Ves ended up in the middle of a battlefield on a terrestrial Earth-like planet. Ves looked around the view screens of the cockpit and noted that the battle took place at a fortified military base placed in so kind of mountainous region that made it difficult for landbound chs to approach.
However, no terrain could truly stop a ch from ascending up a mountain. The enemy chs carried modular mountaineering equipnt that allowed them to scale the mountains with a bit of effort.
In addition to the threat from below, a large amount of aerial chs systematically harassed the base from the air. While the defenders possessed a lot of anti-air, the sheer numbers arrayed against them slowly overwheld these weapon emplacents.
"Get up!" Ves ntally shouted at the consciousness of his current host. "Alven, your comrades are dying! The base is about to be overrun! Your god demands you to fight!"
That brought the man nad Alven Callisto out of his daze. A surge of duty, devotion and fury swelled in his mind as he dove back into his ch.
The damaged rifleman ch climbed back up to its feet and resud firing its laser rifle at the approaching waves of enemy chs.
While Alven got back on track, Ves took the opportunity to study his current circumstances. The battle took place on Rilrod, a planet ruled by the Holy Dominion of Apellix, a third-rate state from the Rolling Wind Star Sector.
Ves had never heard of this particular star sector, but that wasn’t anything strange, as the galaxy was divided into many millions of star sectors. The Rolling Wind Star Sector actually fell within the range of the galactic heartland. This ant that the level of developnt was a lot more prosperous than in the galactic rim.
When Ves studied the chs around him, he realized their prowess surpassed the third-class chs used by states such as the Bright Republic and the Vesia Kingdom. The chs actually fell within the range of second-class chs, which was nothing unusual for a third-rate state in the galactic heartland.
"There is so much wealth laying around here that any casual state can arm their ch forces with second-class chs!"
"What was that?" Alven asked.
"Nothing! Keep fighting!"
Ves still had to figure out his own situation before he could offer any assistance to his temporary partner. Now that he got a sense of where this battle took place, he tried to figure out how far back in ti he traveled.
He quickly read the details from Alven’s mind. His taphorical eyes widened as he realized he traveled twenty-five years ago! That was much closer to the present!
This made it easier for Ves to apply his current knowledge, but it also made it harder for him to analyze the chs being used at this ti period. Most of the chs used in this conflict consisted of machines from at least two generations back.
Ves possessed a fair amount of experience with lastgen chs, but he did not study the generation before that too closely. Still, if nothing else, he could make up this deficiency along the way.
When he dove into the background of the war in question, he found out that it was actually a civil war. The Holy Dominion of Apellix worshiped a god predictably called Apellix. The religion had been founded by a charismatic leader that founded the state more than a millenia ago.
Naturally, the leader proclaid himself and his progeny to be descended from Apellix. Thereby, his bloodline enjoyed a supre status in the Dominion.
To an outsider like Ves, the Dominion’s history sounded like one giant scam. Inventing your own religion to justify your special privileges was the oldest trick in the book. A fair number of delusional founders turned to religion to solidify their rule.
When Ves peeked at Alven’s mind, he found to his regret that the ch pilot was a full-throated orthodox believer in the Church of Apellix. The man had been indoctrinated to believe in the divinity of Apellix to the point where outsiders like Ves would receive a punch in the face if they tried to tell them that they’d been lied to all their lives.
"This is a thorny problem."
Even worse, Alven fought on behalf of the increasingly corrupt Sunstar Dynasty descended from the original founder of the state and church. Each subsequent generation took the power bestowed upon them by a mass of brainwashed sheep for granted. The Holy Dominion grew more oppressive over ti,
The current generation of the Sunstar Dynasty regularly indulged in pleasure and often extorted the citizens of the Dominion of their wealth.
Even if the citizens all believed in Apellix, they could only handle so much abuse.
Tensions boiled over in the past couple of years and the Church split into two. The so-called Reforrs claid to be the true believers of Apelllix. The rebel leaders proclaid that he received a divine mandate of their god to cleanse the Sunstar Dynasty from the galaxy.
No matter if they spoke the truth, their ssage resonated among the oppressed. More than half of the Dominion imdiately swung over to the rebels, leaving the Sunstar Dynasty in control of a couple of important star systems around the capital.
The planet Rilrod ford a vital part of the loyalists to the Dynasty. This planet contained a lot of advanced factories that produced a lot of chs each day. It was the non-port system equivalent of Bentheim, and whoever possessed it would gain a decisive advantage in this civil war.
"Alven! Your ch is too damaged! You can’t fight on!"
"Don’t distract , spirit!"
Alven shook his head and tried to focus on the fight. His ch jerkily ran back and forth along the ch-sized wall that surrounded the imnse military base.
The wall already started crumbling from the sheer weight of fire being thrown in its way. A group of heavy artillery chs stationed behind a hill constantly shelled the base and its walls with high explosive shells.
If one of those shells hit the Firerunner ch that Alven piloted, Ves could kiss his Mastery experience goodbye.
