The Mech Touch

5833 The Pride of the Red Fleet

The Dominion of Man was one of the prides of the Red Fleet.

From the beginning of her conception, the fleeters envisioned the dreadnought to function as a flagship of an entire galactic naval armada.

Almost no expense had been spared in her construction and incremental upgrades, and it showed.

The massive passageways, of which even the secondary ones were wide enough to fit entire mechs, were all reinforced with the toughest first-class alloys that were commonly used to clad first-class multipurpose mechs.

The fleeters did not merely invest in purely practical measures.

As a ship that was originally envisioned to become the standard bearer of a human superpower, the Dominion of Man also contained a lot of inspiring artwork.

The interior of the unique vessel adopted a general color scheme of blue, gold and black.

Yet what truly shifted the atmosphere inside the hull were the innumerable amount of individual artworks.

The best painters and sculptors raised among the spaceborn clans interpreted the grandeur of the human race by creating masterful works of art that decorated practically every compartment and corridor.

Ves only had to swivel his head around his neck to view bombastic vistas of ancient battlefields.

Clever use of geometry, angles and perspective distortion created exaggerated visions of both ancient infantry battles and immense space battles where hundreds of proud battleships utterly crushed their alien equivalents!

Sculptures depicted a seemingly endless variety of great human heroes of the past. Each of them contributed to the rise of the human race in one way or another, though Ves distinctly noticed the lack of mechers and Compact cultists among the honored chosen.

The immense interval volume of the Dominion of Man, which was the equivalent of dozens of cities stacked on top of each other, meant that millions if not billions of individual art pieces decorated the spaces of the dreadnought.

Ves even had the illusion that the Dominion of Man actually functioned more as a titanic museum that glorified the superiority of the human race!

The effort was worth it in his opinion. Each and every crew member that passed through the halls felt uplifted by all of the inspiring and heroic sights.

None of the sculptures and paintings depicted anything negative. Defeats and difficult philosophical dilemmas were entirely absent. The artworks were all geared towards making the fleeters who crewed the dreadnought feel as righteous and confident as possible!

It made them all feel special. Not only did their pride swell the longer they served on the dreadnought, they also started to form a clique of their own that set themselves apart from the rest of the Red Fleet.

The most notable fleeters who carried themselves with obvious confidence, discipline, dedication and above all pride were the famous Dread Marines.

Nobody knew how many of them served within the seemingly endless bowels of the Dominion of Man. Armchair theorists generally speculated that the titanic vessel was able to field 200,000 to 3 million Dread Marines at any time.

No matter the quantity, Ves had little doubt that the Dominion of Man had enough infantry forces at its disposal to capture entire warfleets with plenty of soldiers to spare!

It was not just the quantity of Dread Marines that made the vessel so formidable. It was the impressive individual combat power of each elite soldier that donned the iconic armors developed by some of the brightest minds among the fleeters.

Mere first-class suits of combat armor could not compare to the bulky and intimidating black armors worn by the Dread Marines.

Even if they were not deployed in the field, the large number of Dread Marines stomping through the corridors radiated such menace and danger that it made sense why so many passageways were built so large.

The Dread Marines needed the space.

While their individual configurations varied a lot, they generally came in three overall sizes.

The Light Dread Marines were already a little taller and bulkier than regular infantry soldiers who donned suits of heavy combat armor. The former were only 'light' in the sense that they were the weakest of their kind.

It was clear that the main reason why they lacked so much bulk was because they were primarily tasked with squeezing through small and cramped spaces.

There was no chance that the Light Dread Marines could navigate through the interior of a puelmer warship, but they should be able to navigate through other small vessels without too much issue, especially considering that their armor was highly modular.

Medium Dread Marines were probably the mainstays of the marine force attached to the dreadnought. They were noticeably larger and a lot bulkier than their lighter counterparts. That allowed them to carry a lot more modular weapons and equipment, thereby making them stronger in almost every way.

There weren't as many Heavy Dread Marines stomping around, but each one was a sight to behold.

They were so much larger than their medium cousins that they practically reached a size that was commonly associated with demimechs!

Anyone else would have classified these enormous humanoid metal constructs as vehicles or even mechs, but the fleeters clearly rejected this truth.

The massive 'infantry' suits were so immense that they could never be lifted by human power alone. Massive servos and other machinery enabled these bulky constructs to move at a ponderous but momentous pace.

What they lacked in speed and agility, they made up for it with hard power. Their weapon hardpoints, their exceedingly thick armor and their sizable power reactors ensured that they would never falter in a head-on confrontation with other conventional forces!

Ves even believed that a squad of Heavy Dread Marines possessed the means to defeat a single first-class multipurpose mech!

This was amazing as the soldiers who manned these demimech-like constructs clearly did not control their suits through a neural interface.

Ves grew so curious at how the infantry soldiers controlled these bulky and complex suits that he couldn't keep his mouth shut any longer.

"How are these soldiers able to control these bulky suits?"

