What's Junk? (The Mech Touch)

[lost star]

When one heard that they made mechs out of wood, the mind went in strange places. It pictured big brown mechs that looked like trees. Perhaps with leaves on them. This was fairly far from the truth on this planet. It was probably far from the truth in general.

The core thing that stopped that fantasy was the fact that the wood used here looked nothing like wood most people were familiar with. The base and untreated material was an off-silver color with a rainbow hue that changed based off what sort of contaminates were in it. The core material was called Root-Steel Trees and was only really available when the war heated up.

Explaining this required some history. The Arboretians FTL was very slow but very subtle. It allowed them to land on the planet in small seed-like forms and grow mostly hidden. Their natural body was that of a green tree-like structure that grew out of the earth that grew to that size over the course of about a year or two. Ranging from the size of the average man or smaller, these small green shoots weren't particularly threatening or dangerous on the face of things. A man with an axe could kill one of these aliens with a few chops. This assumed that the alien had none of their defenses up.

Arboretians always had defenses. Most of them were instinctual. Their favorite used Root-Steels. The aliens would accelerate the growth of these trees and then harvest the plant with their own unique abilities to create new bodies. The resultant bodies were typically about the size of mechs and could be further customized to the alien's liking. It was the equivalent of walking to the aliens. So much so that it was their default action soo after birth. Seeing an Arboretian naked was therefore a very unusual occurrence. Most people just saw their pseudo-mechs.

It has to be said that Root-Steel Trees were rather interesting and relatively harmless alone. Without outside encouragement they simply a plant that grew off of metal. All forms of metal. They particularly liked exotic forms of metal that most mechs had some of. In their natural state they had a growth measured in centuries and in optimal situations were only useful after about a hundred years worth of growth. They were relatively harmless to mechs as well, because a standard maintenance cycle would remove their seeds with a simple power wash and it took years before they could root into a metal object to grow.

One didn't need to be smart to see where the problems actually lay. The aliens could accelerate plant growth substantially through some native ability. Their first few battles with humanity had therefore been them simply eating the mechs and growing more mechs for themselves! The aliens could even learn from the mechs. Each victory would substantially improve their forces through new materials and new technologies.

This was less of a problem now that humanity had adapted. Mechs used a combination of refined Root-Steel wood, sealant, and bio-mech construction to create things devoid of metal that the trees could eat. This substantially cut down down what the aliens could do against humanity. It was ultimately what had turned a long and bitter war into simple containment.

Of course this was simplifying the history and discoveries involved significantly. Wood had a lot of properties that made it extremely unsuited for mechs. You had to be very careful when using in construction. Bio-mechs, as in mechs made with organic components, required some alternative construction processes that had been further adjusted for the local sector planets. It was all custom built, and apparently shared throughout all the nation to keep things up to date.

It was all also very messy.

"I'm glad it's sap." Bolt muttered as he observed the process of a mech being constructed.

"Flesh and bone mechs are quite the sight to see, you do need ze strong stomach though." One of the techs commented.

He could see why. This was already a bit disturbing. The mech wasn't being made so much as it was being grown. Inside a pod-like structure Bolt could see a skeleton being made. The materials were being fed into the thing through root-like structures around the creation. It brought to mind a monster being born more than a mech being constructed. The scent of sap was heavy in the air, a sort of vague sweetness that wasn't unpleasant, but also wasn't oil either.

"This is an interesting example second rate construction." Bolt observed out loud.

Pure automation. Though monitored automation in this case. Mechs built like this didn't get made by hand. They didn't get repaired. They got grown and healed. There were significant plusses and minuses to it. Bolt wasn't sure if he liked the entire process really. In fact he low-key hated it. Several parts of him rebelled at watching this and knowing it existed.

It wasn't that creating a mech like this required no skill. It did most certainly. The mech itself was being monitored by a good half dozen techs right now. Ultimately Bolt felt like it lacked a certain hands-on approach that he preferred. He also liked the metal, oil, and other materials more.

"If you like we can show you the finished product." The tech offered.

"I would, but I'm wondering about something. These mechs are made from salvaged Steel-Root? How does that work with this setup?" Bolt gestured to the massive pod and the lack of ability to actually physically touch the mech.

"You have to soak it in a special solution, blend it, and then channel it through the roots. It's mostly proprietary, so I can't give you more details." The tech explained with a hint of apology.

Bolt nodded that made a lot of sense. It was a small pity, but he could deal with it. "I get it. I'll take you up on the viewing the finished mechs."

The primary mech used in battle on the planet was known as the Lumberjack. It was honestly not particularly imaginative. It was a mech with a two handed axe and a pair of projectile weapons that were smaller cannon cousins. The lack of variety might have been a problem elsewhere, here it was actually a bonus. The enemy had favored and consistent tactics. The response was to use a workhorse mech that could be mass produced and consistently supplied as a general purpose mech. The process for creating Lumberjacks had been strenuously streamlined and optimized for its purpose. The design itself was a workhorse mech that functioned as the major footman on the frontline.

Bolt had a sneaking suspicion that someone had been playing a small joke with the design honestly. The mech looked like an old-earth lumberjack. The top was red and black and the bottom was just black. The armor gave the impression of heft as well.

If had hadn't known any better he would have said it was just another mech. There wasn't much of a hint that it was a plant-based mech from the distance. Up close it was fairly apparent to his trained eye, but it still was pretty mech-like. This made sense. It was still a mech, and shared at least some of the tech base. Armor and limb shaping was pretty applicable to both styles of mech.

Shame he couldn't take it apart though. Biomechs like this were all connected organically. Again, it came with pluses and minuses. It made it less fun to examine the mech, but Bolt still did it.

The spiritual aspect was rather strange once he got into things. It was mech-like, but tinted just a bit with the scent of plants. It wasn't contamination so much as a sort of blend. This was a plant shaped into a mech, and he could feel it in his spiritual sense. It was an unusual discovery.

Examining the Lumberjack was interesting enough that Bolt decided to check out the more experimental mechs to compare them. These were the mechs new designers worked on, and had less streamlined designs. They weren't large in number, but they were other examples of biomechs.

One in particular held hints of someone familiar. Jeanne's work, but only in that someone had obviously been inspired some by here. If Bolt had to guess, it took some of the materials she'd explored as a master, but he couldn't be certain without speaking with the person who'd designed the mech.

The mech was known as Pyro-Mania. It was very technically a striker. It's primary weapon was a large sprayer that needed to be held with two hands. The technical part came with the fact that Pyro-Mania was meant to just put out flames in an area. It wasn't designed for mech combat. It was designed to protect the pilot while it burned everything around it. The thing's endurance was frankly insane, and almost half of its makeup was meant to keep alive when the everything was burning. It was an extremely specialized mech that was focused to one purpose above all else. This was fairly contrary to standard Second Rate design, but it made sense in this aspect.

It's appearance left a lot to be desired admittedly. It was a black thing with a large tank on its back. The adornment was minimal. The design was basic. Yet Bolt had to give the designer credit. This mech could create an inferno that would likely melt other mechs and walk through it with minimal damage. The armor and internals were specifically designed to handle far higher heat than most other mechs.

Bolt had to examine the thing for awhile before he figured out that half of the way the mech managed to do this was because it was a biomech. It was really quite amusing to realize that a plant mech was one of the best heat tolerant mechs he'd ever seen. If he ever met the designer he'd offer a hearty congratulation. The mech itself wasn't special, but the extremes it could handle was genuinely impressive.

 

[lost star]

Lilly hadn't expected much from the pilots and the mechs. Visiting them and the planet was more because they were the nearest biomech users rather than for anything else. The mechs were interesting as a different variable to evaluate rather than interesting in their own right. Staving off boredom was going to be a constant thing as her pregnancy progressed.

That mindset had turned out to be a good thing. Once she'd gotten into the arena and watched a few fights, she found herself close to being bored. They were were all using the same mech! That could be interesting in that the tactical concerns were different for mirror matches, but here it wasn't. Everyone was just using axe moves taught from the same source.

She supposed that made sort of sense. These were army boys fighting an enemy that had a limited set of tactics. Their entire purpose was to absorb damage and then cut down the enemy. Others would have more thought. The men in front of her were Lumberjacks through and through essentially. It was interesting picking apart their styles for about a minute or two before she'd basically gotten it all.

Boredom was only being held off by the fact that the mechs themselves were different. Biomechs were just subtly different than normal mechs in general performance. They moved more like animals than mechanical machines. It wasn't immediately apparent, but the way their joints moved and how their legs shifted just felt subtly off. In the language of mechs, these ones had an accent. It something good to confirm and justified the trip in her eyes.

The way they got damaged was quite different too. Biomechs were all one part and used organic processes to work, so damage became disturbingly close to damage people took when they got hurt. The only saving grace was that the 'blood' was distinctly not blood. A good blow caused sap to leak everywhere, and it was mostly a slightly cloudy liquid with a hint of sweetness to the scent. Put together it made the experience novel enough that Lilly was able to entertain herself for a few hours before the end of the day. She and her husband moved to a hotel room they rented and made plans for tomorrow with relatively good spirits on her end.

For the next outing she was joined by Bolt, who looked faintly disgruntled. Her darling husband had found mechs he didn't like and was still off balance. This was actually more entertaining than anything else on the trip to Lilly.

"Ya'll aren't liking it?" She asked with a faint grin at his expression.

"It's not my thing." Bolt muttered. "I did some research last night and while I can follow it, I don't want to." He huffed. "Annoying."

"Not everyone can like everything." Lilly pointed out.

"Forgive the intrusion madam." A man said as he approached them. "I will be your chauffeur today. You desired to see some of the aliens?"

"Nothing dangerous, but yes." Bolt confirmed.

Lilly sighed internally. She had a lot more sympathy for women who complained about having children now. Carrying the extra weight wasn't a problem. She was fit enough that it didn't matter, even with her slight frame. The lack of ability to do her favorite activities was the real issue. She wouldn't trade the feeling of a child for anything in the world, but she wouldn't lie and say she ached to do more.

Fortunately the tour was distracting enough. The locals made a habit of preserving a few aliens after killing them every time it happened. More to check to see if things changed and provide education than cruelty. Every generation needed to know their enemy according to the leaders, and they'd refined the process to a point were it was safe, mostly free of gore, and educational.

The bodies weren't much to look at even with all of that. Biology wise they were sort of like a cross between grass and bamboo with added parts to allow for intelligence. Appearance wise they were like big green leaves with most of their real body in the roots. They did have distinct organs, but neither Lilly nor Bolt wanted to get deep into the subject for several reasons. The aliens bodies weren't really interesting to the couple. The big thing was their vehicles.

"This is what we call a Three Year Growth." The tour guide explained as they approached a massive beast made of wood.

It was almost a mech. Lilly didn't get what Bolt was likely learning by checking it out, but she could evaluate designs some herself. Armor wise it felt like a heavy equivalent with serious flaws. Made of massive pure white wood, it felt slow and cumbersome. The thing didn't have hands, it had round club-like limbs instead. The feet were more like solid blocks. Nothing about it felt nimble. The threat was all in the mass.

"Three Year growth means how long it was active?" Lilly guessed.

"That's close to right. It's how many years they've been ambulatory. One years are slim things. Three years get to this size." The guide explained. "We kept this one because as you can see the core was pierced in a singular blow. It's pristine otherwise."

"Central torso." Bolt noted the hole and where it was positioned. "That's where it was being controlled?"

"Oui, most of the villains have no concept of actual design. It takes roughly ten to twenty years before a thought gets into their head. Before then they will typically rampage and eat like overgrown toddlers while using very simple configurations with obvious weak points." The man spat to the side as he explained. "They are still dangerous mind you. It's just the pattern they follow while developing. We find them quick and cull them quicker and that is the reason this place is safe enough for tourists."

"Ah..." Lilly winced slightly as she realized the age was quite literal here.

"Do not feel sorry for them. We are killing their children yes, but they are violent and unthinking brutes that their parents throw at us like weapons." The guide hastened to assure Lilly. "Zhey are aliens, and do not think like we do. We are unsure of how social they are truthfully. There are no records of coordination in their young and they will predate others as targets of opportunity if they can." The man turned to look at the massive wooden almost-mech. "This one in particular likely ate at least three or four based on the growth and other factors."

"Really?" Bolt asked with more curiosity than Lilly felt. "How does that lifestyle make sense?"

"Our guesses are that they are like trees and throw out seeds in the millions after a breeding season. They assign no values to their youths." The native explained with a shrug. "We know they grow more potent and more social with age, but there appears to be a limit. There are regular scouting attempts, and we have something resembling a baseline of development. It iz not pretty." He paused and turned to a nearby terminal. "I can show you if you like sir and madam."

"Could I see how something like this fights first?" Lilly asked first.

"Of course!"

There were a lot of videos that they could go through. Lilly got the toddler comparison almost immediately. Most of the young first year growths were about as good as someone just starting to pilot a mech. They improved terrifyingly quickly though. Second Year Growths were able to move like veterans, endure a staggering amount of damage, and club your standard mech to death if they weren't careful. Third Year Growths needed teams or lucky blows to deal with safety. The mechs were slow but they could utterly pulverize anything they could hit. It was like seeing a child learning what worked best, as sickening as the scenario sounded.

"We keep an eye out and try to kill them at Three. Four and up is where they start to explore options and become a trial to fight." The guide tapped out.

Lilly got why right off the bat. There were weapons now. Strange weapons, but weapons. Some of them looked quite nasty.

"Acid?" Bolt asked.

"Sometimes. It depends on how creative the menaces are. We have seen a few do firearm equivalents too. Usually after a victory or two. We have refined the hunting, but we typically fight at least one who's learned every year."

A few weapon types flicked through the screens. Most of them were the equivalent of throwing rocks or acid. The biggest thing was most of them lacked range. Lilly did like the one that threw spikes though. That one was entertaining.

"Oh, that's actually kind of neat." The expert voiced her observation.

"Ah yes, that design comes up with the clever ones. The penetration and fire rate is lacking when they first think of it typically." The guide explained. "Here is a Ten Year growth, from before we understood the best ways to control them."

The video was older. It was also like the recorder was in a misty environment. For a few seconds Lilly thought that was because the lens was covered in something, but a few of the of the sensor reports indicated that it was mostly spores from local plants. The air was so toxic that even a shielded human would die in minutes.

It wasn't the only difference. The alien was using cover and moving with intent and clear skill. It was slimmer than the Three Year design, more refined and functional. The hands were more like mittens, but still hands. The feet looked like feet, and on video the alien could move terrifyingly fast. The shots it was taking were also barely damaging the armor it was wearing.

"It's like an expert." Lilly concluded with a breath.

"Not quite, but the comparison haz been made before. Past ten ze foul things usually level out in combat ability, but some can rival experts, and it only gets worse as they age."

"Seems odd that this is available to the public." Bolt said curiously.

The guide gave a small and tired smile. "Hiding it, or downplaying the threat would simply have people underestimate things. The MTA and CFA have the enemy contained. They have not won. Our post requires care and eternal vigilance." He flicked. "Here is an elder from surveillance."

The video showed a dot on the screen. The camera began to magnify several times. At one thousand magnification the thing came into view. Size wise it was twice the size of a mech according to the readings. The massive thing floated in space almost serenely.

It looked almost like a person. With long tendril like green hair, a shapeless mask, and a smooth body suit. If it wasn't so large it could have passed as a person sunning themselves in the void of space.

Then it seemed to notice the camera. It turned and there was a single frame of glowing green eyes. The thing blurred with white light, and then there was a proximity alarm. The feed cut off then.

"That waz a spy satellite. The people who brought it there died shortly thereafter. As you can see, the old ones can use their FTL in a combat sense." The man said.

