The size of the cannon needed to accomplish that kind of destructive power rendered it too large for the high mobility of Mech armor. The Omnos squad members continued to miniaturize the technology, realizing its potential. With help from additional contractors, having the entire UN military supply chain at their disposal through their occupation of the Alice Springs base, they finally created a weapon Atalanta could deploy from a static position, carried in foldable segments, similar to how a sniper operated. Resting the oversized cannon on a tripod helped provide balance for aiming the weapon, while ten additional shells were carried separately, loaded through attachable magazines that attached to the butt of the gun. The weight of the cannon was distributed evenly between resting on the tripod and the magazine, while the shock of firing was absorbed by Atalanta, creating a highly stable firing platform. A hydraulic system in each magazine fed a new slug through the gun, automatically chambering a new round after each time the weapon was fired.
All told, their miniaturization efforts resulted in a weapon with nearly the same abilities of the larger prototype as they continued to refine the cannon. There were drawbacks to using such a powerful weapon in a dynamic environment such as a battlefield. Compensating for the movement of the enemy Mech armor forced Vera to allow Athena to assist her with targeting, a fact she did not relish. The effective range of the rail gun on the battlefield stood between eighteen and twenty-five miles, depending on the speed the enemy moved at and required a clear line of sight, the closest equivalent weapon being artillery, although without nearly the same level of pinpoint accuracy. The spot chosen by Alyona was just under ten miles distant from Xilan’s position, giving her the option of dialing down the total power requirements for each shot, allowing for a faster reload time and more shots per minute.
Vera steeled herself for what was to come as she finished guiding Atalanta through assembling the cannon, watching as the tripod deployed underneath the lengthy barrel, settling heavily into the dust, the feet digging down until they settled against bedrock to find purchase. Athena automatically disengaged the energy shields and cut off all engine output as well as any system deemed not critical, re-directing all power to the rail gun, relying on Atalanta’s innate active camouflage and IFR masking abilities to hide them. In order to achieve the deadly projection needed to send a projectile across the distances involved, the amount of energy required was immense.
In the oversized stock of the gun, a supplemental fuel cell reactor powered up, charging batteries encasing the rail guns stock and in Atalanta, because even with full reactor output combined with the fuel cell output there still needed an energy build of twenty seconds in between firing each round in order to achieve Mech killing force. If power was no problem, such as when she was able to draw from a reactor on base, the rail gun could fire nearly a dozen times a minute with no worries of the barrel overheating. In field situations, the rail gun allowed her to multiply the amount of force she could bring to bear in a combat situation by a frightening amount, even over her more mobile sniper rifle. She could accomplish all of that while operating at a vast distance from the enemy; effectively removing her from many of the dangers of combat with one other immense difference, the rail gun fired its tungsten slugs at such high speed that, if needed, it was a truly effective weapon against the anti-Mech armor drone named Reaper.
Vera gritted her teeth as she began removing her helmet and then pulled down the Head Mounted Display (HMD), the sockets covering her eyes, entirely encasing her from the outside world leaving only wherever she aimed at. The HMD gave her the effect of being only a few feet away from wherever she targeted the rail gun, trusting in Athena to serve as her spotter, watching her surroundings and notify her of any problems. In the corner of the HMD, a mini map showed red and blue team information, quickly allowing her to designate which target to focus on next based off commands she issued by blinking a certain number of times or looking in a specific direction if she did not want Athena to choose for her. The red markers had a second smaller dot next to them, color-coded in order to show the level of threat they represented. Marine Steyr’s operating in the formations in front of her were currently marked with orange due to their distance, while Slayer’s, the mainstay of the PDF Mecha Corp were yellow. Additional information could be called upon and displayed, but Vera was a minimalist, wanting as little information about those she was about to fight as possible in order to remove herself as far from the act of killing them as could be reasonably accomplished.
