What's Junk? (The Mech Touch)

I041

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"We have an actual plan now." Philippe told his friends as they gathered. "Bolt has been given authorization codes for a facility nearby. We need to go there, hook up with the people if they are loyal, and then let him know. If we are lucky, they have more mechs."

"We only have three other pilots." Camille pointed out through her mech loudspeaker.

"Oui, but that's still more than what we had before, and that will have to mean something." The teen said with a grim shrug as they left the shelter.

Neither he nor Bolt knew what was going through the general's head. All they knew was that the designer now had full authority over the city, and requests that he resolve the situation to the best of his ability. So Bolt and Phillipe were running with it. Where they were running was up in question. Right now it was down the street and hopefully to someone with more more information.

The streets were quiet as they moved. Several buildings were scarred, and traffic was gone. A few terrified people gazed at them as they traveled down the streets, and then hid. Phillipe wanted to reassure people. He didn't. That decision felt more haunting than it should have.

For a long moment the only sound was the wheels of the trucks they were taking and the footsteps of the mech. Contact, when it came, was abrupt. The thudding of a mech running sounded first. Then Camille moved forward.

The opponent was a metal mech. That was Phillipe's first indication of trouble. Traditional mechs weren't banned from the city, but they most certainly wouldn't be used by anyone local. This opponent had two blades, one on each hand. It was pure black, and sleek in a way that radiated a sense of both speed and danger. Both of which it displayed by darting forward before Camille could even begin to react.

Fortunately for the girl, Bolt had prepared for something like this. The Lumberjack's back mounted weapons were heavy things. They weren't cannons, but only by technicality. They were designed to punch through heavy armor at short to medium range, and had poor tracking. Bolt had switched that to a grapeshot analog. His reasoning was that if there was going to be a fight, it would have been between mechs.

Camille's reflexively triggered those cannons and that grapeshot on the approach. The black mech was knocked off course and slammed into a nearby building as the impact turned its lunge into a spin. The structure cracked as the mech braced itself and got back to it's feet, armor mildly shredded.

"Go!" The girl shouted, and Phillipe and the others went.

Behind him the battle continued. Phillipe had a moment to see her fire off the back cannons again as she brought the axe up between them. In response the chest of the mech lit up and a laser lanced out to impact her armor. The teen couldn't see more. He just floored it in hopes that he could reach the facility in time.

In the normal order of things it would have taken a few minutes to get to his destination. He reached it in less than two. It was not a large structure. It was a squat thing with massive reinforced gates meant for mechs. Most of it was underground, and it was triply reinforced. There were no signs of battle damage, but Phillipe didn't take that as a sign of anything. He instead ran to one of the peripheral entrances. This one was for people, and had an automated lock. Phillipe tapped his comm to it and waited as patently as he could.

A long second passed. Then Bolt's gifted authorization went through and the door started to slowly open. The teen barely waited to try to get in. He wedged himself in the door and almost screamed as he saw a gun. The soldier that met him was dressed in a helmet and armor, so the young man couldn't tell what he was thinking, but it couldn't have been anything good.

"Who are you, and why do you have auth codes?!" The man demanded.

"Ack, my name is Phillipe, and we got them from ze general in charge of the barrier planets. We need to reestablish contact and get a situation update! I have a friend who was able to get through the jamming!" the teen could barely believe what he was spouting as he waved his hands. Behind him one of his friends choked down something.

"You have a line outside?!" The man asked before shaking his head and gesturing inside. "No wait, it doesn't matter. You have valid codes. In now! We need things unlocked and there's enemy's outside!"

"We know, our friend was fighting to buy us time." Phillipe said. "Do we have mechs?"

"A dozen locked, pending authorization codes, which you have. No pilots though, so I hope your hanger ons have training." The guard growled out. "We need that outside line more though. The chain of command iz fucked."

"What do you mean?" The teen asked with mounting dread as they ran deeper into the facility.

"Half of command is confirmed az dead, the rest are traitors, a full lock down of our systems happened, and for some reason there's a ten-year abomination past he barriers prowling around the streets." The soldier said grimly. "If you have someone with authority we can unlock the systems at least. Everyone with the proper codes are dead, so you're literally the only one that has it."

"Merde." Phillipe cursed and then gestured to his friends. "Run to the mech bays. Get them prepped and out there, bring our girl back and then run to Bolt. We need him here. Be quick, please."

