While the Carmine Revolutionaries and the Guardians of Peace began to clash against each other at an increasing frequency, the truth was that their scale of conflict was still relatively contained.
Most fights involving Auto Heretics were actually conflicts that pitted one group of Carmine ch pilots against another group of Carmine ch pilots!
The Big Two's fears towards the potential damage and chaos caused by the uncontrolled proliferation of Auto Heretic chs were not unfounded.
Many of their predictions ca true!
On a rural third-class planet in the galactic rim, a conflict had broken out between two rivaling companies.
Both of them maintained a range of comrcial interests on the surface, ranging from banking services to groceries.
Herzog Kadan was an old and established tyrant. The company was founded on the planet and managed to gain dominance over multiple sectors due to its explicitly local focus.
By prioritizing the hiring of local employees and constantly emphasizing the pride that custors gained by actively supporting their planetary champion, Herzog Kadan had long been able to repel off-world competitors that sought to chip away at its market share.
However, all of that changed over twenty years ago when Macky Incorporated arrived and exploded onto the scene.
Different from other off-world competitors, Macky Incorporated was founded by a group of entrepreneurs who originated from the planet but moved to more developed star systems in order to receive more advanced education.
Now, a bunch of these young but successful graduates had decided to team up and return to their ho planet in order to introduce the local population to more advanced and modern goods and services!
Relying on the identity of the founders, Macky Incorporated managed to overco the typical xenophobia that local consurs expressed towards foreign companies.
Even though Macky Incorporated still employed a large proportion of foreign workers, their superior education and qualifications elevated the fresh new company and enabled them to win over a custor base that was tired of the lack of competitiveness of the Herzog Kadan.
Naturally, both companies soon began to generate friction. Even if the profits that could be earned from a rural planet was only a fraction of that on an industrial planet, the latter typically featured a lot more competition!
As long as Macky Incorporated could successfully diminish Herzog Kadan, the forr would be able to earn a steady stream of profits for multiple generations!
Unfortunately, Macky Incorporated failed to make enough progress in their plan to conquer the local markets.
While the upstart company managed to gain superiority in certain sectors, it lost out in other sectors!
In the end, Herzog Kadan's ho ground advantage proved to be too strong to overco in a short amount of ti.
Due to the intense and growing rivalry between the two companies, there were tis when they ca to blows against each other.
Incidents ranging from escort forces bumping into each other and covert raids onto facilities took place from ti to ti.
As chs clashed against each other, the damage they inflicted on each other and their surroundings was considerable.
Transportation vehicles, factories and even public infrastructure suffered from the constant fighting.
While the planetary governnt was fairly weak, its leaders had managed to negotiate a secret agreent between the two sides.
It was impossible to prevent either companies from ceasing to resort to violence. It was an inherent part of the arsenal of any firm with ambitions.
However, both sides at least agreed that it would be better if they limited the scope of engagents in more populated areas.
They also agreed to limit the quantity of chs and other military hardware used in an engagent.
If they kept bringing more chs to a fight, the cost of engagents would continue to escalate to unsustainable levels.
There was no way both companies would be able to remain profitable after diverting so much inco to violent activities!
Years passed by in relative peace and stability.
Neither Herzog Kadan nor Macky Incorporated were stupid enough to assu that his gentleman's agreent would last forever.
Both sides secretly prepared for the big fight that could cripple one of the sides and cause their business war to decide a victor.
It just so happened that the ti had finally co!
Macky Incorporated surprised everyone on the planet by launching an all-out attack on Herzog Kadan's headquarters, main manufacturing complexes and other strategic sites!
Though the defenses of those sites were not light, they already incurred significant damage due to the surprise factor.
What surprised Herzog Kadan was that Macky Incorporated not only employed all of the hidden reserve units that it had built up over the years, but also hired a rcenary outfit that arrived from afar and imdiately began its operations upon landfall!
Herzog Kadan may have anticipated the forr, but had not been able to plan for the latter!
The cost of hiring rcenaries for this kind of raiding operation was high due to the risks and the potential to suffer significant losses. Macky Incorporated definitely had to go deeper into debt to afford all of the expenses.
It would all be worth it so long as Macky Incorporated won this war!
What was even more remarkable was that Macky Incorporated also fielded a dozen or so of the newfangled Auto Heretic Version C's!
While the third-class version of the infamous Carmine ch was by far the weakest one, that didn't matter to the third-raters who couldn't afford anything better.
Since the Auto Heretic Version C was designed to be affordable to third-raters, Macky Incorporated could still squeeze out the budget to purchase a batch of them from the rapidly growing grey market.
One of the benefits of deploying Auto Heretics was that practically anyone could pilot them and imdiately beco combat effective.
There was no need to hire skilled ch pilots that were typically expensive to hire and troubleso to keep happy. The good ones knew how much they were worth, and typically charged quite a sum for jobs that required them to initiate hostilities against
other parties.
In contrast, norms would be happy to pilot a Carmine ch for free!