"That is terrifying. I'm assuming it's limited?" Bolt asked with fascination.

"It's slow for FTL. Aces can block it. It is also rather telegraphed." The guide said.

"I could see that." Lilly noted. "It must make elders a pain to fight."

"It's one of many factors." The man agreed.

Lilly chuckled as Bolt started to dig into the FTL mechanics. She didn't see him getting lost in it in a way that indicated inspiration, but it was an interesting topic. She was more interested in the combat recordings. Some of them were very interesting. The Aliens fought really weird.

It ended up being a good day.

 

[lost star]

Growing up on Green Barrier 12 was not the worst thing in the world. That was reserved for hellholes worse than Bolt's home. Places where slavery wasn't outlawed, and the technology had devolved into sticks and stones. Green Barrier was a Second Rate planet on a vital area. It was what was commonly called a fortress world. Fortress worlds were places of high investment and were typically highly controlled as well. The degree of control differed, but crime, poverty, and other factors were usually pretty non-existant.

Philippe Du Toit was not deprived. As a scion of one of the higher ranking officials, he was actually fairly rich by local standards. His allowance was enough to buy several buildings if he were so inclined. His rage and rebellion came from two things. His unwanted heritage, and the fact that his parents were neglectful at best.

His parents were political animals. Their marriage was a sham of pretense and lies. Their only thought was how high they could climb. Philippe was pretty sure the only reason they'd had him was because it was better to have a child in this area than not. It showed commitment and the desire to settle down.

In retrospect the young man's life might not have been bad, but his parents most certainly were. He was introspective enough to acknowledge that now. It was surprising how much one conversation could change your perspective. He'd seen the love and care Bolt and Lilly had with just a simple talk. This stilted and cold dinner was nothing like that.

"How was your day?" His father's question was cold and completely uninterested.

"Perfectly fine." Phillipe answered back with his standard answer. "Good grades in school, and graduating shortly."

It was a lie. He didn't attend school anymore. He hadn't for a year. He'd hacked the nanny monitors long ago, and frankly he didn't need any of the information that their approved schooling gave him. Him and his friends had long since handled their own education. The mods that had been forced on them were good for that at least. His intellect was in the upper percentile naturally and self study was faster and less boring than trying to follow the propaganda they called lessons here.

"Good." The man said simply.

"We're going to request you stay at home tonight." His mother added in with completely fake warmth. "There's a few things that are happening."

"A few things?" Phillipe asked with mild confusion at the fake concern. "But I was going to go out to the cafe again. They were running a special on magnifique candies and sweets." This was true, and he was actually looking forward to it. His body composition craved sugar like nothing else.

His parents exchanged glances. "Your friends will likely be staying at home as well and you should be avoiding overindulging sweets like that." His father said slowly as if he was unused to trying to reason with his son.

Phillipe frowned. "You don't know my friends though?"

"We do keep track of your contacts dear." His mother said with a half smile. "We approved of them long ago. You are best served to stick with those that will be..." She trailed off and exchanged another glance with her husband. "In a better position in the future."

"What?" The teen asked blankly. That made no sense. He and his friends had negative prospects.

"Go to your room. We're locking the doors and setting security to high." The man of the household ordered in a tone that meant instant obedience. It seemed like he'd decided that he wasn't going to bother with further conversation at all here.

Knowing better than to argue Phillipe did so. Not that it mattered that much. The household security was a joke. Sure it was Second Rate stuff, but it was mostly performance security rather than something actually secured. Most of it was automated processes and locks. All of it was stuff that Phillipe had bypassed years ago. That was sort of what happened when you left a child alone for most of their formative life. They learned how to bypass things.

"Did you all get some weird orders to stay home?" Philippe asked on the conference call he and his friends had setup when they first started hanging out once he'd settled in his room.

"Yes!" Several people confirmed. "I was told there's going to be mechs fighting." Another person added.

"Fighting?" Phillipe repeated in confusion. "Zhe enemy is at a low point at the moment."

"They didn't say more. Just that there was going to be fighting and the proper people will become leaders." One of the teens said.

"Oh for those imbéciles." Phillipe moved to his window. "That's rebellion talk. What gave them the idea that was a smart idea?!" He jittered the lock to make it unlock and then leveraged himself out of the now open window.

"You think there's a rebellion in the works?" Someone asked.

"I would say that it fits a few things, but it would be extremely foolish. I don't understand the implications though. Did anyone else get the impression that they expected us to be part of this?" Phillipe looked out around the yard as he spoke.

Fitting the status of his parents, he did have an actual yard. This was expensive, and made it rather tiring to sneak out, so he didn't do it very often. He could still do it. It just required some walking and being sure not to trip a few of the less hackable sensors.

"Something like that. I'll see what I can get."

"Me too!"

"On it!"

Philippe had reached the gate when his friends had more information. None of it was good. Combat was most certain. Considering that the aliens had just recently been majorly culled, this was internal combat. Stupid. Especially because several of their parents were completely convinced that their children would benefit from it.

"Ohhhh." The sound of discovery from one person made the young man pause. "This is worse than rebellion." The young girl breathed out.

"What do you mean?" Phillipe asked back.

"They have a live Arboretian. I just found the security logs. Officially they're studying it. They didn't record anything, but my parents just finished talking with it and I think it might have just been released." The girl's voice was small.

"Shit." Phillipe breathed out and then let his voice rise up. "Everyone quiet. Our parents are dead." He said authoritatively. "Leave now, if you can't text me. We'll get you all out. This is stupid and they're all dead once it's all resolved."

The young man's mind raced. He had no idea what to do more than that. It didn't matter how confident his parents were. What they were doing was more than enough to damn them all. This was the sort of thing that had families purged, and he was a traitor by default just because of what he was. They had no chance of victory. Even if they purged the city it'd just result in an entire army slamming down on the planet. Multiple battalions and even an Ace or two.

"Remember the Sweet Treat cafe? Meet up there. No one will comment if we gather there. We do it all the time." The young teen brushed his hair back and thought. "Shit shit shit." He had no idea what else to do! "Wait, do we know where that muscly foreigner is staying? His wife is an expert. They should know something, and they might be targets too."

"I can find it."

"Then do so. We can maybe get their help to stay alive." Phillipe breathed out and something occured to him. He was an only child. Not all of his friends were. "Camille, do you need help getting your sister out?"

"No." The girl said with what sounded like forced calm. "I'll drag her out if I need it."

"Good. Any other younger siblings, pull them out as well." The young man ordered. "Drag them if you need to. Things will be violent, but staying at home makes us fellow conspirators. It doesn't matter if the imbéciles win here, the rest of the nation will come down like a giant fist once their actions come to light."

 

[lost star]

Phillipe was running on half backed plans, dreams, and whatever passed as adrenaline for him, and he knew it. He really didn't see a better option though. This was completely unexpected and doubly mad. He genuinely couldn't follow the thought processes behind it. Especially once he noticed the movement of various people on the street. Rebellions weren't unheard of, but those were typically over poor pilot treatment. Last he heard morale was actually moving up!

Entering the hotel the foreigner was in wasn't hard. Bolt and Lilly had requested a VIP expensive one with high security. Genuine security. Phillipe could enter the hotel, but past that he would normally have been checked by the concierge and been forced to wait at a minimum. On a night like this there might have even been police involved depending on the mood of the officials.

That was the first clue that something was wrong here too. The front desk was empty. That didn't happen. Period.

"Merde." Phillipe swore and vaulted over the desk to look at the front desk controls.

Fortunately it wasn't locked. Whether through cost cutting measures or because of other factors, the main controls were available. Phillipe didn't have access to much admittedly. Check in, check out, and call lines. The latter was what he needed. VIP suites direct lines. He tapped the line to one of the numbers.

No response. He moved down the list.

This line rang again to no response. Phillipe cursed slightly and moved down.

The third rang several times and he was just about to hang up before it was answered. "Who the hell are you and what to you want?!" Bolt answered with genuine anger.

"This iz Phillipe!" The young man practically shouted. "Something is happening in the city and you might be in danger."

"Phillippe? The kid we met? Haha, good warning!" Lilly called out with a small laugh that had a trace of an edge. "That explains the team outside the door."

"Outside the door?!" Phillipe asked incredulously. "Merde, no. Don't let them take you. I'll try to think of something."

"Don't worry. They were a bunch of people that thought just guns and normal clothing was enough." Bolt said calmly. "The doors are secured, and they're down. We were trying to get contact with someone, but I'm guessing that this isn't just us."

Phillipe felt a cross between surprise and relief at the news and how calmly they were taking it. He barely noticed the rest of the conversation. He just told the couple where he was and answered a few questions. He only snapped out it when the two came down in masks and some sort of thick clothing.

"Slap this on." Bolt ordered as he presented a large robe and mask. "Do ya know where bunkers are?" He asked. "A city like this should have them."

"Some school drills have us head to one. It's usually accompanied by automated directions." The teenager answered as he pulled on the clothing. "What is this?" He asked belatedly.

An explosion happened, large and close enough that Phillipe flinched. The lights flickered before something clicked in the hotel and the emergency power turned on with a hum. A few lights turned red, but the usual alarms weren't happening.

"That." Bolt said grimly. "It's to handle that. We need ta get to the bunker. Everything is jammed and I have to assume emergency systems are being cut and interfered with now. My comm can get through it but we don't have time to wait for rescue. Get secured and go from there."

"Ah." Phillipe flinched as he heard cannon fire. "AH, my friends! They are also in danger!"

"Call them." Bolt threw his comm the young man's way. "We have a map hun?" He asked Lilly.

"All of it was digital, but some of it had independent power and was working correctly." Lilly answered and held up a sheet with a traced out map. "Nearest bunker."

Phillipe barely had time to direct his friends before the couple dragged him out of the hotel. "Wait, wait!! We can't go that way!" He shouted as glanced at the map.

"This place is a mess of alleyways so that's not surprising but where then?!" Lilly demanded. "Also mask on. I don't know what you're immune to, but the dust is going to get bad quick." Another explosion in the distance emphasized the point.

"All right. Down the alleyway to the right, and the street there has a underwalk that's not on map." Phillipe breathed out and glanced at his borrowed comm as a shaky video showed some damage his friends were seeing. "Oh, damnit all. One of the skyscrapers has fallen."

"Is it near your friends?" Bolt asked as he practically carried the other man.

"In sight. Those things are supposed to be reinforced to avoid that." Phillipe observed before shaking off the hand. "I am more fit than I look. Let me lead." He began to run even as he kept an eye on the comm. "Ok, my comrades will be able to meet us there."

The snap-hiss-pop and tackle completely destroyed what what pride and control he'd managed to gather. A few steps away something sizzled. Phillipe stared at the molten line on the wall half a block away with mild horror. It wasn't even a near miss. It was a shot in his general vicinity. The heat was such that he was quite sure that he would have had serious burns without the protective clothing and Lilly tackling him.

"Stray shot. From the right. Eyes not on us." The girl in question breathed out and grunted as she got to her feet. "I really shouldn't have done that."

"We'll get a checkup later. Our ships still in orbit and I don't trust trying an extraction in a warzone with an automated ship." Bolt said and helped his wife move.

The teenager gulped and continued to lead. Despite himself, and the brush with danger, he was achieving some measure of calm. It wasn't coming easily, but he had been drilled for things like this. With the battle damage the streets were even worse than usual. He tried to ignore the blood that accompanied that observation.

Reaching the shelter was a relief. His friends and some other people were there as well. There was a lot of crying. Bolt and Lilly took one look at them before Lilly stepped up.

"Everyone into the shelter now." The woman didn't shout. She simply ordered.

Phillipe was reminded right then and there that the woman was an expert still. The obedience was immediate and unquestioned. He wasn't excluded by that. He moved in before he could even register the order.

Inside was a mess. There was crying, there were people with burns, and one poor soul had what looked to be shrapnel in his torso. It was a wonder that he'd managed to get to the shelter really.

That was the first thing he did, almost before realizing it. He grabbed that man and dragged him to the automatic treatment facility. The machine wasn't that useful without a doctor, but it could stablize most war injuries. It was built for this. Throwing the man into it would hopefully keep him from dying.

"What is going on?" One of his friends asked.

"Do you expect me to have answers?" Phillipe answered back before taking a deep breath. "Never mind that. Did we get everyone?"

"Oui!"

Phillipe did a headcount even with that confirmation. It was only after he personally confirmed that his people were there that he let himself relax slightly. It was a small relief. It was also more than a little disheartening. His little group had twenty three people. It was the largest group in the shelter. The city had several million people in it.

The teenager didn't say it, but he feared the casualty rate was going to he horrendous. But what could he do? Going out there would be just adding to the victims according to Bolt. They lacked the tools and training to help, and it was devolving into a warzone. Phillipe felt more than a little lost.

 

[lost star]

"I don't like this." Lilly muttered to Bolt after things were situated.

"The bunker or something else?" Bolt asked back as he examined the structure and accessible data.

Power was good, armor was solid, the place even had a small mech-bay for repairs and storage if needed. It was empty of a mech, but it was something very defensible. The rations and water made it so that they could stay for years if they needed, and it'd take a dedicated effort to crack the armor.

"This rebellion, or betrayal as Philippe thinks." The woman glanced at the teenager.

The young man in question had moved to his friends and was trying to help organize people in the shelter. There was a lot to organize. People were drilled on evacuations, but they didn't actually believe it had ever been used. Now that it was happening they had the standard array of shock, dismay, rage, and grief. It was usually a pretty volatile mix, but Lilly's presence combined with Phillipe's rather good leadership skills were keeping it from spiraling as more and more people trickled in.

"What are your thoughts?" Bolt asked.

"The timing's too strange, along with other things. Your comm can get out right?" Lilly noted.

"Yes. I've already gotten a message passed out."

There was a lot of jamming involved. Bolt's gift from the hidden master was piercing through it as if it didn't exist. It had been harder to find someone to believe him than to get a communication out. Fortunately Bubbles and the MTA were both very helpful in this instance, doubly so when Philippe's information had been passed on. That sort of thing rated actual attention from the organization, and while the MTA wasn't going to deploy anyone yet, they were making damned sure the locals took the threat seriously.

Phillipe would probably be happy to note he and his friends already had a full pardon. It was something Bolt would relay to them later. For now survival in the immediate was paramount. Reinforcements would take a few days as forces were organized. That was actually very quick for a military response considering the distances involved.

"We gotta assume that you wouldn't be the only one with a line out." His wife pointed out. "So, they're either morons of epic proportions or they have a plan and goal they can do quickly."

Bolt nodded. "Do you have any idea of what we can do though?" He gestured to the bunker. "We got a lotta teens, a few traumatized civilians, and an empty mech bay. I can have our ship drop something, but we don't know the AA status. Everything could be shot down."

"Think we could get back to yer roots and salvage something?" Lilly asked with a slightly mischievous expression.

The designer frowned at the thought. "Give me a moment."

It took some looking, but there were enough tools for something. Not a lot. There was a hover-truck that had enough capacity to carry mech parts and he could jury rig a few of the necessary tools with the small fabricator in the mech bay. It wasn't going to be easy, but it was enough to work with.

He wouldn't want to put Lilly into a salvaged mech though. Not only was she pregnant, she'd tear one apart unintentionally. There just wasn't time for her to get used to something.

"Some of us can pilot." Phillipe offered as Bolt reasoned through the problem and assembled the tools he would need. "None are better than C, but it iz standard training to get some hours in a Lumberjack."

"I should be able to salvage something then." Bolt concluded. "We'd have a mech for defense at least."

"Biomechs are not easy to salvage quickly." The young man noted. "But if you believe you can, who am I to disagree. Shall we?"

"You want to come with?" Bolt asked.

