“I can do precision”, Drake laughs, “Let me just boost them a bit.” He flips his favorite switch in his personal Antithesis. Mechs needed a tech crew to switch equipment on their mechs, Drake disliked the time it took, so he made it so that with the flip of that switch he could switch to any piece of equipment his mech needed at a moment’s notice. 26 different configurations the mech was capable of holding, he kept about a half dozen to handle the different weapon types. The key was miniaturizing the actual equipment so that the mecha was capable of storing it all then bringing them online when he needed them. With the loud sound of his new configuration coming online his shields began blocking the enemy mechs weapons fire and his AI targeting system improved ten fold.
The blasts from his projectile weapons all focused onto a single one of the enemy mechs, striking leg joints, and weapon batteries, “Bathe that one in flame to keep that goo from doing its job!”
“Can do! You heard the man Giga, Burn those monsters to the ground!” I advise my Gigus while directing the Skriag I am in to use its two diablis nozzles and pair of mag chains. The viscosity of the healing goo changes from the heat, thickening to a jelly. There is an accompanying charred smell betraying this coagulation.
If the gate itself wasn’t in the strictest sense “on” then were these odd mechs a group that had in some way been frozen in space and time? Had this cyclopean gate been switched from on to standby mid-jump somehow? If that was so then our unintentionally waking those sleeping guardians may have somehow… well, something was going on involving harmonic vibrations from the weird metal they all seemed to be composed of and this gate was no exception. The data streams being presented to me on Claymore’s Image Stabilizer of everything active in the environment that his sensors picked up all converged to suggest this and according to my Neural Recalibrator helmet the Hawkeye Marksman in Claymore’s augmented eye was working overtime.
“Drake, the materials have vibrations, those mecha and the gate are giving off a signal!” I adjusted the vibration rate of Claymore’s charged sword-arms to a different frequency now having a much easier time slicing through the Meegs. I pushed some keys on a Betrus Processor after tuning some dials and transmitted the discovered frequency band to Drake’s Antithesis. “Try that; They are phased differently than the mountain but seem to be keyed to each other!”
Drake read the readings and had his Antithesis’s AI begin calibrating his Vadhar cannon. Once ready he open fired…”whoa!” Drake whooped as the cannon went off with fork, 3x damage, trample and one of the mechs froze. “Now that’s a good calibration! Lets get ‘em Myco!”
With two mechs destroyed and one temporarily frozen, the remaining two active mechs had a much harder time against the combined forces of Drake and Myco, especially when a squadron of Drake’s clone forces arrived firing Force Ion beam, Galaxy Eyes, and Cornerian Ion’s in a barrage. Not many struck but each one that did helped them to take down the mechs in a deadly crossfire attack.
Drake sent his clones to pull out the pilot from the frozen mech, he wanted that one intact, well as intact as they can be after he does his research on it. He was also quite pleased; with this many mechs recovering enough niode matrixes to outfit as many mechs as they wanted to take to the other side. Without a niode attuned to a gateway it effectively barred those without if from using it, so Myco and him would be the only ones to have access to wherever this gate connects to. These would be worth a fortune, but the strategic value far far outweighed that. Drake hoped that Myco would not be tempted to sell his share, then also he had to consider Patrick, maybe his invention to unattune niodes from particular gateways...it did need field testing…
“I wouldn’t exactly call that pilot you dragged out of the Meeg ‘human.’ Humanoid, maybe, but there’s enough physiological differences that I’m thinking something significantly aberrant. May want to do a gene scan on it to check for mutations. I do think those 5 scouts were stuck in limbo mid transition though, since the gate seems stable now.” I punch some instructions into the panel of wearable tech on my forearm, keying in Quanta, my Nakshi… Nakshi are believed to contain Niode Matrices that approximate the configuration of a miniature Niode Gate, allowing them to be one of the few mecha capable of independently warping without aid of a gate.
“Do you like it Drake? It's a new piece of equipment of my own devising. You can call a uniquely keyed signal shared only by the device and a mecha containing the receiver to warp it toward you over a certain distance.” I shrug dismissively “however, so far it only seems to work with Nakshi; basically just mecha that have their own internal gates.” Claymore and Giga Rex find their sister to be welcome company, her powerful cyborg brain already assessing multiple variables as soon as she has gotten her bearings. I request some of Drake’s clone workers to stick an injection of the mecha scaled version of the antitoxin Drake and I had developed in Quanta to immunize her from the pheremonal nerve agents produced by the eldritch mecha.
Drake tells his clones to take his “prizes” through a gate to one of his secure facilities and leave one of the dead ones for him to examine here post mortem. Three dead, one live to research and a whole mech along with one destroyed, he let Myco keep the other three trashed mecha, but split the niodes equally as always. So very much to do.
My mind is buzzing with the start of possible ideas of things I can do with the metal these strange mecha are built from, and wondering about the kinds of subsystems which they’d employed. Even broken down, the wrecks contain enough exotic technology for reverse engineering to keep my workshop and Drake’s labs busy for some time.
“Once we integrate a niode into each of the mechs going with us, we can commence with the exploration.” Drake grins, “I suggest that you arm your mechs to the teeth, if these “travelers” are any indication I suspect we will face harsh resistance. I think I’ll also program a few more formations for my Antithesis before we head out.. let’s see a high dodge, max shields, high freeze percentage, ah why not… massive damage, maybe a higher fork percentage… Hey Myco any other suggestions for mech formations my Antithesis should have pre-programmed before we head out?”
“Hmm, well, according to my beast mecha and their playbacks of our encounter, anything with either burn to counter the auto-repairing or freeze with slow to render those mecha’s agility moot could be helpful.”
