The Mech Touch

The armageddon that erupted in downtown Veoline did not stay confined to the immediate area.

Uranus was too big, too tall and too powerful for its attacks to stay limited.

In fact, it suffered from the same problem that plagued every mech and biomech.

Normal mechs were much bigger and taller than infantrymen. Compared to tanks, their combination of destructive power, resistance against damage and ability to traverse a diverse set of terrains resulted in war machines that could easily lay waste to entire cities if left unrestrained.

Of course, no mech pilot was ever crazy enough to go out of control like that. Other mech pilots did not take kindly to such indiscriminate behavior. The consequences of deliberately killing a huge amount of civilians with mechs were so dire that every mech pilot learned how to exercise some restraint.

However, mechs couldn't shackle themselves too heavily. They were designed and equipped to wield massive, powerful weapons in order to fight against other mechs that were armed with similar weapons.

If one side went too far with restricting the use of its weapons, then the other side would most certainly gain the upper hand as long as it didn't follow suit!

Therefore, in order to allow mechs to retain their usefulness, mech pilots learned to fight according to a specific set of rules that explained how much force they were able to bring to bear in many different scenarios.

The rules of engagement differed from state to state, star sector to star sector and so on. Yet they were almost identical in most areas because those were the standards that the MTA heavily encouraged everyone to adopt.

Those that diverged from the Association's recommendations rarely found their actions to be worth it. Since the MTA was one of the only sources of life-prolonging treatment serum, rulers rarely wanted to get on the bad side of this powerful organization.

Through the constant efforts of the mechers, the widespread adoption of mechs in the current age was a grand success. Humanity still waged war among itself, but the level of destruction they exhibited was but a fraction from what happened before.

While the smaller and more limited destructive potential of mechs limited how much damage they could inflict onto an environment, the restraint exhibited by mech pilots also deserved a lot of credit.

Yet what if a new war machine came along that broke these conventions that allowed humanity to flourish again during the Age of Mechs?

Uranus was far bigger than a typical mech. Its ability to inflict collateral damage was so high that no amount of restraint could prevent it from ruining large parts of a city.

What was worse was that its controlling consciousness did not even bother to spare the innocent from its devastating area attacks.

This meant that Uranus effectively became a walking apocalypse. The immediate area around this titanic monster was already ruined beyond recognition. The areas further ahead might have a higher chance of making it out unscathed, but the monster's energy beams were so far-reaching that no area in view was safe!

"Aramaggedon has come!"

"Forget about everything. Just run! Our homes are already doomed!"

"If even expert pilots can't defeat it, nothing can!"

The losses suffered by the military was horrendous. The expert pilots that had bravely attempted to confront Uranus directly had all flamed out along with their expert mechs without even getting the chance to show their full might.

The difference in scale led to an insurmountable difference in power. Even though Uranus did not exhibit the qualities of an expert mech, it was nonetheless able to defeat these powerful machines with ease due to the abundance of power conveyed by its prodigious size.

The expert pilots had all died unjustly due to this simple reason!

That wasn't all. Now that Uranus recognized the threat from the skies, it turned its massive eyes upwards and began to scan every attack source that were floating in orbit thousands of kilometers away.

Then, the biotitan lifted its infamous arm cannon once again.

This time, it did something differently. Instead of firing a single overpowering energy beam, it unleashed dozens of smaller beams that slightly angled away from each other.

Though half of them missed their targets, plenty more managed to slam into spaceborn mechs that were never suspected to be attacked from the surface of a planet in such a fashion!

Though the firepower of the smaller beams was diluted, the attacks still possessed plenty of power to burn through the frames of every mech and biomech, particularly when they lacked adequate defenses!

As for the spaceborn mechs that happened to dodge or move away fast enough to stay safe, they did not last much longer as the individual energy beams raced across the skies and tracked the biomechs that the juggernaut had initially missed!

Uranus roared again and again as it continually unleashed bright beams of energy through the clouds and beyond the atmosphere of Prosperous Hill VI. The lack of cover in space became a deadly disadvantage as the biojuggernaut's sensor, targeting and firing systems were so good that no mech in orbit was able to escape destruction!

Those that tried to hide beyond space stations, starships and artificial satellites only provoked more destruction from Uranus. With the destruction of these massive orbital biovessels and bioconstructs, the skies soon began to light up as numerous chunks of massive debris was about to descend all across the surface of the suffering planet.

"Fly faster! Dump all excess cargo and overload the engines if you have to! Just get out of here as fast as you can!"

Though the Larkinson airfleet was already a fair distance away from downtown Veoline, Ves and his subordinates did not tarry.

Their airfleet consisted of an eclectic collection of aerial biomechs and flight-capable biovessels of different shapes and classes.

Some were relatively modest bioshuttles that could only carry up to twenty passengers if they all squeezed tight against each other.

Other vessels were larger transports with enough internal volume to carry five or so biomechs in their cargo bays.

Yet because the entire airfleet was composed of a random collection of vehicles brought by refugees or salvaged from the immediate environment, their properties diverged enormously.

