Out of Space

Chapter 471: Warjacks

The New Kingdom of Mecca, Reachfield, United Nations Forward Operating Base

Power tools whined and sparks sprayed out from the mangled corpse on the centre of the makeshift hangar. Both goblins and elves fussed over the Protectorate golem that had been laid out carefully on the ground as they tried to piece back the destroyed golem from the shattered pieces taken from the battlefield.

Dr. Sharon and Magister Thorn both entered the hangar and stared excitedly at the half dozen or so more intact golems the Army Engineers had retrieved back from the front while another laid on the floor. "Oh... my... gods..."

"Giant robots!" A voice yelled out from the back, startling both Dr. Sharon and Magister Thorn. They both turned back to see several crewmen from the UNS Singapore, their accent and features placed them to be of Japanese or Korean descent. "We need to start to build some Gundams!"

"Oh, here comes the nerds!" Dr. Sharon teased the Asian crew who laughed back. She was quite close to them, as she had borrowed quite a bit of anime and games from them. "Your dreams are coming true!"

"Yes, yes!" Ex Senior Spaceman Tae Joon replied as he stared at the spoils of war with a silly smile on his face. Now, head of Robotics Science, he together with his team and other experts, like Dr. Sharon and Magister Thorn had arrived at the front to see the marvels of the enemy.

"You know," Tae Joon said to Dr. Sharon and Magister Thorn as they walked among the carcasses of the golems. "There used to be projects in the UNM in regards to making a combat mecha..."

"But, the complexity of the machinery, weight and size," Tae Joon continued as he watched the engineers do their thing. "Made it obsolete against railguns and kinetic kill missiles."

"Their size makes it hard for them to make use of the terrain for cover, unlike armoured or tracked vehicles," Tae Joon explained. "More armour on the mechs to protect them against railguns would mean more weight and even a larger cross section."

"To power, all that would almost need near capital sized reactors," Tae Joon added. "Which further meant higher costs and weight!"

"Compared to the simplicity of a tank hunter or even an armoured fighting vehicle," Tae Joon gently stroked the shell of the golem before him. "It made no sense to even consider building a mech in the first place due to the cost. Only the rich had them custom built for fun and sport!"

"But here... on this planet," Tae Joon grinned. "The locals have no concept of anti tank tactics! And with the use of living rock for its internal structure, this cuts down both the manufacturing and maintenance cost by ninety per cent!"

He used his knuckles to rap against the metal shell of the golem and said, "In this planet, the Old World seemed to use these like heavily armoured infantry, using their weight and size to smash through shield walls and ranks of soldiers."

"Works pretty well with cold steel armies, but against our weapons?" Tae Joon shook his head sadly. "It's just a big fat target for us to shoot at!"

-----

The New Kingdom of Mecca, Outskirts of the Royal Capital of Mecca

Cork tossed his entrenching tool to the side as he and the others finally finished covering the mass grave. For the past two days, he and the rest of the 1st Army Rifles had taken turns taking down the corpses from the pikes, digging graves and filling them up.

The locals that survived the massacre had appeared timidly when they arrived and was pressed into service by Lady Jeanne who used her status to get the people to help in burying the bodies. The CO of the 1st Army Rifles wanted to burn the bodies, but Lady Jeanne had said that it was against their customs, so Cork and the rest had to work their asses off.

The men were unhappy and angry, not because it was a hard detail, but due to the cruel of the deaths. The bodies had mostly dried up or had scavengers feasted upon them. But the small bones of children was apparent among the impaled, making the men cursed the Protectorate about their vile deeds.

The bodies were removed from the stakes and counted before buried into dozens of mass graves as no one could recognize nor identity who was who. Even the nobles and the king could be identified as their bodies had decomposed too much, leaving behind just torn and weathered silks. In the end, only a simple carved headstone stood over the graves as a monument to their deaths.

Cork shook his head as he remembered his past life. Even if the Emperor was mad, he did not wantonly kill children like this. Krew joined Cork and tossed a bottle of juice over, "Man, this is bad business here..."

"Yes... very bad..." Cork agreed as he took a sip of the cold fruit juice that had been shipped over from the UN. "This religion of theirs... does not see life as precious..."

"Yea... from that briefing we got... I did not think it was this bad..." Krew replied. "To think that all their actions are on the side of righteousness and justice... Even killing like this isn't even moral anymore!"

"I don't know why would these people who commit such acts think they are in the right..." Krew sighed. "Man... this is crazy evil..."

"If one grows up being taught that killing is good," Cork said. "Then he will never think that killing is evil..."

"That is some fark up teaching there!" Krew commented. "What kind of God tells people to kill is good?"

"Oh... you be surprised how many Gods love killing things..." Cork replied. "But from what I read from the briefing files... this God of the Protectorate is the God of Justice and Law... My guess is that it takes laws and rules very strictly..."