“Oh and remind me to set you up with a similar system, it’s a pain waiting for mechanics to install the equipment you need especially mid battle. Much simpler to click a button and have the correct ones come online when you need them to.”
“You have them warp to inside Drake or are the equipment packs miniaturized? Thanks for the offer but don’t bother right now; the way I already kit out my mecha tends to always be with multiple environments in mind.” I shrug though wondering if Quanta might benefit from such a system. “Wouldn’t mind analyzing your internal automated equipment swapper when I get a chance though.” I count on that there will definitely be more eldritch mecha on the other side of the gate, possibly many more and so we’d probably need some back up. “Drake, my three beast mecha and your Antithesis, plus maybe two of your most trusted clone soldiers for backup… and Patrick with his Jadoon; I think the seven of us could handle anything these living relics can throw our way.” I patch Drake over a password to a comm channel. “That’s to talk to Quanta… I told her she’d be lending primary support to you and me. She’s a clever gal, with both an organic brain and an AI overmind.”
“I miniaturized most of the systems, took me forever to get them to produce the same output as a full grown system, but it helps that carbon fibers and nanotechnology are strong suits of mine, plus a few things I came up with that I’ve kept to myself.” Drake pauses takes a sip of tea that one of his clones brings him, “Yes, Mad Moe and Fake Phil would be the two best clone pilots I have… though what mechs to have them bring?....” A mischievous grin crosses his face, “Kai has two Aspis sitting at the roaming base while he’s out dealing with some clan business or sumsuch.. I doubt he would mind if I “borrow” them never hurts to have two more powerful mechs at our disposal, correct?” Drake enters the password into the partitioned part of his data pad, “scan please” he asks his AI. “No harmful programs, safe to open.”
My jaw briefly drops. Well, if there’s one thing Drake is exceptionally good at that is engineering of things. Add miniaturization to the list of feats he has accomplished. Right, to business. “Sure, why not. They can lase their way through if the going gets tough… like a machete, to swathe a path, right?”
“Correct. And their defenses are not too shabby either.”
Quanta transmits a greeting onto Drake’s data pad: “Hello master Drake, how may I best serve you and master Myco?”
“That ought to let you remotely guide her via your pad without needing a full interface… mind ya, the OS is called e-Lizaβ, if you remember that time I asked you about people uploading their consciousness into a machine… well, she was at least partly modeled after a dying friend I used to know. Prior to the Nakshi’s brain merging with the AI through cybernetics.”
“I’m still here master Myco.” An image of a blonde-haired waif opened at one corner of the screen to Drake’s Pad (it matches the voice)… before morphing itself into a caricatured animation of the Nakshi’s face which finished the sentence. “Will we get to destroy things master Drake?” Quanta’s fuschia eyes light up as the question is asked.
“Yes...we will indeed be about the business of destruction… and science.” Drake smiles
“So how long before Patrick arrives? I’m eager to go through.”
“Well Drake ol’ chum, said he was on a convoy, should be here soon… when we were looking for him off world he was still briefing his Jadoon. Those bugs are pretty smart, and they’ve got a combination of hard-light lances and acid throwing fire weapons. Think we should probably go ahead and calibrate those Eldritch niodes while we wait…”
I unpack a crate some of Drake’s clone laborers had brought over from the camp on my request that had been delivered along with Claymore in the Exiles transport and explain it away to Drake amid his quizzical expression “Speaking of, wonder when exactly Patrick will be touching down? Might have landed on the far side of the ridge; prolly take him and Apocalyptor awhile to reach us. Anyway, yeah… oh that? New type of quantum encryption transmitter… took one of your classic designs and improved on it by having some people fix the old leakage problem… using it for seamless wireless communication between pilot and beast mecha, works out pretty well once you key everything in, just pop it in as a module on helmet, or as a little peripheral module for your datapad. I’ve already got it set up for Quanta… she helped guinea pig it for me.” I smile “Plug and Play Drake, it’s way easier than having to hardwire this stuff, lemme tell ya.”
My third beast mecha grunts in acknowledgement and the small avatar briefly sighs on Drake’s datapad as I toss him the keychain sized communications device. What I didn’t explain to Drake is by people, I mean Patrick’s Jadoon was one of the “persons” who helped me improve the design of his transmitter which used unique spin states of electrons in a chunk of matter to encrypt signals… making it exceptionally difficult to trace or code crack. You see, Jadoon are interesting in that they have senses to detect types of energy which they can feed on. They’ve got a crystalline inorganic system of tissues composing their bodies so the energy metabolism involves a great deal of ionic reactions… there are some covalent bonds but not all of them are carbon to carbon. Fascinating really but the important thing is they’re sort of a living insectoid robot, except they grow instead of being built, have got a caste system and the majority are both hunters and engineers. Nobody knows if the Jadoon were originally fabricated by a superior race or naturally occurring but they totally disprove the notion of someone or thing being ‘dumb as an insect.’
A small picture of Patrick and similarly caricatured avatar of Apocalyptor’s head pop up in the corner of my wrist panel. “You guys ready? Drake and I are kitted out, so hope you two are prepared to explore. We're probably the first travelers to cross this particular gate in several thousand years, easily.”
“Million my friend, million…” Drake rubs his hands together, “Lets see what’s out there.” Drake sends Mad Moe and Fake Phil through before the rest of them to secure the other side.
There is a hum emitted from the gate and a glow across the threshold of the portal which is not unlike that of cherenkov radiation as the two Aspis go through ahead of them.
Submitted by Mycobacter#712744 & Drake Novum Scientist#706289