I could tell why having very good reflexes was vital for any mech pilot. While a neural interface would probably help smooth out a lot of issues, there probably was always going to be a slight disconnect or lag between one's input and the mech's output. I don't think that you could ever be perfectly synchronized between brain or machine, unless you were a converted full digital mind like an NHP.
Which was a massive big no-no for humans from the First Contact Accords, so yeah. Lancers were probably the closest to ever being between one being both flesh and machine. As one demonstrated with me right now.
Despite her claims of being out of practice with the Sherman chassis, Erica was still ridiculously attuned with it. There was a speed trial that featured seeing how fast you could push your machine with both legs and boosters, and I'd honestly thought I set a fairly respectable time with it despite my inexperience. Here I was, thinking with slight enthusiasm that maybe I could be a career mech pilot too.
Then Erica had her go and made my run look like the real amateur it was. Maybe she cheated a bit by apparently overheating her machine in the process, but any good pilot should know also how to push their machine so. Or that was at least the hasty explanation given by Rowles to the rolling cameras about why a megacorp mercenary was outdoing both the Premier-General and the head of the army in her own Everest too.
I think she was shooting dirty looks at Erica after that, when Rowles thought nobody was looking. But well, it just made the difference between regular pilots and aces very clear. The discrepancy only grew as we moved onto other activities and found ourselves lagging badly behind the Lancer. Specifically that involving the live fire range.
It was an interesting sensation to load in a fresh box of rounds into my Chomolungma's assault rifle and rack the charging handle. The experience wasn't so different from loading an actual personal firearm, though I'll confess that I oft don't handle such large weapons either. The expected weapon of my station was a service sidearm, which honestly was more a courtesy than a last resort holdout gun if the bridge were boarded. Because really, if hostile marines got that far, then the ship was pretty much lost already.
My unfamiliarity with heavier platforms really showed now with how rather lackluster my shooting was. I was still landing hits on targets, just that it wasn't so impressive a showing with most rounds missing than striking. I could only hope that the sight of massive rounds flying through the air and punching into those cackling holographic targets could at least hold some attention, perhaps even admiration.
If not, then I guess I served well enough as an opening act for the other two mechs to stomp up and have a crack at it. Rowles' Everest loaded its own assault rifle with far more smoothness and fluidity, taking only a few moments to take aim before pulling the trigger. Her shots had far tighter grouping to them, showcasing very respectable accuracy. If that wasn't enough, then in the time it took for me to empty a single magazine, she exhausted two with only a pause to reload in-between.
Very impressive for the cameras, showcasing that the head of the army could upstage the head of government. Which was absolutely fine in my books.
Then came Erica and her Sherman wasn't holding an assault rifle in its hands. It might be cheating again, but I also was admittedly curious myself to see how laser rifles worked. They were a definite change of pace from the ballistics we'd been showing off so far. Given how this setting didn't hold back on the spectacle, I was expecting something really interesting.
I was pleased to see my hopes weren't dashed when Erica coolly hefted the weapon, and fired from the hip with hardly a care in the world. Despite not even checking the sights, she was able to still accurately nail the closest holographic targets with lazy confidence. The beam of bright light seared through the air and seemed to be like a concentrated ray of light, a figment of the sun brought to bear against whatever unfortunates laid on the other end. The barrel of the rifle itself glowed brightly from these intense energies and I could actually make out the heat emissions from the way the air slightly warped around the weapon..
But, true to Harrison Armory's design principles or Erica's own remarkable tolerance for heat, the Lancer brought the weapon up to her mech's shoulder to properly aim and fired to nail those further targets too. It was very clear how her own performance blew both Rowles' and my own attempt out the water, showing an incredible degree of hand-eye coordination that warranted her ace title. Though she seemed to also want to rub it in a bit.
"You two might want to step back a bit," she smartly announced before the resting shoulder-mounted weapon twitched. The two Everests in technicality quickly followed as the massive cannon ratcheted forwards into place and began to ominously whine aloud. While it charged, I spied Director Melhof advancing to get a better look with a camera, enraptured at the sight of the glowing barrel end and probably wishing to not miss a single moment of this.
Then my steed's optics automatically darkened to shield me from the intense flash that occurred when the massive energy beam cannon fired.
Bullets made the holographic targets glitch. Lasers caused them to distort.
The charged beam caused the electronics of the projection system to cut out entirely, blasting error pings that I actually picked up thanks to the Chomolungma's electronic warfare suite. From what I could discern, it looked like they needed to be replaced entirely. "Quite the show there," I lightly called out to Erica, mindful of the teasing as we were still live. "And to imagine that this is standard-issue for Harrison Armory."