Preparations complete, she checked the energy gauge, which displayed a full charge, having prepared itself simultaneously to the rail gun deploying. Three minutes and ten seconds had passed since Alyona issued the order for her to break off and engage the PDF. Knowing that to delay would only endanger their allies currently under attack-and in the end would change nothing-Vera did not hesitate to act. Xilan’s force was holding their own for now, but it was clear they were being pressed hard by the numbers of PDF attacking them, and as soon as a critical element weakened, the battle could end as quickly as it began.
Knowing the consequences of hesitating and having resigned herself to the inevitable, in one smooth motion Vera sighted the rifle and pulled the trigger as soon as the lock on warble sounded. Immense forces that strained their understanding of physics accelerated the pure tungsten slug in the rail gun towards a Steyr at incredible speed, far faster than any human could process or dodge. The recoil expected from a similar conventional weapon never materialized as clever design tweaks re-directed all of the energy, recycling it, further boosting the forces applied to accelerating the tungsten slug.
No enormous gout of flame materialized from the end of the barrel as the tungsten slug, unaware and unconcerned, by its singular and deadly mission proceeded towards its target. There was no gas or smell emitted from the use of explosives, no heat spike from the use of a laser based weapon. Instead, a simple counter began counting down as the energy gauge began re-filling. Nothing more than a slight shift in her position and the HMD mimicking the swing of the barrel as it began targeting an adjacent Steyr gave her any impression at all that she just killed someone. Even the explosion of the tungsten slug erasing the existence of the Steyr was ignored as the HMD seamlessly shifted its viewpoint to the next target in line after firing.
Three more Steyr’s were eliminated in succession, while her only drawback was having to wait the prerequisite twenty seconds between firing for the energy gauge to show the rail gun was prepared to fire once again. There was no need for her to wait for Alyona or Kiryl to engage, or even get into position to attack. The distances involved meant that Atalanta was incredibly difficult if not impossible for the PDF to locate even while attacking them. Should a force break off and turn to engage her, she would have ample time to eliminate them in turn. Calculations performed while back in the safety of the base suggested that the only way to overpower Atalanta while utilizing the rail gun from distance was for a force of nearly forty Mech armor to simultaneously turn and head towards her location, using their sheer numbers to overwhelm the capabilities of the rail gun.
Vera’s role during this engagement was simple. She was to disrupt the attackers pressing Xilan and the forces under his command wherever their defenses were starting to bend, buying the other members of her squad time to close the distance and engage the remaining PDF in a more resounding manner. Her secondary role was almost as important as the first, although it contributed no strategic value to the overall battle. In a sense, her secondary role was to pierce the PDF’s sense of immortality-a crucial factor when lives were at stake. By reminding the Hellfire Brigade pilots of their very real mortality, she sowed the seeds of doubt in their minds, hopefully causing them to think twice about certain consequences and distrust their sense of acting with impunity. Having to watch over their shoulders and wonder when they might suddenly be destroyed would render the threat posed by the Hellfire Brigade significantly mitigated.
* * * * *
A fifth Steyr was elim
inated before the PDF realized that something was not as it should be. By then it was too late. DawnsLight raced around a hill, Alyona having chosen it to cover their approach, sliding down an escarpment at a brutal pace towards a squadron of six Slayers at the bottom that were providing cover for an advancing force of Steyr’s below them. She took the squadron from behind without any warning. As soon Alyona began clearing the top of the hill and her firing lines cleared, she launched a full grouping of the smallest of her missiles towards the Slayers. The Sparrow class missiles raced towards their targets, one missile per enemy Mech armor, followed by a steady stream of mini-rockets and a full grouping of Sidewinders.
Only four Sidewinder tubes were available due to their larger size, and the missiles launched in pairs of two, separated by two seconds between each salvo, therefore avoiding any near space collisions or interference. The Sidewinders and Sparrows were paired up by Athena as they raced towards their targets, eliminating the two Slayers on either side of the squadron, leaving the middle two units wounded when the Sparrows slammed into their engines from behind. Dozens of mini-rockets followed in their wake, crashing against the wounded pair of Mech armor, seeking out and destroying their reactors, creating huge fireballs where mere seconds before humans fought to exert their dominance.
