HARM

HARM

The heavy cockpit hatch set in the giant robot's lower chest sealed with a hiss then a dull thud.  Internal cockpit panels and displays immediately lit up.  Second lieutenant Joshua Scott finished strapping himself in then followed with the final plug hookups for his suit.  He then put on his silvery cybernetic helmet that would
use
his mental impulses to help control
the machine.  You could clearly see his
face through the wrap-around visor of the helmet, but the inside of the helmet showed a three dimensional view from the perspective of the robot’s head to the pilot.  He completed the biometric security check, and punched the red Start button.  The machine began to hum to life as its electronics powered up.  

"
Welcome back, Lieutenant Scott
,
" greeted the synthesized voice of his robot's AI.

“Glad to be back X-14.” He replied.  He had been piloting X-14 for weeks
now, and various experimental models of these
ne
w humanoid robots for months
.  It was something he was adapting to, something that he was good at, but he missed flying fighters.
  “Start up progress?”

"
HARM start
up in progress… Master power on… System initializing… Control systems ready… Mobility systems ready…
Sensors and targeting
ready… Weapons ready… Communications ready… Network linkage ready… Control synchronization initiated…
  Loading mission data
…
"

Cockpit visuals showed technicians on the hangar floor uncoupling external power and data feeds after finishing the final checks on his robot. 
The hangar was also bustling with additional activity.  Large trucks were being loaded with equipment, tools, and supplies. Everything that was useful and moveable was being packed up for a move to a safer General Automata Corporation facility.

His tactical display showed friendly positions and the advancing enemy units in real time. Tactical orders, requests for support, and status messages scrolled down the side.  Things were looking pretty bad, Joshua thought to himself, as the alien a
dvance was only 15 km from this
facility.  The aliens, also known as the Blue Newts from corpses recovered on the battlefield, had made a surprise breakthrough of the main defensive line.  They seemed to be on a direct path towards Huntsville Alabama
, otherwise known as
Space City USA.  Unfortunately the path of the alien advance would take them right through the research facility where Joshua was.  Worse yet, the fighting was nearing a refugee camp of 40,000 that was also in the area.

Joshua continued to listen into the chatter on the army com-nets, some of it panicked.  He was nervous too, but focused on his work while finishing the pre-start sequence on his HARM X-14.    HARM was short for Humanoid Assault and Reconnaissance Machine.  His machine was a
13
metre tall bipedal robot that vaguely resembled a medieval knight with
its
thick torso, massive joints, blocky armour plates, and a squat helmet with a horizontal slit on top.  There was no sword though.  Instead, his right arm had a coil-gun attached to it, an electromagnetic cannon which was his main weapon, and his left arm had a smaller automatic cannon built into it.  While large, the HARM was nimble for its size, with a near full range of human motion, the ability to rocket jump
2
0 metres up, and was able to run at 80 kph.

The brains at General Automata Corporation had hastily assembled the robot he was in over a three week period.  It was the culmination of  work that built on many earlier prototypes and hundreds of simulated computer models. Sometime during development, everyone had started calling the big robots “mechas,” following a Japanese naming convention.  Joshua wasn’t big into science fiction, especially Japanese science fiction, but he sure felt like he was living it.

His mecha was the first production prototype off the robotic manufacturing line.  It was so new that the cockpit hadn't been finished by the technicians.  Inside the cockpit, there were unpainted surfaces everywhere, empty electronics bays, and both the electronic camouflage and ejection systems weren’t even
operatio
nal.  More importantly, the onboard visual displays, key instruments, and r
obot controls were fully functional
.  Despite looking new on the inside, they had been busy field testing it for the last week.  The yellow, external paint job was now dirtied, scuffed, and scarred on the outside from the
operational
tests, and shooting exercises.  He was quite nimble at piloting the machine now, but had resigned himself to his robot’s yellow paint scheme as it was originally a test model that was never supposed to see combat.  Combat
that
was now necessary as an alien breakthrough in the last
day
had changed things dramatically.