Since Auto Heretics were High Autonomy Living chs, there was no need for norms to train their piloting and combat skills over a long period of ti.
As long as they could follow orders and possess enough battle sense to know what they were doing on the battlefield, the Carmine ch pilots could still make contributions. Most of the burden of piloting the ch fra could be passed on to the living ch itself. Even though the skill and precision of the autonomous machines was anything but remarkable, it was at least serviceable!
The appearance of Auto Heretics on the side of Macky Incorporated did not shake the battle all that much.
The norms may be enthused about 'piloting' their HALMs, but not all of them possessed the guts to confront genuine chs controlled by professional ch pilots.
For this reason, the modular Carmine chs mostly assud ranged loadouts, allowing the machines to take potshots at enemy positions from afar.
So long as they weren't careless enough to fire their weapons onto the backs of friendly chs, they could still add a bit more pressure to the fight!
Yet when the counterattack from Herzog Kadan comnced, the leaders and soldiers of Macky Incorporated were taken completely by surprise!
That was because Herzog Kadan not only deployed the modest amount of chs they still held in reserve, but also sent out over 200 copies of the Auto Heretic!
"How could they have acquired so many Auto Heretics?!"
Macky Incorporated clearly made a major intelligence blunder as it had failed to detect the clues related to Herzog Kadan's secret buildup of Carmine chs! Given how many Auto Heretic Version C's the old tyrant deployed at once, it was clear that the company had been planning to take Macky Incorporated by surprise!
It was a pity that this plan fell through when their archrival comnced its attack first,
but Herzog Kadan still saw an opportunity to turn the ongoing battle around!
The conflict took place at night when there was less chance of causing civilian
casualties.
The lack of light did not bother the chs too much as each of them were able to observe their opponents well enough by employing their sensor suites.
Even so, the complete lack of real combat experience from all of the Carmine ch pilots led to a lot of ssy situations!
Whenever a Carmine ch confronted a conventional ch, the latter won out at least.
9 out of 10 tis due to the huge disparity in skills, tactics and decision-making. This disparity beca even worse when the numbers on both sides increased. Although Herzog Kadan made sure to pair their new Auto Heretics with amateur players of virtual ch simulation gas in order to make sure they understood the fundantals of ch combat, real combat was much scarier!
The realization that they could die or at least lose their qualifications to pilot their bonded ch forever caused them to exhibit a lot of fear and hesitation at first.
"What are you dallying around for?! Rember who gave you those chs and what we are fighting for! Are you going to let these off-worlders take over our planet and drain the wealth from our economy? Besides, Herzog Kadan goes down, you and your newfangled Auto Heretics will go down as well! Fight! Fight for your ho planet! Fight
for your right to pilot a ch!"
With that encouragent, the inexperienced Carmine ch pilots quickly got their act together and started to fight more vigorously.
After initially getting their butts kicked by the much more experienced and disciplined rcenaries and retainers of Macky Incorporated, the Carmine ch pilots of Herzog Kadan soon discovered the correct approaches.
One tactic that worked was to accompany a bunch of conventional chs piloted by
professionals who knew what they were doing.
The latter not only provided direction and leadership to the Carmine ch pilots, but also took away the pressure from the most dangerous enemy units.
Another tactic that proved useful was to simply rely on their numbers to heavily
outnumber the enemy troops!
One of the consequences to Macky Incorporated's blitz attack was that it had to spread its combat assets across multiple different locations. Even the addition of a rcenary
force did not alleviate this problem all that much.
This ant that before the chs of Macky Incorporated could converge again, Herzog Kadan was able to outnumber so of the isolated enemy troops with its Auto Heretics! If the numbers on both sides were equal, then the Carmine chs would definitely suffer a horrendous loss. This was not just due to their inferior ch pilots, but also due to their weak and outdated tech and materials. However, the Auto Heretic was never designed to fight in equal numbers against the
enemy.
Herzog Kadan discovered this first-hand as their Carmine chs easily began to overrun troops of conventional chs by relying on their vastly greater numbers!
For example, a swordsman ch piloted by a skilled ch officer got mobbed by 5 Auto
Heretics attacking from different directions.
While the swordsman ch managed to hack down two of the annoying Carmine chs in quick succession by relying on his superior weapon skills and clever maneuvering, it was unable to fend off the repeated strikes coming from behind and the flanks!
The ch went down just after the ch pilot decisively chose to eject his cockpit!
"This is a travesty! How can I get beaten by a handful of amateurs who rely on their Als to fight?! Fight fairly next ti if you dare!"
"Hah! Fat chance! We're not stupid enough to accept your challenge, rcenary! If you want a rematch, then you are welco to fight 10 of us next ti!" Compared to the professional ch pilots who took honor and discipline seriously, the
Carmine ch pilots distinctly lacked these qualities!
From their perspective, there was nothing wrong with relying on their HALMs to do
most of the fighting and ganging up on outnumbered enemy ch units! "We can win this battle if we keep going! Let us eliminate as many of these raiding forces while they are still spread across the planet!"
User Comments
0 comments from readers