"But of course! I am wasted simply sitting here and worrying!" Phillipe said with a grin that was rather obviously fake.

"I could use the hands I suppose." Bolt reasoned with a small shrug. "How strong are you?"

"Testing indicates stronger than human average." The teen answered.

Time to test that further then. Bolt printed out a few sets of metal and strapped them to the young man. Thin mech-grade armor wasn't going to stop a mech strike, but it's stop a near miss. Combined with the other protection and he wouldn't die if they got into a scrap. Not that Bolt was planning on it.

"First rule is if you see a mech, assume you're in sight." Bolt said as they left on the hover truck. "If they turn towards you, stay low and get out of physical sight. The robes are treated enough to make most sensors skip over you unless they're very good."

He'd had them treated specifically to handle Second Rate sensors. It only worked because most mech sensors were designed for mechs, not infantry. Infantry were basically nothing to a mech except in very special cirumstances so there was no real effort to find them.

"Second rule, your life first, then the parts. If it's risky, don't bother." Bolt continued. "We're going into an active warzone. There's going to be a lot of parts. For this we need enough for one mech."

"Oui." Phillipe said as he jittered in place. "How are you so calm?"

"Experience mostly." Bolt replied as he turned down a street, keeping low. "Third rule, as a general one. Keep low and in cover. The cover won't save you from a direct hit, but most mech pilots don't give a damn about people."

There, a mech was downed. No allies were nearby. Half its torso was completely missing. Perfect. And messy. There were pools of sap on the ground. Enough that when Bolt got out of the truck it splatted across his boots.

One thing he had to give them. Biomechs were ugly and made an appalling scene when downed. This was like looking at a dead body, and based on Phillipe's almost retching, it was human enough to trigger a gag reflex.

"We're taking the lower torso." Bolt ordered. "Get out the chains and wrap them around the legs."

Credit to the teenager, he did as requested. Bolt focused on other things. The upper chassis was completely ruined. The below the hips was in decent condition. The trick was separating them.

That meant getting through the armor and the skeleton. There were always gaps around the stomach area of a mech. You just had to pry up the armor slightly and then get the welder in there to remove whatever the designer had decided was best to secure the armor. It was easier said than done. Mechs weren't built to allow this sort of thing because Bolt was essentially 'attacking' it.

Since this was a biomech, it was more akin to surgery on a dead body, with the accompanying spurts of blood in the form of sap. Bolt was absolutely drenched in the stuff after a few minutes, but he got enough of the armor off to rip through the comparatively weaker fibers that made it's muscles. That left the spine equivalent exposed.

Here was the loud and most dangerous part. "Are the chains attached?" Bolt asked.

"They are, I think." Phillipe said.

"Back the truck away and let them grow tight. If they give they aren't." The designer said.

This actually horrifically risky, but the truck was Second Rate. It wouldn't be damaged by the chains coming unmoored and whipping around. Bolt watched the teen carefully pull back and the tension and then gave a stopping gesture. They were secured enough. He threw on two salvage wheels on the hips after that.

Now for the real work. Bolt grabbed at the cutter he'd made and ignited it. The area around him lit up in as a small sun formed in front of him. He then lowered it down to the spine and held it there. One, two, three, four. Ten seconds before the spine loosened enough that he figured it could pop free.

A lifetime in a battle. A call to every sensor in a block. It was a bloom of heat and energy that had to be done to rip apart a mech, because they were weapons of war and weren't designed to allow this.

Bolt didn't bother to clean up. He ran to the truck and got in. "Floor it and back to the base." He ordered.

"What?!" Phillipe asked. "Oh that smell is rather thick." He coughed a few times before pulling on the gifted mask.

"Floor it. I can explain on the way, but we've been here too long." Bolt ordered again, and the teenager did so.

Behind them something screamed and the truck bucked. Then the torso of the mech began to come with them with a shriek of metal on street before the crude wheels Bolt had stamped on began their work. Bolt looked this way and that as they drove and didn't relax.

"Using a cutter like that is like a big shoot me sign." Bolt explained after a tense minute. "You do it quick and run or take cover. You do not stay around."

"Ah." The teen breathed out and then jerked as a loud explosion came from behind him.

"Hard ta tell if that was area denial, direct attack, or someone just shooting cause they noticed something." The designer observed with calm.

He politely ignored the whimper from his companion. They still had a lot more to go if they needed a mech assembled. There was probably going to be more of that.

 

[lost star]

Biomechs were best described as a parallel technology to standard mech technology. A lot of it interlapped, but the central precept required technology specifically designed for biological processes. This meant that working with it typically required an entirely different educational base. Bolt had looked into it and tried to apply his mind to it, but frankly had found it not to his liking.

He was a man who worked with metal. It was in his blood. The technology around biomechanical mechs was ultimately completely opposed to his standard work processes. Which was ultimately not an issue. Not everyone was suited to everything. Bolt had gotten the basics down through some intense study and decided that he had no desire to truly work with the systems involved. (He also honestly had enough on his plate.)

With all of this said, disliking it did not mean Bolt could not work with the mechs at all. Especially when it came to salvaging. Though he had to say, salvaging a biomech was a messy and thoroughly unpleasant process. It was also oddly something he could handle more than trying to think about designing the blasted things. He just had to ignore the fact that it was messy in a very liquid sort of way.

Fortunately he was helped by the fact that most of the mechs in use were Lumberjacks. Having a lot of the same model had made salvaging a fully intact mech relatively simple. He'd only had to make a few trips and then had to put it all together.

"Just have to put it all together eh?" Bolt muttered to himself as he looked at the mess of parts he'd managed to salvage.

This was more surgery than mech design! He had body parts masquerading as mech parts! Some of them were bleeding sap. Welding some of this wouldn't work. So how would he accomplish the task of turning these parts into a valid mech here?

Some inquiries with the refugees had managed to get him a medical student's aid. The young woman looked very green as she came into the room, but she was able to speak, and she was competent enough to answer questions. That was all Bolt needed.

The key problem that was hindering him was the spine. Bolt had been forced to cut it to get the parts into the bay. The spine on a local biomech was a carbon-laced bone amalgam that could be likened to a human spine in function if not composition. The stuff was far more durable than anything in a person, and a fair bit heavier to boot. It also wasn't really meant to be broken like Bolt had.

Taking cues from surgery techniques, Bolt ended up ripping out some of the spinal sections and then replacing them with printed parts. He then fused some of it with modern day bone fusing techniques and reassembled the mech. The back was going to be stiff, but the mech would only lose a bit of motion rotating the center. That was acceptable in this case.

With the spine properly redone, Bolt and the medical student went through the rest of the process almost as if the mech was a patient. This turned out to be an involved process that took both of them to do. They had to figure out how to stitch up the muscles, flush the coolant without actually breaking all of the lines, actually deal with a lot of the 'veins' that pushed sap to places. It was a mix of ad-hoc medical techniques and intuition. Really, Bolt was add-libbing half of it, but it seemed to work. Using finger thick wires to do stitching involved half a dozen improvised innovations alone!

To top it all off Bolt's final action required him hooking the mech up to an electrical generator and pushing a current throughout the entire machine. He categorically did not shout out anything when he did it. (His aide did.) The mech needed a sort of jump start to galvanize most of it's mechanisms before he could get it finished off. Frankly it was probably the most insane part of the process, and one that was also very dangerous. It worked though.

All told, it wasn't a pretty mech in the end. It was a Lumberjack, salvaged. Considering the entire process he'd just done was not something Biomechs were designed for, Bolt had to be satisfied with it. He left the bay in as good spirit as one could be, after he took a shower. The 'surgery' had been extremely messy and he was absolutely covered with sap towards the end of it. Since it was mildly toxic, this meant he needed a few pills and some time for his system to be flushed.

"You still smell like sap." Lilly noted once Bolt rejoined his life.

"I had to practically wade through the stuff at several points." The designer said with a groan as he flopped down onto a rather uncomfortable metal seat and shifted several times. "I haven't done a salvage job like that in awhile." He muttered. It was almost nostalgic.

"So we have a mech?" Phillipe asked.

"Checks ran green after I kicked the computer. The axe is intact and usable. Ammo filled for the back mount. It's as ready for a pilot as it can be considering the circumstances." Bolt responded and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. He was running of stims and nothing else at the moment and was having trouble thinking. "How have things gone while I was busy?"

"Got a lotta shellshock and refugees are still trickling in. With the dawn we can see the damage to the city. It's still intact, but oddly quiet. After the night fighting I'd expected more, but there's nothing out there." Lilly said.

"Don't know what else is happening on our end." Phillipe contributed. "Your comm can breach the jamming, but that matters little with no one else able to get through. It sucks."

"It's a war." Bolt observed calmly. "We're also not really part o' it. Our job is to survive. Influencing things will be nearly impossible. We have a pilot ready?"

"Camille is our best one. She's a C rank, barely." The young man said. "It iz not something that is common in our circle of friends, and I do not trust anyone else."

"I'll get her in and we can run through a paces inside." Lilly offered quickly. "It will be a last resort though. It's a single mech. Our best bet is to last until we can be sure we can get into orbit, and then flee."

"That will take a few days." Bolt noted and closed his eyes.

He wanted to sleep, but his mental state demanded a half a dozen things, and was keeping him up. The best he was going to be able to do was just try to keep his eyes shut and try to center himself. It wasn't a new situation, simply an unpleasant one..

"So we wait?" Phillipe asked incredulously.

"Ain't happy about it, but without news all we can do is that." Lilly replied quietly. "Getting more information could let us plan." The expert patted her swelling stomach. "I can't head out myself."

The young man nodded slowly. "What if we head out?" He asked back.

"We won't ask you to do that." Bolt replied back immediately.

"Me and a few others can head out with ze mech. It won't be easy, but there are several official places that we know of. A mech will help." Phillipe pointed out.

"That will be very, very risky." Lilly said.

Bolt opened his eyes to see that the young man looked determined. He sighed quietly. He knew that feeling far too well. He suddenly felt old, even if the feeling was nonsense. Screw it.

"Give me a few hours and I'll try to soup up the mech." Bolt muttered. "Didn't want ta do it cause that's stuff fer repairs and emergencies, but yer not going with just a salvaged mech."

Phillipe nodded gratefully.

 

[lost star]

Green Barrier 12 was not the only planet in its parent nation. It was in fact one of over a hundred. It was one planet amongst many in a Second Rate nation. This meant many things. It meant several hundred planets were organized to support it. It meant that a bureaucracy had been created to organize everything. This required administrators, it required a significant amount of money. It also required a massive amount of attention and work. Hence why the MTA had specifically founded a nation to handle most of it while they handled other goals.

This had been a relatively large undertaking. Despite the technology level the big two had, space was massive. There was an enormous amount of empty area that people had to cover, and containing an intelligent race with FTL completely was explicitly impossible. What the MTA, and the nation they'd propped up had done was simply create a barrier of fortified planets at valuable points and sent out endless probes to less valuable areas to keep an eye on things. The Arboretians were contained by humanity taking the good spots and leaving nothing of value within a reasonable distance rather than anything resembling a siege that would happen on a planet.

All of this made a lot of things very necessary. Such as appointing a general to oversee everything. This introduced points of failure unfortunately. Despite what popular fiction would tell you, not all generals were stellar, battle tested geniuses. Generals were people, and as one rose up in the ranks politics came into play more than competence. Many rose to their position through bribery, nepotism, or just because they said the right things. It was a common problem in all human organizations. From First to Third rate, there were always the less then competent in positions of importance. Technology usually only served to paper over the issue and could sometimes allow catastrophic failures to occur because people had come to rely too much on technology and not enough on themselves.

General Garcon was typical of those less than competent. He was a man who'd risen to his position through a combination of ass kissing and the ability to find cushy jobs he could overexaggerate his accomplishments for. Being in charge of the Barrier planets had just been another step on his career path. Him taking the position had been considered reasonable due to the current situation. Humanity and the Arboretians had been performing low effort attacks rather than nail biting knife fights for the past few years. Being a general for it was therefore mostly watching reports and shuffling the forces on a schedule to keep from being predictable. There were no grand offense in the works, and the defense amounted to housekeeping.

Housekeeping was something that Garcon could do with the appropriate handlers. His human and computer aides typically handled almost all of the day to day operations. He just had to sign off on a lot of decisions and schmooze with others. It was almost a net benefit, because the man's one real strength was being good at fundraising.

Being woken up in the dead of night and being forced to take a custom made stim was very far from his area of competence. It was something he'd only experienced once, and that was a training exercise right after he'd first joined. He was pushing eighty now. If he didn't have life extension treatment, his heart would have given out.

It went without saying that the man wasn't handling things well.

"Explain it again." The man demanded as he settled in his plush and perfectly contoured seat.

"Secondary alerts for Green Barrier 12 are showing false." The aide was not so unprofessional as to show anything on her face. Garcon could tell she thought him an idiot anyway.

"But primary alerts are not showing anything?" Garcon reasoned out. "Run me through it assuming I do not know it." He ordered with a grunt.

"All barrier planets have three layers of alerts. The primary layer, and where most of communications come from are the twelve hour reports from the on planet Colonel or officer on duty. This has been given. A secondary alert triggers when the primary report is functionally identical to a primary report." The aide reported without a trace of emotion.

"So the Colonel what, copy pasted a report?" Garcon asked incredulously and pounded on a hand rest. "That doez not necessitate my rest being disturbed!"

The woman met his eyes calmly as she shook her head and explained further. "No, the reports are verbal. Functionally identical means someone recorded a verbal report and played it at the appropriate time. The twelve hour reports are done to inform us that the people are still alive and on duty, they're frequently identical verbally, but we have software to analyze their voices. In essence, the men on duty are either dead or incapacitated Monsieur."

"Or they simply played hooky. We have demanded another report correct?" Garcon asked.

"It was done by one of your subordinates. The response they got was from a Lieutenant giving the all clear." The aide paused and added. "I must note that they were not on the approved list of those that can give the report."

Garcon sighed and rubbed at his forehead. It was late, his heart was racing due to the stim, and this felt like absolutely nothing. He wanted to dismiss it all.

"This sounds like barracks shenanigans." The general muttered. "Do we have more information?"

"Our orbital assets in the area are attempting to gather more information, but we recently pulled most away, so it will take some time." The aide paused and continued with growing alarm. "We also just recently gotten a report from the MTA indicating that there might be traitors on the planet."

The man sat up straight. "The MTA?! Why did you not lead with that?!" He demanded as he paled.

"Monsieur, the message just came in!" The woman said. "I've given you the facts we can confirm as they have been reported!"

"Blast it all, that doesn't matter now. What matters is that the MTA is looking into things! Send one of our Aces with supporting staff there immediately. Send in our quick response team! Send in everyone you can think of! I want arrests. I want executions. I want to know what the entire garrison ate for breakfast!" Garcon almost roared as he leaped out of the seat. "If the MTA is even looking at the planet, it has to sparkle."

"Our quick response team is not meant for investigation." The aide said quietly as she rapidly typed on the tablet she'd brought to the meeting. "If the ace team is deployed the city will be leveled from their activation."

"Irrelevant!" The general waved it off. "In fact, put it in orders. Solve the problem first. Save the city secondary. We need that planet secured and traitors beheaded. Don't spare anything. Have a rebuild order drafted as well in case we need it. It will not be ze first time we have had to remake one of those places. We have the people."

"To clarify Monsieur, you wish the city leveled?" The woman asked with a slight tremble of her hand.

"Non. The MTA telling us this means they want results. Take anyone with a whiff of anything and have them put under a microscope." Garcon snapped his fingers. "Use all of our emergency budget if necessary. If the MTA thinks we're slacking it won't be just me on the guillotine."