"Don't know this Bolt, but if he gave you the codes then we'll need him." The guard agreed. "At the very least I don't want someone with that authority outside someplace secured."

"Of course." The young man muttered. "It couldn't be easy."

That got a very dark laugh as they entered the command center for the fortification. There were only a few people there and all of them had very black looks. Phillipe could guess why. The base was at minimum power. That attitude changed as several consoles lit up with Phillipe's entrance. For a moment the teen was confused, but then he realized that was because he technically had a general's authorization.

"How did..." A woman cut herself off. "No matter. You just cleared the lock." She noted as she typed at a console. "Its taking my commands now. I don't know where you got a general's codes, but you might have just saved the city."

"Get to the mechs and get our friend back." Phillipe ordered his allies and stepped forward. "I am Phillipe, and I have apparently been given authorization to unlock everything. Do we have a situation update?"

"Non. All we have is what some of us saw." The woman said. "It's not good. We got a general shutdown command in the night and then a few of our pilots got murdered trying to get to other facilities. I am just a designer, not someone with command, so I cannot say more."

"That is not good." The young man noted grimly.

"Not good iz an understatement." Was the reply. "The hard-lines should be able to talk with the other fortifications through the jamming, but there should have been more coordination than what we've observed. We must assume that there was a decapitation strike. Thankfully with the systems up we should know more shortly."

"Decapitation strike means everyone that should be in charge is dead right?" Phillipe had to confirm.

"Oui."

That sort of meant that Bolt was now in charge, which was quite insane. He wasn't even a citizen!

Things were a mess. That was putting it politely. If one wanted to be really truthful about it, one could say that it was a dumpster on fire. Bolt had no real sense of military matters. He didn't need any of it to tell that things were absolutely screwed. Thankfully it was less that they were screwed and more everything was screwed up.

"Have we made contact with anyone actually trained in this? Are they all dead?" Bolt asked the others in the command center soon after he entered.

"Maybe?" The woman who seemed to have taken charge said tentatively. "None of the officers that should be active are in contact. There should be a few still alive, but with the jamming and chaos they might not be able to reach us. A few of the people we can talk with have reported a significant amount of battles with equipment we don't have. Our tentative conclusion is that visitors objected to the events and fought back."

Bolt nodded slowly and looked over the tactical map of the city. There was a lot of red. That didn't indicate hostile forces. It just indicated places they knew there'd been conflict. It was not encouraging that most of the place was red.

"I don't think there were that many traitors or they were that successful." Phillipe offered from the side tentatively. "It just doesn't make sense."

His words got a nod from the female designer. "I do agree, even if we lack evidence. If they had the numbers they would be visibly trying to take control. Instead they are trying to ambush and hiding still. Our best bet for victory at the moment would be to find Venerable Odette I believe. She should be able to help us secure a proper rally point."

With a nod Bolt brought up a few pictures of the mech that had been fighting with Camille. It was one of the few pieces of actual fully trustworthy intelligence. "What information do you have on this? My initial thoughts are that it's a Lumberjack counter and it's likely what the enemy's using as their primary mech."

"Thoze trash heaps are called Tree-Wasps. The other Second Rate nation in the sector uses them as throw away garbage. You can get a hundred no questions asked in a minute on any black market in the sector." The woman sounded both enraged and irritated by that.

So the closest thing Second Rate mechs got to frontline mechs. Still expensive compared to Third Rate, but bottom of the barrel. Bolt had more appreciation for them than his compatriot. It was sleek, thematic, and surprisingly solid despite the cheapness. It felt like a mech that was despised because it was popular more than because it was bad.

He wasn't going to say that. Instead Bolt reviewed what they had again. There was little more. Right now the local forces were rallying thanks to renewed contacts, but the lack of officers was causing serious coordination issues. Nominally Bolt was in charge due to the general's decision to transfer him command codes. He really had no idea what to do with all of it aside from asking people to get into contact with more loyalists.

"Venerable Odette. Where would she be? Do we have reports about her?" Bolt asked with a tap on the display.

"She pilots a rather vibrant flying lancer. We have had no reports of it. Her position is classified and she has a full time guard that is explicitly loyal to her. Security wise if she is not in her mech she is in a safe spot." The woman explained.

"Hmm. Nifty." Lilly mused from the side.

"Nifty?" Bolt asked and then blinked at what his wife was looking at. "Oh, you have her records?"

"Bolt, honey, you have full access to all classified information thanks to yer codes." Lilly responded and flicked through a few things on his comm. "I don't even like dealing with this stuff and I found it. we have fallback information, points of contact, and her mech location."

