The Mech Touch

Once he got his morning routines out of the way, he decided to follow up Master Willix's advice and view some heavy mechs up close.

His first choice was to observe one of the few heavy mechs he was familiar with. He boarded a shuttle that brought him to the Princely Jackal. Aside from bringing Lucky, he also invited Zanthar Larkinson to look at some big mechs.

The adolescent student eagerly accepted the offer, not that he had any choice. Ves would have dragged him in the shuttle by the collar if he refused. Developing unhealthy fascination for illegal superweapons was a very quick way to get on the bad side of the Big Two!

Once the shuttle arrived at the Princely Jackal's hangar bay, Commander Rosa Orfan-Larkinson greeted him with a lazy wave.

"Hey kid. So what brings you here today?"

"I'm not here for an inspection or anything. Nor am I here to discuss official business. I just want to take a good look at the Akkara heavy mechs assigned to this ship. I always respected Professor Velten as a Senior Mech Designer. She gave me some very valuable advice and taught me how to manage design projects. It is only proper for me to study a portion of her legacy. Right now, I'm designing my own heavy artillery mech, so I'm hoping to acquire some useful insights."

"Huh." Commander Orfan's face lost some of its joviality. "The old professor was one of the bedrocks of our mech regiment back in the old days. She deserved more."

"She deserved more." Ves echoed. "At least she lived a long and peaceful life."

Professor Velten was already more than 150 years old, but her lifespan had already reached its limit when Ves had been drafted by the Mech Corps. A botched life-prolonging treatment operation supposedly led to her deteriorating health and mental state.

Though she lived longer and made far more accomplishments than ordinary Brighters, Ves found her fate to be very tragic. She even lost one of her Journeymen who was supposed to continue her research after her passing.

Ves learned a lot of lessons from her. He not only learned to value his time, but also cherish his opportunities. When he grew older, he did not want to regret the mistakes he made when he was young!

The small group crossed the hangar bay headed to the adjacent mech stables where dozens of mechs were safely secured. They stopped in front of the machines that Ves wanted to visit in person.

Technically, the Akkara was a heavy cannoneer mech. This became evident due to the myriad of rapid-fire laser and heavier ballistic cannons mounted to its quadruped frame.

The formidable mech featured no flight system to speak of, but its appearance lent itself well for both landbound operations and use in space as a bunker mech.

Not everyone understood the difference between an artillery mech and a cannoneer mech. To be honest, the differences were rather nuanced, mostly because the pioneers of mech design applied their own labels to similar concepts.

In short, a typical artillery mech excelled at outputting damage at medium but especially long range. Their armament could range from anything, but their firepower was always very strong.

Landbound artillery mechs were typically capable of attacking targets outside of line of sight, mostly by lobbing shells over tall structures and other obstacles.

They were very vulnerable at closer ranges and possessed virtually no defense against melee mechs. They possessed slow to average mobility but their inadequate armor despite their heavy frames were not designed to resist sustained attacks.

A cannoneer mech played a different role on the battlefield. They were capable machines in both long and medium ranges and mostly wielded large-caliber weapons that were attacked by line-of-sight.

This mech type was more suited to heated battles as they possessed slightly more armor and mobility, allowing them to perform at least some viable maneuvers on the battlefield.

That did not mean it was a good idea to allow them to soak up enemy fire. Cannoneer mechs were also poor in melee combat as their strong but unwieldy limbs simply couldn't move fast enough.

In any case, whether the Akkara model of the Flagrant Vandals fell under the definition of artillery mech or cannoneer mech was not important to Ves. What truly mattered was that the Cat's Paw fulfilled the same role as the Akkara. Mostly.

"What a big mech." Zanthar exclaimed as he looked straight up at the large and imposing mech.

"That's the point."

The mass of the Akkara was around four times greater than a typical medium mech. Its expanded height and girth significantly expanded the big mech's capacity, allowing it to mount over dozen different weapons.

Ves briefly immersed himself in his memories. He had seen Akkaras mechs in action during plenty of battles between the Flagrant Vandals and whatever enemy stood in their way. Vesians and pirates all suffered dearly against these heavy cannoneer mechs.

Thick plates of armor protected the mech against retaliation. Since the budget of the Akkara was very generous, Professor Velten was able to make her Akkaras withstand quite a lot of damage against its typical foes. This was no glass cannon that fell apart after suffering a few hits!

When Ves looked at the dormant Akkara, he tried his best not to focus too much on the details. Instead, he viewed the impressive machine from a holistic perspective and tried to see if he could perceive what Master Willix hinted at during their previous consultation session.

He developed various thoughts, some of which he felt were useless. Only a few stray thoughts merited more attention from him, but the problem was that these idle ideas usually led to dead ends.

Even though Ves was in the process of designing his first heavy mech in the form of the Cat's Paw, he felt as if he came no closer to understanding the essence of heavy mechs.

