The Mech Touch novel Chapter 777

Properly speaking, Aeon Corona VII did not have nights in the traditional sense. Its forty-three hour days subjected one hemisphere to the light of the trinary stars while denying it to the other side of the planet.

Yet what role could sunlight play on a planet lit by the glow of higher-dimensional particles? It not only cast the entire planet in a decidedly golden tint, there wasn’t any real night to speak of. The only change in the sky when ’night’ finally fell was that the trio of suns dipped below the horizon.

Strangely enough, the lack of true night unsettled the Vandals far more than the heavy gravity. They already had months to prepare for deployment on a heavy gravity planet, so they hardly became fazed when they finally stepped foot on Seven.

The astral winds that raged above the skies came extra, though. The distortion running through their bodies and constant brightness shining down from above made it feel as if they had intruded into some hallowed godly domain where mortals like them simply didn’t belong.

How could anyone live on this planet? Its properties differed too far from the human norm that the excitement the Vandals gained from embarking on their mission firmly faded from their minds.

All they felt now was a faint dread for all the surprises this strange and alien planet had in store for them. Terraformed or not, many Vandals could hardly stomach the thought of enduring months under these bright and blinding skies.

Ves coped a little better. The bright astral winds may look a bit unsettling to the average person, but as someone who grew up on Cloudy Curtain, he never needed any clear skies to lift up his mood.

As the standard clock the Vandals and Swordmaidens have adopted turned to evening, Ves decided to take a break after he addressed all of the acute problems. As he stepped outside the temporary headquarters, he saw that the base looked a lot livelier now.

The Vandals set up a lot of prefab structures that could be deployed and folded back into a compact container on a jiffy. This would be important because the ground forces intended to bring them along and set them up each time they needed to halt.

Therefore, the prefab structures didn’t look particularly impressive. Consisting of thin, bare metal plates, what they gained in modularity and ease of handling, they gave up in sturdiness and reliability.

Compared to mech armor, the structures were only as tough as the armor of a cheap light mech. While this would be sufficient to keep the structures somewhat stable, it didn’t turn them into any defensive fortifications. They could withstand infantry-grade firepower easily enough, but when it came to mech-grade weapons, even a single round would be able to blast a huge hole in the walls.

This didn’t matter too much as the bases were only intended as mobile stopover points to service mechs and process any resources that they might gather.

The landbound mechs at their disposal formed their true defense. With their mechs on patrol, nothing should be able to sneak up close to the base to have a clear shot at them, if any enemies on the planet even used any ranged weapons.

Due to the heavy gravity that had a tendency to drag any projectiles down the ground before they reached far enough to hit their target, neither the Vandals nor the Swordmaidens brought any ballistic rifles. Every ranged mech either already made use of a laser rifle or had been forced to adopt one over their primary weapons.

Melee mechs would still be able to move quickly with their gravitic backpacks active. Of course, melee combat in general needed a whole new revision as the Vandal and Swordmaiden mech pilots figured out they could hit a lot harder if they struck from above and deactivated their antigrav modules at the same time.

Any mech that tipped over or lost their balance while outside the influence of any antigrav fields pretty much had no chance to recover during a battle. Falling under six times gravity was the worst thing that could happen to any mech or person on foot.

As Ves headed over to the Swordmaiden side of the camp, he saw a few off-duty Vandals goofing off. They experimented with trying to see if they could remain functional as they deactivated a nearby antigrav module.

"C’mon, hurry up, Suze! Turn it off already"

"I’ve got it! Three, two, one, it’s off!"

The Vandal standing in the middle of a clearing suddenly buckled and screamed a bit. The man remained upright solely due to the virtue of his light combat armor which locked up his legs and automatically adjusted his balance.

"Turn.. it.. on!"

Once the Vandal in control of the system switched the antigrav module back online, the man who tested his body sighed in relief. "That was far too sudden! I became so heavy that my bones started creaking! I can’t imagine surviving outside this field."

Several more Vandals curiously tested out how their bodies would fare under heavy gravity. Having learned their lesson, this time Suzie dialed down the power of the antigrav module gradually until it stopped exerting anything against the prevailing gravity.

Without exception, many of the Vandals serving as technicians, machinists or some other support capacity simply couldn’t handle the strain. None of them could cope with remaining upright, but they lasted a bit longer if they laid down flat on the ground.

Those in less rigid outfits such as hazard suits fared the worst. The lack of structure in them combined with the fact that only the weakest Vandals wore them meant they crumbled into a heap pretty quickly even as the gravity ramped up slowly.

Those with combat training, greater fitness and perhaps enjoyed some genetic tune-ups fared better. Even without relying on the servos of their combat armor, they possessed enough strength to remain upright, though moving forward was a significant challenge in itself. If their combat armor ever ran out of energy, its weight turned into a burden instead of a boon.

Just as Ves planned to walk past by the experimenting Vandals, he halted in his steps. "This is a good time as any to test out my own ability to cope with the gravity."

He turned around and approached the group. The Vandals looked up at him and some of them even recognized him. "Mr. Larkinson!"

The low-ranking Vandals attempted to stand at attention as if he was an officer.

"Relax, folks. Let me give it a try as well."