The Mech Touch

5896 Convincing Fakes

The 'god beast' that attacked the Dominion of Man was by far the trickiest opponent she had fought against!

As everyone could figure out with ease, the dreadnought always fared better in direct combat. The Dominion of Man dominated the earlier waves with remarkable ease because she had no problem aiming her massive gun batteries and potent Rubicon at large but obvious targets.

The mirror beast broke that pattern.

Its domain directly prevented the dreadnought from detecting the location of its true body.

It also generated illusionary beings that had the annoying tendency of reflecting most attacks that struck their forms.

Even so, the Dominion of Man still shouldn't have struggled so much. Her sensor systems were state-of-the-art, and had been upgraded several times over due to all of the lightning baptisms they received.

Yet for a True God-level monstrosity that had gone all-out in developing a domain that was based in illusion, reflection and misdirection, the Dominion of Man instantly tripped in the face of this challenge!

This becclear when the countermeasures employed by the crew and the control system of the dreadnought failed to keep up with the mirror beast's tricks.

Much of the crew had entered into disarray due to the latest changes.

A weapons officer who took charge of a tertiary gun battery system held out his plasma pistol and continued to keep track of his subordinates.

The active communication link as well as the brand-new connection formed by the Bloodfire Pact ensured that he maintained a close watch on the personnel he knew for certain was real.

"Hostile decoys have appeared!"

The spacers under the officer's command held their weapons tight but refrained from opening fire.

Each of them had already armored up and activated their personal azure energy shields.

In addition to that, the dreadnought's control system automatically deployed larger azure energy shields that separated the 'newcomers' from the existing personnel.

"Confirm identity!"

The officer checked the identities of all of his personnel, and not just the newcomers, by downloading their data, examining them through many different sensors and checking whether they were brothers-in-arms via the Bloodfire Pact.

None of the verification methods revealed any differences. Even questioning the suspected fakes in person caused the officer to receive disturbingly familiar answers.

The Bloodfire Pact was a convenient way to determine whether anyone bonded with the Dominion of Man. While more and more spacers agreed to dedicate their lives to the dreadnought over the course of the lightning tribulation, a lot of ratings had yet to do so for one reason or another.

The officer had to resort to other methods to distinguish real from fake.

After an exhaustive examination, the man in charge leveled his gun at the three individuals that failed the final test.

It used to be fairly easy to spot the fakes, but that had changed to an extent when the decoys suddenly appeared in the seats of positions where the real persons previously occupied!

"The two of you may have gotten clever by copying the men who haven't formed a pact of fire with our ship, but you failed to solve the science problems as quickly or as neatly as you have done before. As for you, I am not certain why you appear to share a bond with our ship, but the operating system of your hazard suit is desynced from the rest!"

The clones shouted and tried their best to profess their innocence, but the crew of the dreadnought had experienced this enough times to know that the decoys were capable of mimicking human behavior and speech to a perfect degree.

While the officer faintly began to doubt his judgment and the judgment of the monitoring system, he needed to take action before the clones began to mess around even more.

Since it was too dangerous to allow the ship's control system to eliminate the detected clones by itself, the officer had to manually activate a control panel and input a code in order to start the lethal process.

Soon enough, all three clones becsquashed by gravity that was far in excess of what they were supposed to bear.

A ceiling-mounted rocket launcher conline and fired micromissiles at the designated targets in order to guarantee their demise.

Two of the clones broke down and ultimately vanished as the mirror beast no longer saw any point in maintaining the illusions.

The third body, or at least the pieces of it, remained on the deck. Bloody and broken pieces of flesh, armor and other nasty bits continued to foul the compartment as an uncomfortable silence stretched.

"Sir… that is Specialist Rayd's clone… correct?"

A sinking feeling emerged in the officer's heart. This had to be another trick. The corpse was fake. He had tested the clone in so many ways.

The officer immediately turned to the suited figure that he presumed to be the real specialist.

"You! Verify your identity!"

The serviceman who previously stood behind his station turned out to be fake all along!

That meant that the real Specialist Rayd had been displaced to the location where he had been killed… by his own brothers in arms.

Everyone bechorrified when they realized what had happened. However, their impeccable professionalism ensured that they maintained their composure. No matter how guilty or scared they became, they knew that there was no place for emotional bursts when they were in the middle of an ongoing battle.

"Remain on standby." The officer spoke as he tried his best to project firmness. "We must relay what has happened and warn our fellow fleeters not to jump the gun."

This was not an isolated incident. The Dominion of Man was so large that similar deceptions took place throughout her entire hull!

Plenty of clones got blasted or crushed, only for fleeters to find out that they had mistakenly condemned their own brothers and sisters to death!

Tens of thousands of loyal fleeters died within minutes before everyone wished for the mirror beast's latest trick!

The damage had been especially great among the Dread Marines! It took more effort and firepower to take them down, especially when their Dread Armors actually reflected damage back no matter whether they were real or fake!

Suspicion and paranoia rapidly spread throughout the entire ship. Trust and camaraderie dropped so quickly that the efficiency of the dreadnought dropped by a noticeable level.

While the Brain Trust tried its best to compensate for all of the failings, it was never meant to take full control over the vessel. It was also dependent on sound data to base its decisions.