"Ah," Bolt breathed out and took a deep breath and then realized something. "Let's try calling her." The man said with mild amusement and began the call.

It was mildly hilarious how powerful his comm was, but that was what you got when you got a First Rate device. How it was getting through the jamming and allowing calls was impossible to say. He was fairly sure it was running something robust though, because there was a trace amount of heat coming from it as it worked it's magic.

"Odette speaking. Verify yourself, this is an unknown number." The response was quick.

"Oh thank the founders. This is Debora." The woman designer breathed out as she took the comm from Bolt. "We have a line that can pierce the jamming." She rattled off a series of numbers and a few other details that seemed to convince the expert of her authenticity in short order. "What's your status?"

"Mech has been sabotaged. We're pinned down in safehouse three." The expert reported back. "Commands, reinforcements?"

"Phillipe. Take a few of the guards here and your friends and prepare to help the expert." Bolt interjected. "Your goal will be her and the mech only if you can get it. She's the priority. Do you recall the salvage tricks?"

"Yes Monsieur!" The teen gave a salute that almost looked right before running out.

"I do not recognize that voice." The expert on the call said.

"Bolt Silica." The man said with a smile that couldn't be seen by her. "I apparently have authorization codes and a way to talk thanks to my special comm."

There was a beat of silence before the expert almost audibly dismissed the strangeness of the statement. "Very well. We will need more than a few. They want me dead, and I believe one of ze great foe has stolen a mech. The movement of one of them makes me suspicious."

Bolt frowned. "We don't have more. That said..." He trawled through the information. "We do have something that can be very distracting and attention gathering." Now that he knew he had access, he could see other classified information. On thing in particular was interesting. "You were working on a mech here?"

"Classified-" The designer paused and winced at the very obvious blueprints on the general display. "Well, yes. It was a heavy code-named Woodpecker."

"Looks half finished." Bolt noted as he looked over the blueprint. "Ah, and I just realized we never exchanged introductions." He brought that up because he could see her name on the designer notes. Senior Debora.

"Oui, but I don't think it matters much here." The Senior said dryly. "We are past casual introductions Monsieur Silica."

"Yep," The man responded with a small laugh. "Ok, we have a half finished heavy biomech in the bay with a lot of parts. What was it trying to prove, because I know a prototype when I see it."

"The main focus was the twin Gatling Guns. My specialty is in heavy weapons for biomechs." Debora said as she highlighted several points. "The weapons are finished, but the were valid flaws in the overall design that makes me hesitant to deploy it."

"It's slow, the tracking is bad on the weapons, and you don't have additional ones installed yet." Bolt concluded quickly.

"Er, yes." Debora responded with mild surprise before she continued with more confidence. "The initial thought was to simply test out the chassis with the weapons first. They were personally designed with several new ideas and I desired data. Some imbeciles decided that they wanted a full mech instead of a testbed and the project was stopped halfway through the growth."

The words made Bolt pause and look at the Senior in confusion. "Is that common?" He had to ask.

"More than I like, but it does not happen with every design I work on with the military. I am thankful I am in the experimental division at least." The senior said with a brief look of exhaustion. "But that is neither her nor there. What are your plans?"

"There's enough here material to make an expert mech. Lilly is an expert." Bolt gestured to his wife.

"She iz?!" Debora asked with mild shock. "I didn't notice!"

"You have an expert?!" The still listening Odette asked. "Why is she not deployed!?"

"I can restrain my presence a bit." The woman said with a small wave as she did something that made everyone's eyes snap to her. "And I have a child on the way. Violent movement could damage him." She told the other woman.

"This won't be extremely risky I think. A heavy marksman that doesn't move wouldn't be anymore risky than being in a warzone, and we just need them to move people away from Odette." Bolt explained.

Lilly's eyes sharpened and she looked at the mech. "It could work, but that's still a sitting duck."

"Then I make that a feature." The man said as he began to look through the documentation he now had access to.

Debora hissed out a breath. "You are accessing far too many classified files."

"I know, but ya'll put me in this position. You can keep the mech after we make it. We just need a stopgap measure." Bolt opened up several documents and began to write up something on his own.

"What exactly, no, you're trying to crack the FTL? We've been trying that ever since we discovered they could do it." The senior muttered as she watched his work.

