The Mech Touch novel Chapter 26

Now that Melinda got out of the high of super-realistic combat, she remembered why she stepped into the simulator in the first place.

"This mech... the specs aren’t bad. It’s a pity about the armor. It doesn’t hold up in a large melee. The shield’s also far too heavy for the scant amount of protection its offering."

Still, when she saw how few gold she had to spent to repair her mech and replace her shield, she smiled. The total amount she lost paled in comparison to the amount of gold she earned from performing well in that last match. She even received the coveted MVP award. The game really went all-out in retaining its older customer base with these tricks.

Janet whistled her appreciation as she read the score list. "Damn Melly, you went to town on them. You’ve personally disabled four mechs."

"Yeah and pretty much wrecked my entire mech in the process. At least I won’t cry about the repair bill."

"You wanna go for another match?"

"Yeah. I need to get familiar with this mech. My little cousin did a good job with this machine."

"That’s for sure. If your new mech is fully equipped with the HRF, then he has my respect. Half the red team fired potshots at you and you still made it through the end. I didn’t know you were so gutsy for leading the charge."

"I got caught up in the moment, I guess."

She didn’t know what made her enjoy piloting the Marc Antony so much. For a 5-star mech, its specs were mediocre and it clearly tried to do too many things at once. Yet when she hopped into its cockpit, she felt as if she embodied a war god ready to wipe out heretics. Its dark paint scheme and blazing red shield brought out the urge to go on the offensive.

"Janet, do you think the game’s become more realistic? I hardly noticed I was playing in a simulator."

"Duh, that’s because you’re playing with the Planetary Guard’s best simulator pods. They simulate movement and impacts with ship-grade artificial gravity."

"Hmm, maybe that was it. The simulator pods from the game center don’t go that far in providing the most realistic experience."

The simulation pods of the Guard might not be the best in the galaxy, but they still provided excellent training opportunities.

The two queued together in another Wartorn Instance. This one was the map of the day, a 200v200 featuring a massive battleground with multiple objectives to capture or destroy. Matches could last up to two hours if both sides were evenly matched.

The matchmaking took a few minutes to gather enough players. Once it finished matching players, their team entered another lobby. This time Melinda ignored the posturing and smack talk between her more dominant team members. Trying to assert leadership of a group of 50 pilots was barely doable, but it almost couldn’t be done with 200 unless you were famous.

"Let’s stay on the defensive this time. I want this mech to last a little longer this time."

"How about the forward depot? We can refill our ammo and energy cells there if we need any, which you sorely do if I recall your mech’s energy expenditure."

As the match started, the mass of mechs left the giant hangar and entered an urban combat environment. Modeled after an old Terran historically preserved city, most of the structures were only a couple of stories high. Enough to cover mechs at ground level, but not enough to provide significant protection if enemies shot at them from the air.

All 200 mechs in their team split up as they attended to their chosen objectives. Some players intended to assault a remote location, while others planned to defend a spot to the last mech. Melinda and Janet were joined by a gaggle of random mechs as they reached a small forward depot that represented one of the secondary objectives in the game.

"Our main win condition is to conquer the city hall, while the enemy team has to take over our military HQ."

The asymmetric conditions forced the two teams to adopt different strategies. The military HQ offered better repair and resupply, while the city hall possessed better active defenses. It encouraged the blue team to attack and the red team to defend. However, if the red team just kept turtling behind their walls, they’d run out of ammunition, energy cells and other resources. So the fight for the secondary objectives prevailed at the start of the match.

When they reached the bunker-like depot, the group of mechs spread out to form an effective defense in each direction. They needed no discussion to decide where they’d be best employed. Janet brought her cannon mech to a reinforced firing position just within the bunker. She had a great forward view while being completely protected from aerial attacks.

The first sounds of combat already rang out further in the distance. Scouts from both teams encountered each other, leading to limited skirmishes. A distressed light mech with a missing head suddenly barged the bunker’s perimeter. Only its IFF or identification system prevented it from being blasted to pieces.

"They’re coming! Eight mechs! Mediums and lights!"

The light mech disappeared before providing greater detail. Seeing that no heavy mech had joined their defense, likely due to the depot being situated too far forward, Melinda readied her shield and held her other arm ready to fire laser blasts.

The missiles came first. An arcing volley of missiles flew from a couple of blocks away and splashed against the surface of the depot, damaging its reinforced exterior. The second volley that came after got shot down by their team’s anti-air. Subsequent missiles kept getting intercepted.

While half of their team preoccupied themselves in shooting down the missiles, a couple of townhouses split into pieces as a group of five melee mechs burst through. Their guns blazed as they focused their firepower on a rifleman. The structure it hid behind got smashed to pieces, allowing the enemy mechs a clear line of fire to heavily damage the rifleman.

Melinda kept her Marc Antony in the open, trying to offer an alternative target to the attackers. Unfortunately, they played it smart, keeping their attention focused on the more vulnerable ranged mechs.

"Hey! Over here buddy!" She indignantly called, and charged towards their position while firing half her missile complement. The projectiles successfully diverted the attention of one of the medium strikers, who activated its head-mounted rapid-fire machine guns to shoot down the missiles one by one. Nevertheless, Melinda made it through halfway by that time and her wrist laser kept pelting the striker, dealing moderate but sporadic damage due to the spread of her shots.

The striker retaliated with a barrage of shotgun fire, the pellets stripping the front layers of her shield. Nevertheless her shield held up against the attacks which could easily shred a light mech to pieces.

Melinda stopped firing her lasers. Instead, she raised the mace in her mech’s grip and prepared to smash it down against the opposing mech’s face. The striker responded by activating a wicked looking bayonet on his shotgun. As her mace came down, the striker dodged the telegraphed attack and thrust with its bayonet.

Grinning, Melinda rotated the torso of her mech, causing her unbalanced mech to haul its shield in an angle that neatly deflected the bayonet attack in time. She then leaned her mech’s entire weight against the shield, pushing the striker off-balance with its weapon extended. A kick caused the shotgun to fly away, while the mace came around to smack viciously against the striker’s face, crushing half its head. A few further whacks on the disoriented mech caused its cockpit to cave in, squishing the pilot into meat paste.

Her other teammates had the attackers well in hand by now. Melinda and another fellow striker kept the four remaining mechs to stall, leaving them vulnerable to medium and long-ranged fire from Janet and her fellow mechs. The opponents left another fallen mech behind before fleeing back to their lines.

The reprieve bought some time for them to get a grip on how their team fared in other locations.

"Forward depot is secure. Fended off a small raid."

"The fucking communications center is heavily entrenched. We ain’t gonna capture a thing with a squad of heavies ready to rain missiles and cannon shells down on us."

"We were beaten back at the evacuation shelter. They took complete control of the civilians there. They’re loading hostages. I can’t make out which kind."

"The red team is up to something. If they’re defending the satellites while hauling hostages, then they must be calling in reinforcements."

"Shit! We gotta stop them before they call in something nasty!"

"Yeah go ahead. Unless we divert at least 50 mechs to the comm center, we’re not going to dislodge them from their cozy position."

"Well they’re going to win if we’re sitting around!"