Chapter 28: Chapter 28: War Walker
After the ball, the weekend flew by quickly and I found myself needing to get ready to go to work on Monday.
And then the big event…another demonstration for the military. As usual, all the big shots were attending. Not that I cared. The only people who mattered to me were the generals and the bureaucrats in the ministry of defense. All the other CEOs and corporate presidents could fuck right off. They didn't belong to the military, not unless they had something useful to offer. Something that could improve the survivability of soldiers or unprecedented firepower that was practical, cheap and efficient to mass produce.
It was all and good to showcase an experimental railgun, but if it wasn't practical to produce them in bulk, then what was the point? It would just be a white elephant, installed in very specific military bases. Not many soldiers would be trained to operate it because most of them wouldn't even get to see it. And the military love standardization. It was easier to conduct trainings that way. Less confusion too.
Just putting it out there – in most of these military demonstrations, less than 10 percent…or even 5 percent of the products were accepted or purchased by the military. Most of the products displayed were interesting prototypes that were simply not practical to manufacture in bulk. I recalled that in the military almost a century ago, laser weapons were deemed inefficient and impractical even though we had the technology to build them.
Laser weapons, particularly man portable ones, required massive amounts of mobile, exportable electrical power, or they wouldn't produce enough power to be on par with ballistic projectiles. At the same time, they had to be small enough to be carried around by soldiers, or even by vehicles, ships or fighter jets.
Not only that, laser beams tended to be weakened by the atmosphere or dropped off in power the further the range. Weather also had adverse effects on the weapons, with humidity being one of the factors affecting the efficiency of laser beams.
Not to mention managing heat. Laser weapons were prone to overheating, and that could prove to be disastrous. Fortunately, all of these problems were solved recently, particularly in the late twenty-first century. That was why I was using laser weapons for my prototypes. Well, not exactly, plasma relied on superheated gases that could reach up to 40,000 degrees Fahrenheit as opposed to lasers, which was a direct amplification of light emission.
Wait, what was that? Readers were complaining? They didn't want scientific jargon and discourse in a romantic CEO story? Okay, fine. Whatever.
"We are last again," William said as he hurried toward me. I nodded and saluted an officer on patrol. He gave me a strange stare and I bowed apologetically. William rolled his eyes when I returned my attention to him. "Why are you playing soldier?"
"I used to be a soldier."
"That was over ten years ago!"
"Once a marine, always a marine."
"You weren't even in the Marine Corps! There was no Marine Corps in Country S in the first place! And you were just infantry, not even a commando or guards!"
"Can't you let a man dream?" I grumbled under my breath. "I grew up playing all those Aliens versus Predator games and pretending to be a colonial marine."
"Then you played Warhammer 40,000, but as Imperial Guard instead of Space Marines. You'll only be a regular guardsman, not an elite biologically engineered soldier!"
"Actually, I'm going to be a pilot of an Imperial Knight!"
Grinning, I turned my gaze toward the stage of the auditorium. My Titan still wasn't present, but I knew where I had parked it. No one knew what I had brought to the demonstration outside of the very top brass of the military, and I had concealed my finest product inside a cargo trailer that was pulled by a military truck.
I wanted to surprise everyone.
Glancing around the audience, I saw several familiar faces. Of course Justin Han was present. To my amazement, Bu Fan was also attending the demonstration. He was alone, sitting at the back with an arrogant smirk on his face and his legs propped up in the seat in front of him. The dude was wearing sunglasses even though we were inside the auditorium…then again, the stage in the auditorium was exposed to the outside, with a retractable ceiling and no walls at the back.
The size of the stage was massive enough to allow tanks to traverse, after all.
I wondered what Justin was here for. He hadn't developed any new Astral Exosuits in months. Bu Fan too, he didn't strike me as someone in the military industry. The Bing family, which he married into, was a pharmaceutical company or a company that owned a hospital, if I recalled correctly. Also, given how the guy was evidently talented in traditional Chinese medicine to the point where his divine acupuncture skills could heal broken bones within seconds (sorry, I had to roll my eyes at that nonsense), I thought he would be wandering outside healing rich old men and gaining their favor so that he could slap the faces of his in-laws whenever they insulted him for being trash.