When the ship's monitoring system got deceived just as easily as the humans who crewed the dreadnought, the Brain Trust had to act with increasingly more restraint in order to prevent further incidents of friendly fire!

Back in the command center, Ves and Dread Captain Argile were both on the verge of going crazy as they tried to break the mirror beast's game.

During this crazy time, Ves looked at not one, but two identical copies of himself!

Azure energy shields had conline to isolate the Vesses from each other and the rest of the crew.

"I am the real Ves, captain! I was the one that made Caramond and Furia! Look, I am the only one who possesses a companion spirit. Show them who's the real deal, Blinky!"

"Mrow!"

"That cat is fake. It's just an empty illusion. Here's the real Blinky!"

"Mrow mrow mrow!"

"You shameless decoy! Neither of you are Ves, and neither of your companion spirits are real. Look, I will prove it to you by letting my Blinky absorb fire energy."

"Mroooow!"

"That's an easy trick, you faker. My companion spirit can do that and more!"

The three Vesses continued to confuse everyone as none of them managed to produce definite proof that they were the real ones.

"Damnit, what do I need to do to prove that I'm the real one? Wait, I got it! I'm a phase lord. I'm too tired to unfold my true body at the moment, but I can still prove that I have phasewater flowing through my body. Here, take this sample and analyze it. You will definitely find that it contains phasewater."

"Take my blood sample as well! It is the only one that contains phasewater."

The third Ves grew angry at this display!

"I am the real Ves here! Take my blood sample if you have to, but don't believe these two decoys! If they are willing to give you their blood samples, then they are clearly able to imitate the properties of phasewater. Captain, we need to stop playing the mirror beast's game. If we want to beat this bastard, then we need to stop wasting our times on these clones and focus on finding the source of the problem. I can guarantee you that his real body shouldn't be too far away. His domain shouldn't be able to fool us all so well if he is too far away. Launch as many superweapons in the surrounding space. This annoying haze may be blocking our sensor systems, but if we engulf the entire area around us with explosions, we are bound to land a hit."

"Don't listen to that decoy, Captain Argile!" Another Ves pleaded. "I don't know how many antimatter warheads you have left, but I don't think you have an unlimited supply of them. This saboteur that wears my face is trying his best to make you expend your strongest weapons so that we have little to nothing left to solve the mirror beast and the two other god beasts that cafterwards. Save your superweapons and open fire in all directions with your ship's conventional gun batteries instead."

The next Ves shook his head after hearing his 'own' advice. "That is worse than useless. Dispersed firepower won't be able to threaten an enemy at the level of a god beast. Even if a weapon strikes the mirror beast, the attack will just get reflected back tenfold! We shouldn't be hasty and make this situation worse by taking the wrong actions. We need to wait and figure out how to solve the root of the problem."

"You're a traitor, Ves! Doing nothing will only allow the mirror beast to torment us to death! Besides, it's not my style. I have always distinguished myself for being more proactive than other mech designers. Only a fake version of myself would suggest inaction as a preferred solution!"

"I'm the real Ves!"

"No I'm the real Ves!"

"Captain Argile, we can't go on like this. Don't waste your twith us and find a way to kill that god beast. I'm the real Ves by the way."

"LIAR!"

As the three Vesses continued to provide different suggestions while claiming that they were real, they suddenly fell silent when a wave of heat and fury exploded from the center of the ship!

"<nullb>CEASE YOUR MEDDLING, FOUL CREATURE. THE DOMINION OF MAN IS MY SACRED HEARTH! NO ENEMY IS ALLOWED TO BREACH THE SANCTITY OF MY DOMAIN!"

Wave after wave of fire energy passed through every section of the massive hull in an attempt to discern true from false.

However, Furia failed to expose the mirror beast's illusions. The True God was simply too good at deceiving its adversaries.

This included True Gods like the transformed Fire Elemental!

One of the Vesses grew depressed when his power creation failed to dispel all of the fakes.

"The mirror beast is one of the most effective counters against this ship. It is taking advantage of our lack of ability to protect us against manipulation. The god beast is so damn good at it that its illusions are no longer purely imaginary anymore. The fact that it can copy stuff like our memories, our expertise, our skills and even the more esoteric stuff like Blinky or the Bloodfire Pact means that its imitation ability has reached a conceptual level!"

Another Ves elaborated on this analysis.

"The fact that the mirror beast is able to deceive the likes of Furia means that none of us stands a chance from the beginning. Our cultivations are much weaker than that of a True God, which means that our ability to defend and resist against the creature's deception is practically nil. The best we can do is to lock ourselves down and hope that Furia is able to grow quickly enough to break the illusions."

A third Ves formed a tentative plan of action.

"A high-ranking mech pilot should be able to resist the illusions. It is a pity that we don't have any on this ship. Since the tribulation storm stops us from calling in outside help, we should find the closest possible substitute. I am sure that a ship as large and powerful as this contains gadgets or materials that can help us find a crack in the mirror beast's plan."

Dread Captain Argile and many of the fleeters who paid attention to the Vesses grew even less confident in their ability to discern the real one from the fakes.

There was absolutely no way they could definitely prove which one was real!

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