With a nod the aide began to bring up things and several holograms came to life. "Our quick response team is two days out. Our ace a week out."

"We have nothing faster?" The general asked.

"There is a direct line to the informant." Was the response as the woman continued to work to pull up more information. "Our contact on the ground is a civilian from a neighboring sector. A designer named Bolt Silica. Apparently a few of the children that their parents were aiding and abetting the enemy."

Garcon blinked several times before things connected in his head and he broke out in a sweat. "He must be some MTA official hiding. Merde. Transfer full authorization to him. Give him my credentials if necessary."

An order like that made the woman pause. "Sir?"

"Think woman! The MTA sent an actual message. This Bolt person isn't a Journeyman, he haz to be something else as well! We have to be seen as being cooperative. Give him ze planet if we need to! Bend over backwards and kiss his ass if he asks for it." The general ordered with all his authority. "Go quick, now!"

Trembling the woman nodded and practically ran from the room to fulfil her orders. The old man flopped into the chair as she left and heaved a sigh. His hands were shaking. Damnit, this should have been an easy job. Now he was going to have a heart attack!

 

[lost star]

I041

---

"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!

 

[lost star]

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.

 

[lost star]

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.

 

[lost star]

Odette was a woman on the average side for a Second Rate woman. Mildly pretty, short brown hair cropped in a way that brought military styles to mind, and fairly unremarkable clothing. She could have passed for a normal person if her presence didn't scream expert. She was also quite furious at the current circumstances.

"Look at my lovely Swan!" The woman gestured emphatically to the chained up mech that had been brought with her. "They ruined her! Not only that, they did it through subterfuge and betrayal! Honorable combat is one thing. This defilement is another!"

Bolt winced as he looked over the mech. "Can't disagree there."

Whomever had done the sabotage had managed a rather telling bit of damage. If he were to guess they had thrown an explosive device in the cockpit and closed it up. That sort of contained destruction had cored all the vital components for the mech. In a mechanical mech that meant a good half day's worth of work to fix. For a biomech it meant that the mech was practically impossible to repair conventionally.

It was a true pity too. Swan was one of those mechs that blended form and function in a very striking manner. He was fairly sure it had taken inspiration from ballet based on the design. The feet, coloring, and hints of feathers made it look elegantly graceful. This was a labor of both love and dedication, not the utilitarian style of expert mech that most militaries churned out.

"The plan was to use me as a rallying point, but unless you can pull out another miracle today we are in a bad spot. Your wife's mech is destroyed as well." The woman observed with a large frown.

"I mean I didn't want her out there, but was the damage worse that bad?" He asked Lilly. He hadn't managed to get to it after she'd returned.

"Experimental thingy worked but blew out everything inside I think." The small woman said with a halfhearted shrug. "Bit of a pity, cause it was fun."

"You have my agreement in that it looks entertaining. I am not one for a heavy, but I would not zay no to weapons like that. Sometimes you just need a big weapon yes?" Odette noted as her frown decreased slightly.

"Yep! They're totally worth the hassle that comes with having something so big." Lilly agreed with a grin.

Bolt listened to the chatter with half an ear as he evaluated things. They had two mostly totaled and expensive biomechs at the moment, and very little time. Assuming the enemy wasn't stupid, they knew that there was at least one expert free at the moment. They would find the base. It wasn't like the place was really hidden after all. They needed more than the militia equivalents that Phillipe's friends represented.

For a moment he wondered if he could just see if one of Lilly's mechs could be brought down. The consideration stopped midway through. There were too many reasons to avoid that. His best bet would therefore be trying to fix Swan. He'd done it once with another biomech after all and he could do it again.

The problem was that he wasn't sure he had the time. The process of fixing a cockpit wasn't that hard really. The cockpit itself was meant to come out. It was the connections from the cockpit to the rest of the mech and the fact that several important components were typically next to the cockpit to take advantage of the shielding. A second rate mech had thousands of connections. It was so fiddly and time consuming to deal with that it was sometimes faster to remake the mech than to fix it if the problem was deep enough.

He was going to have to cut it all out and do a transplant of sorts probably. It wasn't going to be pretty. If he did it right it could be fast, but he'd have to lean heavily on the biomechanical repair processes. Would it be fast enough? He couldn't say. That really depended on the enemy.

"I'm going to need you two ladies out." Bolt said out loud, and Lilly laughed at whatever face he was making before screwing her face up in fake outrage.

"Who you callin a lady!?" The woman said before grabbing the other expert and giggling again. "Come on, let my hubby do his magic."

"Magic you say?" Odette asked and then jumped as a spray of sap went through the air.

Bolt waved sheepishly as he held up the tool he'd started the cut with. "I'd call this less magic and more horror. Also it ain't going to be a pretty repair. Walk the woman through Frankenstein mechs if you can hun?"

Lilly nodded and shut the door firmly behind her. Bolt paused as something else occurred to him. There was an added safety measure he could use. There should have been, and there was a sealed suit in the side rooms. Typically used for highly toxic materials, it was standard for most higher level workshop to have at least one. Even better, second Rate suits were actually fairly nice to work in. They were temperature controlled and the material was thin enough you could feel things through the gloves. Bolt didn't normally use them, but he didn't want to risk more toxins building up in his body from the work he was doing. He could probably get treated for it, but better to keep it from happening in the first place.

Now prepared, the young man resumed cutting.

This was not an easy procedure despite the speed. Even in metal mechs it was a process that you tried to avoid. The cockpit was the brain of a mech. No mechs took well to having everything rewired. Biomechs were worse, because it was all messy with liquid and organic connections. Bolt ended up cribbing more medical techniques, outright clamping several places shut with improvised tools before he stared running lines.

Fortunately, despite it being difficult, it was fast. Especially because Bolt had another expert mech of sorts on hand. Ripping out the appropriate parts from Woodpecker was the fastest part of the procedure. It was so fast Bolt was able to pull out the space warping organ they'd made too. That ominously glowing thing was still useful even if it'd crippled Woodpecker.

His thoughts were that if he narrowed the focus and added a few power limiters the space warping could be used for something like quick bursts of movement. Swan could power it maybe less than half a second based on his math. That sounded rather limited, but for an expert Bolt believed it'd be game changing. Odette would appreciate the trump, and adding it cost him a few minutes really. He was ripping out enough of the torso that there was room.

All told, the repairs were relatively quick for the damage that had been inflicted if one ignored the fact that Bolt had just functionally ruined two expert mechs. The 'repairs' he'd done were more akin to cannibalism and fusing the functional parts of the two mechs together. They would not hold up well. Swan was going to die after a few days of operation and after that it would have to be completely scrapped.

That was unfortunately a common thing in battlefield repair. This was why Bolt had been concerned about creating life in mechs. They were tools, and sometimes your tools broke. Sometimes you had to do something that would ruin them, like in this case. The stopgap measure would suffice, and they should be able to remake the mech with another bases resources when they had time.

He really wondered why Debora gave him such strange looks after he'd announced what he'd managed. Sure he'd done something interesting, but it was a horrible rushjob that was barely working. He'd made sure to tell Odette that.

 

[lost star]

Odette was genuinely convinced that the foreigner named Bolt was capable of black magic. She knew damage. She might not have been a designer, but any pilot worth their mech knew how to evaluate damage. Swan had been dead. Yet somehow black magic had revived her beloved partner for a final dance. Sure it was something called a Frankenstein mech now, but she'd take what she could get and let the city know it in glorious detail.

This wasn't just vanity. There was a small aspect of culture in the city that most visitors weren't aware of. It was something unstated and frequently not even brought up to outsiders. It came with the fact that every barrier planet had at least one expert on the planet at all times and the fact that they saw frequent deployment. Experts were practically mascots to their planets. Odette and Swan were seen almost daily in times of war. They were known. They were celebrated.

So seeing her flying over the city boosted morale like nothing else could. The very sight of their expert in the air galvanized everyone. People began to mobilize, and the enemy was thrown into disarray. Just as her absence had stricken fear into hearts, her appearance singlehandedly stiffened every spine.

This movement of hers could not be unanswered, and Odette was counting on it. She directed her flight path to the wall and counted down the seconds. One, two, three. Such was the delay in their response that she wondered if the enemy would allow her to proceed unmolested, and then instinct had her dive.

Behind her the enemy mech stopped midair as the axe swing missed. The sight was incredulous. There was no visible means of propulsion. The mech just hovered there, boosters off. It was standing on air without a singular means of support. Very typical of advanced aliens.

"High priority spotted. Air-walking confirmed." Odette reported and spun into a dizzying dance to reposition herself.

Swan was a flying lancer. It was a dangerous combination for the pilot and the target. To win a lancer had to charge and hit the opponent. Lancers were therefore by necessity on the heavier side. Fliers in contrast had to be light. Making the combination work required dedicated construction and a pilot who could perform maneuvers that were insane. Not barely sane, not risky, literally insane. One mistake meant you splattered uselessly against the ground.

The expert's thrusters fired as she charged at the enemy, lance first. In response the enemy mech did a combination of floating and stepping to the side. Typical of a ten-year Arboretian. At that level they were able to practically negate momentum and maneuver however they liked, even in the air.

"Looks like the thing has stolen a mech." Bolt muttered over the comms.

"Not the first time." Debora said back. "They like doing it when they can. The benefits are relatively low due to their inability to use the systems."

"Clear comms." Odette reminded the designers. "Engaging enemy."

Debora had been right about the mech part though. The Arboretian wasn't really moving the mech like a mech. It was more like it was tied to puppet strings. It wasn't even firing the back weapons, which would have complicated things. As a general accepted fact, aliens could not pilot mechs. Based on history, Arboretians took about a year of occupation to 'digest' a mech and actually gain anything from it aside from the armor.

That wasn't to say this was easy. Odette wasn't trying her hardest, but her opponent had some incredible maneuverability and this meant that dodging her attacks was not difficult for it. Every movement she made was accompanied by a shift of their mech in the air. They were testing each other before they commited, trying to find the patterns in their thoughts.

She was unfortunately hindered by the fact that her mech was dying. It was a slow and subtle thing, but the systems were starting to take damage just from the movement. Bolt's repairs had been a miracle, but it still had a price. She could feel every second of operation. That was fine. Lancers were made to finish fights quickly.

Once Odette had a feel she shifted and flared her willpower. Swan glimmered with light. The feathery adornments almost seemed to grow. She then put thrusters on full and charged.

Her opponent's power also flared as it attempted to suppress her. To Odette it was an abrasive and toxic feeling that almost made her ill. Like poisonous sludge painted in the sky. She hated it with all her being. What was worse was that it clung to her like a particularly nasty weed.

Willpower clashed with alien malignance and she pushed with all her might. The lance cut through the air and angled to the enemy. In return it attempted to shift to the side like it always had. The contemptuous dismissal of her charge proved to be its undoing. Odette reduced the boost on one side of her back at the last second and her mech arched mid-charge, giving her opponent no time to compensate.

An arm went flying as her mech impacted with a titanic slam. Half the enemy's torso was gone. Unfortunately that meant nothing. Odette wasn't fighting a mech. She was fighting a creature manipulating the mech with puppet strings. The alien choked up on the axe in the remaining hand and slammed the blade into her shoulder without a care for the damage it'd taken. Both mechs went spinning from the impact and Odette took precious seconds to compensate.

Even with that disorientating movement the expert kept her eyes on her opponent. She could see how it moved the back weapons and so mid-spin she angled herself up high. Even then she barely avoided the beam-like projectile it shot. The toxic energy wafted over her and the woman hissed. Weaponized whatever the enemy used. Not good. That was not a typical ten-year behavior.

There were too many unknowns here. Too many problems. What had the traitors done? Had they taught this thing something? They had to know reinforcements were already on the way, so why fight like this?

The alien switched to offense. Incredibly it was almost more dangerous one arm down. Worse, Odette could see the shoulder starting to regrow. This wasn't unknown for Arboretians, but it also only happened with older ones.

"Not a ten-year." The expert reported with grit teeth.

"Found reports of the thing's imprisonment. It was sanctioned. The thing was supposed to be sealed in a room with no possible means of contact. It was also supposed to have been in captivity for only ten years." Bolt's voice was not reassuring based on what he was reporting. "Reading between the lines, it might have been alive for a few years before it was captured. Dunno how much that matters."

"Variable depending on circumstances." Odette noted. "In this case, more thought, less combat experience."

This was very, very bad. A thinking alien of this level could easily kill her. The toxic power it was still using was seeping into her mech every second. Her willpower was winning, but she could not keep this up. She diverted power to the added organ that Bolt had used and flared her mech's boosters to rise up even further.

Something about the action alarmed the alien. Odette couldn't say how she knew, only that it's movements changed. It recognized the space warping? That was fine with her. She activated her resonance again.

Swan's resonance was a subtle thing. On the surface it looked like just flash. What it did was add 'stability' to her form. When it was active, Swan took less damage and dealt more. It wasn't very obvious, but it was what let her be a lancer beyond compare.

This close and entangled in her opponent she couldn't really do the trademark charge of a lancer. Instead she poured more energy into the space organ. Swan burned. She came apart. Yet she did so gladly as Odette rose up and up, faster than the alien could chase her. When she judged the time was right she reversed it.

"Effondre!" The shout left her lips without prompting as she dropped.

Such violent movement was not gentle. Her barely repaired mech bled from the g-forces. Odette barely managed to stay conscious, and she rocked in her harness. She held, just like her mech. They descended together. Her lance pierced the alien's mech and they fell. They dropped and dropped like a meteor. Then, before they hit the ground Odette hit the eject. Swan did the rest. Overloading power and energy cascaded with momentum and when the mechs hit the ground it wasn't so much as an impact as it was an explosion.

Odette's cockpit drifted through the air on its inner propulsion. She watched the wreckage with a critical eye before she brought up the comms again. "Enemy down. Need confirmation."

"We have contact with a few people nearby. They will check on foot." Debora reported. "Mech assets are sparse."

"Of course they are." Odette let a small lapse of professionalism escape her before she thought of something. "Specifically deny the children and Venerable Lilly from checking merci."

"Ain't sure why you gotta say them specifically, but I'll relay it." Bolt answered.

Odette nodded. She liked the other expert. The woman, the teenagers, and the woman's husband had done more than enough. It was time for her people to pull their own weight.

 

[lost star]

It probably said something that sleeping in the bunker with cheap beds felt far more comfortable than sleeping in a fancy hotel. Lilly didn't want to think on it too much, especially since the pregnancy meant sleep was a bit of a problem. Not much of one, but she didn't like staying in bed more than she needed thanks to the pressure the added weight made on certain parts. This was mildly annoying at the moment because they'd moved onto the wait and see portion of military action.

Odette at least seemed even less likely to sleep in. Lilly found the other woman in the cafe sipping on some sort of coffee. Considering how early it was, she had gotten perhaps four hours of sleep, if she'd hit the bed right after returning.

"Thanks to certain adjustments I require at most three to four hours a day. I can stay up for a week with little trouble." The fellow expert explained with a wave as the other woman came in. "It iz less pleasant than you'd think. Sleeping is a welcome reprieve at times."

"I suppose I can see that." Lilly mused as she looked through the things available and made an annoying realization. "Damnit, I need to avoid caffeine don't I?" At least the heavy stuff.

"Please follow your doctor's advice. Women pilots like us have few windows to have children while maintaining a career." Odette advised with a serious look. "You will regret it if you cause your unborn child trouble."

"Yeah yeah. Not like I was the biggest fan of coffee." Lilly had a mild fondness for the black tar that mechanics and people with long shifts used, but didn't much like the rest. "Fruit juice it is. Any news?" She asked as she took a seat.