Without pausing, Alyona continued to push DawnsLight hard towards their next objective, knowing that acting as rapidly as possible while the PDF were still becoming aware of her presence was paramount to achieving maximum impact and turning the tide of battle, thereby minimizing friendly casualties. DawnsLight burst through the still exploding wreckage of the Slayer squadron, skimming up and over the small hill they had been encamped upon. Alyona engaged the afterburners as she raced down the remainder of the hill at a suicidal pace, reveling in the rush of power as she banked DawnsLight into a brutal turn, crouched down low, the engine nacelle’s close enough to the ground their passing scorched the dust, turning it into glass behind them. She kicked the pedals controlling the wings into another gut punching turn at the last second, barreling between a pair of sand dunes on either side, gasping as Athena juiced her through the IV, the contents of the drug cocktail fighting to keep her lucid through the crush of g-forces.
Her next target was a second squadron of Slayers posted nearby that were preparing to assault and punch through the line of defending StormCrows. Alyona ignored the mounds of dust towering over her on both sides, focusing on approaching the next targets, which suddenly began to advance against the buckling defenders. An opening between the mounds of dust and sand appeared, and she rocketed through it, again appearing directly behind a squadron of Slayers.
Three rows of timers on the side of the HUD counted down the time remaining until her mini rockets, Sparrows, and Sidewinders were reloaded. The only option left to her were the main cannons housed in each arm that were powerful but slow to reload, which she aimed with deadly precision guided by Athena, firing at the closest pair of Slayer’s.
The enemy pilots were already leery of attacks from behind due to Vera’s long range sniping and the abrupt loss of their supporting squadron. They turned and began firing the second their turrets had traversed enough to line up their main weapons with the new threat that appearing suddenly behind them. In the close quarters combat that normally favored the PDF, the exchange of fire proved highly skewed the other way in its results.
Two Slayers were picked up and thrown backwards from the force of DawnsLight’s main cannons, their torsos wrapping themselves around the impact of the high-explosive shells detonating against their thick armor, leaving them both mortally wounded and both pilots likely dead from the kinetic force of the impacts. Alyona continued to press her attack as DawnsLight absorbed the underpowered laser attacks of the Slayer squad, her energy shields dropping to 70% under the assault, setting off alarms in the cockpit.
Realizing that death came to claim them with its cold, permanent grasp, the four remaining Slayer pilots never stopped firing. They were intent upon doing what damage they could in order to aid their brethren who would next cross the path of the demon now descending upon them, refusing to give ground. They bunched together, pooling their defensive and offensive abilities, all to no avail.
Alyona screamed in defiance as the HUD washed white with brilliant light, the camera algorithms unable to compensate for the flares of raw energy exploding in front of them. Mere hundreds of feet away from the remaining Slayers, her mini rockets and main weapons chimed their readiness. Acting upon pure instinct, Alyona lifted her arms into the air, fighting the harness binding her in place as she suddenly slammed her arms down, placing all of her weight onto the heel of her right foot, angled to accommodate the sudden rush of pressure.
Mimicking the commands of its pilot, DawnsLight seemed to swell with power as it finished its approach into the midst of the Slayers, rising up before suddenly slamming all of its weight down upon the right foot in a desperate bid to halt its terrible speed. The enormous Mech armor shuddered as it pivoted violently upon the heel now digging into the loose scree and dust searching for purchase, sweeping its arms across the array of targets, spraying a molten stream of mini-rockets and the reloaded main cannons into its foes. The wings seemed to fold down around the torso, enveloping Alyona in a protective embrace as the shields failed in those last seconds. A wall of fire burst into existence as the remaining four Slayers fountained into a geyser of metal and flame that faded as quickly as it had appeared in the lack of oxygenated atmosphere, cutting short the dying screams of the pilots.
