Chapter 145: Counter Offensive

Warning! Chapters 140-145 were all posted back-to-back! Returning readers, make sure you pick up the story in the right place!

Chapter 145: Counter Offensive

It had taken three months to work out mass production of the two new Mech Armor models. More accurately, it had only taken about two weeks to work out mass production of the Operator scout/rapid response mech and another two weeks to completely build the facility for it. Mass production, or as close to it as was possible with current-generation Mech Armors, had begun before the new facility was even completed, and Operator units had begun to hit the front lines in decent numbers shortly thereafter. Their presence, alongside increasing numbers of Shieldmaiden IIs, had pressed the enemy hard in Africa, to the point that the Empire barely retained any foothold at all.

There were still dozens of smaller conflict points around the world, and the African Front was hardly ‘won,’ but the situation was considered somewhat stable. Rifts and Rift Bubbles were now the primary threat once again, rather than wholesale the invasion threat from Africa, and the ability to mount a counter offensive had spiked dramatically as a result. In point of fact, due to the efforts of the Harvest Stone research team and a number of smaller captured stones from Rift Bubbles, connections had been successfully formed to two previously-conquered worlds under the control of the enemy. The first appeared to be the homeworld of the Gnolls and was only really useful as a way to sabotage one of the enemy’s more prolific forces. A Servant world and species, the Gnolls were too indoctrinated to have a rebellion, but several soft targets that would cripple their ability to reinforce the Empire had been picked out to be hit during the upcoming counter offensive.

The second world was even more promising, as it was the Ogre homeworld, and there was an active rebellion still ongoing there. Though it was a rebellion that had been in its last gasps, flagging and poorly supplied. That was something which agents of the Terran Alliance, the organization that had slowly been built out of the old UN and the various agreements that were managing the world wide defense of Earth, could help with.

Currently, they had made contact and were using said contact to subtly supply the Ogres with weapons, food, and other logistical needs. Specifically on the weapons front, they were supplying weapons that wouldn’t look out of place for the Ogres to have, such as giant mauls and crude-looking swords. The Empire might smell a rat if they looked too closely at too many of those weapons, as they were being created with modern methods and materials and only made to look cruder than they were. It was winning points with the Ogre’s though, as well as causing serious grief for the Empire as their rebellion revitalized.

Such had, until now, been the closest thing Earth and humanity had managed to offensive action since Operation Spear Tip.

The rest of what Izumi and Momo had spent the last three months on was about to change that, though.

Specifically, after the first month had been spent on the Operator mechs, the next two had been spent figuring out how to build significant numbers of the Shieldmaiden II - Mod Q. The Mod Q ran entirely on QE systems, with absolutely no electronics anywhere in the Mech Armor. Crystalline cable, the equivalent of QE vacuum tubes, and a dozen other developments to make your head spin. All of it had been worked out and shoved into the design of the Mod Q, and the very first thing Izumi had needed to do was rip half of it out, refined it, and put it back in. Commendable as the results had been in some ways, the many engineers and scientists that had worked out the bits and pieces didn’t have Izumi’s level of skill or knowledge in the area of QE engineering. Which had resulted in the prototype Mod Qs having a lot of downsides, bugs, and tradeoffs that had been less than ideal.

Thankfully, Izumi had fixed a huge chunk of the issues for the production model.

That had taken a few weeks, which overlapped somewhat with Momo concentrating on building the Operator mech manufacturing facility. After the production design was finished, though, they’d had the much larger challenge of figuring out bulk production of the Mod Q Shieldmaidens. A lot of previously normal methods had needed to be thrown out, such as how to go about doing wiring. Communication and control linkages within the Mod Q were grown crystal, not wire, and figuring out how to do that as parts that could be later assembled by a team into a production model had been a headache and a half. They’d pulled it off in the end, though the time it took to produce a Mod Q was almost half again what it took to produce a normal Shieldmaiden II, despite all they could do.

Despite that, between an initial production run and a significant number of hand-built Mod Qs, they had a solid core of 48 Shieldmaiden II - Mod Qs that were being deployed for the first serious offensive onto the world of Ziltmach, the Empire’s home. A three-prong offensive was planned for Operation Beachhead. Two of the three prongs would focus on capturing Greater Gates using traditional forces, clearing the enemy zones on the other side with specialty QE missiles with some nasty surprises, and then sending through an invasion force. Each of those two prongs would be getting 12 Mod Qs, to backup a large Hero contingent and special ops teams made up of 8 Type B combat Androids. Their goal would be to establish footholds, draw attention, and fight off attempts for the enemy to retake or close those Gates.

The third prong was far more ambitious.

Instead of making use of an existing Greater Gate, the final prong was going to involve opening their own. Scouts that had snuck through various Gates worldwide had found a sheltered valley near a major Ziltmach industrial city. Test rifts had been quietly opened and a lesser Gate established without the enemy noticing, or at least so it was hoped. While the initial two prongs caused chaos, the third one would be quietly moving components of a Greater Gate through to that valley and establishing their own forward basecamp. Not the quick and dirty fortifications of the other prongs, this camp was going to be a proper fortress, complete with powerful shield generators.