"So if you violate any of its laws and rules..." Cork continued. "You are a sinner..."

"These people were most likely killed because they do not follow the laws of the Protectorate's God..."

-----

The New Kingdom of Mecca, Reachfield, United Nations Forward Operating Base

"These are the two days results of our findings," Dr. Sharon started the meeting inside the tent with the rest of the senior officers. "This is not a golem..."

Dr. Sharon pointed to the picture projected against the tent wall. "These are called Warjacks as identified by the intel we have."

"It is powered by a fusion of magic and steam technology," Dr. Sharon said. "There seemed to be three variants from the wreckages we picked out, each having its own characteristics."

"We classed these three variants according to weight, like how dragons are classed," Dr. Sharon explained. "Light, medium and heavy. They are not golems as they use clockwork mechanisms to run while real golems using magic, like living stone to move. These warjacks are more like robots..."

"First the light weight class," Dr. Sharon switched the image on the projector. "The team had managed to sort what piece together a light weight. This class weights in the range of around three to five tons."

The image changed to show a 3d computer imagery of a bulky antiqued hunchback suit of metal armour. It had pipe like arms ending with large fists like boxer gloves while its pipe like legs ended with large pointy boots that supported the entire weight of the Warjack. Short funnels jutted out from its hunchback rear and it had a neckless head in the form of a grill style helmet.

"The primary weapon for this Warjack, which we code named it as Stickman, is a long heavy lance," Dr. Sharon said while she switched the images again, showing several long lances that were almost twice the height of a standing elf that stood next to stacked lances. "Secondary armament appears to be a weighed steel net."

"Armor is pretty thin," Dr. Sharon pointed out its characteristics. "Our small arms fire are capable of damaging it. Its role appeared to be a scout or a light flanker. Reports from our units said that it moved a lot faster compared to the larger and heavier Warjacks they have seen."

"Next is the medium weight class we identified, weighting around the eight to twelve ton range," She changed the image again and this time a similar looking Warjack appeared. It looked stouter, had a thicker armour shell while its arms and legs were also thicker and shorter. "This appeared to be their standard model, as there are more of these bad boys compared to the rest we recovered."

"We are calling these as Wreckers," Dr. Sharon pointed to the arm. "Due to these nasty spike balls in their right arms which can be shot out using compressed steam and also retracted back by the chains attached to it."

"It has decent armour and speed, anything below 20 mm cannons barely fazes it," Dr. Sharon pointed out. "It also has a magic barrier and a huge ass physical shield for extra protection in its left arm."

"It also has a nozzle that it can shoot out hot steam," Dr. Sharon tapped the image. "Making it very deadly if any unprotected troops get within the attack radius of its steam bursts."

"Finally, we have the heavy weights," Dr. Sharon said. "We only recovered two of these in quite a bad condition which I could say, the new 88 mm cannon for the MAW is working perfectly."

The next image Dr. Sharon showed was a bulky armour that looked like a gorilla standing upright on it two hind legs. Tubes jutted out on its back while it had a similar armament to the Wrecker, a spike ball in one hand and a large tower shield in the other.

"We call this the Big Nasty," Dr. Sharon said. "It weighs an estimated fifteen to twenty tons... Too much damage to both of the samples hence we couldn't get a good estimation of its weight."

"Same weapons with the Wrecker, except for the six barreled explosive launchers on its back," Dr. Sharon said. "Armour thickness is almost twice of that of the Wrecker and we are seeing a lot more protective runes carved on it."

"Now, what we do know of these robots or Warjacks, are they are piloted by someone..." Dr. Sharon explained. "But it would appear that piloting such a behemoth would drain their vitality. As for how long it takes to burn away the vitality of a pilot, we do not know..."

"Next, physically, trying to run and power these Warjacks are close to impossible due to the weight and complex joints and other things," Dr. Sharon frowned. "But we found out that they are using Aetherium as a way to keep the machine light."

"We found hollow tubes and pipes all over the internals of the Warjacks with traces of Aetherium crystals," said Dr. Sharon. "Our hypothesis is that the steam boiler in its back works to power the clockwork like mechanisms and also to heat up the Aetherium crystals into gas which cancels the weight away. Next, using the lifeforce of the pilot and some kind of magic, it allowed the Warjack to move and fight!"

"As of now, Magister Thorn and the other mages are still trying to figure out the magic behind the Warjack," Dr. Sharon added. "What we do know is the mechanical part of it but still not fully either."

"What I am more interested in, is what is the best way to defeat it?" General Joseph raised a question from the side.

"Hit its rear," Dr. Sharon answered back. "We found that it has lesser magical protection runes and thinner armour at the rear."

"If not... hit it with massed firepower," Dr. Sharon said. "Overwhelm its shields and use armour piercing munitions to rip its armour apart."

"Without its magic barrier... it is just a walking target!"