"Say what you will, be w-we knOW h-how t-t-o-" Her open comm connection suddenly began to degrade and garble at the end of her casual statement, causing me to blink and turn my mech to look at Rowles' Everest. Then I saw how her mech shifted its posture, into a slightly alarmed stance that had the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
"Erica? Is everything alright?" A flash of color coming across one of my screens caught my attention and my eyes widened on the realization it'd been the one dedicated to monitoring electronic warfare. It was like a serpent slithering out from somewhere beyond my field of vision to coil up and envelop the Sherman. "Major! Security breach!"
Rowles flinched in her machine, then wildly swung around to face her shocked subordinates. "What are you waiting for!" she roared. "Secure the area-!"
But just as she turned away, a familiar whine filled the area that had eyes widening in panic. Especially when Erica's Sherman turned jerkily to face the Everest who was now looking away, and thus blind to the impending attack.
I reacted on instinct, hand reaching out to slam into Rowles' arm. She hadn't been expecting it and staggered, slightly off-balance. Yet that was enough to ensure that when the laser beam abruptly fired, it only sheared off a portion of a lower arm instead of firing directly into the reactor as it would have otherwise. My other arm drew the assault rifle and I pointed it at the Sherman, realizing that it still held an empty magazine-
Then one of the hacked mech's arms shot up and grasped the barrel of the laser cannon, forcibly pushing the barrel up and away from us. I think Erica was inside, trying to wrestle back control of her machine, and she'd done it for a second when her comms blared clearly colorfully for a moment. "Fucking tech attack pussy, face me like a real fucking asshole-!"
The arm then spasmed, falling limp, and her cursing grew even colorful. "Shit, shit, it's forcing COREBURN! A little goddamn help here?!"
Suddenly, it was like rolls of paper suddenly shot out to wrap around the body of the snake, followed by a familiar strained voice. "I am attempting to defeat the digital intrusion, but my capabilities in this field are very lacking! This is a dedicated hack!" Veronica blared in my mech, her tone fringed with panic. "Commander, I am detecting targeting systems locking on you! Ejection is strongly recommended!"
That sounded like the smart thing to do. But because I could see how the data serpent was strangling somebody I could hesitantly call a friend, I did something stupid instead. "Hang on, let me try this!" I brought the screen to my main view, then engaged my mech's own digital warfare suite to jump into this invisible electronic war.
The suite helpfully translated the conflicting bytes into some sort of abstract realization that a human mind could parse, somehow transforming my attempted tech attack aid to the Sherman as some sort of tome that shot out pages. Ones that somehow homed into and slammed into the serpent, causing it to hiss as they layered around the scrolls as well.
Huh, something rather oddly...fantastical, a small part of my mind commented while the greater portion instead focused on trying to breach the invader's firewalls. It was hard, as they had taken the Sherman's own electronic defense to add to their own now, meaning that it was just Veronica and I to rescue a trapped Erica. The odds weren't good.
Especially when the whine returned and began to build up, the laser beam cannon charging right in my face-
But then, so abruptly, the serpent stilled. Then bulged. Veronica and I watched it suddenly puff up and then explode. Not in a violent way but in something more akin to a cheap parlor trick, complete with confetti that rained down the digital landscape. In reality?
It translated to Erica clearly seizing back controls of her Sherman.
Without hesitation, she wrenched her mech to suddenly point upwards, the torso almost achieving a very impression ninety-degree angle by the time the charged weapon fired. The intense beam went straight up and hit nothing, harmlessly dissipating a brief distance into its vertical elevation.
Moments after that, the mech was forcibly shut down and the shaken Lancer emerged from the chest cockpit, not at all minding some weapons pointed her way from a few of the jumpier security guards. I glanced over to see Rowles also being helped out of her Everest with a slightly rattled expression, and exhaled. Then I noticed the still-rolling cameras and swore.
Shit. That'd been a televised assassination attempt, I think. But really, just...how had that happened?
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"It appears to have been a very powerful tech attack by an unknown actor who plugged themselves directly into the local network, using some sort of powerful hijacking program to dominate the scene's datastream and thus wormed itself into Miss Erica's machine," Veronica briefed me while the very intense investigation was ongoing. "We were able to identify the port used but by the time that we arrived to the location, there was no perpetrator in sight. They had even burned out the input connections to prevent backtracking."
Oh. Ohhhhhh how lovely.
Because when put that way, there was one thing in Lancer that instantly came to mind when it came 'jacking in' and 'tech attack.' The image of a little, tiny mech that could casually piggyback into any electrical system and become a literal gremlin within it. Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say goblin into it.
...No, that sounded awkward. But otherwise yes, it had to be the work of a Goblin. A mech that was oft associated with a very specific faction.
