[1-200] THE MECH TOUCH

Chapter 34: Arm and Leg

The biggest advancement in heat dissipation happened about three hundred years ago. The first heavy mechs introduced primarily used missile and ballistic weaponry. Their ammunition took a lot of space, but they generated much less heat than pure energy-based weapons like lasers.

A heavy mech built-in with lots of lasers was seen as an unrealistic fantasy by most mech insiders at the time. As long as they kept shooting their lasers for a couple of minutes, their mechs turned so hot you could cook an egg on its surface.

Out comes a mech designer who one day thought while mechs were not so good at dissipating heat into the air, then what about the ground? Their feet always touched the ground. So the mech designer reworked the internals of a mech and basically reinvented the concept of legs not just as a way of moving and a way to support weight, but also as a tool to help mechs transfer heat into the ground. Through incorporating sophisticated heat-conducting alloys, that brilliant mech designer developed revolutionary new legs with widened feet that could actually siphon off heat pretty decently.

Shortly after this bombshell invention got out, other mech developers got into the action. If two legs conducted this amount of heat, what about four legs? The first quadrupedal mechs were born. These so-called animal and centaur mechs looked highly unusual, but having more legs offered many advantages besides increased heat transfer. The introduction of spider mechs followed quickly after, but that was when the whole leg craze peaked. The one man who tried to design a centipede mech failed miserably, and his abomination was quickly forgotten.

Methods to deal with heat had come a long way since then. From the use of evaporating coolants, to the incorporation of replaceable heat sinks, mech designers had more choice in how to handle this problem.

Ves hadn't included any of that in his mech. Worse, as Hans often hopped and glided around, the Drake's feet wasn't touching the ground, thus further limiting its heat dissipation. Hans kept avoiding the heavy mechs with his mobility while cutting down the medium mechs by jumping close and taking them out with his sword and shield. Only the light mechs posed a problem as the laser cannons couldn't be fired too fast in order to avoid overheating the Drake. Worse, the laser fire the Drake received only increased its heat levels.

About 7 kilometers through the gauntlet, Hans decided it was enough and detached the laser mounts and stubby flight system from the Drake. The mech lost a lot of its mobility and ranged options, but at least its heat generation was cut. Through a mix of clever positioning and a lot of running, Hans was able to pilot his lightened Drake through several blockades.

The entire crowd adopted strange expressions when they saw Hans kept surviving ambush after ambush. The Drake often slipped past by the skin of its teeth, its exterior armor and its shield accumulating more and more holes and burn marks. Yet despite the extensive damage, none of them hit anything critical. Hans was somehow able to keep going with the Drake even when the mechs of other contestants would have malfunctioned at this point.

"Damn son, did you really spend just twelve hours on your mech? It's still going strong!"

"I haven't done a thing." Ves helplessly shrugged his shoulders. "I was on the stage just as you. It's not even possible for me to cheat."

"Maybe you got word of the competition format beforehand. This must be why Patricia aced the qualifiers. Did the two of you do some unspeakable actions in order to get an advantage?"

Ves really hadn't cheated. He behaved so scrupulously ever since he arrived at Bentheim that he never once opened the System on his comm. The city was really too crowded, so there were many people of all sorts of affiliations spying on each other. He didn't trust the hotel, the wireless net signals or even the open air to be clear of spying eyes.