cause o' the human element working with mechs. Making something the average person could use is a lot harder."

"That explains why you used that crystal in the blueprint. That doesn't really explain everything though." The young girl took a seat of her own and pulled up the Fu-dog blueprint.

"Yep. That's part o' my latest project. The hint here is why I prefer spirit as a name for all this jazz." Bolt replied with a small grin.

Gadget was smart, she picked it up immediately. "You put ghosts inside. How?!"

"Special sauce!" Bolt replied back and chuckled as his sister looked for something to throw at him. "One moment." He grabbed a few materials he kept in a side bin for models and such.

This was actually going to be something he needed to do at some point. The primer he was thinking of had to speak of spiritual senses and such, but how do you show that to someone that has never felt it before? Bolt had thought about if a fair deal. Humans couldn't really do things the way other races did. They were firmly grounded in the physical realm. They could only do a tiny amount.

Yet, hadn't he already proved that tiny amount was enough? You just needed some guidance on how to develop the right tools and senses. Everything else would come from being a human. One didn't need the strength to move a mountain. They needed a shovel. Or a bulldozer.

Humming to himself Bolt crafted a small Rubix Cube. He then used tiny, tiny bits of exotics to each of the faces. He then added a small verifier. Once the cube was in a proper position the thing would flash. With all of this done he colored all of the sides a singular color and gave the new toy a few twists.

"Ok, this is the first step. Getting a sense of spirit." Bolt set the cube down. "Exotics have a tiny trace of spirit in them. Everyone has a different way of feeling that spirit if they develop it. You need focus and intent to develop it." He pushed the item to Gadget.

The girl frowned as she grabbed at the cube and felt it with her fingers. "You do know you can solve these blindfolded right?"

"If you can think o' a better tool let me know." Bolt said back before giving a shrug. "Once you can sort of feel it, ya can start to interact with it. It takes a lot of will and a lot of effort. Remember humans got nothing so we can only do the bare minimum with just our will." He had more than a normal human, but he still didn't have a lot. "I think that is more than enough to do whatever we need. Let me know when you get a sense and I can give you what I have written up, or do some tutoring."

"I want both." Gadget practically demanded as he fingers flipped the cube around. "You owe me big brother time."

"Really?" Bolt asked with a grin. "And when did that get established?"

"Just now. You need a break from those icky mechs anyway." The cube in the girl's hands flashed which drew a frown. "I might need a different puzzle. I'm going to remember the solution by rote."

"I'll brainstorm some. And icky mechs?" Bolt laughed softly at the description. "Still hate em?"

"Yes. They might be better than fighters in the sand war, but I don't like them anyway. Too many things that don't make sense!" The girl's frown increased. "They use spirit nonsense too don't they?"

"Mine do. The rest, might use a little bit. I don't have facts there." Bolt's answer was particularly noncommittal. "A lot of of it is likely very secret and not something to pry into."

"Of course." Gadget set the cube down with a sigh as he enthusiasm clearly dropped. "I'm going to go think on this ok?"

"Please feel free." Bolt said back with a small wince.

She was a very smart girl who picked up a lot of context. Some of it was about things he had only guesses on. As much as he hated that sort of thing, she was also smart enough to know why secrets stayed secrets.

Bolt spent a few minutes looking up how her lessons were going once she left. The girl was racing along. Which was both good, and bad. Good because she was a brilliant young girl. Bad because they were running out of general educational material and would need to let her specialize soon. The problem was what? The CFA ship building course was expensive, and she wouldn't use half the tech.

Perhaps he should see about a mentor? But who? How?

Bolt sighed and pulled out his comm. His expensive, First Rate comm. "I know I'm speaking with an automated program, but I don't suppose you could spare a moment to recommend something for my sister? She wants to get into making space ships and I really have no idea how to help. Perhaps I should talk with the Rim Guardians on it, but I'm not certain that's the best option. They'd what, arrange for her to be mentored with some Third or Second Rate shipyard?"

It'd be a good career, but it felt so limited too. Bolt wished he had better answers. Nothing he could find fit what he wanted really.

Now that he was thinking about it though. "Look at me, asking for something here already." Bolt laughed at himself. "I shouldn't be. She has a good life ahead of her no matter what. Is this what I'll feel like when I have kids? This is how those young master tales start isn't it? Asking for special treatment. Haaa. If you review this, sorry for even asking." He turned off his comm.

He'd figure something out alone.

 

[Simonbob]

That's perhaps the most interesting way to ask for a favor I've run into in a while.

Also, confusing your little sister? Always a good thing!

 

[foo-jin]

This is how those young master tales start isn't it? Asking for special treatment. Haaa.

Click to shrink...

I've wanted to read something that addresses this for a long time: a xianxia-style fic where the MC does the usual growth and "slap the young master and the master comes, slap the master and the elder comes", but eventually the MC is a local hegemon and has some kids who turn into young masters themselves. How to raise kids to avoid them becoming young masters? What if you fail, are you going to once more start the cycle of revenge but now you are the vengeful elder instead of the lucky up-and-coming prodigy? I would write it myself if I had the skill and a better conception of how to make it stay interesting longer term.