Ah, maybe that was it. He probably came to heal a top general in the military who would coincidentally suffer a heart attack today. Good lord. It seemed that the world would bend backward to conveniently come up with contrived scenarios for the "useless" son-in-law to play the hero.
"Okay, let's begin!" One of the five-star generals bellowed once it was time and after everyone took their seats. Once again, I zoned away as the demonstrations began, especially since many of the prototypes were repetition of what had been showed before. Just flashier, or maybe they changed a small component. Or readjusted something. Whatever.
There wasn't anything new, not from what I could see. Perhaps variants of existing armor and armaments, but not enough for me to bother remembering.
Finally, it came to our turn and I jumped onto the backstage before the second-last demonstration ended. Stepping into the cargo trailer, I hopped into the cockpit of my Titan and switched it on. For a moment, I was covered in darkness while I strapped myself in my seat. Flicking a few switches and turning the ignition on, I waited for the holographic screens to come to life all around me.
There was a clank as the main door to the cargo trailer cashed downward, forming a ramp for me to walk my newly completed Titan out. I pushed a lever and had my Titan stride out confidently, its servos whirring as hydraulics and gears moved its joints.
The second-last presentation finished and the presenter responsible hurried off just in time for my Titan to make its grand appearance.
"A war walker, huh?" one of the generals murmured. "We already had one of those."
"Yeah, I wonder what's different about this one?"
I pushed my glasses and smiled, though the audience evidently couldn't see my expression inside the cockpit. I could see every one of them, though. Justin Han was on the verge of laughing. H thought I was fooling myself because of how contemporary war walkers were obsolete when compared to his exosuits.
As I said before, they were huge, walking targets that were vulnerable to smaller, swifter attackers who packed heavy anti-tank firepower such as the Astral Exosuits. They were little better than tanks, with the only advantage being their ability to traverse any terrain that might prove too difficult for tanks. They could walk over obstacles that a tank couldn't go through, like low walls, or forest environments. They were also capable of more flexible movement that would lend for more tactical maneuverability – such as shooting, ducking for cover and vision.
However, I had a trick up my sleeve. Reaching for a switch, I flicked it on.
In response, a shimmering dome of energy formed over my Titan, shrouding it in a protective barrier. I keyed the com.
"Fire away. At my Titan."
Missiles, lasers and all sorts of projectiles – both ballistics and energy – streaked toward my Titan. A single tank traversed up the stage, its primary armament booming as it unleashed several 120mm rounds at my Titan.
Explosions engulfed the shimmering dome of energy, concealing my Titan from sight. The bombardment continued, the projectiles pummeling against the shield and throwing up more conflagrations.
Then there was silence.
As the smoke cleared, I had my Titan continue striding forward, still enveloped in the glowing barrier and completely unscathed.
"He installed an energy shield generator on a war walker! A mobile energy shield generator!"
There were murmurs and gasps throughout the military. The generals were leaning forward and taking note, as were the bureaucrats in the ministry of defense. They were recording the demonstration with whatever personal devices they had, probably to be dissected and analyzed later.
However, I wasn't done with my demonstration yet.
Swiveling the torso of my Titan while continuing to walk forward, I unleashed a charged particle beam from the cannon mounted upon its left arm. The tank vanished, completely erased by the volatile stream of destructive energies.
"What the hell?!" One of the generals actually leaped to his feet. "That's…a charged particle cannon!"
I didn't stop. At my behest, I called up a target board, which I immediately obliterated with the plasma railgun on my Titan's right arm. There was nothing left of the 5 meter thick concrete except molten material that glowed red-hot from the sheer heat.
Turning my Titan around, I did an exaggerated bow, with the war walker's fuselage dipping slightly atop its two mechanical legs.
"No! I don't accept this!"
Justin Han was screaming as he jumped from his seat, jabbing his finger at me wildly.
"Trevor Shen, are you man enough to accept a challenge from me? I'll put my Astral Exosuits against your stupid war walker right here, right now! And I'll prove to everyone that you're just a fraudulent loser!"
Chuckling, I keyed the mic and allowed my voice to echo throughout the auditorium.
"Challenge accepted."
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone