Chapter 348 - The Mecha-Colossi Of Death

Note : Apologies for the late upload, I finished this chapter this afternoon, but a bunch of errands, including buying meds at the pharmacy, meant I forgot to set it up. Also holy crap I just realized we're like 6 chapters away from the target word count for the book, and basically less than ten chapters from the end of the novel !

Also the title is a referrenced to how the 'Giant Death Robots' are called in the French version of the Civilization games : 'Le mécacolosse de la mort'.

Chapter 348

Ytakan Scrublands, Archduchy of Rebirth

Darthar-Asaria Trade Route

The crowd advanced in grim silence, the civilians herded by grim faced soldiers, no one looking over their shoulders at the distant clouds of smoke and flashes of light, the pale morning air bringing the distant thunder of the guns as Sunrise's vanguard pressed the army hard.

Then, there was a cry, and people raised their heads. Fingers were pointed, as a group of points appeared on the horizon.

Everyone had memorized the arrival schedule. They all knew what it was. A supply convoy.

The civilians watched with rapt attention as the dots grew nearer, seemingly growing less weary the closer they came.

Finally, the airships arrived overhead, and stopped.

And so did the column.

People, civilians and soldiers alike, gathered as the transports began to land right next to them. The rumor mill had been running overtime, what with the Duke's promise of coming salvation, and the fact that Alexandra hadn't let anything slip about this shipment had only made it even more potent.

The ships were a new variant of the tried and true Freedom-class transports, built with what were effectively boarding ramps and various manners of antigravity magical systems eerily reminescent of the Corsairs' recoil compensators to allow a lot of hardware to be dropped off in a hurry.

The crowd went quiet as the ramp went down...and the Mackie stepped into the light.

For a few seconds, there was only the stomping steps of the mech, then the calm dissolved into wild cheering.

And the cheering simply stopped as the other transports dropped their ramps, and Mackies exited them.

Then, on the first transport, another Mackie stepped into the light.

And another.

And another.

And another.

From. Every. Single. Transport.

Alexandra saw people physically soil themselves as fifteen mechs exited the transports and lined up in a perfect parade ground formation, in front of the whole civilian column.

How's that for a 'grand gesture', Manson? Thought the dungeon core as she grinned.

Let's see how keen Sunrise was to press their attack against those!

*****

Captain Winters was, for one, glad to be out of the damned forest. She may not have covered herself in glory in the last engagement, where her infantry had been munched to pieces by the dungeon's armored spider tanks, and then failed to even slow down the mechanized abomination that had sprinted through her men.

Now, however, she finally had her cavalry, and mounted warfare was where she excelled. The dungeon core trying to pull off the same trick would end...poorly, to say the least.

She rode up to her forwardmost elements, currently waiting at the base of a hill, trying not to scream in frustration. They were supposed to be pursuing the enemy, not sitting on their arses!

"Captain." Said one of her officers. His salute was perfunctory, and she had to stop herself from smacking his helmet with the flat of her blade. The fucking brat would never let anyone forget he was the son of a marquise. The only reason everyone tolerated him was because he moved on a horse like he'd been born in the saddle, and for some gods forsaken reason his infuriating sense of superiority manifested itself in a patronizing protection for his men, with ample amounts of extra funding and concern for their welfare. This, in turn, meant that his people were very much aware they'd have it much worse with anyone else and transfering him would lose her one of her best cavalry wings.

"Lieutenant, report." She said, briskly, glaring dagger at him, which harmlessly bounced off of his fortress of arrogance.

"The enemy's skirmishers are in full retreat. They do not appear to be routing however, merely pulling back in good order. We have stopped the pursuit and allowed them to break contact."

Winters' eyes flashed.

"Your orders were to pursue, lieutenant."

"They were also to not sacrifice my troops in a pointless endeavors, captain." Said the officer, his own eyes flashing. "And with them dropping mines and explosives behind them I was not keen on catching the damned prey with a dying bloodhound!"

Winters stopped herself from decking the brat, before taking a deep breath.

"Very well then. The choice has been made, it is too late to change it." Besides which, he did have a point. She'd die before admitting it, but they were under orders to preserve their cavalry, so as to avoid anyone running away from the coming battle. "Let us clear the traps and-"

She whirled around, drawing her sword, as she heard the rythmic thumping, her eyes frantically darting around to search for its source. She knew that sound. That was impossible! They'd destroyed it! She'd spat upon the smoldering wreck herself! She-

She realized that the thumping wasn't as close as she had thought. Rather, it was simply louder because more armored feet were treading the ground. And a split second later, she saw a shadow rise at the crest of the hill, backlit by the sun.

Then another.

More and more menacing, towers of metal and death appeared, coming to a perfect halt in a synchronized maneuver, made to introduce one more just when you thought it would stop, until the hill was lined with the abominations.

Winters opened and closed her mouth several times, but nothing would come out. Finally, after a supreme effort of will, she forced something past her lips.

"Pull back." She turned towards the stunned lieutenant. "PULL BACK DAMN YOU! We must-"

What they must ceased mattering as the Mackies opened fire, and her cavalry unit ceased being biology and instead became physics as arcane artillery shells ripped them apart.

The mechs strode forward, and charged through the field of craters.

Straight towards the enemy army's vanguard, force marching towards their doom.

*****

The Marquis was a cautious man. Perhaps not the greatest of commanders, he was nonetheless remarkably competent, at least by Sunrise's standards, with its requirements of noble standing and complex web of military command that was as much driven by politics and nepotism as by competence.

But while caution covered a multitude of sins, it did not cover them all. The infantry spearhead, a solid phalanx of heavy pikes, backed up with an entire battalion of swordsmen and a sea of slaves to swarm on their flanks and had weight to the formation, had come to a halt as soon as the explosions were heard. Their officers were either veterans of the previous battle or had studied it in detail, and they deployed their troops into a defensive formation, ready to withstand a barrage of gunfire and counter a charge. Against the dungeon's previous tactics it would have worked amazingly well, at least compared to their previous performance.

One observing from the skies, or even from orbit with good enough sensors, could see when the formation of regulars caught sight of the Mackies. The entire sea of humanity rippled, only to bounce off of the inflexible wall of slaves. And suddenly, the soldiers realized that the slaves weren't just there to back them up, as a few that decided that discretion was the better part of valor found themselves facing pitchforks, straightened scythes and other makeshift weapons, the eyes of the slaves filled with vicious glee.

They realized that with their own officers considered unreliable, their command had found another way to make them stand and fight.

The phalanx braced, heavy shields were raised on shaking arms, relentless training overcoming their fear.

Remarkably, the gesture wasn't as futile as it seemed. Unfortunately for them Alexandra knew that and had a direct command link to the mechs. The war machines came to a halt, as whatever slaves equipped with ranged weapon peppered the mechs, and more able bowmen moved into formation in the rear.

Twelve of the Mackies opened fire. First with their howitzers, to shatter the wards, then with their ventral autocannons. Their machineguns fell silent, waiting for the heavier weaponry to carve a bloody opening through the armored phalanx.

The infantry charged. They had no other choice. The phalanx advanced with a rythmic, well coordinated lockstep, while the swordsmen followed. The slaves, on the other hand, were simply let loose, in a veritable swarm.

And the Mackies met that charge. They triggered their rocket pods as they ran, blowing a corridor clear through the pikes, allowing them to bypass the remarkably effective weapons, made to pierce armor and wards, and charged straight into the swordsmen, leaving only a trail of bodies in their wake as the machineguns began firing in every direction.

And all throughout, three of the Mackies, who looked remarkably similar from a distance, held their fire.

Surnise had a well oiled plan for responding to armored harassment by now. UDC airships descended from the skies, buzzing with Marakai wasp-like marines and dropping Jakarls heavy infantry, the only creatures big and tough enough to be able to stop a spider tank charge and pin them down for the ships.

Unfortunately for them, they weren't facing spider tanks.

And unlike other raids, the Mackies didn't start running. They stopped, and as their machineguns kept them clear of the swordsmen, not that there were many even willing to close in, they cleared their missile launchers.

The UDC ships realized what was happening and tried to change course.

They failed.

Twelve Mackies. Each fired half of their launchers, three missiles per mech, for a total of thirty six enchanted interceptors with null warheads.

The UDC's vessels didn't stand a chance. Their wards and weapons failed, and the sustained barrage even caused one, which had been dropping Jakarls, to crash onto its released payload, smashing an entire company of the creatures as the ship screamed and died, gushing blood through plates of chitin as it plowed into the ground.

The others recovered in time, and moved to withdraw.

Which was when the Mackies fired their main weapons. Howitzer shells, rockets and a spattering of autocannon rounds hammered into the ships. Armor plates were blown off, blood fell down in a thick rain, but the ships still held aloft.

Then the three last Mackies raised their weapons. Flimsy covers popped off, revealing their lack of rocket pods, missile launchers...or any other weapon the other Mackies used.

Instead, mounted on each arm and on their body, where the howitzers and ventral autocannons should have been, were twenty millimeter gatlings.

They opened fire.

And three ships fell from the skies.

Alexandra had some fascinating thoughts regarding her ammunition, magic, and industrial capabilities. With most of her military production on hold, she still had some raw material production and recycling she kept up for research purposes and stockpiling.

Raw materials like mythril, for example.

And it occurred to her that mythril wasn't just valued because of its physical properties, but also its ability to contain enchantments.

Thus, the mechs, dreamed up by CQ, fired a stream of enchanted, armor piercing discarding sabot mythril flechettes. The rounds didn't even have tracers, they glowed and left a trail of energy from the sheer volume of power packed into them.

Thirty of those rounds were fired every second. Even with Alexandra's production and new spatial ammunition storage that wasn't sustainable for long. But it didn't need to be.

The enemy ships weren't torn apart. They were cut in half.

Everyone froze for a second, Alexandra herself stunned at what she'd just done as the trio of corvettes crashed down, each sawn into pieces.

The regulars turned around, and began hacking their way through the slaves, clearly believing that they only had one chance of getting out this alive.

The slave soldiers swarmed them, and the Mackies stood in an island of mayhem and slaughter, the enemy's infantry utterly unconcerned as it destroyed itself, picking up their duel with the airships as Alexandra recovered, the ships desperately trying to dodge and return fire. It worked, after a fashion, the wild dodging preventing the same kind of concentrated fire and spreading the damage. But it wasn't enough.

Then the UDC changed tack, and the airships overloaded their engines as they dove towards the mechs.

Not a single one reached them. The Mackies' shields flickered and a few failed, taking serious hits for a few seconds as the slaves finished off the regulars and swarmed them. But not a single airship reached them.

And the mechs strode out of the smoke and thunder, out of the seething sea of slaves, going back towards Alexandra's army, leaving behind smouldering wrecks, the UDC's agile squadron of light corvettes and pocket troop transports utterly annihilated.