Chapter 153: Preparing the Stage
Chapter 153: Preparing the Stage
“Good! Good, keep the flow rate even! Slow is steady and steady is fast. Keep an eye on the pressure as it floods each new subsystem!”
Satisfied that the tech was doing his job right, Izumi stepped back to observe the individual components of the Behemoth she was overseeing slowly activate. Not perfectly, there were some power flickers here and there indicating systems that might need a quick once over, but that was well within expectations. The new mech class, coming in just barely shy of 185 tons, was too big to bring through even a Greater Gate in one piece. As such, it had been built with modular field assembly in mind, disassembled and brought through in pieces, only to be reconstructed on Ziltmach. Unlike the Shieldmaiden and Operator mechs, it was also four-legged design, not two. It was too heavy to make hover, which is why it was a mech still, and a huge amount of its weight was from its Black Aetherite skeleton and armor.
Add in a shield generator as potent as they could make it, and the Behemoth was built to soak damage like British man was made for being stoic about a light drizzle. The two dozen of them that were being assembled on the fields between Alpha Base and the city of Iztiliana represented tens of billions of yen worth of material, and months of max capacity usage of Forge 2 to make the Black Aetherite needed. Numerous other projects had been stalled or even outright cancelled just to build two dozen of them…but there was a good reason for that.
After all, it was the Behemoths that were intended to break the Dark Citadel.
Aside from them, the fields both here and around other Ziltmach cities were filled to overflowing with additional hardware. Over 3,500 infantry frantically training with Mei’s new Doomtreader Power Armor. Hundreds of American-built Saber series Hover Tanks. Thousands of towed artillery pieces from a dozen different sources. Over 7,000 ‘Heroes,’ including some who might well more easily be consider villains, pulled from various fronts across the entire world. Not to mention over 235,000 regular troops, and 165,000 Ziltmach rebels, all of whom would soon be maneuvering to surround the Dark Citadel, waiting for the heavy units to break the Citadel’s defenses before they flooded in.
By all accounts, there were at least three quarters of a million Zilts within the Dark Citadel. Plus supporting troops.
The leaders and generals of the Terran Alliance were expecting the fighting to be bloody, even once they breached the defenses of the fortress. They could only hope both that the Behemoths could do the job of cracking it open…and that they’d brought enough people and bullets to put an end to the Zilts once they got inside. She, Momo, All Might, and even Stars and Stripes would all be leading breaching teams from the Behemoths themselves. These mechs could carry a small complement of troops, only a dozen or so for each Behemoth despite their size, but the teams breaching from them would be made up of some of the more powerful Heroes in the world…assisted by YoRHa combat androids. A2, in particular, had made such a name for herself that she would be leading one of the Breaching Teams just like Izumi and Momo.
The task at hand was both staggering and solemn, given the likely death toll for both sides even if everything worked out perfectly. On the other hand? Well, they stood a reasonable chance of this being the final battle, at least the final battle that mattered and tipped the scale permanently towards the ‘good guys.’ Everyone, from the leaders of the Alliance down to the grunts, had decided it was worth the gamble. All that was left to do now was the stack the deck as much as possible, then roll the dice…
… … …
Lieutenant Kwalski was in both in awe of and terrified by the power of his new armor. As someone born with a Quirk that only allowed him to change the shape of his genitals, he’d never exactly expected to be a hero anywhere but between the sheets. He was, in fact, quite popular in that regard, so he’d never exactly disliked his Quirk. Yet, he’d never expected to feel the heady sense of power that those born with high-quality combat quirks must feel.
The Doomtreader Power Armor was proving he’d been wrong about that.
While the PA he was currently running through an obstacle course with (complete with holographic targets!) wasn’t the sort of thing that could punch out All Might, Kwalski would give it fair odds of doing so for the average Hero. Honestly, probably even quite a lot of the above average Heroes, given that it wasn’t stuck in any one niche. Durable enough to take a serious hit even from Power Type Heroes, fast enough to outrun most non-mobility focused Heroes, and with fire power that honestly outstripped what anything but the highest tier of combat quirks could deliver. All complete with a sensor suite, comms, and intuitive heads-up-display that fed him all the information he needed. Not just about his own suit, either, but about the status of his squad. It was a quantum leap forward for infantry. If you could even still call them infantry at this point.
Of course, giddy as he was, and worried as he might be about what this development might mean for the future…what he had to hope at the moment was that it would be enough. He’d seen the results of the probing efforts against the ‘Dark Citadel,’ and even Shieldmaidens had been torn up by sustained fire from the fortress. He really hoped those new Behemoths lived up to their name and purpose. Though, given who had made them, he supposed he could invest a little faith in the idea.