Several hundred heroes, 24 Shieldmaiden Mod Qs, 36 Operator Scout Mechs, 16 YoRHa Type B Combat Androids, five thousand troops, including over a hundred using a new QE-based Power Armor, heavy weapons, artillery…and an aerial service depot that was intended for a mixed QE/Traditional hybrid assault drones that would require partially being built on site. With materials to do so being largely provided by Momo, Izumi, and a number of YoRHa Operator units that would join Izumi in carrying digitized assets through. Momo’s Creation Quirk, combined with Izumi and both Combat and Operator androids carrying through a lot of parts converted to data in their ‘inventory,’ would allow hundreds of Drones to be assembled as an air support unit for the base.

If all went well, they would be fully established before the enemy even realized they were there and would begin the first concentrated assault on a major Empire city. One that was industrially important, but which had only a fairly basic set of defense forces. The Empire was not used to being on the defensive, and the hope was that they would be forced to shift commitments across the board, to honor the threat of their cities possibly coming under attack. If it worked, even if they failed to do more than threaten the city, it would drastically reduce the forces that the Empire could throw at Earth, as the Empire would have to cover their own cities to protect their logistics from similar attacks.

Doubly so since, at the same time, the soft targets on the Gnoll homeworld would be sabotaged and the Ogre rebellion would be breaking out the heavy ordinance they’d been given.

While something like the Mod Q was a complex development, Ogre sized bazookas and mortars that fired with pure chemical and analog methods were dirt simple. The Empire was about the find out the hard way that the Americans, in particular, never threw anything away or lost track of their old military designs. Conversions of old ordinance and upscaling of the M1A1 design from the WWII era were easy for them to hand off to the Ogres…and with the size of the rockets the purely-analog bazooka launched, they were going to make a hell of a statement. Another very pointy stick to force the Empire to divert their efforts elsewhere, rather than pouring all their troops into the proverbial breach against Earth.

All in all, Izumi thought the entire thing had a fair chance of success. She and Momo were certainly committed to helping make it work…

… … …

“No! This one goes there, and that one goes here! Double check your wiring work, people, we can’t have a fuckup now! There’s only going to be so much time before the locals notice us, no matter how effective the distractions are!”

The technician didn’t question her, swapping the leads he’d been wiring for the Ziltmach side of their Greater Gate even as Izumi moved on. The hardware for the Gate was their own, not captured hardware, as they hadn’t wanted to risk there being some sort of failsafe the Zilts could use to force a shutdown. That meant there was barely anyone who fully understood the hardware, and of those who did only Izumi and a quartet of Androids were deployed in the first wave. Each of those Androids were YoRHa B-types, but none were as technically savvy as 2B who was, technically, actually a Type E model. Part of the reason 2B had been unusually capable at EWAR and engineering had been her hidden type/designation. As an Execution model, she’d been assigned to watch over a scanner unit in 9S, which had required a much greater technical background.

The result was that even the four Androids were answering to Izumi’s expertise when it came to the Gate hardware, even as they were doing their own double and triple checks against the blueprints to try and spot any issues. Everything was being rushed as much as possible, now that they were on the enemy’s side of the Gate, but there was only so fast they could go without risking a-

Izumi’s steps stuttered as a brief air raid noise went through the base camp.

“Pick up the pace! Hurry people! We’ll have incoming soon!”

Putting actions to her words, she practically punched her own hands deep in the guts of the main control console, furiously making connections between it and the Gate hardware, even as her comm activated. The voice of the General Beaumont, who’d been pulled from the now much smaller African campaign to lead the counter offense, spoke in her ear.

“We’ve been spotted. Ten minutes to contact. Status.”

The short, clipped sentences got the question across, and Izumi had already been mentally running the numbers.

“Twelve minutes. Fifteen if we run into startup problems.”

There was only the briefest hesitation from the comm.

“Expedite as much as possible, but don’t risk getting it wrong. We can hold through their initial assault without the heavies if we have to.”

Izumi nodded, even as the comm channel clicked off as the General shifted her attention. Momo had been busy and the defenses here were already a nasty affair and getting nastier by the moment. Reinforced concrete walls and heavy guns, mostly. They couldn’t bring the Mod Qs through until the Greater Gate was up, nor some of the analog artillery and other heavy hardware. But what they had should be more than enough to shrug off any fast response the city could launch. So Izumi trusted that work and focused down on getting the Gate up. The faster it was up, the more time they had to get the really heavy stuff in place before the Empire could really get rolling.

One way or another, whatever the results would be, the Counter Offensive had begun…

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

A/N 1: Finally! The Counter Offensive against the Empire begins! Honestly, this wouldn't have happened for another update or two, if I hadn't decided to curtail some of the Guild/Heroics content to speed up the story finishing. This was always the rough plan, though. It just would have taken more word count to get here.

A/N 2: Whoohoo! Been a while since this updated...though it actually didn't win the Poll. Instead, I managed to hack together an extra last month, than combine it with needing a break from Halfway Broken, to create a nearly-full sized update for the story. One that brings it, at least including the current early access chapters, within a single full update of being complete.

A/N 3: Speaking of that Early Access content, this is your once-per-set-of-chapters-released reminder that I have a Page.  Note that NONE of my fanfiction works are paywalled permanently. If you don't feel like supporting me, that's just fine, it will end up here eventually :-). If you DO feel like supporting me, however, there are Early Access chapters over on . Currently chapters 146-150 of My Hero Automata are in Early Access, adding another 14,000ish words to the fic! Likewise, there are similar or greater amounts of early access content for most of my other fics at any one time. All for just a single dollar a month! I'm not trying to be super greedy here, just trying to support the writing time I need to maintain several ongoing fics ;-).