Technology

The Mach Drive

A Mach Drive is three things bolted together on the spine:

The Core

A sealed coupler core, grown in a foundry crucible over eleven weeks. It is the part that couples the wearer to the local gravitational gradient. Cores are not machined and cannot be repaired; each is unique and stamped with its foundry line. A Core is the most valuable object on any battlefield by a wide margin, which is why Core Stations are shielded and why a mission that captures one is worth a company.

The Cell

An energy store that pays for everything the Drive does beyond passive coupling: Burn, shield projection, energy weapons, some pack functions. It recharges from a small reactor in the frame, slowly. The cell is the operator's budget and every Machborne learns to think in it.

The Envelope

The shaped field itself, invisible except as a faint distortion at the edges under hard Burn. The envelope's coupling can be set high (Traction: the wearer stands, walks, stops like a person) or low (Glide: the wearer is barely attached to the surface and slides along it, keeping momentum). Switching is instant and free. Living with the choice is the skill.

Why Glide works. With coupling low, the ground can push against the envelope but cannot hold it. Friction drops to near nothing. Gravity still applies, so a downhill face accelerates the operator and an uphill face decelerates them; the art is stringing faces together so that the ledger stays positive across the map. Bowls, ridgelines and long descents are worth more than any weapon.

Why Burn works. The envelope can be shaped asymmetrically to push against the gradient. The push is upward by default, because that is the direction the foundries could make safe first; a trained operator can vector it, at the cost of more cell per second. Burn is how an operator leaves the ground, corrects a Vector in the air, or arrives without breaking. It is never how an operator gets fast. That is terrain's job.

The Break and MachBreak. Every Drive has a speed at which the envelope shifts regime: above it, the field stiffens and the wearer becomes far harder to stop or hit. The HUD marks this threshold as the Break. Well above it lies the MachBreak regime, where the Drive is running past its foundry rating and every telemetry channel is recording. Foundries publish a Drive's MachBreak threshold as its headline number.

Frames. The frame is the armour, reactor and equipment shell built around a Drive. Three ratings ship:

Strider

Minimum armour, maximum cell-to-mass. Built to cross unmapped ground fast and carry one thing.

Ranger

The general rating: enough armour to duel, enough cell to keep up, enough carry for a relay or a repair kit.

Bulwark

Built around a siege weapon. The Drive is tuned to move a person who is also carrying a mortar; the operator is slower to accelerate, harder to shift, and the only frame rated for indirect fire.

A frame is a certification, not a caste. Operators change frames between missions the way a pilot changes aircraft.

Energy

The cell is a single pool. Burn draws from it; shields draw from it; the Lance draws from it; some packs draw from it. The reactor refills it at a fixed rate that does not care how urgent things are. This is deliberate: a Machborne engagement is a series of decisions about what the cell is for right now, and the foundries have never found a way to make that decision for the operator.

An empty cell is not death. It is a Traction-only, no-Burn, no-shield operator at whatever speed they were already carrying, which on a good Breakline is still a great deal. The best operators run empty on purpose.

Weapons

Every Machborne weapon fires a projectile with a travel time, because the target is a person moving at two hundred kilometres an hour along a Burn Arc, and a weapon that cannot be led cannot be learned. Foundry designations in parentheses.

Impulse Launcher

(IL-7 "Sling"). Fires a contained energy charge that detonates on contact with a wide splash. It exists because two operators meeting in the air need a weapon that rewards the one who read the other's arc better. The projectile is slow enough to see and fast enough to matter; the splash makes near-misses count and lets an operator push themselves with a self-shot, which the foundries did not intend and every Machborne uses.

Vector Cannon

(VC-3). A kinetic slug at high velocity with a small splash. The interceptor's weapon: built to meet a Runner crossing a predicted point at speed. Less forgiving than the Impulse Launcher, more decisive when it lands.

Arc Thrower

(AT-2). A sustained energy stream with good accuracy, drawing on the cell. For operators who would rather track than predict, at the price of mobility while it is firing.

Shard Cannon

(SC-9). A short-range spread of ceramic fragments. Built for the inside of a base: Core Station rooms, tunnels, generator bays. Useless at range on purpose, so that a base defender's advantage is a base and not a gun.

Lance

(LN-1). A precision energy weapon that drains the cell per shot. Exists for the operator who chooses to stand still and be right. Firing a Lance means not Burning, which is the cost.

Burst Rifle

(BR-4). A three-round kinetic burst, mid-range, moderate travel time. The most ordinary weapon in the inventory, and the most carried.

Gravity Mortar

(GM-12 "Ledger"). An arcing siege round that falls where a Bulwark's aim solution says it will. It cannot be aimed well without targeting data from somewhere else, which is the point: the mortar is the last link in a chain, and the chain is the weapon.

Seeker

(SK-5). A lock-on launcher for vehicles. Countered by flares, terrain and jamming, all of which a good driver carries. It exists so that infantry is never simply prey.

Mid-air hits. A projectile that meets an operator in the air is recorded as a Vector Hit, graded by the target's speed. Foundries keep the grades because the telemetry sells Drives; operators keep them because it is the only score that matters.

Packs

A pack occupies the frame's dorsal mount and changes what the cell is spent on:

Energy Pack

A larger reactor. More cell per second, which means more Burn, which means more Breaklines are survivable. The Runner's default.

Shield Pack

Projects part of the envelope outward as a damage shield, paid from the cell. An operator behind a shield is an operator who is not Burning.

Repair Pack

A field coupler for fixing frames, deployables and vehicles. Turns an Engineer into the reason a base is still standing.

Jammer Pack

(later). Floods local sensor bands with noise. Loud to anyone still listening; the information war's blunt instrument.

The information layer

The Machborne trade learned early that the map is a weapon. Every base carries a sensor grid and every company carries the tools to blind one.

Sensors

Base radar, portable radar posts, line-of-sight lanterns, acoustic pickups, drone sweeps. A sensor grid tells a defence where the Runner is; without it, the defence is guessing at a target moving at the Break.

Beacons

Small emitters that mean something to whoever placed them: a Target Beacon gives a Bulwark an aim solution; a Relay Beacon keeps a company's own network alive when the base radar is gone; a Decoy Beacon is a lie with a battery. Placing a beacon is a physical act by a single operator, usually behind the enemy, usually alone.

Jamming

Area noise, directional noise, false-target injection, beacon spoofing. All of it is visible to a sensor operator who knows what noise looks like. Jamming buys time, never certainty.

The chain that every Machborne company drills: blind the grid, insert the marker, keep your own network, generate the solution, fire, exploit. The defence's chain is its mirror: protect sensors, sweep for markers, raid the enemy relay, jam the beacon, counter-battery, hold a reserve. Neither side ever gets to press one button.