Speed was never the greatest priority of the airfleet, but now Ves was growing increasingly more frustrated at their lack of progress.

The transport he was on shook a bit after a hefty chunk of debris from a ruined space station descended from the sky in flaming fury and collided onto a nearby city district with the force of a tactical nuclear weapon!

The shockwaves unleashed by this destructive collision not only ruined the entire rural district, but also buffeted the airfleet with a powerful gust. Some biovessels even collided against each other!

"Goddammit!" Ves cursed as he slammed his armored fist against the surface of the central command table. "Abandon every vessel that is lagging behind!"

"Pardon, sir?!"

"Just do what I say! Evacuate every vehicle that is dragging down the pace of our flight. Don't fuss about the cargo we are leaving behind. Those materials are worth nothing compared to our lives and the continued existence of the rest of our airfleet! I bet that after this incident passes, the LRA won't be able to justify its blockade anymore, so we will definitely be rescued soon. However, all of that assumes we are able to survive this immediate disaster, so get to work!"

The airfleet had lost most of its meaning now that Uranus had upended the game on this planet. Ves was even willing to abandon all of the biomechs he managed to gather if that would help his airfleet move faster.

"What is our destination, sir?"

"I don't care! Just take us as far from this giant thing as you can! Don't stop flying until we have reached the antipode of the rogue juggernaut's coordinates!"

No place on this hellish planet was truly safe now that Uranus started shooting down space stations and space platforms from orbit, but that didn't mean it was pointless to flee.

As long as they remained within a direct line of fire to the tall humanoid's energy cannons, the airfleet would always be at risk of getting wiped out from existence at any time!

The safest place on this planet was the exact opposite side of the globe they were on. In fact, as long as they traveled far away enough for Uranus to be unable to maintain a line of sight to the airfleet, then the Larkinsons would already escape the immediate danger zone.

After Ves issued his emergency orders, the desperate clansmen did not delay too much. Many of them used to be Lifers who recently escaped other disasters, so they knew quite well how important it was to let go of everything that slowed them down.

The Larkinsons ruthlessly abandoned hundreds of different biovessels. They also dumped a lot of cargo from the vessels they deemed fast enough to keep. This not only lightened their mass and increased their speed, but also freed enough room to house the crew and passengers of the abandoned vessels.

Though this entire process had to take place in midair in order for the airfleet to keep running away, the Larkinsons exhibited plenty of competence this time. No disasters took place and no clansmen fell overboard during the chaotic transfer process.

"Sir! The juggernaut is flying!"

"What?!"

Ves turned back to a projection that showed a direct feed of Uranus in action. The jamming across the planet had subsided some time after the juggernaut emerged. This not only restored some communication networks, but also allowed most people on the planet to patch into the many feeds that broadcast the ongoing disaster.

Despite its immense size and mass, the biojuggernaut was no longer content to remain on land for some reason. After firing a lot of energy beams and supplementing its consumption by digging up large biomachines from the surroundings, the monstrous titan evidently decided that the planet no longer had anything to offer.

After activating a specific command, Uranus began to grow a massive bony flight system from its back!

Like a demented angel growing wings, the god-like bioconstruct showed that it maker integrated yet another ability to its immense frame.

"Is it…?"

Through a combination of internal antigrav modules and upwards thrust from its massive flight system, the biojuggernaut did something that many people thought was impossible for a construct of its size.

It slowly ascended into the air!

Though the amount of energy and thrust power required to lift a skyscraper-sized mech was mind-boggling, the Supreme Sage did not incorporate so much high technology and expensive resources into its growth for nothing.

Uranus flew higher and higher!

First, its oversized feet reached fifty meters above the ground.

Then, the biotitan reached 100 meters above the ground.

When it started to reach a kilometer into the air, its ascent slowly accelerated as the biojuggernaut's powerful flight system slowly gained power even as the force of gravity acting upon its half-kilometer long body started to grow a little less severe.

The beginning of the liftoff was always the hardest for any vessel that wished to escape the gravity well of a planet.

The fact that Uranus had already succeeded up until now showed that it was very viable for it to reach open space!

"Is it… escaping from this planet?"

"Don't tell me it has an FTL drive! Damn, I bet it has! Unlike an ordinary mech that needs phasewater in order to gain FTL capability, this biojuggernaut is so immense that it could easily fit a cruiser-grade FTL drive inside its stomach!"

"Hahahahaha! Behold, you fools! This is the power of science! No one can surpass the greatest invention that our state has ever created! Embrace its might and worship its perfection, for you are witnessing the ascension of our new god!"

What would happen if Uranus entered deep space and fled from this star system?

Nothing good, probably! A rogue god-like biotitan that was driven by a primal, violent consciousness had the potential to be an enormously powerful space marauder!

"We have to stop it before it can get away!"

"How?! Much of our military assets are gone. Even if reinforcements make it back in time, they stand no chance against this terror!"

Will the LRA be able to stop Uranus from getting away? No one knew for sure, but everyone began to fear the worst. As long as this rogue biojuggernaut escaped the star system, the chances of catching it and defeating it would surely go down!