"Little. After my display people are trying to rally and a unit when to the downed area to secure the kill. There have been no reports other than they've found the wrecker. More generally the morale is higher than paralyzed fear now and we have found some officers. There's understandable suspicion on many of them, but they have been found. It is a mess." Odette sighed and slouched very slightly in her seat. "I would very much prefer being back in Swan."

"But she's gone." Lilly commiserated. "It's always painful when you lose a good mech."

"Oui. Admittedly I probably kept with her more than I should have. The design just felt nice." The expert sighed again.

Lilly's eyes darted around the area before she leaned forward and lowered her voice. "Ask Bolt to salvage some of it. He could probably keep a bit of the... Spirit involved in it." She advised. She was being needlessly secretive here, but it felt appropriate.

Odette didn't look like she got it, but she nodded anyway. "I will see what I can do. Military expert mechs are quite regulated in many aspects and outside help is strongly discouraged."

"I couldn't tolerate that." Lilly noted as she leaned back before sipping at her juice and frowning up at the ceiling. "If you like, I could see about getting Morning Star or Dowry down here now that we have some breathing room. They're both Third Rate, but they're better than nothing and I wouldn't mind you piloting either."

"The offer is very appreciated but I must reject it. Compatibility issues make that less than viable." Odette said with a dry tone and a small chuckle. "Not everyone is like you either. I do need practice with any new mechs and I have a rather narrow field of exotics I am compatible with. I cannot simply take a mech and use it immediately."

The young woman had completely forgotten about that. "I need ta look up my exotic compatibility myself one of these days. Bolt's been handling it so far and I have no idea what the list is like." She admitted out loud.

"It is not uncommon with experts I've found. More often than not we just take what mechs are assigned or designed rather than request something specific. They try their best to accommodate uz, but there's always factors that give us less control such as cost, designer availability, and simple mech design. You are quite lucky in many ways to have your husband and your freedom. He will take your requests very seriously I assume." Odette said with a nod as she sipped at her tea.

"Hehe, he does, and I'm thankful every day." Lilly agreed before downing her juice. "So, what do we do next?"

"Next, we should do nothing. I should do something. You should not." The other expert said dryly. "You are a visitor and a tourist. You should be relaxing and seeing the sights, not assisting in a war and risking you and your child's life. That you have had to is a great shame for uz and something we will have to address later."

The young woman flinched at that statement. "Erk."

"Forgive me if I seem overtly critical." Odette continued with a small wince of her own. "I personally very appreciate your aid, but it should not have happened.

"No, no, I've been skating pretty close to the edge." Lilly admitted with a wave of her free hand.

She didn't regret the risks she'd been taking. She did need to acknowledge her actions had not been the safest paths she could have chosen. Fortunately she was reaching the point where it'd be viable to do an early birth and let the child be nurtured in a machine. It was a fairly standard practice for a variety of reasons apparently.

The other expert shook off the statement and gave the woman a half smile. "Let us speak of something else." And paused as she noticed a message come in. "One moment."

Lilly watched as the woman's face twisted into a few other expressions before settling on something cold. "Bad news?" She asked.

"The alien has been captured and can speak zhe human tongue. Normally we would simply execute it, but we need information and it is offering some in exchange for a conversation." Odette hissed. "I loathe granting concessions to the filth."

With a slow nod Lilly gave the other woman a searching look. "Just a conversation? Not a delay on death?"

"Specifically with someone that had been adjusted with their DNA and yes." Odette reasoned out rather slowly. "Though it did not ask for anyone by name. While I trust the children, I am now worried about some sort of sabotage in their flesh. This is suspicious, but we need the information. Something about this does not make sense at all."

Lilly frowned and then tapped at the table as she thought. "Let me be nearby, and let me talk with Bolt. There's a few things we know that makes it possible for us to catch something maybe?"

Odette gave her a strange look before nodding. "This is acceptable, but you will not be in sight, and we will have many guards. We shall ask Phillipe and he shall have to agree to a few security measures. It will not be pleasant for anyone."

 

[lost star]

Phillipe stepped into the room dressed in armor and with an explosive device strapped around his neck. Only the fact that the room was perfectly air conditioned and his clothing was high class kept him from visibly sweating. Despite the tension inherent in what he was doing, he felt oddly calm mentally. He was finally getting some answers. What answers he was getting were impossible to say, but he'd get something. That was enough for him. He was at peace with the decisions that had led him to this action.

The Arboretian was not in the same room. It was separated by a see-through wall. Communication was going to be through a speaker and there was no possible way of even their air touching. No chances were being taken here. No one had agreed to this entire process lightly. He was going into this with full awareness the he could be killed in an instant. He took the seat and examined the enemy through the glass with surprising steadiness.

In fiction Arboretians looked like green leaves that moved. Sometimes they were depicted as green-ish people. They could take that form, but their most natural and instinctive body was more roots than greenery. The thing in front of him had not bothered to change itself at all. It was just a brown mass that was impossible for an uneducated human to identify.

"Your people did bring you to me." The creature began. The voice was synthesized. A speaker that had been hooked to the roots by the traitors and what let it speak with humans. "I anticipated your xenophobia and suspicion would prevent that. Another surprise."

"It was a close thing. We need answers." Phillipe had a general script he had to go through, and it was being displayed on the side, but it was also judged that he should use his own words mostly. "So what did you wish to talk to me about?"

"Hmm. Ah. You do not think of yourself as human." The Arboretian said after a moment. The synthesizer was good enough to convey tone, and its tone was mild curiosity.

"I am human." The young man refuted flatly.

"You do not consider yourself it, not really." The Arboretian reasoned out slowly. "But I will indulge your disbelief as it serves both our purposes. I requested you be brought here to validate something. I have done so, and consider it confirmed. That is enough for me. Consider your side of the deal confirmed. Ask your questions."

"That's it? Why me?" Phillipe asked first, ignoring the questions on the screen.

"I did not request you specifically. Only one made from my people's, the translation is genetic code, but that does not translate properly. You humans have strange compartmentalization in certain areas of science and your creation discounted several things that we would as a species." The creature said with a small shrug equivalent that the translator struggled to express. "But as I said, I desired to confirm something. You behavior was a strange deviation according to my understanding. The question of why needed to be answered and I have answered it by seeing you."

Phillipe shifted in his seat and glanced at the screens. Time to get back on track while he tried to process that. "All right, putting that aside, what was your plan here?"

"Human nonsense to cripple your defenses on their part. I will confess that I did not care enough to demand more details than significant sabotage and assumed control. If I must elaborate the overall plan was for me to gather power by assimilating what you call exotics and then send a call to the elders. Midway through when it became obvious that they lacked both control and enough supplies, I decided to shift to simply gathering enough power to escape. The requirements were similar and I could have changed my decision at any point in time. In retrospect I should have demanded we target the expert's mech first. I neglected to understand how much investment they have and it likely would have pushed me over the threshold."

"That iz it?" Phillipe repeated in confusion. "That sounds like a horrible plan. You killed the city with a half assed plan like that?"

The Arboretian did something that made the synthesizer let out a laugh. "You humans. I do not get you at all. I was captured. I was slated to die. I would have said anything to convince them to escape, and I am content in achieving something. It is more than most of us get."

On screen the text instructed him to ignore that. Phillipe found himself more confused by the statement than anything else. He did wonder about something now that it had been brought up though.

"You're aware of how others of your kind think? I thought you came here in seeds and do not talk?" The teen asked.

"To be unaware of even that. Did you never take the time to learn of us, or is this information restricted?" The Arboretian mused. "We talk all the time. It is nothing like you. Everyone else is competition. At birth our seeds are branded with lessons, we are able to unlock them as we grow. I tell you this because I am certain you have it recorded in your own way somewhere. It is the only time we are given a gift as you call it. Would you believe there is no such word as gift in our language? The best translation of what we give our children is probably trellis."

Phillipe didn't even have to think about that one. "I do. You don't feel anything a human does."

"You are less foolish than the ones that released me then. If you wonder if they are still alive, they are. I had the opportunity to eliminate them, but I felt that if they were free they'd cause more damage. That curse is quite the work of art." The alien gave another laugh. "Ah, whomever inflicted it on you has my appreciation."

The young man didn't even hesitate to jump on the statement. "Inflicted? What do you mean?"

"Another thing you do not know!" The Arboretian seemed gleeful at that. "Oh, I will deign to inform you of some of it, if only because it will torment you more. Based on our studies, someone cursed your people long ago. We simply take advantage of it when we can. It is general knowledge amongst us by the way, so enjoy the knowledge that you cannot trust your fellows. The affliction is masterfully beautiful, impossible to remove, and embedded in your very sense of humanity. "

Something about the words triggered some conclusions in his head. "That's why you said I don't think of myself as human." Phillipe realized.

"Oh, you can think. Good. Perhaps you will realize some things you should shed your human disguise at some point then. But to answer your unspoken question, yes, that would protect you. One of the conditions is you think yourself human. It is a very twisted thing in truth, and while I benefited from it, I shudder at the mind that made it truthfully. I have touched the edges of it. It is a blasphemic cruelty that was done to inflict agony and torment you more than anything else."

Phillipe was half ready to do something violent and half ready to be ill from the words. He might not have liked his parents, but that sort of information felt horrible to learn. He glared at the alien and then at the screen before blinking and settling himself. There were a few more questions they needed answered.

"Enough of that. What about the traitors. You don't care about them yes? They're leaving, just like that?" The teen asked, even if the words felt a bit bitter.

"They expected sympathy, or perhaps something human from me towards the end I believe. I will confess my ignorance as to their mindset. The curse combined with the fact that they were human make their thought processes impossible for me to follow. My people genuinely don't have social behaviors like you." The plant seemed honestly confused as to what they were thinking. "But as I said, I believe they are fleeing. Logically they should have had an exit strategy and the curse does not rob all reason, which makes it more insidious rather than less."

"Not sure if this conversation was worth it now." Phillipe grumbled out loud in honest pain and squinted at the alien. "You do know we're going to execute you right?"

"Correct." The alien seemed remarkably uncaring about that. "One last question, as a favor for the damned then?"

"Don't know how you know that phrase." The teen glanced at the screen. "Ask it, I might not answer it."

"That device used by your expert. It was made using our remains?" The alien asked.

Phillipe glanced again and shook his head. "No."

"Hmm. That is a truth you believe, but it is of no matter. That answer alone is enough." The Arboretian shuffled. "I am ready for the execution. Do be quick about it if you can. We do not feel pain as you do, so the worst you can do is bore me."

Phillipe nodded slowly and got to his feet. He then left the room. Outside it, a set of scans went through him. The automated sensors buzzed unpleasantly against his skin, and he felt something burn. These were not gentle checks.

It was only after the checks were done that the collar popped off and several men walked in. Phillipe was pulled out of the room and given a decontamination scrub. It was only after that he was let go with a pat on the back and orders to rest. It felt oddly anti-climactic. He still threw up when he got to his quarters and spent longer then he should have staring at a wall and thinking.

 

[lost star]

The interview had been brief but it'd given both Bolt and Lilly a lot to unpack. The 'curse' talk had landed like a bomb. Poor Phillipe seemed more than a little disturbed by it. Even Bolt felt disturbed by it and he wasn't effected. The various implications about it involved things he'd rather not think about.

It was something he'd have to contemplate after he checked everything immediately relevant. He'd hastily created several tools for this event, and they'd all been installed with recorders. Most of them were paltry, more designed to theoretically do something than verifiably do something. The improvised jammer for instance was supposed to jam spiritual communications. Despite his progress he had no doubts he was a novice at everything. His only real advantage was that humans really didn't do a lot of this and the alien likely hadn't even considered his presence and capability.

"Status?" Odette asked after Phillipe was cleared.

"Based on the data, there was an attempt to send something out. I think I stopped it, but this is new tech." Bolt tapped at the jammer and the anomalous records it'd reported.

"You are not certain though." Odette concluded with a small wince as she seemed to realize something. "That is progress and something special, but I will have to keep it from the report it because this is probably breaking several rules having you here and using an untested tool with unknown results. I appreciate the aid, but in retrospect this should not be recorded."

"Think it was telling the truth about the curse?" Lilly asked the main question on the couple's mind.

"Would you believe it is not the first time it has been brought up?" Odette said in return as she sighed and took a seat in the surveillance room they were in looking suddenly very weary. "This iz classified, but I feel I should speak of it anyway, and you have access to it technically. Despite what the MTA and CFA would tell the public, we do have lines of communication with some other alien races. None of it would be called friendly, but a cold front against a relatively harmless foe is sometimes more valuable for us. An unsaid but official policy is to let some less than threatening aliens survive for various reasons. Thus we have mentions of this 'curse' from others."

"Ya don't sound happy about it." Bolt noted.

"Because it is complicated. Do you know of a faction called the Cosmopolitans?" Odette paused and the continued when the couple shook their heads. "They are essentially alien sympathizers. They're characterized by erratic behavior, suicidal empathy, and considering humans worthless."

That sounded very familiar. Bolt felt his eyes narrow as his mind raced. Having a name assumed they were organized enough to coordinate. That brought several things here to new light.

"Yes, you can see. Our nations leading theory is that this curse the alien is referencing is a psychological equivalent of a stress reaction that can happen in alien presence. There are many theories though and it iz extremely hard to narrow down anything because we seem to lack something that can detect it. If it was just genetics or psychology we would have purged it long ago. Estimates are that five to thirty percent of humanity is vulnerable, but as I said we cannot detect it, so we don't know." The woman explained with exhaustion.

"So a third of humanity is secret traitors?" Lilly asked incredulously.

"That's where the complication truly comes in. Some of them are simply opportunists. Some of them are genuinely mentally ill. Some show no signs until the last second. Humanity is rife with people who simply hate their race or are willing to betray everyone for some sort of benefit. We cannot separate that attitude from the 'curse.'" Odette waved around the room. "Then you have to take into account the fact that aliens are all beaten or suppressed. Like here. Sure they might have managed to win this planet, but that would have just prompted the MTA to come in with a hammer. Not all of the Cosmopolitans are mentally deficient."

Of course it couldn't be simple. Bolt looked over his tools and suddenly felt inadequate. How would he even go about detecting that. Could it be detected? The designer paused here. It could be. Assuming the alien could do it, perhaps he could establish a detection? But how?

"If you are thinking of investigating, feel free." Odette interpreted his look. "Do not dwell on it too much though. Without threatening aliens the Cosmopolitans are either useless or hiding so well that it doesn't matter." The woman gave a small shrug. "We've learned to deal with it in places like this and have at least some precautions. It is probably why this particular event didn't truly result in a complete loss. A singular assassin on me would have made things very grim for instance and they had to pull in outside aide."

The designer took a deep breath and let it out before nodding. "I understand. But..." He trailed off and looked at his tools again. "I hate it."

Odette's laugh was bitter. "I do as well. Yet that conversation might have finally given us a possible direction to look into. The fiend stated that thinking oneself as human triggers it, and that we can verifiably test. We may have a treatment or immunization of sorts if we follow that line of thought. We even have some traitors that could serve as tests."

"Ouch." Bolt observed with a wince as he realized what that would entail.

There were methods of changing people's minds, and none of them were pleasant, or entirely ethical really. He wasn't going to stop it though. Traitors were not something anyone could tolerate. He didn't even object to the possible action. He just didn't want to think about it.

"Yes, it will be unpleasant, but there were likely worse things planned." The expert shrugged. "Regardless, this is not your problem. Did you gather anything else?"

"Off record or on record?" Bolt asked back. "Because you already said my tools wouldn't be put into the report."

Not that he wanted them to be really. Spiritual construction was still very gray as an area and the MTA wouldn't be happy if he threw around tools and promises. Hell, he didn't want to do any promises because he was still testing and experimenting on things.

"I will take off record."