"Power requirements and immature specimens prevent us from getting data according to the reports I see. Looks like there was something like an attempt to let one grow here?" Bolt highlighted a particular line that seemed rather ominous in retrospect. "But FTL is really just bending reality in the end. We don't necessarily need a full example, or this... Phase Water?" He squinted at the notes for the exotic material. "That cost is insane. We also don't got any. What we do have is a lotta examples of aliens. If we trace how exotics form in their bodies, we can isolate what's probably key exotics and do something less than FTL but still useful."

"Study 901." The senior said back. "Also Study 1322A if I'm following what you want here."

"You might be. We want to grab that, and sort of use it to do this." Bolt brought up several FTL calculations that worked with how space warped and bent. "We're cribbing off their compact FTL to create something that warps space. It'll need a massive amount of power, but it will also really get some attention and give the mech an edge that negates its flaws."

"Those equations..." Debora winced as she looked at them. "That will be possible. It's also going to be one of the most expensive heavies I've seen and eat enough energy that we can't do anything else."

"For once, breaking the bank is in our best interest. I'm going to need you to handle a lot of the creation once we sketch this out. I lack the expertise in creating a mech." Bolt reasoned out. "And this is going to be rough if we want it done fast."

"As an emergency measure I feel like this will be doable." The senior had to agree. "It's the best option we have I think."

"It's a plan." Odette agreed with audible reluctance.

Woodpecker was not a pretty mech. It was an unfinished, ramshackle, barely functional piece of hardware in all truth. The armor was rough and grated against itself as the limbs moved. The engine stuttered at certain actions. The footing and balance was frankly atrocious, and Lilly didn't even want to consider the endurance it would have if she had to actually move the thing for more than an hour or so.

Yet you didn't need pretty to survive. You just had to be functional. This was far from the first time she'd had to pilot a bad mech. If anything being an expert had spoilt her. She was almost out of practice in fighting the mech for every step. She could and would compensate. The fact that Bolt and his new co-worker had managed to slap this mech together in hours had to be enough for their purposes. Lilly, as an expert was a priority target. Just the presence of an expert in a heavy mech would be enough to force everyone in the city to re-evaluate things.

Privately Lilly had to admit it was hilariously fun too. Woodpecker was a true heavy in all senses of the word. Every step was a slam into the street. This was a mech that had presence, even if it was incomplete. It was also distinctly different than her other mechs. Dowry and Morning Star needed a delicate touch. This one needed muscle and focus.

"Oh, look, first victim." Lilly muttered as a sensor pinged.

Debora's work was also rather unfinished, though in a different sense. As a heavy weapon specialist, her main contribution had been a pair of rotating gatling guns named Rotary Buzz-Saw .90. The massive things were her own custom creation and had required the mech built to handle them. They fired 'wood' spikes in an imitation of one of the common Arboretian weapons, but revised to work with human technology. It was far more dangerous than it sounded if you went off just the description.

As a new and relatively untested weapon it had it's quirks though. The initial firing sequence involved spinning the multiple barrels to allow for a fast fire rate and the process was neither quiet nor quick. It produced an ominous whine that could likely be heard by the enemy and gave everyone a warning that the weapon was being readied. No one was foolish enough to stay in direct line of sight when given such and obvious sign.

Lilly could still shoot them through the buildings if she had a sensor contact. The Buzz-saw's penetration was enough to go through several buildings without significant loss of damage. There was a reason it'd been considered viable to center a mech around them. The weapons were formidable on paper. She wasn't inclined to show that and add more damage to the city at the moment though. Instead she shifted her footing and readied herself to pivot if necessary.

Heavies like this were best likened to slow and cumbersome trucks. Young pilots thought that meant you couldn't display your skill in them. Older pilots knew that a skilled heavy was one of the most terrifying things you could fight in a war. Heavies were slow, they were ponderous, a good pilot could absolutely rip apart everything lighter in seconds. You did not rush in and overwhelm someone in a mech like this. You had to predict everything. If you did? The weight and volume of fire could decide entire wars. Her victory here would therefore lie in careful and slow work, not quick reflexes and pushing the limits of her engine. Which was a very good thing here, because high Gs would hurt the baby still growing inside her.

Right now Lilly was playing bait. Alone and unsupported she was dangerous but something that could be beaten on first glance. Lilly was getting pings on several enemies sharking at the edges already. She'd probably triggered some sort of general call. They were likely thinking about ganging up on her. Woodpecker looked like a big and juicy priority target.