Inside the cockpit, a pair of joysticks with thumb controls were located in front of the pilot.  These were the manual backups to operate the machine, but this could just make it walk and work its arms in the simplest manner.  The real controls for the HARM were linked the cybernetic 3D display helmet and the motion capture suit that the pilot wore.  The
tight-fitting
suit was plugged into a skeletal
support
frame
that
provide
d
both physical
support for the human operator and force-feedback to show how the machine was responding to commands.  Even though their cockpits were
9
metres off the ground, pilots felt like they were wearing the 30 ton machine in a manner similar to how battlesuit infantry felt when they were wearing their powered exoskeletons.  When you first piloted a HARM you had to adjust to the disorienting size perspective and
the
actual capabilities and limitations of the machine.

Initialization error 22 - cerebral sy
nchronization requires restart
.
  The error message flashed on Scott's helmet display. 
“
It appears the interface
pickups require adjustment
,
” the AI responded,
“
I will attempt to correct
.
”

Crap, Joshua thought to himself, not again.  He'd have to restart again through the neuro-syncing interlocks again.  The mecha
systems themselves were
ready as he had green lights right across the board, but the vitally important
cybernetic
control interfaces were being difficult
again
.
  The cybernetic interfaces read his mind to enhance the
motion capture control
of
the robot
to a new level.

"Don't worry," Janet Chan, the chief engineer, spoke through the visual com-link.  "We see it.  Fred's working on it right now
too
.  Once we get it going, you'll be fine.”  Janet was an older Chinese lady, a formidable woman with a keen intellect.  She actually scared Joshua a bit with her personality.  Some of the staff referred to her as the Dragon Lady.  If you didn't do your job right  you would hear about it.  “They're adjusting the primary protocols right now - the threshold values shifted on the last set of replacement neural sensors."

"It better work or I'm a sitting duck in this tin can," Joshua replied with a hint of sarcasm.  There had been serious glitches with the mecha before, but they seemed to have been ironed out. "I'd be better off with a battlesuit and a rocket launcher.
  Better yet, get me a fighter.
" 

"Why don't we let our security boys play with the gorilla suits," Janet replied with
just a hint of a
grin, "we need to get the big
guns out there to back them up – and you didn’t do all that well last time you were in a plane if I recall.
”  Joshua was surprise to hear her joke – it was rare.  She then asked, “How are the power levels on your end?  The chemical fusion plant was fluctuating just a little last night but our telemetry shows a clean curve now."

Joshua checked his visor HUD, thought power status and noted the displayed readings matched.  "Power's good.  We'll see how it goes at full output."  He did expected problems, but not serious problems as the HARM had proven itself already, but the machine still unnerved him a little. 

The machine he was riding in would have been technically impossible to build seven months ago.  The technology to build something like it, something much cruder and different existed, but this mecha used alien technology.  Alien technology had been captured or recovered, then reverse engineered to build new weapons, chemical fusion power plants, synthetic muscle, a
ctive
molecular armour, and even cybernetic mental interfaces.  The governments of earth, with their best scientists, most powerful computers, and massive, around the clock, desperation had worked miracles through international cooperation and collaborative miracles due to the Internet.

Japanese robot scientists, Russian physicists, American computer scientists, Canadian nanotech researchers, German weapons engineers, and a host of help from other nations had learned and innovated from the fragments of alien technology.  Even with the massive devastation to modern society from the alien war, communication and collaboration went on through the nets.  Thanks to advanced computer directed manufacturing and fully automated factories new designs were created, prototyped, and tested with astonishing speed.  These same robotic factories also enabled countries to keep manufacturing, despite the war losses and supply chain disruptions, as manufacturing was no longer centralized in Asia as it was at the beginning of the 21
^st
century.

The HARM’s
AI computer voice
suddenly spoke. 
“
Cerebral synchronization complete.  Please begin operational validation tests
.
”

Joshua moved his right arm, followed by his left arm, then flexed his fingers, causing the three fingered grippers on the mecha’s arms to open and close.  He then rotated his head ensuring the sensors in the mecha’s head were tracking his motion.  Walking forward two steps he then turned 360 degrees both left and right.  Finally, he mentally activated his offensive and defensive systems to complete the testing, but not before he double checked the power couplings to the coil-gun as it drew it’s power from the mecha’s power plant.