Maybe other people could point him in the right direction.

"What do you think about this Akkara, Zanthar?"

"It's big."

"You already told me that. This is the most obvious aspect about this mech. Now what else is there?"

"It has four legs."

"Yes, it's a quadruped mech. Thank you for that, Captain Obvious."

Commander Orfan stifled a laugh. She wasn't very good at it. "Hahahaha! He's just a squirt, kid. What does he know about heavy mechs?"

"Hey! I'm a future mech designer, lady!"

Ves swatted Zanthar's face. "Watch your tone! She might not sound very formal, but she is the respected commander of the Flagrant Vandals."

"I don't care." Orfan.

"I'm trying to raise him into a proper and respectable mech designer, commander. I don't expect you to help, but at least don't make it worse."

"What's so bad about this squirt? He looks kind of cute!"

Ves loudly coughed. "Let's get back to the Akkara mech, please. Zanthar, your thoughts?"

"Well.." The adolescent trailed for a moment. "I've seen a lot of medium mechs and plenty of light mechs. All of those mechs are at least somewhat maneuverable. I think one of the reasons why mercenary corps like to use mobile mechs a lot is because they never want to fight to the death. Once a battle goes against their way, they want to run away as quickly as possible, and lugging around a heavy mech is just a big mistake in those situations! Oh, smaller mechs are cheaper as well, so that's also a big advantage!"

Ves and Commander Orfan shared a bemused glance with each other.

They found the remark amusing not because it sounded ridiculous, but because Zanthar's argument was both right and ridiculous!

The Vandal Commander actually looked thoughtful this time. "I think the greater point of this fellow is right. I fought in many battles where moving quickly and being in the right place at the right time was crucial. Battles between mechs is one big maneuvering game where you try to position your mechs to the greatest advantage while the enemy is doing the same. It's a mistake to think you can simply win every battle by investing loads of money into fielding a force that consists entirely of heavy mechs."

Heavy mechs possessed their own distinctive weaknesses. At the very least, their slow mobility made them vulnerable to either massed bombardment or committed melee assaults.

"How did you and your fellow Vandal officers work with the limitations of the Akkaras?" Ves asked.

"The Akkaras are strong, but they aren't the right solution in every situation. We try to use them as the core of our defensive posture. When an enemy attacks us, we try to lure their mechs into the killzone of our prepared Akkaras. When we do the attacking, we don't overtake our Akkaras but instead match their pace when there is no need for haste."

"Time." Ves suddenly felt he grasped something. "The situations you mentioned are times where the Vandals didn't need to hurry. They traded time for greater opportunities, and they did so in order to leverage the strengths of the Akkara mechs!"

Heavy mechs were so slow and cumbersome that they rarely took part in any offensive maneuvers. That limited their usefulness as the enemy wasn't obliged to run in front of their guns to get blasted!

What the Flagrant Vandals attempted was to invest time and effort into putting the Akkaras into situations when they were useful.

From luring enemies into the range of the Akkara mechs to slowly pushing them forward so they could bombard enemy formations and defenses, all of these scenarios demanded patience and planning.

Heavy mechs possessed awesome power, but their critical flaw limited their applicability. Those who owned them and fielded them in battle had to learn how to work around their known weaknesses in order to fully express their great advantages.

He formed his first important insight. "Heavy mechs are sort of extreme versions to their medium counterparts. They are specialized to a much greater degree than regular mechs, which means that they impose much higher requirements on the command ability of the people in charge. This is also why they are largely limited to the military or large-scale organizations, as only they are able to hire or nurture competent commanding officers."

"It's kind of like they are fixed in place somewhat. You can't easily move them around." Zanthar remarked.

"The squirt is right. That's how we Vandals usually treat our Akkara mechs. We don't try to move them if it's not urgently required. We treat them similar to stationary defenses that are just easier to install and remove than actual turrets and defense platforms. You could say that they are a hybrid between medium mechs and stationary defenses."

Ves widened his eyes when he heard that. Commander Orfan's words caused him to view heavy mechs from yet another perspective!

Viewing them as fixed defenses that just happened to move a bit from time to time caused him to develop a different standard towards them. The mobility of most heavy mechs were weak because they truly didn't need more. Heavy mech designers consciously sacrificed mobility in order to reach greater extremes in offense or defense!

When mech designers pursued this principle far enough, the products they make eventually acquire many of the traits that define fixed defenses.

Was this a good or bad development? No one could say for sure, but so far, heavy mechs designed according to this principle were viable, otherwise so many mech militaries wouldn't have fielded them in battle!

When Ves looked up again at the Akkara with this new lens, his impression of it had changed. He no longer focused purely on its firepower or its individual might. Instead, he saw the mech as a single piece of a greater puzzle.

This was a result of his third insight!

Heavy mechs normally weren't suited to be deployed by themselves. They needed to work together with medium mechs and light mechs in order to leverage their strengths!