Still, the ch functioned pretty well even after having all of its chest armor stripped. As Ves studied its design, he beca increasingly awed at its well-optimized design. This ch made full use of its materials and squeezed out every bit of performance hidden in the fra.
As the na suggested, the Firerunner excelled in speed and mobility. It possessed a fairly high top speed for a rifleman ch at the cost of not being able to change its course as fast. This was a normal tradeoff, and Alven already possessed sufficient training to modulate his speed according to the situation at hand.
Currently, Alven weaved the Firerunner in a wave-like motion, dodging most of the fire sent in its way. The wall blocked most of the projectiles, allowing Alven to face much fewer attacks than he should have.
Still, the damage and stress sustained by the Firerunner deeply worried Ves. "Your ch is heavily damaged. The power reactor’s compartnt has been breached. I estimate this ch will only function without problems for about ten minutes or less. You’ve got to pull back within that ti!"
"What nonsense are you speaking about, spirit! Get out of my head!"
"I’m not so random spirit! I’m a ch designer!"
"What fart are you good for?!"
"I’m from the future! Just read what’s on my mind!"
"I don’t have ti for this nonsense! The priest will expel you later!"
Ves faced a thorny issue. His host didn’t care about his presence and wanted him to go. Obviously, Ves did not wish to leave so soon. He was constantly absorbing Alven’s experiences as he struggled to fend off the overwhelming waves of rebel chs.
Even though he warned Alven that the Firerunner wouldn’t last, the ch pilot seed determined to fight to the end.
Although Ves admired Alven’s determination to fight, he did not wish to go down with the ship. He turned his attention to the enemy chs that assaulted the base.
Most of them consisted of rifleman chs. A handful of knights and other lee chs acted as their atshields. The lee chs even put away their weapons in order to carry thick temporary shields ant for sieging.
Alven’s laser rifle fared very poorly against these hastily fabricated slabs of alloys. Ves could tell that the temporary shields mostly consisted of a mix of mundane tals and junk exotics. They possessed no rit other than their thickness. This slowed down the chs that carried them to a crawl, but that hardly mattered up to this point.
"You’re going at it the wrong way!" Ves argued Alven. "Even at your rifle’s highest power setting, you can hardly burn a hole through those alloys. It’s too thick!"
Alven let out a frustrated growl. He’d been fighting against these shields over an hour, and pretty much all of his laser beams had been neutralized by this aweso defense.
"Then what do you suggest I do!?"
Ves thought about it for a mont. It was easy to point out a mistake, but hard to co up with a solution.
Still, Ves ca up with sothing that stood a decent chance of working, but he needed Alven’s cooperation.
"Give control over your body for a mont. I need to reprogram your laser rifle."
"What?! Never! Begone, you demon! Go back to your pathetic rebellious masters!"
Ves wanted to curse this impenetrable fool. Couldn’t he tell that Ves only wanted the best for Alven?
"I’m not part of the rebellion and I’m not so kind of demon! I’m just a ch designer who happened to land within your mind! I never even heard about the Rolling Wind Star Sector in my life. I don’t have a stake in this fight!"
"Don’t bluster with your lies, demon! I know what you are! Continue to spout your lies! It will do nothing to shake from my faith! For the Sunstars! For Apellix!"
Alven’s lust for battle grew superheated and he started to take unreasonable risks to get around the heavy shields of his opponents. A couple of tis, his Firerunner narrowly escaped death in an attempt to take down the enemy chs behind the shield.
The situation didn’t look so good. The rebels eventually wore out their shields, but they brought out a lot of spares. This pretty much negated the defensive advantage of the defenders. Added with the nurical advantage of the attackers, Alven’s situation did not seem so good.
Ten minutes eventually went by and the Firerunner’s systems started issuing a lot of alarms.
"Your ch won’t last another minute! Eject!"
"No! My faith is strong! The Sunstars shine upon even now! I can feel it!"
Ves wanted to strangle this stubborn suicidal idiot. This religious nut threatened to cut his precious Mastery experience short, effectively wasting much of his 40,000 DP. He couldn’t afford to let Alven die so soon.
If persuasion didn’t work, what about coercion?
He never thought about using force against an uncooperative partner. He hit it off with Barley imdiately last ti, so he never thought about ending up in a situation like this. Ves started to think up so ideas on how to pressure Alven into doing what he wanted.
He took inspiration from the conflict between the images he regularly conjured up for his ch. He particularly took note of the fight between the crystal leader’s spiritual remnant and the other two images arrayed against it. What mattered the most in that fight was that the remnant possessed a lot more strength than its opposition.
Ves tried to compare his strength against Alven’s and found to his suprise that his ntality was a lot firr than his host.
"I might be able to pull sothing off."
He did not wish to kill Alven, nor assimilate the ch pilot into his own mind. Ves only needed to threaten the obstinate pilot a couple of tis to get it to do what he wanted.
"Since you’re a religious nut, then don’t bla for using your beliefs against you."
If Alven believed that Ves was a demon, then he would act like a demon.
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