"Despite them having wiped attempts to identify them individually, they did still leave a rather striking icon." The NHP dutifully produced a picture of a crude graffiti next to the burned access port. Yep, there it was, the upside down triangle with a dot. "A record search has matched this to known symbols of the HORUS organization according to Half Committee records."
"It's them," I confirmed aloud with a groan that only she and I could hear in my private office. "It has to be them, using a Goblin."
Veronica's digital avatar blinked, then tilted her head slightly. "You...are aware of the mech used?"
How could I not, when it was one of the most memed mechs of the entire setting- ah. I guess that didn't translate necessarily into common knowledge within the universe. Er, bullshit, go. "I read up on it in passing. And the organization as a whole."
"...Very well, though existing records found within the Half Committee on this HORUS organization are lacking." Yeah, probably because my former government was everything that HORUS hated with how they'd regularly censored stuff for propaganda. No friendly port for them there to get involved unlike Harrison Armory. "I am currently broadening my search and have picked up on multiple omninet articles mentioning the organization. Though the sourcing is suspect at best."
"Because the organization is incredibly decentralized and freeform. Forget trying to identify a pattern or common factor to them; their consistency comes from their inconsistency." Or so I recalled, with how they somehow were able to rival the megacorps in the setting. Something that made me pause and think. "Hm. But that doesn't explain why they're here suddenly."
"Sir, I'm afraid that I cannot follow your logic. Is it not clear that they're behind the insurgency movement then?"
Ordinarily, a fair assumption that I would've leapt to. But things felt...wrong. I tried to figure out a way to describe it. "I think that maybe we're leaping to make connections from circumstantial timing, and not much else. Because they couldn't have been behind the prior insurgency actions."
"How so?"
"Those bomb drones, the convoy ambush, and the network hack were rather petty, don't you think? Compared to the scale of hacking a Harrison Armory machine," Which was going to be a fun political situation to defuse, but I'll handle that once everything else was settled first. "It feels wrong. If they could do something like that in the first place, then why wait or restrain oneself? They know that we're on guard already. They have to suspect that we've taken precautions."
"Safeties that ultimately failed in keeping you safe, sir."
"Not really. They targeted Rowles first, didn't they? Not me. I was just the next closest they swapped to after knocking the major away."
Veronica paused for a long while, drinking in my observation and slotting it into her logic matrices to see how it fitted. "It...does strike more as a target of opportunity more than a concentrated attempt on your life."
"I also struggle to believe that a singular Goblin would be committed to this. Especially knowing that failure would just put us on edge even more." Unless they were a Lancer, but really. If a Lancer wanted me dead, then I'd likely already be toast by them seizing control of my Chomolungma and overloading the reactor or something. They wouldn't have picked on another Lancer first, especially one who almost overpowered their hacking with her own strength herself and bought time for others to get involved.
"Sir." The sudden shift in her tone got me to look up. "An update. We have found an additional point of entry. More burnt wires and forced inputs."
I sharply inhaled. "So two Goblins?" It did lend evidence that this wasn't a Lancer team, but maybe more something in the background.
"Presumably sir, but...the damage is less severe. Less thorough. Almost like they wanted us to see what they did." The NHP's eyes glowed as she seemingly observed through the investigator's directly. "Commander, we can actually trace the activities on this access point. It's not so wiped unlike the first one we found."
What the hell. This was perhaps the sloppiest HORUS operation in the history of the organization if one of them left tracks while the other was a veritable ghost. "Can we trace it?"
"Yes, but there's something really interesting about this one sir. It seems like it was actually an effort to strengthen our defenses instead." My eyebrows shot up as Veronica continued. "The programs that had been employed seem far more tailored to reinforcing a firewall than breaching one. Though there are traces of a secondary hack too, one directed seemingly into that other access point we found."
I hastily reviewed the incident and recalled how the tech invasion had popped into confetti. Something that neither Veronica or I had a hand in. Almost like a third party had gotten involved to defeat the invasion in full.
Was this their work? Was there another hacker in play, counter-hacking the HORUS op?
Making things even more perplexing was when Veronica produced another graffiti piece that was the nebulous organization's logo, but done with more flair to it. If the prior one had been a stale corporate icon, then this one was done somehow more sloppily, but also with heart behind it. It made me scratch my head and make a rather wild guess.
"There's two HORUS cells. One's looking to cause chaos for us, while the other is seemingly against that. I think."
"A conflict within an organization known for esoteric juxtaposition? Forgive me sir, but this seemingly bodes ill in my calculations."
"Oh, don't worry, I'm not exactly pleased by this either. Because I think the ideal number of HORUS cells we should have to put up with is zero."
"In that regard sir, I agree completely."