"The Arboretian was trying to communicate out, as I said. I may have stopped it." Bolt gestured to the communicator. "It did not appear to be doing anything else. If I were to guess it had a vision based analysis that wasn't blocked by the glass." Some sort of spiritual sight seemed likely, but those were highly species dependent. "Considering how spiteful it was, the last question felt like the most pertinent by my analysis. It wanted to know the answer there."

"They don't want uz to have their FTL. Which is not surprising." Odette mused before standing.

"I'd say that Phillipe is fine mentally too. Call it intuition." Lilly offered herself. "If I were to describe it I'd say his will was his own."

Odette nodded with a small and sad smile. "That iz good. Expert intuition is more potent than many sensors at times. He and his friends have done us a large favor. Enough that I would have to ask a favor from you as well, much as it shames me."

"Oh?" Bolt asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Take him and his friends and leave before the end of the day. With things winding down transportation to orbit is safe. You have full clearance to leave, but that could be revoked at any time. If you leave now with the children we can avoid some... Messy complications." Odette said slowly.

The couple exchanged glances. Now that she had brought that up, it sounded like a very good idea. Bolt got to his feet and his wife joined him. He then offered Odette a hand and they shook.

"I'm glad to have met you." The designer paused and gave a small grin. "Mind if I request a few souvenirs?"

The gatling guns woodpecker had used and a few of those special trees sounded like they'd be very fun to play with, and he was sure the natives wouldn't miss them. If anything Debora would appreciate the additional data in his opinion. It was a relatively small and easy ask.

He also wanted to make a proper Second Rate Expert mech for Lilly now.

 

[lost star]

Bolt had unfairly disparaged the Second Rate ship he and his wife had inherited in retrospect. It really didn't deserve any sort of badmouthing. The ship was meant for a scion of a Second Rate rich family. It was large, fully automated, and very useful. Especially in this case, because it had room for all the new passengers and more. The fact that it could fly on its own was another bonus.

Though admittedly it wasn't meant to really do that continuously. Automated ships tended to ignore a lot of things that pilots did as a matter of course, and required more maintenance if you used it frequently. Bolt was perfectly able to maintain it at present by hiring people to do so, but he'd still been treating the ship roughly. Sure he was going to sell it. That didn't need to mean he should be sloppy with it all.

Oddly, that was what Phillipe and his friends focused on once they arrived. Well, not so oddly. Bolt knew sometimes you just wanted to do something to keep your mind off things. Running around a ship and handling various small maintenance tasks that needed to be handled was very tame as a method of coping.

"You really didn't care much did you?" The teenager muttered as he looked over the logs of things that had needed to be done.

Bolt shrugged. "Didn't see the point. Lotta work required for something we planned on selling in a few months. Made sure the basics were covered and that's it." Some of the tasks had not been a one person task either.

Phillipe frowned. "You are reducing the sell value! You are technically inclined, you should have been able to handle all of thiz." He protested before grumbling. "Do you not care about the credits?"

"That answer is complicated." Bolt responded before sighing and settling back on the plush seat.

The little foyer here barely looked like a room in a ship. It had plush carpeting, wooden walls, and enough decorations that you could only tell it was inside a spaceship if you pulled back some of the walls. Normally Bolt would have disdained it, but whomever had designed it had done some very tasteful decorations and the environment was top notch. It was probably the most relaxing area in the ship and a personal favorite of his.

"Complicated usually means that the adults don't want to explain things." The young man responded, sounding young for once.

"Was more thinking 'bout how to explain it rather than avoid it." Bolt mused before just figuring he'd go ahead and explain what he could. "So, it took me awhile ta get ahold of this in my head, but I'm rich. Rich by Second Rate sensibilities, comfortable by First Rate depending on things."

"What?" Phillipe looked at the ship, then at Bolt, and then at the report and finally turned to stare at the designer. "You said you lived in a Third Rate area."

It was probably best to simplify and keep things relatively obscured. "I do. I invented several things that are bringing me income. Enough that money's not really a concern to me. My concern is more safety and freedom."

"That makes no sense at all." The young man protested and then frowned. "How much money?"

"Another complication there, I got no damned clue." Bolt held up a hand to keep the other man from yelling. "It's all in various credits. Seriously, I got six accounts with different credits at the moment." The young man rubbed at his forehead. "I can't trust an accountant to handle it either because I need to keep a low profile right now. Ain't like I have a business with half of em. A lotta it's licensing stuff, which makes it even more complex."

Phillipe set down the report he'd been looking over. "Low profile?!" He asked incredulously.

"Er, would you believe this isn't that bad in the grand scheme of things?" Bolt said sheepishly as he looked away from the teen's incredulous look. "But let's not really get into it. Instead, since I have you here, what are your plans for the future?"

Those words took the wind out of the teen's sales. Not that Bolt intended to. The question simply needed to be asked sooner rather than later, and the boy sounded stable enough to make a few decisions.

Unfortunately, the decisions weren't easy. Phillipe and his friends had at best a 'high school education.' Which was an ill defined thing that was different between nations. Some of them didn't have that, with the youngest being six and barely in schooling. Since they were from a Second Rate system, most of their education was fairly thorough and at a relatively high level for their age. It was still limited because they were just young.

Grunt work was the best job they could get with that level of knowledge. This wasn't bad in a Second Rate nation if you focused. Technology typically meant that most people just needed to have the willpower to do many jobs. Lessons were very frequently less expensive than finding the proper attitude. Depending on their work ethic, every teen could manage a comfortable living with relative ease. They could even afford a proper medical treatment in a few years. This was assuming that they were willing to put in the work and take the risks.

This was not the worst time for risk taking either. Despite Bolt's casual vacation, the Friday nation was still very much at war. They were getting their teeth kicked in to put it politely. This meant they were eager for volunteers. Phillipe and his friends could easily get some sort of risky job and high paying job by simply walking in and offering. The only issue was that about half the group was younger siblings that couldn't provide for themselves. A risky job risked them becoming orphans, and considering the circumstances that could result in very bad things.

Bolt's stopgap solution was mostly to hire the oldest as assistants of sorts. It was a relatively safe job that could keep them together. It wasn't charity either. The couple really did need someone trusted in that position, and the teens had proven themselves fairly trustworthy. This entailed mostly acting as gofers, minor security, and in the case of the ship, acting as extra hands for tasks Bolt couldn't do solo. Bolt and Lilly really should have gotten someone for this beforehand. Neither one of them were going to get any less busy.

He... Might have neglected to take into account one or two factors after the paperwork had been done. Minor cultural things really. Like the fact that their home nation had a tradition of specific outfits for the role, and all of the kids had grown up in rich households. They took to the new assignment with gusto, with maid and butler outfits and very formal body language. Bolt was sure it was fine at their home, but it implied certain things to have young teens in that sort of thing in his area. (Thankfully, these weren't fetishized outfits, just formal outfits that were frequently meant to implicate certain things.)

Another small problem would likely arise later as well. This one was something Bolt did account for. Phillipe and the others were going to be getting some consultation and possible treatments once they landed back at Morocco Haven. That would include hormonal treatment and possibly body adjustments depending on cost and presence. This would mean increased sexual characteristics, and teenagers being teenagers.

Bolt made sure that Phillipe would handle all of that. In point of fact, it was his only real order after he gave them employment. He was not going to deal with teenage pregnancies or inappropriate behavior. There was a distinct chance that it would be more muted than normal due to their alien DNA, but he was not going to even get close to touching that whole mess.

On the positive side, the small group actually seemed to enjoy the new jobs and he could see something like a security group forming if they worked at it. They had good teamwork, decent judgment, and their augments were actually quite handy on a personal level. There was some decent income there if one got the proper certifications and such. If anything, their unusual complexion and abilities would be considered a bonus.

Bolt landed on the planet with good feelings. He tried to ignore the fact that he felt more refreshed than he had after taking a break. It was one thing to grow up in a war. It was another to acknowledge that you were more comfortable there than anything else.

 

[lost star]

With everything that happened it was hard to remember it had all occurred on a different world lightyears away. Bolt was reminded of that when settled in at Morocco Haven. The place had not changed a singular bit. Everything was the same. They landed and got installed in the same VIP rooms without a hint of disruption or trouble. It felt almost like a letdown. They didn't even have news of what had happened. Which made sense, but was still disorientating.

Phillipe and his friends felt differently. It was their first time at a beach. Even better for them, it was their first time at a place where their unusual complexion wasn't considered a bad thing. The planet they'd grown up on had taken pains to conceal things, but it's still been on a war footing. They were suddenly in an environment that didn't have a hint of violence.

Had they been normal teenagers they would have almost immediately gotten into trouble. Instead the group decided in unison to visit a few clinics and see about getting treatment for their conditions. Several of them even got some easy cosmetic adjustments to make themselves less, there was no better way to put this, alien. The genetic adjustments they'd been given before birth had not lent themselves to conventional human attractiveness, and simple cosmetic treatments were fairly standard in this day and age. Getting their outward appearance addressed was relatively cheap and also significantly helped their mood.

Privately Phillipe confided some private concerns with Bolt about the 'curse' the Arboretian had spoken of, and it possibly being activated if they got fixed. Bolt had done his best to encourage the boy and allay his concerns. The designer didn't think he could truly address the whole curse anytime soon, but he was working on tools for it and did have an idea or two that should hopefully at least help them locally.

Of course all of those tools would need him to build from the ground up. Which meant starting on something he'd been planning awhile. It was time to implement the spiritual analog to a mental implant. He'd done testing, theoretical work, and double checked all his blueprints. The only thing stopping him was himself and his reluctance to work with mental constructs.

There as a small decision he had to make first though. Bolt's creations worked best when the form synergized with the function. A small helmet or circlet would be best, but it would also be obvious, and a bit annoying to wear. He was torn between an ear piercing and a tattoo, though both would have less effect. He could also do glasses? What to do, what to do.

Lilly was the one to make the decision in the end. She wanted to have one as well, and matching earrings for the both of them felt the least intrusive of the options. They could be removed and adjusted at their leisure and so far as decorations went it was relatively normal.

With an item in mind the rest was fairly easy. The finished earrings looked like a small and dangling shiny gemstones. Inside the gem was a tiny computer chip that had Lilly and his biometric data on it. There was nothing else physically there. The representation was more important than the physical construction.

On the spiritual side it was also a relatively sparce construction. At least in the initial step. A key thing that made computers useful was their ability to be programmed. His spiritual augmentation was designed to be similar. It gave him a small blank canvas to do anything. Store data, create programs, even design if he was so inclined. It didn't hold a candle on a dedicated designer program or computer, but that wasn't the point.

The point was that it was a platform for further things. One of which involved using another microchip with his data and literally pasting it to his comm. That, combined with a tiny bit of work and programming on both ends gave him the ability to transfer data to the comm from his spiritual tool. It was a one way connection and not particularly robust at the moment, but it opened up so many options. His comm had far more processing power than most Second Rate computers after all. He could offload a lot of calculations to that, or other computers now that he had proof of concept.

His next goal was to buy a First Rate comm and get it setup for Lilly next year when he had more MTA credits. For now, at her insistence, she had a small two way communication with the spirits in her mechs. They weren't chatty, but the expert loved having it.

All told, the tool didn't take that much time to build. The next tool didn't take much time either. It was basically a mental 'sandbox' for him to experiment with further construction. The equivalent of a spiritual simulator, though very simple. The primary function was to let him envision and store blueprints. It didn't hold a candle to a proper designing suite, but that was fine. Being able to recall a design with a mental command was very powerful.

With the groundwork finished Bolt moved onto his next most immediate task. Helping Phillipe and his friends. This was where he had less confidence. Bolt honestly had no idea where to even start in trying to fix the curse. Even trying to investigate it felt far away. How would he identify someone who'd been afflicted? He didn't have enough information. He was not trained in medical or psychological disciplines either. What if the curse used multiple vectors? Did it wait for a certain thought? Was it tied to a genetic code? He'd need to build an entire suite of detectors and have thousands of volunteers to get an idea, and even then it wasn't a guarentee.

Yet even with all of those obstacles Bolt could help. If he couldn't be precise in targeting the issue he'd use brute force. He'd reinforce everything and make damned sure his allies could keep their minds.

The base material he chose was a dark and shiny material when refined. Chosen for it's immutability, the stuff was inert in all respects. It was used mostly in insulation, but was notoriously rigid and hard to work with. It was not magnetic, it rejected electricity, and even heat took time to go through. It was a rejection of the world, and perfect for his means.

With spiritual reinforcement the material would function as a spiritual brace. It would give a person the ability to reject things they disliked. Bolt might not have had an idea of how to fight the curse, but he believed this would be the next best thing. A rejection of unwanted change and a rock that a person could rest on if they needed.

Unfortunately Bolt had to use something that pictured restraint. That meant collar, belt, or bracelets. Bracelet was the one with the least complications, but the user would need two of them, and they'd look uncomfortably like thin manacles. He wasn't particularly happy about that, but when you needed something, looks were secondary. They were relatively easy to make at least. Once the form factor was done it took about ten minutes for every object thanks to his work with his mental construct. It left him with a headache after working on it, but he finished without trouble.

It wasn't a fix. It was a prevention. It was also a tiny bit unfortunate in that it reinforced certain implications that Bolt was trying to avoid. He couldn't avoid it. The device had to be something that brought to mind restraint, and there were precious few articles of every-day clothing that had that concept. The objects could be covered if it was necessary, and he'd tried to make them as appealing as a solid metal circlet could be.

"Zo we just wear them?" Phillipe asked once Bolt presented the objects he'd made to the teen.

"Yep." Bolt held out the items he'd made. "Got em in belt, bracelet, and choker form. The metal doesn't lend itself to comfort though. I'm just thankful it doesn't have to be tight. You can wrap them in something later."

The teen shrugged and took a metal choker. "Not the worst fashion statement. I'll see how the belt feels later." He snapped it on around his neck and blinked several times. "You are certain you didn't add anything to it?"

"Solid metal. Aside from the special effect I added, they're just metal circles." Bolt responded with a trace of worry at the boy's reaction.

"I feel like I have steel in my spine now." Phillipe muttered and flexed a hand. "It is not a bad feeling."

Bolt stared for a moment with raised eyebrows. He had tested it. The feeling had been subtle to his senses. "That isn't something most people can detect." Phillipe's spiritual senses must have been powerful. "But regardless, that's the special effect. The MTA calls it psionics. I call it spirituality, just don't spread it around. It's not quite classified, but I do not want the attention and I'm a novice at it."

"I will not." The teen promised, still flexing his hands before tapping at the collar and taking it off. "Hmm. Yes there is a big difference. I want to say this will work."

"Best solution I could think of in the time we had." Bolt admitted. "The next one would require someone with medical experience and training from me, and that can't happen for years." Until he hit Senior and could spread his lessons more.

"Then it will have to work." The teen nodded and put the collar back on. "Until then, we have some beaches to hit. Thank you for everything." He said with a small bow.

Bolt chuckled and waved off the kid. Let him enjoy the sun, surf, and sand when he had the time. It wouldn't last.

 

[lost star]

Lilly didn't get medical processes really. She could follow the explanations somewhat, but the whys and more tended to go over her head. She was a pilot, not a doctor. Despite this, she did ask for them routinely. The reason why was because she liked to watch the doctor explain things to get a feel of what was happening. Expert instincts allowed her to determine what was happening more than the words they used.

That was why she went into the procedure with a clear heart. The process to extract the child growing in her was considered very routine. She could see it in their eyes and faces. There'd been some sort of mumbo jumbo about standard operating procedure at her level and technically a premature birth, but she'd tuned it out. Instead she allowed the sedation, and then was up in about an hour later with her stomach flat once more. Like that her child was born. She'd felt no pain, was fully mobile and fully recovered.

