The Mech Touch

While the Carmine Revolutionaries and the Guardians of Peace began to clash against each other at an increasing frequency, the truth was that their scale of conflict was still relatively contained.

Most fights involving Auto Heretics were actually conflicts that pitted one group of Carmine mech pilots against another group of Carmine mech pilots!

The Big Two's fears towards the potential damage and chaos caused by the uncontrolled proliferation of Auto Heretic mechs were not unfounded.

Many of their predictions came true!

On a rural third-class planet in the galactic rim, a conflict had broken out between two rivaling companies.

Both of them maintained a range of commercial interests on the surface, ranging from banking services to groceries.

Herzog Kadan was an old and established tyrant. The company was founded on the planet and managed to gain dominance over multiple sectors due to its explicitly local focus.

By prioritizing the hiring of local employees and constantly emphasizing the pride that customers gained by actively supporting their planetary champion, Herzog Kadan had long been able to repel off-world competitors that sought to chip away at its market share.

However, all of that changed over twenty years ago when Macky Incorporated arrived and exploded onto the scene.

Different from other off-world competitors, Macky Incorporated was founded by a group of entrepreneurs who originated from the planet but moved to more developed star systems in order to receive more advanced education.

Now, a bunch of these young but successful graduates had decided to team up and return to their home planet in order to introduce the local population to more advanced and modern goods and services!

Relying on the identity of the founders, Macky Incorporated managed to overcome the typical xenophobia that local consumers expressed towards foreign companies.

Even though Macky Incorporated still employed a large proportion of foreign workers, their superior education and qualifications elevated the fresh new company and enabled them to win over a customer base that was tired of the lack of competitiveness of the Herzog Kadan.

Naturally, both companies soon began to generate friction. Even if the profits that could be earned from a rural planet was only a fraction of that on an industrial planet, the latter typically featured a lot more competition!

As long as Macky Incorporated could successfully diminish Herzog Kadan, the former would be able to earn a steady stream of profits for multiple generations!

Unfortunately, Macky Incorporated failed to make enough progress in their plan to conquer the local markets.

While the upstart company managed to gain superiority in certain sectors, it lost out in other sectors!

In the end, Herzog Kadan's home ground advantage proved to be too strong to overcome in a short amount of time.

Due to the intense and growing rivalry between the two companies, there were times when they came to blows against each other.

Incidents ranging from escort forces bumping into each other and covert raids onto facilities took place from time to time.

As mechs clashed against each other, the damage they inflicted on each other and their surroundings was considerable.

Transportation vehicles, factories and even public infrastructure suffered from the constant fighting.

While the planetary government was fairly weak, its leaders had managed to negotiate a secret agreement between the two sides.

It was impossible to prevent either companies from ceasing to resort to violence. It was an inherent part of the arsenal of any firm with ambitions.

However, both sides at least agreed that it would be better if they limited the scope of engagements in more populated areas.

They also agreed to limit the quantity of mechs and other military hardware used in an engagement.

If they kept bringing more mechs to a fight, the cost of engagements would continue to escalate to unsustainable levels.

There was no way both companies would be able to remain profitable after diverting so much income to violent activities!

Years passed by in relative peace and stability.

Neither Herzog Kadan nor Macky Incorporated were stupid enough to assume that his gentleman's agreement would last forever.

Both sides secretly prepared for the big fight that could cripple one of the sides and cause their business war to decide a victor.

It just so happened that the time had finally come!

Macky Incorporated surprised everyone on the planet by launching an all-out attack on Herzog Kadan's headquarters, main manufacturing complexes and other strategic sites! RÁƝƟBЕs̈

Though the defenses of those sites were not light, they already incurred significant damage due to the surprise factor.

What surprised Herzog Kadan was that Macky Incorporated not only employed all of the hidden reserve units that it had built up over the years, but also hired a mercenary outfit that arrived from afar and immediately began its operations upon landfall!

Herzog Kadan may have anticipated the former, but had not been able to plan for the latter!

The cost of hiring mercenaries for this kind of raiding operation was high due to the risks and the potential to suffer significant losses. Macky Incorporated definitely had to go deeper into debt to afford all of the expenses.

It would all be worth it so long as Macky Incorporated won this war!

What was even more remarkable was that Macky Incorporated also fielded a dozen or so of the newfangled Auto Heretic Version C's!

While the third-class version of the infamous Carmine mech was by far the weakest one, that didn't matter to the third-raters who couldn't afford anything better.

Since the Auto Heretic Version C was designed to be affordable to third-raters, Macky Incorporated could still squeeze out the budget to purchase a batch of them from the rapidly growing grey market.

One of the benefits of deploying Auto Heretics was that practically anyone could pilot them and immediately become combat effective.

There was no need to hire skilled mech pilots that were typically expensive to hire and troublesome to keep happy. The good ones knew how much they were worth, and typically charged quite a sum for jobs that required them to initiate hostilities against

Other parties.

In contrast, norms would be happy to pilot a Carmine mech for free!