Captain Zonrad Reze continued to smile as he stood on a floating platform that continued to bring Ves and his escorts deeper into the dreadnought.

"It is a combination of methods. The soldier only needs to move his limbs slightly in order to trigger specific programmed actions. The AI-assisted movements and actions of the Dread Marines are highly adaptive to the circumstances and almost never fail. If a Dread Marine is required to execute a more complicated task, then he can employ his specialized cranial implant to transmit more detailed instructions to his Dread Armor. It takes years of training to make the troopers convey their intentions at lightning speed. This is how they are able to control their iconic equipment as if it is an extension of their bodies."

While the efforts of the fleeters clearly enabled the Dread Marines to close the gap with mechs, there was still a small but perceptible difference in fluency and control.

The differences may be small, but they could make a critical difference in the heat of battle. This was why Ves judged that demimechs should readily be able to outduel Heavy Dread Marines in equal confrontations.

Of course, it was unlikely for Dread Marines to attack any mech force with equal numbers. The former were so much greater in quantity that it was not even funny.

Unlike with the case of mechs, Dread Armors did not need to be piloted by potentates. The fleeters had the luxury to recruit the best and most exemplary soldiers from a nearly limitless supply of manpower.

It was impressive. Dread Marines came close to substituting mechs. While Ves surmised that Dread Marines mainly excelled in landbound combat and boarding actions, they were also capable of fighting space battles so long they equipped themselves with the appropriate flight modules.

Not that Ves expected them to do so. They were so comparatively small that most of their weapon systems simply lacked the punch and penetration power needed to effectively overcome the external defenses of warships.

"Dread Marines are not meant to replace mechs." The secret sentient AI explained to Ves. "They are explicitly meant to be employed as heavy infantry. While the Dread Marine Corps clearly stretches that definition, this is all necessary to turn them into the most effective boarding troops of human civilization. They are trained and equipped to capture all manner of human alien warships, space stations, planetary strongholds and even entire cities if necessary. They are the masters of urban combat and the crushers of aliens. Their mere appearance is often enough to demoralize enemy alien spacers to the point where they lose all desire of resistance."

The Dread Marines were not only designed to excel in infantry combat. Their tall and bulky shapes, their dark color scheme and their overall menace enhanced their intimidation factor by a noticeable degree!

No matter what sort of alien species confronted them in combat, pretty much every species aside from the phase whales would definitely hesitate to tangle against them. The dread they exuded transcended human sensibilities.

As Ves continued to study Dread Marine after Dread Marine as they traversed the corridors in neat and steady columns, he picked up other traits that set them apart from other marine forces.

Though it wasn't obvious to most people, Blinky's senses were sharp enough to sense a tiny spark of fire burning within their massive shells.

Every Dread Marine carried this extraordinary spark in the locations where their power reactors were supposed to be located.

This single observation had many implications.

While small and relatively weak, the spark was exceedingly high in quality. It exuded a strong sense of heat and power, so much so that any hostile spiritual entity that dared to attack the Dread Marines would probably regret their attempts!

Whatever the fleeters managed to do somehow allowed them to grant anti-cultivator protection to their Dread Marines.

This was clearly not a coincidence.

The source of these small but surprisingly potent sparks of flame was obvious.

Blinky clearly sensed that each and every spark maintained active connections to a much larger source that was located in the exact center of the immensely large hull.

Ves did not need to spend any time to figure out that this must be the super-class Spark Reactor that allowed the dreadnoughts of the Red Fleet to reign supreme among all other warships!

The fact that the fleeters brought Ves in the direction of the distant Spark Reactor was definitely not a coincidence.

He had always aspired to study a real Spark Reactor up close ever since he viewed the dreadnoughts in action.

Their amazing performance during Operation Night Jazz made it abundantly clear that the Spark Reactors were not just technological marvels.

Ves and Blinky were able to feel it as their floating platform came closer to the center of the Dominion of Man.

The massive dreadnought carried an immensely powerful spark that it was surprising that it did not go out of control and start a conflagration that could engulf the entire dreadnought!

While Ves had encountered a lot of different extraordinary phenomena, he had never experienced anything comparable to what he was able to sense from a distance.

The lower the distance, the more Blinky felt threatened by the massive and practically divine spark of heat and flame. The companion spirit instinctively felt that his death was all but certain if he happened to touch it directly!

The Star Cat certainly did not dare to siphon even the tiniest mote of spark energy or whatever it was called. The spark would probably ignite everything and start an unstoppable blaze that could burn down the entire Blinkyverse!

"Damn."

"Pardon, professor?"

"Oh, it's nothing, captain. I am just thinking about how awesome these Dread Marines are. My passion lies with mechs, but that does not stop me from appreciating how devastating they can be when put into action."

Captain Reze smiled with pride. "The Dread Captain will be pleased to hear your compliment. The Dread Marines are only a part of what makes the Dominion of Man so effective. The Rubicon Spatial Transfer System is the main delivery vehicle that is responsible for inserting them directly inside warships and other sensitive areas. If you are lucky enough, you may be given a tour of this vital system."

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