Naturally she wanted to see her child. Bolt came with just as naturally. The child, her child, was in an incubator at the present time. He'd stay there for two to three months depending on his physical development. There were many reasons for this. Lilly didn't care. She had a baby.

"My baby." The woman breathed out, instantly smitten by the being in the high-tech tube. He was absolutely perfect, even if he looked like a squishy bean.

"Vitals are fine. Health is within acceptable parameters. Everything indicated a successful and healthy child." Doctor Tyra noted as she checked off things on the chart. "Do we have a name in mind?"

"We tend ta wait a few months and then pick an object nearby the kid." Bolt explained with a small chuckle. "Some parents like to game it."

"Poppa put me in front of a few flower pictures and the one I grabbed was my name apparently." Lilly said, and felt a small pang. "Pretty sure he'd both love and hate what has happened."

Bolt patted her on the shoulder. The doctor looked over things and continued to check things off while ignoring the drama. After a few more checks she nodded. "All checks are coming back clean and the adjustments you requested look like they have been applied properly. He should be able to have children without a procedure and has no genetic abnormalities. As I said previously, we'd like to keep him in the incubator for the next few months."

"Interesting design. Independent power?" Bolt asked as he looked over the device in question.

"It reassures the parents to have multiple redundancies. The clinic has redundant power, but every incubator is fully independent and capable of running for several days without any attention. It is even mobile." Doctor Tyra said with a small service smile.

The woman was mentally checked out, Lilly could tell. This had been a boring job for her, and it was finished. It wasn't the worst attitude to have. The expert wasn't fond of it even so. She disliked the pretense.

Movement from the side drew her eye. Several nurses and other aides were looking over the data. The behavior was fairly normal. Most of the people there were barely worth noticing. Just people doing their job. One wasn't. He felt fake. Leashed. Something about him made her hairs raise. He looked normal though. Nothing about his behavior felt bad. He was doing the same things the other aides were doing. Yet Lilly hated him right then and there. She needed to get away. She needed to kill him. She couldn't explain it other than he was a danger.

Could she have the thing removed? They'd ask why and she couldn't really explain it. It was intuition but in a different way. There was a beast stalking her and she didn't know why.

"I'm staying here until I can take him home." She said, interrupting whatever her husband was talking of.

"That's not advised." Doctor Tyra attempted to dissuade her. "We have plenty of security, and it will not be comfortable. You can visit."

Lilly looked at the doctor. She didn't speak. Her willpower simply flexed. "Staying here." She repeated.

"All right." The doctor said very slowly and took a careful step back.

Bolt, darling that he was, had already tensed up and looked a second from violence. It wouldn't have been obvious to other people, but he could read her if no one else. "What's up?" He tried for a casual tone.

"Mommy's being paranoid about her baby." The woman said with a sweet tone that utterly contrasted her behavior. It was her cutesy act, and it made Bolt even more tense. "Don't worry about it!"

Bolt nodded slowly. "I will, but if you ask you get it. Do you need anything?"

"If Pup were here I'd be happier. He's focused on defending." Lilly replied back and tilted her head slightly to keep the techs in her peripheral vision. "You work with what you have."

"True. I was thinking about when we first met. Think we need something like that?" Bolt asked with a small nod.

"Please." Lilly agreed.

Playing the paranoid expert mother was a temporary measure at best. The place was not suited for long visits. The clinic was capable of accommodating her anyway. In fact there were procedures for what Lilly was demanding. Lilly was not the first VIP to have these sorts of feelings. They'd likely have the incubator moved to her suite. She could hear the discussions in earshot. It felt routine and suspicion as well.

While the discussion was going on the expert closed her eyes and kept other senses on the man who'd triggered her. He moved normally. None of his behavior was wrong. There was nothing there that should have triggered her senses.

Mentally she tagged the spirits in her mech using her earring. Dowry was a bit sluggish. She was newer and less coherent. Morning Star snapped to awareness. Both mechs were in a hanger several blocks away. They couldn't activate without her turning them on, but they could sense just a bit. With her acting as a relay they could all focus.

The man was leaving. All normal. He said a few words to other people as he left. The stroll was casual. His presence was too normal. That was the word for it.

Lilly flicked open her comm. A few texts to her new aides had them turn on Morning Star and Dowry. It wasn't normal, but having them ready fit her current act. The sensors of both mechs flared as they started up and the spirits looked.

Normal was being wielded like a shield. Behind it was something else. The person that had triggered Lilly's senses had a roiling mash of bloody screams hidden behind a mask of humanity. He held leashed power. Spiritual power. Lilly couldn't say how much, but she could say that was far above the normal human. Dangerous in a way she'd never seen.

And now that she was looking with her spirits, there were more out there. A small team? Yes. That felt right. A team of six was off in the distance. Dowry pointed out that they were waiting. The positioning was just outside the clinic and her suite.

Danger, danger, and Lilly's options were limited. She didn't know how they were dangerous. Just that they were. Would fleeing be more dangerous or less? It was impossible to tell.

So, secure the area, trust her family, and wait for the enemy. Lilly's willpower roiled as she sat beside her son. To all appearances she was completely calm and half asleep. Inside every part of her focused.

 

[lost star]

Bolt sat in his room and stared at his com as he manipulated the designing program on it. There were very few things that could enrage someone. A threat to their children were one of them. He was sure many nightmares occurred from something like this. That Lilly had been triggered to think it was on the horizon brought many emotions to Bolt. None of them good.

"Something's up." Phillipe's words made the man open up his eyes. "What iz it?"

The young man was dressed in a pair of shorts and the collar, and little else. It would have looked sketchy elsewhere. Here it was just beach-wear and something a lot of people ran around in. The collar was a little bit different, but the boy made it work. There were a lot worse around on this planet.

"Lilly's feeling very protective and paranoid. She's going ta be sticking with the baby for the final bit." Bolt explained very slowly and carefully as he kept himself controlled. "Just go along with it and treat it like a learning experience. Assume we're in a similar situation to what had us meet up."

"Ah." Phillipe breathed out as his green complexion paled slightly. "Yes, that is a fun scenario. I'm assuming we have to assume that we're under surveillance too?"

"That's a given at the moment." Bolt answered with a small snort. "Pretty sure we got a few debt collectors out there at the moment."

"Debt... collectors?" The teen asked in confusion.

Bolt winced as he explained. "Sorry, that should have been brought up. Lilly's a heir to the Lewin family. They were and old rich family. Now they're mostly just debt. We're trying to get her removed from the heir position, but I wouldn't be surprised if they got a few people trying to keep an eye on us. It's not quite legal here, but it's a lotta money involved."

For some reason the words made the teen sag and stare at him with half-dead eyes. "Are you all sure you are not action main characters in disguise?"

"If we are, I want royalties from whomever is making the movie." The designer replied with a small grin that faded. "While you're getting things together, have Dowry activated and fill up her inner reserves with this stuff." He sent a small list. "It'd be pretty easy. Just open the mouth and pour it down the throat."

"On it." Phillipe didn't salute, but he did rush.

The slurry of materials that Bolt had ordered combined with some programming would upgrade Dowry to a Second Rate mech after Lilly activated it. That'd be the first surprise for the enemy. He needed a second one. Possible a third one too.

Second would be a new mech. The little hanger he had leased contained just enough tools for him to build a mech by hand. Clearing it of bugs wouldn't stop the watchers he had to assume were out there, but it'd keep them from getting details. Phillipe's group had three pilots of mediocre ability. He needed a mech design that had both surprises and the ability to work with them. It had to be potent. It had to be different.

These would be defensive knight mechs. As essentially bodyguard mechs their purpose was going to be surviving a surprise attack and delaying the enemy. Offense was only relevant as another tool to protect their charges. Bolt was not going to meander with this mech. He did not have the time to be extremely picky with the initial design.

Admittedly it wasn't like defensive knights were bad things for a base design. They were a staple for a reason. 'Bodyguard mechs' were even a niche that several notable designers had specialized in. They'd even freely offered some surprisingly expansive guidelines and advice around designing that particular type of mech free of charge.

Bolt could see why. Mechs designed to guard VIPs on the ground were a very delicate design that was easy to mess up. Mechs were very large and carried a lot of firepower after all. If they were trying to protect a person, or even a building, they had to be extremely careful. They'd be pretty useless if they killed their charge by accident. Some of the lessons learned had some very painful examples. Bolt actually liked it somewhat. It reminded him of his family's big book. So even if his designs were limited by the circumstances, it didn't matter for this.

One lesson was that the mechs had to be extremely stable in footing. They didn't need normal stability. They needed stability that kept them from being knocked over no matter what. A knight mech defending a charge that fell onto its charge was a failure, not a knight. They also needed to be able to respond to different angles of attack.

This design therefore started with the legs. The frame was a wide stance with a low center of gravity, with the addition of boosters in the proper areas. This was a mech that set it's feet and refused to move. If it got hit hard enough, the appropriate booster could fire to keep the balance up.

Accompanying this was a large shield. The particular line Bolt used was called a large kite shield. These things were the second largest shield in standard designs. They were not a frequently used in mech designs due to the weight. They were cumbersome to manipulate. Since these knights were going to be defenders they could handle the limitations if he was careful with the design. Adding boosters to the back of the shield and shaping it so that it could be moved quickly was enough of a request that there were standard designs out there that Bolt could tweak for his own. He was even able to sharpen the bottom slightly so that the mech could use it as a weapon of needed.

Now the weapon. Bolt paused there and held off on it. Weapon after. He needed to do a few other things.

The sensors needed to be able to see people. This was not a common thing on mechs. Most could, but the resolution was typically bad. Infantry was fairly useless against mechs except in very special circumstances. Most sensors therefore didn't have the resolution for it. This mech would have it. Dead in the center of it's forehead.

The designer paused as he surveyed most of it. This was a solid base. It was not something new. It lacked emotion. Bolt had a lot of that right now. His mind raged at the current circumstances.

One good thing about the new little spiritual add-on was that he could program it on the fly. With some effort and some focus he could adjust whatever he wanted. It was not meant to enhance his calculation skills. It was meant to give him a better way to use other tools. It was meant to let him reference things quickly and design things half in his head.

It took five minutes for him to rewrite the spiritual interface. Then ten minutes to customize the design program on his phone. Code scrolled through it. Half of it was stuff he wasn't actually inputting directly. It was raw desire being translated into code.

The design he was working on was reshaped. The outer chassis was redone. He reinforced the shield and adjusted the frame to allow for internal damage control. The shield was lightened in certain areas, the boosters refined. It was a weapon and a defense. Getting up close to this mech would be a mistake.

A fan of launchers were positioned on the back in the shape of a literal fan. The program automatically looked for available designs for purchase and one was selected with a thought. This mech didn't have primary weapons so much as different range weapons. The missiles Bolt wanted weren't explosives, they were more large spikes designed to stick in a mech and restrict movement.

The non-shield hand got a whip. It was an exotic weapon that didn't see much use due to rather simple reasons. It didn't do anything a decent shotgun wouldn't. Called a 9-tail electro-whip, the thing was a close range debilitating weapon that used a series of long range chain-like barbed whips to deliver a sort of heat-electricity strike combination. It tended to strip the armor, but was felt more like a design that someone had made for novelties sake than anything else. It had flaws.

Alone the two weapons were not particularly deadly. Together Bolt felt like he could do something after tweaking them. This was a mech that hated things that got close to its charges. It despised it with all the rage of a protective parent. The spikes would lodge into opponents approaching, then the whip would exploit that damage. Bolt adjusted the spikes in the missiles to work very well with the whip. He'd also add his own special touch to the whip in construction to make it extra deadly.

This Torment-guard would be something that people feared to approach. He'd make damned sure of it.

 

[lost star]

Mechs were expensive. This wasn't immediately obvious to someone who saw Bolt create them, but it had to be said. Making mechs from scratch simply reduced the cost from extremely expensive to expensive. Bolt could cheat due to his abilities. He still had to pay an exorbitant amount. Moreso because he was paying to have the materials delivered as a priority.

Thankfully he had a bank of Friday Credits due to his antics elsewhere. The sales from Nosferatu and the arena modules covered his expenses and made it so that he didn't have to take the time to do some money transfers. It was a nice benefit that also sped up his timeframe by a fair amount. What should have taken days worth of material transfers was done within a day. This didn't include build time though, and Bolt would have to push himself if he wanted it done before the weeks end.

By this point Lilly had moved their child to the suite. She was notable tense and they'd managed a few words in private and out of any possible earshot using some spiritual shenanigans. None of what she relayed was good. What was worse was that there wasn't really actionable intel at the moment. What would they say, there were people out there that Lilly had identified as dangerous? That was not much at all. Expert senses were good, but they had no idea what would happen if the people were accused. They didn't even know what the actual danger was! It'd look very silly if they accused the man and the danger was something around him or something.

They couldn't leave the planet due to the child still needing personal attention either. It was very possible that even if they could there would be a problem there! Right now bunkering down was the best option. Making three Torment-guards became half Bolt's way of handling the stress and half him creating a solution.

Bolt would not be selling this line. It was private use only. Which meant that the MTA didn't need to get involved, and he could push his spiritual construction all the way.

He did the chains for the electro-whip first. They were cruel and barbed things that wouldn't be out of place in a torture show if they were so large. The whip itself was very technically a melee weapon, though it used a different range of motion and had a surprising range. It required a quick snap and pull from the arm. The chains would drag across armor and shred the target in the best case scenario.

What had made the weapon less than popular was the fact that the best case scenario rarely happened. Mech armor was naturally able to prevent the barbs from gripping, and the electric / heat payload that was contained in the chains was typically grounded harmlessly. It was a weapon that looked cruel and cool and ended up being rather anemic in practice. Yet it fit perfectly with this mech. It was also the most fiddly part of the entire thing because nine barbed chains that each weapon had were not easy to assemble safely. (The proprietary material had a strange sort of stretch that gave the whip a natural snap. It'd be something very entertaining in other circumstances.)

The armor was red. Solid, but unremarkable. Bolt wasn't getting fancy with it. Most of the construction was actually fairly standard. Bolt's innovations were more in the unseen than the seen. It was a bit soothing to go through the routine of creating the mech. Bolt added spikes here and there to compliment the back weapon and overall theme. Each mech was going to be slightly different, but would have the same broad strokes. The fan-like structure was striking and prominent. It made the mech look almost vain really. As if it'd worn a personal adornment to give it a background effect.

Once the three eyes were installed Bolt decided that it needed some shading here and there to magnify the overall look. The eyes might have been just sensors, but they really popped. It felt a bit strange until Bolt stood back and looked at the entire design visually. The fan-like structure of the launchers drew the eyes up, and then you got caught in the three eyed gaze of the mech. Very striking.

Amusingly this was emphasized still further by the fact that the lower half of the mech was a bit chunky. The legs were thicker and more armored than standard, and the feet were larger. This gave the mechs better footing and made it harder to push them off their feet. The boosters were meant for balance and quick response more than flight. When the thing was in action it'd be almost a show, which was purely unintentional honestly.

All told, the entire construction was fairly normal from the outside. Bolt knew for a fact that anyone looking at the recordings would see him just make three mechs. Sure it was done a bit fast, but he was known for that sort of thing. The Torment-guards looked more ceremonial than weapons of war. The aura was barely there as well. It looked and felt like a decorative piece on first glance.

Yet if one probed deeper there was something sleeping inside these mechs. He'd poured his emotions into them. All the tension and hopes. This was a mech that would wake up at the proper time. Until then it was content to sleep.

"So, there's a system you ain't familiar with in these." Bolt told the three pilots when they gathered around him. "It's called the heart system, and it's got the blueprints and briefings in them." He said with a small and grim smile. "Please review them if you can."

