Chapter 5:
The Wasp M1 was the smallest of the three, it was also the most streamlined, and coolest one in my opinion. I’ve always liked going fast, especially when said ‘going fast’ involves shooting things. I always liked racing games and shooters, so I suppose that it’s not surprising. Anyways, back to the Wasp.
It two sprawling, segmented legs. After that, there was the cockpit, which had two roll bars on the top shaped like antennae, and retractable lights on the front that looked like compound eyes, and that came out with mandibles, it was kind of like the thorax and head of an insect were combined. The arms were short, with its weapons directly attached, instead of being held by hands. It also had an abdomen like section which contained its booster, with which, the exhaust came out of where the stinger was supposed to be. The booster is a directional jet with self-replicating, but easily used-up, fuel. The feet were three-pronged, with retractable wheels. It looked like it was covered in black chitin, with gaps being filled with yellow stripes. Over the armor, were 4 solar panels that could be folded back and looked like wings. The cock-pit viewing-monitor (You wouldn’t be caught out in extreme conditions like the ones space includes with your only point of view coming from glass, now would you?) was shaped in a honey-comb pattern. I suppose that they were really pushing for the insect design in this mech.
The weapons were… to be honest, plain. There was a stinger missile launcher on top of the mech, in between the “wings” (I’m just so clever, aren’t I?). Said launcher was an automatically-reloading, 10-shot launcher. The weapon on the left arm was an automatic grenade launcher, which in itself is pretty cool in and of itself, if you exclude the fact that it shoots shrapnel grenades, that have little to no piercing or explosive power, and are meant to be used against infantry or lightly armored vehicles. The only way for these to be useful for bigger things, is if its armor is literally (I mean “literally” as in the way it was meant to be used) shit, or it the grenade lands inside of it. Now, onto the most mediocre of the bunch, the weapon on the right arm AKA, the primary weapon. It was an auto-cannon, with a 900-ish rpm firing speed, which fired armor-piercing high-explosive rounds. I know that that sounds cool as fuck, but the problem was that it couldn’t hit anything reliably after about 100 feet, not to mention the recoil so strong that it can move a 15-ISH TON MECH, and the horrid heat accumulation speed.
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Oh, right, I haven’t told you about the heat system. Heat generated by your weapons is circulated throughout your mech, so you can have all your weapons up for longer, but if you hit the ceiling for your heat-sink’s output, then all of your weapons go down at once, which can be detrimental in a first. Not really a problem for the Wasp, because it specializes in short engagements, if you reach the heat-sink’s limit, you should’ve already gotten out of that fight, and if you aren’t already dead, you will be soon. It can be configured to make each weapon have its own heat-sink, but the heat will fill up way faster. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages.
Back to the Wasp, I looked all over it, only the outside of course, scrutinizing every inch, and got a skill.
_ - Skill Gain -_
Skill gained: Mech Engineering (lvl 1)
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I asked Jeffrey (surprisingly, that was his real name) if I could root around in the spare mechs to get my bearings in Mech Engineering, and he was totally fine with it. Apparently the crew almost never has the chance to use these old mechs, so they were just laying in storage. So, after rooting around in the other mechs for a while, I got Mech Engineering to level 5. I don’t know if I’m supposed to feel happy or depressed that it’s my highest level skill. I’m just gonna be happy. Apparently scrapping the spares for parts were off limits though, trust me, I asked. And since I got Mech Engineering to level 5, I rooted around in the Wasp’s insides, and rewired several thing to be more efficient.
Afterwards, I’m expected to meet the captain of the ship. I’m not really nervous about it, I’m more expectant. I mean, who doesn’t want to meet a bad-ass space pirate captain?