While the Carmine Revolutionaries and the Guardians of Peace began to clash against each other at an increasing frequency, the truth was that their scale of conflict was still relatively contained.
Most fights involving Auto Heretics were actually conflicts that pitted one group of Carmine mech pilots against another group of Carmine mech pilots!
The Big Two's fears towards the potential damage and chaos caused by the uncontrolled proliferation of Auto Heretic mechs were not unfounded.
Many of their predictions came true!
On a rural third-class planet in the galactic rim, a conflict had broken out between two rivaling companies.
Both of them maintained a range of commercial interests on the surface, ranging from banking services to groceries.
Herzog Kadan was an old and established tyrant. The company was founded on the planet and managed to gain dominance over multiple sectors due to its explicitly local focus.
By prioritizing the hiring of local employees and constantly emphasizing the pride that customers gained by actively supporting their planetary champion, Herzog Kadan had long been able to repel off-world competitors that sought to chip away at its market share.
However, all of that changed over twenty years ago when Macky Incorporated arrived and exploded onto the scene.
Different from other off-world competitors, Macky Incorporated was founded by a group of entrepreneurs who originated from the planet but moved to more developed star systems in order to receive more advanced education.
Now, a bunch of these young but successful graduates had decided to team up and return to their home planet in order to introduce the local population to more advanced and modern goods and services!
Relying on the identity of the founders, Macky Incorporated managed to overcome the typical xenophobia that local consumers expressed towards foreign companies.
Even though Macky Incorporated still employed a large proportion of foreign workers, their superior education and qualifications elevated the fresh new company and enabled them to win over a customer base that was tired of the lack of competitiveness of the Herzog Kadan.
Naturally, both companies soon began to generate friction. Even if the profits that could be earned from a rural planet was only a fraction of that on an industrial planet, the latter typically featured a lot more competition!
As long as Macky Incorporated could successfully diminish Herzog Kadan, the former would be able to earn a steady stream of profits for multiple generations!
Unfortunately, Macky Incorporated failed to make enough progress in their plan to conquer the local markets.
While the upstart company managed to gain superiority in certain sectors, it lost out in other sectors!
In the end, Herzog Kadan's home ground advantage proved to be too strong to overcome in a short amount of time.
Due to the intense and growing rivalry between the two companies, there were times when they came to blows against each other.
Incidents ranging from escort forces bumping into each other and covert raids onto facilities took place from time to time.
As mechs clashed against each other, the damage they inflicted on each other and their surroundings was considerable.
Transportation vehicles, factories and even public infrastructure suffered from the constant fighting.
While the planetary government was fairly weak, its leaders had managed to negotiate a secret agreement between the two sides.
It was impossible to prevent either companies from ceasing to resort to violence. It was an inherent part of the arsenal of any firm with ambitions.
However, both sides at least agreed that it would be better if they limited the scope of engagements in more populated areas.
They also agreed to limit the quantity of mechs and other military hardware used in an engagement.
If they kept bringing more mechs to a fight, the cost of engagements would continue to escalate to unsustainable levels.
There was no way both companies would be able to remain profitable after diverting so much income to violent activities!
Years passed by in relative peace and stability.
Neither Herzog Kadan nor Macky Incorporated were stupid enough to assume that his gentleman's agreement would last forever.
Both sides secretly prepared for the big fight that could cripple one of the sides and cause their business war to decide a victor.
It just so happened that the time had finally come!
Macky Incorporated surprised everyone on the planet by launching an all-out attack on Herzog Kadan's headquarters, main manufacturing complexes and other strategic sites!
Though the defenses of those sites were not light, they already incurred significant damage due to the surprise factor.
What surprised Herzog Kadan was that Macky Incorporated not only employed all of the hidden reserve units that it had built up over the years, but also hired a mercenary outfit that arrived from afar and immediately began its operations upon landfall!
Herzog Kadan may have anticipated the former, but had not been able to plan for the latter!
The cost of hiring mercenaries for this kind of raiding operation was high due to the risks and the potential to suffer significant losses. Macky Incorporated definitely had to go deeper into debt to afford all of the expenses.
It would all be worth it so long as Macky Incorporated won this war!
What was even more remarkable was that Macky Incorporated also fielded a dozen or so of the newfangled Auto Heretic Version C's!
While the third-class version of the infamous Carmine mech was by far the weakest one, that didn't matter to the third-raters who couldn't afford anything better.
Since the Auto Heretic Version C was designed to be affordable to third-raters, Macky Incorporated could still squeeze out the budget to purchase a batch of them from the rapidly growing grey market.
One of the benefits of deploying Auto Heretics was that practically anyone could pilot them and immediately become combat effective.
There was no need to hire skilled mech pilots that were typically expensive to hire and troublesome to keep happy. The good ones knew how much they were worth, and typically charged quite a sum for jobs that required them to initiate hostilities against
other parties.
In contrast, norms would be happy to pilot a Carmine mech for free!
Since Auto Heretics were High Autonomy Living Mechs, there was no need for norms to train their piloting and combat skills over a long period of time.
As long as they could follow orders and possess enough battle sense to know what they were doing on the battlefield, the Carmine mech pilots could still make contributions. Most of the burden of piloting the mech frame could be passed on to the living mech itself. Even though the skill and precision of the autonomous machines was anything but remarkable, it was at least serviceable!
The appearance of Auto Heretics on the side of Macky Incorporated did not shake the battle all that much.
The norms may be enthused about 'piloting' their HALMs, but not all of them possessed the guts to confront genuine mechs controlled by professional mech pilots.
For this reason, the modular Carmine mechs mostly assumed ranged loadouts, allowing the machines to take potshots at enemy positions from afar.