To his mild bemusement, the three pilots were in what they considered their formal outfits at the moment. Two maid outfits and a butler outfit. Complete with chokers. Why they preferred the collars he didn't know. Bolt had a sneaking suspicion that the kids found it funny. So far as jokes went it was completely harmless, so Bolt wasn't going to make a big deal of it. It was going to spread rumors about him, but that was almost helpful really. Obscurement about his tastes and needs would be useful moving forward.

He was more focused on what needed to happen next anyway. The teens needed practice in the new mechs and he needed to review any bugs he'd missed. There were always a few small things that needed to be adjusted on new mechs, and he technically had time now.

The waiting was always the worst part. There was no question in Bolt's mind that there were going to be problems. It was just a matter of when.

Elsewhere the man responsible for setting off Lilly was not even aware of being the one to alert her. He'd been doing this for decades now, and not a single person had even come close to identifying him as a threat. Assassinations, espionage, sabotage, he'd done it all without a single hint of his involvement. He'd become almost complacent.

Yet he was still a very good infiltrator. This meant that even though he had a team he wasn't going to rely on them alone. His goal was to abduct the child. His secondary goal was to disrupt governments. Unhappy areas gave better opportunities. There were a good few cats-paws in the city that were watching the couple. Provoking a few of them to attack and make a distraction was a matter of simply making them believe that it was in their best interest.

The man didn't even need to really do much. Paranoia was an artform amongst many black-ops areas. It took about two calls and a singular meeting in a tea-shop to arrange for an entire mercenary company to attack within a few days. Practically overkill really.

His plan was relatively simple really. Have the mercenaries attack. Invoke the shield that was built into the suite that the couple was in, and then have his team walk in through the backdoor. They'd slaughter everyone, sabotage the shield to make it explode, and the battle would do the coverup.

Unfortunately for him, he gave Bolt several days of preparation. A paranoid man wondering about things like that could do a lot. He also rather neglected to take into account how many other black-ops groups there were.

 

[lost star]

It began with orbital drops. A standard tried and true tactic that had become almost a point of pride between groups. Everyone used something different when you wanted to get to the surface of a planet. In this matter the black-ops backed mercenaries used a unique mech-type that used a large and temporary shield to enter atmosphere quickly. By design the mech dropped down and secured the area nearby the target while readying the area for a follow up.

Bolt's people had approximately ten minutes of warning. The on-duty mech pilot in a Torment-guard was ready immediately. Lilly would take about fifteen minutes to get to her mech. The other two available pilots would be there within ten and thirty minutes. Phillipe and his friends had established a rotating guard which allowed for people to be on guard at all times, but this had by necessity created the circumstances they were dealing with right now. One guard managed to rush in just as the enemies started to come into range.

The two Torment-guards had to hold for five minutes against six mechs. The pilots involved were not experts. They were young teens with C Rank piloting capabilities and very little experience. This was close to suicide. Close but not quite. The opposing mechs had a few hoops to jump through.

One of which was the shield that rose up behind the guards. The second an alert went off several shields were raised to protect various important areas. Landing on one of them would result in a rather violent reaction, so the falling mechs had relatively few places where they could secure a good landing zone. This narrowed their points of assault and removed significant flanking tactics.

As they came into sensor range the Torment-guards shifted their shields and the three eyes of each mech almost seemed to come alive when they spotted their targets. Their fan-like launchers also changed in presence if not physically. They became more prominent and almost backed by fire. When the enemy came into range they didn't hesitate at all. Two dozen missiles flew out as soon as the pilots found a lock.

The first volley was mostly handled by the shields the mechs used to protect themselves against the orbital friction. The spikes slammed into the metal and stuck. Some got through though. The lack of explosive ordinance meant that each missile could be packed with cruel and hooked darts. The embedded projectiles stuck and tore from the movement necessary.

It was not the only volley. Smoke drifted off the fan-launchers and the heated barrels burned as they pushed beyond conventional safety measures. There was an enemy in front of them. This was unacceptable. On its back the launcher clicked and reloaded faster than it should have. It fired off again. Then again. Then a final time before the launchers became too hot to continue.

The endless array of spiked missiles had achieved their goals though. The shields protecting the mechs were destroyed, and all of them had been spiked in various areas. The damage was mild for the most part despite the sheer mass of firepower that had hit them. The spiked weapons traded the power of explosives for sheer mass and the ability to stick at least once every shot.

Shield shards dropped to the ground as the mechs unburdened themselves and pulled out weapons. They then flared boosters and darted through the air to get better vantage points. The Burning Meteor mech was a medium assault mech designed to do one thing very well and several things decently. Its loadout was a shotgun variant and a series of back mounted lasers suited for a variety of different circumstances and it was capable of flight for several minutes if needed, at to cost of low run time and being rather expensive.

The attackers hesitate to fire everything on the defenders once they found they had an angle. Most of it did little. The guards had their shields in place every time in defiance of what their pilots skill should have resulted in. One mech even mustered the ability to charge upwards into the enemy, shield first. It was a low-key mistake truthfully. The attackers scattered as trained, and one of them misjudged the range of the whip and stayed too close in their own mistake.

The cruel weapon lashed forward and the full design of the Torment-guard bore fruit. Skill mattered little with the weapon. It had a wide range and a deliberate effect that was not dependent on targeting weak points. The barbed tails of the whip lashed at the armor, the electrical payload discharged, and the spikes still in the armor drank the electricity greedily. They heated up and stuck to the chains of the whip as it raked across the armor. All of this happened in an instant, and the result was that a singular whip strike outright flayed the mech, removing a large chunk its armor in an instant. The damage was such a surprise that the targeted mech couldn't react in time to avoid the follow up shield strike that crushed about half its vitals.

Unfortunately for the guard, this meant little in the face of the five other mechs. They fired from all angles, and the hits damaged everything. The only reason it wasn't completely annihilated in a singular volley was because it was a defensive mech designed to handle such attacks. Instead of being mission killed it was just severely damaged.

There were still four minutes left until Lilly arrived with her mech.

Battered but not broken the Torment-guard dropped and covered itself as best it could while its companion moved to help. With the display of the whip's damage the enemy was determined to keep at range. This was useful in that it gave the guards more time. It was dangerous in that another full volley at an unshielded area would likely destroy it completely. Situationally the battle favored the enemy mechs. While they would have to land shortly the had the number and skill advantage.

Yet death wasn't in the cards for the pilot. As the mechs jockeyed for position, reinforcements arrived in the form of rifle toting mechs. It was impossible to tell their origin due to their ramshackle nature. They were militia mechs, or whatever the equivalent was in Second Rate states. Whatever their reason for appearing was impossible to tell, only that they were there and firing at the attackers.

It distracted them enough for the undamaged Torment-guard to do a quick lunge and lash of its own whip. The weapon slashed out and stripped. Even braced the targeted pilot flinched as something traveled through his mech and to him. The Torment-guards weapon wasn't just a physical one. It was a spiritual one too. Those that would hurt its charge would suffer. The afflicted mech lost altitude quickly and became a primary target for the riflemen.

A little bit of pain wouldn't stop a pilot really. The armor stripping effect hinged on the spikes being embedded in the mech. If the spikes weren't there the damage was fairly minimal. Yet this unexpected threat kept the enemy pilots cautious. No one liked pain, and the armor stripping effect was incredibly dangerous. This one two combo meant that the mechs had been taught to be wary of the guards quickly. They switched to avoiding the guards and trying to dissuade the sudden rifle mechs.

Which further complicated and delayed the assault, allowing other people to register what was happening. Above them all orbital assets began to shift. More mercenaries backed by Black Ops were called in from standby. Several mechs hidden around the city began to move. The police, long since bribed to stay quiet, were forced to activate as things became more than just a small assault on some rich person.

Unknown to basically everyone, there were far more than a handful of groups investigating Bolt. All of them had forces that they could call in. Going down the list of the most significant actors, there were the Five Scrolls Compact, the Friday Coalition's government, Hexxer Special Forces, Debt collectors involved in the Heir dispute, investigators from other old families, several interested parties from the arena, one group involved with tracking MTA assets, and people from the Second Rate nation that Bolt had recently visited. There were the largest groups. It did not include smaller groups like news groups and other interested parties that had one or two mechs they could bring in.

There was only one obvious side on the increasing chaos. Bolt's forces were clearly labeled in the friend or foe tags that mechs broadcast in battle. Everyone else was black ops. This meant that no one knew who was a foe or potential friend. Admittedly in black ops friend was just another word for person you hadn't backstabbed yet.

It was during all of this that Lilly got to Dowry.

Most of the people involved in the chaos hadn't discounted the expert. They'd just kept a very, very close eye on mech supplies and parts rather than her directly. Creating a Second Rate Expert mech was an expense that could not be hidden. Upgrading a mech was also something that couldn't be hidden. Absolutely no one, even the MTA, had been aware of Dowry's abilities. The MTA had been aware of Dowry enhancing itself, but the official in charge of surveillance (Bubbles primarily) had done the absolute bare minimum. It had been a footnote.

Lilly got into her mech absolutely furious. Dowry activated, and the expert practically shoved her willpower into the mech. The slurry of supplies and careful programming from Bolt activated.

Dowry altered herself. She became more narrow. Hungrier somehow. The plating adjusted to accommodate. The reactor blazed as it was reactivated and reforged. The entire mech creaked as it almost seemed to collapse on itself before it came alive, sharper and more deadly.

The mech modeled after a monster deployed with a whisper and a few alerts. Most people monitoring the hanger were confused as to why a Third Rate mech was being deployed. An expert mech at that level of technology could manage maybe a two or three versus one, and everyone would then focus and kill it.

They weren't confused for long.

 

[lost star]

To preface the next few minutes, Second Rate analyzers had dismissed Lilly's mechs. There were legitimate reasons for it. The design worked in Third Rate battlefields. Even if the mechs were updated to Second they wouldn't work in the field. Morning Star's weaponry couldn't scale up to the caliber required to penetrate Second Rate armor, and Dowry's offense was too narrow. In Second Rate fields all mechs had at least two weapons and options to handle multiple ranges. Expert mechs especially needed more than one option. Claws and teeth alone were not enough for Lilly to fight another expert, at least as a general opinion.

Bolt hadn't been able to change that while directing the upgrade. A powerful as the mechs internal repairs were, they had issues with creating weapons. The mech improved itself. It disliked adding new things due to factors he was still discovering. The only way Bolt would have been able to add more weapons was to physically add them, and that would ruin the surprise the couple had in store. This had necessitated some thought as to how to direct everything.

The key thing that separated Second from Third rate was power. Having Dowry push herself up to Second Rate therefore meant upgrading the reactor. Everything else was secondary. The power budget was what outright defined the difference between tiers. It also presented a problem. At Second Rate Dowry was too energy efficient. Even the hungry nanomachines were overfed by the amount of energy the mech had after the upgrade. To make things worse design wise, the mech had a lot of room once the changes were done. Second Rate systems took up less space. These two factors were the core of why Second Rate Mechs didn't typically have the narrow focus of Third Rate mechs and why Dowry had needed Bolt to direct everything.

Accounting for that had been extremely difficult. Visibly Dowry had not changed significantly. She was still a too thin monster with long arms, claws, and teeth. Internally everything was different. Bolt had taken Dowry's already sharp focus and sharpened it still further. She was narrower, the armor was somehow even more thin while being even better. The claws were sharper and more durable. The hands could block swords if she needed. She stepped without a sound. The boosters were whispers even at full throttle. She operated cold for a mech, and if she went still she was even colder. She was now light even for a light mech, yet even more deadly. She still had an excess of power generation, but he'd used all of it he could to force her to improve herself and then had the mech dial the standard output down to the bare minimum. Bolt had improved by removing to the best of his ability, and the result was a sharp, narrow, and quiet blade.

When Lilly took her out not a single mech really registered her on their sensors. She wasn't cloaked. She lacked camouflage. The mech simply didn't didn't trigger most passive scans. She was still very visible, and every mech could see her. There were other mechs that ran hotter and were considered more of a threat on the first glance. Dowry registered as moving scenery to the casual eye. The watchers responsible for alerting people about her movement spent precious moments trying to figure out why she was risking herself like this. Even a normal Second Rate Mech would have been better.

The first mech died silently. Lilly walked up behind it and cut out the cockpit with a simple hand thrust and twist. The pilot didn't even have time to understand what had happened. One moment his mech was active, and the next everything was dead. A singular strike had killed his mech and made him a prisoner inside the cockpit.

Five more mechs died like that on her way to her child. Some managed to spot her mid approach. It didn't help. They got a shot off, perhaps two. All of them missed. Dowry could go from still to sprint in an instant. Her internal compensators were robust to put it lightly and her already erratic movement was now almost supernatural. The mech was at the peak of mobility for her class and Lilly could push that to the absolute limit. Even other experts would have trouble handling a blitz from Dowry now. Normal people had no chance at all.

By the time Lilly managed to get to the defenders she'd left a trail of bodies behind her. In front of her more still stood, though battered by the defenders. Despite all the chaos, the two Torment-Guards were still alive and kicking. They barely holding on truthfully, but they were still alive. The fan on the back of one of them was molten slab. The shields were more holes than metal. One was barely able to move. Yet they were standing. Furthermore they weren't really losing.

Around the two were shards of metal and wary mechs. The guards had taught painful lessons to anyone who thought they were dead. Several mechs visibly flinched when the whips were swung in their directions. It would have been funny in any other circumstance. Here it was useful. The focus let Dowry get in behind them and eliminate them all in several seconds of violence.

"Merde!" One of the pilots swore over the comms as she finished.

Lilly felt her rage drop slightly and she gave a small laugh. "First time seeing an expert in action?"

"Yes." The pilot breathed out. "We spent so much time seeing you getting more round that we quite forgot." The girl said with a slightly teasing tone that hid a lot of relief.

"Hah! Yes, I'm less round now and quite angry." Lilly said as she let Dowry drop down to all fours. "Last one's on the way still?"

"Yes. We are also trying to contact the police, but they are not receiving calls." The pilot trailed off as her mech head angled upwards. "Oh no."

Above them were visible signs of ships dropping down. This was very obvious due to the people fighting on them as they fell. This wasn't exactly standard. It was in fact incredibly dangerous.

Lilly's first thought was that she wanted to try that. Her second thought was that this was turning out to be a larger problem than she'd expected. You didn't get this sort of thing in raids. You didn't even get this sort of thing in wars. Those battles typically weren't in orbit to avoid this sort of thing! The people dropping like that were utterly ruining their ships and risking multiple people's lives.

"Keep near the shield." The woman ordered. "Is everyone inside?"

"Non! Several were outside helping our last get into the mech!"

The expert nodded and brought up the map she'd copied into her spiritual aid to remind herself of where people would be. The reason for the delays were mostly due to positioning than negligence. The hangers were in different places than where the nightshift had been sleeping, and it took time to get people moved.

"There should be a bunker nearby the hanger. Have them go there for safety. If they're in trouble let me know." Lilly noted. "Until then I'm hunting."

"Hunting who?"

Lilly couldn't help the laugh. Who? What a silly question. In a fight like this it was less a matter of who than of who not. The targets were everyone with a damned weapon that wasn't a police mech. She was going to be merciful and just rip out the cockpits here, but every mech in the damned city was going to die. Her willpower flowed around her, and Dowry voiced a mental agreement as her sensors went high. They'd been restrained too long. It was time to remind people why they should fear her.

Dowry ripped out a few choice pieces for fuel from the downed mechs and dropped to all fours. She had far too much fury to burn off at the moment to stay still. Behind her the teens shivered and edged closer to the shield. They had a sneaking suspicion that the city was going to get very quiet soon.