Since Auto Heretics were High Autonomy Living Mechs, there was no need for norms to train their piloting and combat skills over a long period of time.

As long as they could follow orders and possess enough battle sense to know what they were doing on the battlefield, the Carmine mech pilots could still make contributions. Most of the burden of piloting the mech frame could be passed on to the living mech itself. Even though the skill and precision of the autonomous machines was anything but remarkable, it was at least serviceable!

The appearance of Auto Heretics on the side of Macky Incorporated did not shake the battle all that much.

The norms may be enthused about 'piloting' their HALMs, but not all of them possessed the guts to confront genuine mechs controlled by professional mech pilots.

For this reason, the modular Carmine mechs mostly assumed ranged loadouts, allowing the machines to take potshots at enemy positions from afar.

So long as they weren't careless enough to fire their weapons onto the backs of friendly mechs, they could still add a bit more pressure to the fight!

Yet when the counterattack from Herzog Kadan commenced, the leaders and soldiers of Macky Incorporated were taken completely by surprise!

That was because Herzog Kadan not only deployed the modest amount of mechs they still held in reserve, but also sent out over 200 copies of the Auto Heretic!

"How could they have acquired so many Auto Heretics?!"

Macky Incorporated clearly made a major intelligence blunder as it had failed to detect the clues related to Herzog Kadan's secret buildup of Carmine mechs! Given how many Auto Heretic Version C's the old tyrant deployed at once, it was clear that the company had been planning to take Macky Incorporated by surprise!

It was a pity that this plan fell through when their archrival commenced its attack first,

But Herzog Kadan still saw an opportunity to turn the ongoing battle around!

The conflict took place at night when there was less chance of causing civilian

Casualties.

The lack of light did not bother the mechs too much as each of them were able to observe their opponents well enough by employing their sensor suites.

Even so, the complete lack of real combat experience from all of the Carmine mech pilots led to a lot of messy situations!

Whenever a Carmine mech confronted a conventional mech, the latter won out at least.

9 out of 10 times due to the huge disparity in skills, tactics and decision-making. This disparity became even worse when the numbers on both sides increased. Although Herzog Kadan made sure to pair their new Auto Heretics with amateur players of virtual mech simulation games in order to make sure they understood the fundamentals of mech combat, real combat was much scarier!

The realization that they could die or at least lose their qualifications to pilot their bonded mech forever caused them to exhibit a lot of fear and hesitation at first.

"What are you dallying around for?! Remember who gave you those mechs and what we are fighting for! Are you going to let these off-worlders take over our planet and drain the wealth from our economy? Besides, Herzog Kadan goes down, you and your newfangled Auto Heretics will go down as well! Fight! Fight for your home planet! Fight

For your right to pilot a mech!"

With that encouragement, the inexperienced Carmine mech pilots quickly got their act together and started to fight more vigorously.

After initially getting their butts kicked by the much more experienced and disciplined mercenaries and retainers of Macky Incorporated, the Carmine mech pilots of Herzog Kadan soon discovered the correct approaches.

One tactic that worked was to accompany a bunch of conventional mechs piloted by

Professionals who knew what they were doing.

The latter not only provided direction and leadership to the Carmine mech pilots, but also took away the pressure from the most dangerous enemy units.

Another tactic that proved useful was to simply rely on their numbers to heavily

Outnumber the enemy troops!

One of the consequences to Macky Incorporated's blitz attack was that it had to spread its combat assets across multiple different locations. Even the addition of a mercenary

Force did not alleviate this problem all that much.

This meant that before the mechs of Macky Incorporated could converge again, Herzog Kadan was able to outnumber some of the isolated enemy troops with its Auto Heretics! If the numbers on both sides were equal, then the Carmine mechs would definitely suffer a horrendous loss. This was not just due to their inferior mech pilots, but also due to their weak and outdated tech and materials. However, the Auto Heretic was never designed to fight in equal numbers against the

Enemy.

Herzog Kadan discovered this first-hand as their Carmine mechs easily began to overrun troops of conventional mechs by relying on their vastly greater numbers!

For example, a swordsman mech piloted by a skilled mech officer got mobbed by 5 Auto

Heretics attacking from different directions.

While the swordsman mech managed to hack down two of the annoying Carmine mechs in quick succession by relying on his superior weapon skills and clever maneuvering, it was unable to fend off the repeated strikes coming from behind and the flanks!

The mech went down just after the mech pilot decisively chose to eject his cockpit!

"This is a travesty! How can I get beaten by a handful of amateurs who rely on their Als to fight?! Fight me fairly next time if you dare!"

"Hah! Fat chance! We're not stupid enough to accept your challenge, mercenary! If you want a rematch, then you are welcome to fight 10 of us next time!" Compared to the professional mech pilots who took honor and discipline seriously, the

Carmine mech pilots distinctly lacked these qualities!

From their perspective, there was nothing wrong with relying on their HALMs to do

Most of the fighting and ganging up on outnumbered enemy mech units! "We can win this battle if we keep going! Let us eliminate as many of these raiding forces while they are still spread across the planet!"

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