The Mech Touch novel Chapter 154

The security guard yawned as he closed the hefty coffer. Its antrigrav modules sprung back to life and took up position behind its sharp-faced owner.

"Everything checks out. It’s a false alarm." The guard declared and waved the new arrival away. "Off you go. Enjoy your stay at Cloudy Curtain."

The middle-aged man nodded and sauntered to the exit. Bypassing the security of this dreary spaceport had taken a lot more effort than he thought. For some reason, the spaceport recently received a massive upgrade in its security suite. It took some quick thinking for the man to respond to the alarms.

As he walked outside the building, he looked up at the dreary clouds that constantly shrouded this planets. The few sheens of color, akin to flattened rainbows, hardly cheered up his day. He hailed an aircar and set his destination to the opposite side of the planet.

After several hours of flight, the man departed from the aircar and looked at the quiet neighborhood he’d be living in for the time being. He glanced at the sturdy walls of the guarded compound a few blocks away and whistled appreciatively.

"This is going to require a lot of patience."

His client had already prepared a house for him. Outwardly, it looked identical to the many other homesteads on the street. In fact, the house incorporated many dampening materials that suppressed signals and blocked unwanted spying.

After entering the home, the man ignored the furnished house and the closet full of clothes. He directly climbed to the attic at the top and approached a camouflaged window that could not be spotted outside.

The coffer dropped to the spotless floor and opened by itself. Instead of the mundane clothes the man showed to the spaceport’s security guard, the coffer held a dizzying array of alloy components.

The man took each of the components and methodically assembled them until the entire construction resembled a metal tree sitting on its sides. Its intimidating size and shape resembled a railgun, only scaled up to the point it could threaten mechs.

The main laid down behind the complicated weapon and swept over its systems. The railgun’s muzzle aimed straight at the entrance of the guarded compound that could barely be seen through the attic’s window.

"You got away once, but I’ve seen your tricks now." The man whispered as recalled his previous failure. He never expected to come up short due the presence of a mythical miniaturized shield generator.

He made some adjustments this time. As long as his target left the compound, his railgun would never miss.

He simply had to be patient.

Back at the workshop, Melkor expressed his views on rifleman mechs with a very simple premise. "Why do mechs wield rifles? Why don’t all of them come in the style of frontline mechs?"

For humanoid mechs, the main difference between a standard mech and a frontline mech had to do with their arms. A frontline mech replaced its arms with gun barrels, while a standard mech retained its human-like arms capable of manipulating external gear like mech-sized rifles.

"A skilled pilot can manipulate the limbs of their mechs with great precision." Ves repeated the standard answer found in textbooks. "A frontline mech is largely reliant on its hardware and software to aim, which can shore up the aim of an average mech pilot. A standard mech on the other hand combines the use of its systems along with its pilot’s intuition to deliver better results."

A lot of mech designers thought that adding arms and a rifle to a mech wasted a lot of resources. Yet on an actual battlefield, a standard mech often outperformed its frontline mech counterpart. Many factors played a role, from the increased range of motion afforded by its arms, to the ability to make better use of a pilot’s real life marksmanship.

"You mentioned plenty of reasons, but you forgot the most fundamental one. We simply like the feel of a gun in our hands." Melkor tapped the side of his head. "You’re not a potentate, so you don’t know the feeling of piloting a frontline mech. The first time I immersed myself into such a model, I felt as if someone amputated my arms and crudely welded a pair of gun barrels in their place. No matter what, I never regarded them as my own limbs."

No one liked to pilot an amputated mech! Those who piloted frontline mechs often fell behind in skill, work ethic and genetic aptitude. More than half of the mech pilots of the Bright Republic fell under this category.

"What makes piloting riflemen so special then?"

"It’s the most basic archetype besides knights. A mech pilot who masters the rifleman can pilot every ranged mech. Skill matters the most. A great pilot can easily ruin a rifleman while a great pilot can mow down an entire squad before he succumbs."

Ves started to understand Melkor’s perspective. "In short, it comes down to skill. How do you describe your learning experience when you were in your early teens?"

"Everyone started polishing their marksmanship with their own bodies. A Larkinson like me enjoyed a great amount of tutoring, so I easily passed the early courses. I jumped straight into mech marksmanship and adjusted my habits to fit the mech scale. It was kind of boring, but necessary to go through this process. Not everyone succeeded in time to take the follow up classes. These guys always end up piloting the frontline mechs."

"If unlearning the habits learned through shooting a gun in your own hands is so difficult, why not jump to practicing mech marksmanship directly?"

"It has to do with foundation. Anyone who tries to learn a fundamental skill with mechs will only ever master the process with that model alone. Once the mech pilot switches to another model, he’ll find out his marksmanship has to be broken down entirely before it can accomodate the new mech. Remember that humanoid mechs are meant to reflect the human form."

"I see. If you master the skill with your own body, you will always be able to adjust your marksmanship with every mech you come across."