For now, he should probably just focus on getting through this obstacle course without tripping and ending up face first in the ground again like an idiot…
… … …
Captain Jones of the 761st Tank Battalion was extremely satisfied with her new Saber II – Mod Q. Sure, it was a fair bit more primitive than the original Saber she’d commanded in the African Campaign, having very limited computer support just for starters. Yet, there were more upsides than down. The most important, of course, was why it was called a Mod Q. The term had been coined by that Japanese defense firm, Aegis Inc. But, given that their pet super genius had been the one to figure out how to use Quirk Energy to run something like a Saber, she figured that was fair enough.
More importantly, being a Mod Q meant that it was suitable for use on Ziltmach.
That wasn’t the only advantage, of course. A number of improvements had been made from the original Saber to the Saber II, including something the Japs hadn’t figured out yet, so far as she knew. That being how to process certain common monster materials into a new armor that was tougher than the original Saber, while being a little bit lighter. It wasn’t as brutally tough as the Black Aetherite those new Behemoths of theirs used, but it was a heck of a lot lighter. Light enough to keep the Saber II – Mod Q as a hover tank, despite the QE engine being slightly weaker than the old powerplant. Of course, Aetherite of the non-black variety, the stuff they used for the combat android frames, would be even better…but apparently that stuff was hellishly hard to make. To the point that even Aegis only had enough of it to make a few android bodies a week. Given just how insane of a force multiplier those androids could be, making more frames for them was the objectively better use for the stuff.
Besides, it was great for troop morale to have hot android girls that really liked humans running around in skintight bodysuits. She hadn’t even realized she was bi until she’d interacted with a few of those girls! Hmmm, maybe it was less ‘bi’ and more ‘badass robogirl sexual?’
Shaking that thought off with a grin, Jones went back to reading the reports for her section’s Sabers. The fact that the paperwork was remarkably thin, compared to what she’d had with just a single tank back in Africa was another nice thing about the Mod Q specifically. Between a power plant that didn’t use traditional fuel, just plug-and-play QE batteries filled back on Earth, and the simplified electronics? There was a lot less maintenance required on the Mod Qs, and far fewer problems reported. Not bad at all for a design that had been rushed into production with the bare minimum of quality testing!
She just hoped the new shield systems, combined with the new armor, would let the tanks hold up to some fire from the Dark Citadel. Even if the Behemoths would hopefully be taking most of the focused fire, there was almost certain to be some aimed at the rest of the armor. Doubly so if the fire ended up not working to hurt the Behemoths much.
Well, what would be, would be. Captain Jonna Jones would be in the thick of the fire, just as she always was! They hadn’t nicknamed her the ‘The Salamander’ for no reason! She had a nice talent for being where the fire was hottest and coming out mostly intact…
… … …
General Beaumont watched on as the massive convoy began to move. Hers was only one of five such convoys that were rolling out from various captured cities. It was the largest, though, and the only one headed by the new Behemoth mechs. She honestly wasn’t sure the intimidating monstrosities should be called mechs, but admittedly wasn’t sure what else you’d called them. Currently classed as ‘Superheavy Assault Mechs,’ each Behemoth was a solid 10.3 meters long, and 3.95 meters wide. They were blunt-nosed, nearly obsidian-black due to that new type of armor, and mounted with two heavy railguns and an even heavier plasma weapon that she barely understood. No pre-invasion power plant could have made the things run, and apparently Aegis Inc had needed to develop a whole new generation of QE battery to make them practical. You could apparently power a Rift to open with the energy it took to move those monsters for even twenty minutes. Less, if it’s shield was on.
Frankly, it would have been better to assemble them closer to the Dark Citadel. But doing that might have given something away, and they weren’t exactly hurting for stockpiles of QE. Given how much of it they captured just to shut down Rifts, let alone Rift Bubbles…well, seeing the Behemoths in action she was beginning to understand just why Ziltmach would invade to get at an energy source like that. Apparently, despite how much of it both they and the Empire had siphoned off Earth…the Earth’s QE field had actually gotten a tiny bit stronger over the course of the Invasion. The result, according to what few experts existed, of how much heavier usage humans were putting their Quirks to for both the fighting and logistics.
Given that Ziltmach was constantly, if slowly, losing its own ambient QE under the effects of the usage the Empire put it to, it was understandable why they coveted Earth. That said, their methods were genuinely the sort of idiocy that only those who knew nothing but the path of a conqueror would embrace. If the stone-headed fools had just set up siphons in remote locations on Earth, it likely would have taken decades for anyone to notice…if they even noticed at all. Instead, by reacting with the only tool they knew how to use, they’d brought their own doom upon themselves.
Probably.
Hopefully.
She supposed they would see if that was true or not in a few days, when the assault on the Dark Citadel began. She had a lot of faith in those two girls that seemed to be the center of all the important projects, but not even the best could win every time. She just hoped this wasn’t the time they finally came up short…