Deciding to make it even easier, Lilly stomped to a small park nearby. Wide open area, clear viewpoints once you got past the buildings around it, the place allowed no one to sneak up on her, but also gave the enemy multiple lines of approach. All one of them would have to do was approach from the rear and she'd be dead, assuming she was a normal mech.

Time passed. She was fine with that. The close range communication line clicked. "Venerable Lilly?"

"Debora, right?" Lilly asked back. "Jamming down?"

"It's been reduced. Some of our people in another area managed to take down one of the jammers they'd hidden in the city. Venerable Odette has indicated that several mechs suppressing her have moved out. Our people are moving in. Status?"

"Right now they're jockeying for position. They don't know if they know I'm an expert." Lilly responded as she watched mechs move through her sensors.

"Bolt asked me to tell you to retreat if you feel at all pressured. You already did enough of a distraction." The senior relayed.

Lilly laughed and fired a few rounds into the distance. One of the mechs peaking around the building flinched back as the pilot jerked away. She didn't think the worry was out of line, but she was under absolutely no threat at the moment despite how it looked.

A few more minutes passed as more mechs moved into position. Then the action happened all at once. Several Wasps began to rush out of cover from various angles. Lasers erupted as the mechs fired and the shots glanced off Lilly's armor as she carefully shifted the heavy to absorb the damage. The Woodpecker might have been rough, but the armor was thick enough that she could literally ignore the damage they were inflicting at range for awhile. The enemy was smart enough to understand that, hence their rapid approach. The lasers were there to just cover them.

Carefully Lilly shifted one of her still spinning weapons and let it fire at full speed. The bullets, slightly inaccurate, but still guided by an expert's skill impacted into one of the mechs. It lasted a singular second under the onslaught before the armor was pierced and half of it shredded. She used her other hand to do similar on the other side. That killed two mechs and possibly pilots if they were unlucky. It looked like there were three more to go. One was angling towards her back already.

She shifted her mech's weight to one foot and spun. The very thick ammo casing of her weapon impacted the mech mid lunge and sent it spinning as the sheer weight disparity forced it off course. Lilly then lifted a foot and stomped forward, crushing one of the mech's feet and pinning it long enough for her to bash it again. The gatling gun's lower parts doubled as heavy clubs, and just the sheer weight was enough to critically damage the mech with her strikes.

That left two more, and they would reach her before she could position herself to shoot them. Yet the woman didn't even worry. Lilly activated the secondary equipment in the mech. The even more experimental one that Bolt and Debora had made through what was possibly black magic and insanity.

In the center of the mech the device woke and devoured power from her systems. The generator screamed so loud it was audible outside the mech. Heat surged through the system and every system creaked. Lilly could feel damage starting to accumulate al over as the mech struggled to provide the fuel the device needed, and she was forced to flex her will in an attempt to keep together.

Space flexed around her mech. It was like the thing sank into the ground even though it did not move a singular step. The mechs charging at her found each step covering less and less ground as reality warped to her will. Suddenly they weren't several steps away. They were hundreds of steps away. The surprise crippled their reactions as Lilly almost leisurely turned her mech around and aimed her still spinning weapons. Space snapped back to normal just at the right time and bullets flew out from the guns in a veritable stream. Close as her opponents were, the Buzz-Saw didn't shred, it bisected them both with a messy display of might.

Unfortunately the clean victory was tainted almost immediately. As her systems wound down, something sparked and caught aflame inside her mech's chest. Damage alerts declared red across half the internals. Lilly hissed to herself. "Ok, that ain't a nice thing to activate." She said over the comm. "It did more damage ta me than the enemy did."

"I'm more surprised it worked without breaking anything. We barely got the theory together properly. Sure it-" The woman cut herself off. "Apologies. I shouldn't be ranting about it."

"No, it's fine." Lilly muttered. "You forget who I'm married to."

"Taking up the comms is still unprofessional." Came the reply before the senior continued. "It would be best for you to come back in light of how poorly the test went. That should still serve as a spectacular distraction. We have reports that the possible Arboretian Ten-year is on its way towards you."

Lilly nodded and disabled most of the systems before powering up the space adjuster once more. If she was right she could do one last thing here. Woodpecker stepped forward, and covered enough distance to leave the park. It stepped again, and disappeared down a few alleyways.

Something exploded inside and Lilly winced as she completely cut the power to the device. That might have been pushing things, but it should confuse pursuit. Heavies didn't move that fast after all, and any watchers would definitely have been thrown.