Aberrant: The Middle Children of History - GDMS Pt 2 : The Birth of "chuff"

[Mech]

The intervening weeks were spent repairing the damage to Tesseract, and helping Tesla with their newest prject a defensive shield for Talwar. They proposed to usea giant electromagnet to create a bubble of protective force around the hundred and forty foot machine, protecting it from harm, much as the Alien trooper had.

The Culmination of this went down in the history books. In a matter of days the ARMORED mechanics, those whose primary job was the maintenence of Tesseract, had constructed a Trebuchett capable of launching a stripped down thirty ton tank at Talwar to test the shield. Ulthan, the Nordic mechanic manned the controls. Teslas's commander described how glorious the activation of the shield would be and how Ulthan should feel lucky. His response was "Whatevers, time to launch tank at giant robot." He activated the Trebuchett as the crowd watched. The Talwar seemed to shimmer as it activated its massive electromagnet and held out its hand.

It was then that something else happened. The actual shiled was invisible but it did deflect the tank. however, it also sent the left forearm armor of the Talwar streaking through the sky, missing hitting Ulthan and the trebuchett by meters. "I think I just shit myself." Ulthan's words got a laugh from the ARMORED mechanics, Steve included, but no one would ever forget the sound the armored made when it went flying, "Chuff." Thus Talwar's rocket punch was born.

A few days, Tesseract is once again standing at the firing range. Several targets were set up and the massive mech was once again repaired. Steve smiled as the new "Dragon's Eye" Fire Control System auto-adjusted the massive Avenger II for firing. This was a test of rapid precision, one he knew He should be capbable of acing. "Begin." He fired single rounds in rapid succession through the center of each of the stationary targets and then went three for three on the moving targets as well. The new joints and hydraulics seemed to hold up well under the massive recoil of the main gun, but the final test was another hillside. Spinning the Avenger up to maximum rotation Steve planted his feet and locked in the massive cannon as he let fly with a full salvo from the Avenger II. The hillside was utterly obliterated, and as Steve started to spin down the gun he checked the systems status. All joints showed green, all structural supports showed green. They'd fixed the recoil issue as far as it no longer actually damaged the robot. "Now I can break out "Old Painful" as much as I need to."

The Shrike meanwhile was undergoing a considerable dowsizing. Dropping to only a scant four meter height it was now getting very close to being a true battlesuit style weapon. It still mounted the Hotspur tracking pods and its slave driver system, but now it also packed an anti-armor RPG launcher and for lack of a better name, a five hundred pound sword called the "Tank Epee." It was still every bit as fast as it had been, but now it could easily ride on the shoulders of the two larger machines. It also mounted an advanced array of ECM, called Specter.

The three robots were finally back in shape when The pilots were called to the command bunker. Their next mission would be a true Baptism of fire.