With the destruction of the Slayer squadron complete, Alyona scanned the identifying markers appearing on the HUD, instantly analyzing the information displayed. A part of her marveled in complete wonder at the sheer amount of adrenaline coursing through her system, heightening her senses to previously unimaginable levels as age old instincts commanded her body. She watched as another red marker, due to her proximity to the foes surrounding her, blossom and then fad into non-existence from Vera’s long-range attacks, knowing that she was needed elsewhere.
Athena recognized her lack of targets, calculating thousands of scenarios simultaneously as she factored in data from all three Mech armor, the Firefly scout drones, and the Iris satellite watching everything occur. The HUD lit up with a large red dot on the slope of a hill behind which a pair of Furies was being pushed back. Not waiting for an explanation, Alyona rocked her wrists back and then slammed them forward, leaning forward to brace herself as the afterburners exploded into action, rocketing her towards the high-threat target. Most of her main weapons were again on cool down, but that did not matter. Recognition dawned for Alyona as in front of her a wave of power suit encased humans took shape, the cameras on the outside of the hull automatically finding her target and zooming in on the infantry who were using a dozen armored vehicles for cover as they advanced towards the Furies on the other side of the hill. On the shoulders of the infantry were rocket launchers that fired a projectile not dissimilar from her Sparrows, a capable Mech killing weapon. She remembered hearing that the PDF were deploying infantry like these in significantly larger numbers as a company of the infantry cost only a fraction the price of a single Mech armor, and the PDF were being pressed hard enough on all fronts that they were resorting to using all the resources available to them.
She engaged the infantry from a distance, sweeping DawnsLight’s arms back and forth, spraying a barrel melting stream of sub munitions into the waves of infantry, peppering the attacks with high-explosive grenades capable of crippling the legs of a Mech armor. Thirty seconds, each of which was as long as an eternity, passed as she weaved side-to-side mowing down the infantry with horrific impunity. In the short span of time, the full complement of two companies worth of humans saw their spark of life snuffed out as easily as a candle standing against a hurricane.
Seeing what she had done, Alyona shuddered in revulsion as the full weight of guilt over her actions crashed down upon her. At the same time, the wave of adrenaline fu
eling her exhausted itself, leaving her to smash upon the rocks of oblivion.
* * * * *
Cascading waves of destruction rolled across the area, originating from multiple points as Kiryl finally approached in distance to unleash all eight of the largest missiles Intrepid carried, firing them in a single stream of omnipotent destruction against the wave of PDF threatening to overrun Xilan’s left flank. Intrepid was the only Mech armor capable of carrying the Eclipse class missiles, each of which was on an entirely different level than what his sister Mech armor carried, more similar to the ground based types fired from a base in regards to sheer destructive power. The Eclipse class of missiles was the Omnos Squad’s supremely powerful class of weapon brought with them from Earth, Eclipse serving as their answer to the capabilities of Special Forces HellCat models for when they eventually crossed paths. In this instance, there was only one fitting term for the results achieved.
Overkill.
The missiles crossed the distance to their targets in a dizzying weave of maneuvers to avoid anti-aircraft fire, detonating against each of their targets with impunity, crushing the entirety of the enemy Mech armor frames in a supreme act of violence, explosively deconstructing the powerful units in a blinding flash of raw power. The Slayers and Steyr’s not outright destroyed by the ferocity of the attack were caught in its wake, their pilots watching in unmitigated horror as the roiling blast waves ignited their reactors. A chain of secondary reactions formed as the blast waves expanded, rolling outwards in a tidal wave of destruction as they sought out new victims to embrace. Each successive detonation rolled across the field of battle until it crashed against one of the surrounding hills, only to return, building in force from each new explosion to smash upon one another, forming even more secondary explosions in the process, as additional units instantaneously combusted. The armor of nearby units melted away as the sky itself cracked open. The rolling claps of thunder roaring across the field of battle perforated the weakened armor of those on the outskirts of the attack, overloading their armor as well, adding their death throes to the maelstrom of destruction. The very ground heaved in protest at the unjustness of it all, throwing rock, dust, and debris for miles into the air.
Nemesis (The MechaVerse Trilogy Book 2) Page 21
