The Mech Touch

Since Josh and Franklin received their new mission, their mechs flew towards the center of the battle between small craft.

The battlefield had already become littered with debris. Broken mechs and fighter craft continually soared away in every direction. Broken and shattered pieces of metal collided against the frames of machines that were too busy fighting against each other to bother with the impacts.

Further away, many orven warships continued to launch transphasic energy beams, kinetic rounds and missiles at the faltering defensive fortifications surrounding the planet.

Both sides had already incurred serious damage, but it was clear that the human defenders were at a clear disadvantage in this fight!

As many elite mechs disengaged from the main confrontation against the orven phasefighters and headed over to the much more intense part of the battlefield, Josh Ketter and his fellow pilots grew tenser and more apprehensive at what they were about to fight against.

The elite phasefighters fielded by the orvens clearly stood above the light and heavy phasefighters that they fought against just earlier.

The models of the elite phasefighters varied considerably from each other, but the mech pilots already guessed that even the worst of these craft had reached quasi-first-class standards!

The more modern and advanced alien craft might not be able to defeat a first-class multipurpose mech by itself, but the fighter can still inflict enough damage against the human machine, and that was enough!

When Josh observed the ongoing battle between the top small craft of both sides, he understood why the higher ups wanted to divert additional mechs to this engagement.

Although the craft did not possess powerful defenses, they were able to rely on a combination of numbers and fairly potent firepower to completely suppress the first-class multipurpose mechs!

Although the first-class mechs did the best they could to rely on their superior all-round performance to evade many attacks and eliminate as many elite phasefighters as possible, there was a limit to the amount of damage they could withstand.

The first-class multipurpose mechs were badly outnumbered. The elite phasefighters eagerly ganged up on specific human machines in order to quickly tear them apart and increase the numbers disparity even more!

Josh, Franklin and the other reinforcing pilots all knew what they had to do without requiring any additional clarification.

"Those elite phasefighters are too strong compared to our mechs." Franklin grumbled. "Their defenses might not be as good as their current opponents, but they are still better than the defenses of our mechs. As for their weapons… they are an entire class above our own. Our hyper energy shields won't last long, and even their lightest transphasic attacks can shred our armor plating."

"Are you chickening out, Franklin?"

"Hell no! I don't think I will be able to make it out of this battlefield alive. I just want to last long enough to take out more enemies before I go. The more elite phasefighters I defeat, the better off my kids will be. Let's make sure we don't die too soon!"

"Your thoughts are the same as mine." Josh savagely grinned.

Now that he had liberated his fear towards death, his drive became stronger than ever!

All he thought about was killing more of these threatening elite phasefighters before his Fey Fianna crumbled apart.

He knew that it wouldn't be easy. The Fey Fianna had a lot of excellent defensive options at its disposal, but there was only so much that second-class solutions could accomplish.

Josh needed to approach this fight with care. His Fey Fianna needed to avoid attracting too much attention. It may be better to slow down its traversal speed and let the other mechs attract the attention of the aliens first.

He shook his head. He rejected this cowardly course of action.

Honor demanded that he followed his comrades into the ray no matter how much they imperiled themselves!

Besides, nothing escaped the monitoring of the Red Association. The mecher liaison already made it clear that under their watchful eyes, every action would be tracked and evaluated in order to make certain that nobody tried to cheat or game the system.

Only honorable combat allowed pilots such as Josh to make a meaningful contribution to the war effort.

The reinforcing mech pilots received more precise orders. They needed to relieve the first-class multipurpose mechs as much as possible by distracting their attackers as best as possible.

One way that could truly force the orven phasefighters to divert their attention was to reduce their numbers as quickly as possible!

"We need to team up with other pairs." Josh said. "It will take at least four or five melee mechs equipped with space suppressors to quickly breach their transphasic energy shields."

The mechs all formed into squads based on the assignments transmitted by their motherships.

Josh's Fey Fianna grouped up with three more swordsman mechs and one light skirmisher.

With the light mech flying ahead, the mech pilots of the other three melee mechs expressed clear interest in the Fey Fianna.

"That is not a machine you see here every day. How is the piloting experience?"

"Sublime. Completely different. It has helped me out more times than I can count. It is as if I have a permanent co-pilot by my side."

"That sounds great. I am jealous of you. If I did not sign up for this duty, I might have been able to pilot one of those new living mechs one day."

"Maybe you will have a chance one day." Josh quipped.

"Hah! Dream on! Let's focus on our mission. Target that black fighter with red stripes first. The craft's transphasic energy shield is already half-depleted. We should complete what the first-class mechs have started."

"Agreed."

The elite phasefighters that had previously been using their numbers advantage to bully the first-class multipurpose mechs suddenly began to experience greater pressure.

The rifleman mechs fired first. Their energy beams and gauss rounds failed to penetrate the transphasic energy shields of the elite phasefighters, but still managed to drain them a little further.

However, the lack of transphasic arms meant that the ranged mechs hardly posed much of a threat.

The tech and material disparities were simply too large.

The second-class mechs only cost a handful of MTA credits to produce.

It was difficult to estimate the production cost of the various models of elite phasefighters that could actually threaten genuine first-class multipurpose mechs. However, any decent mech designer could roughly estimate that their cost in human currency may start at a million MTA credits.

Even if phasewater made up for a hefty chunk of this cost, this huge price gap still illustrated how ridiculous it was for second-class mechs to intervene in this fight!

Yet the second-class mechs still took on this fight because they could still make a difference!

"Careful! The red-striped fighter is turning towards us! It is about to fire its energy cannons!"

The enemy craft ignored the approaching light skirmisher and tried to take down one of the three swordsman mechs.

The pilot of the targeted mech already anticipated this move and began to make desperate evasive maneuvers.

Most laser beams ended up missing the mech, but the few that managed to land a hit quickly broke apart the weak hyper energy shield and burned deep holes through the armor plating!

If not for the fact that the mech pilot made his machine spin in an attempt to spread out the energy damage across a wider surface area, the swordsman mech would have suffered severe internal damage by this time!

"Ahhh! One of the power lines got burned! My mech has lost 20 percent of its power already. Its armor plating is as thin as a leaf against this level of firepower!"

The elite phasefighter did not cease firing. Even though there were multiple ranged mechs trying to sap its transphasic energy shield, the orven fighter pilot clearly understood which targets to prioritize.

It only took a few seconds for the alien to accomplish his goal.

"It looks like I am going out first. Kill this orven bastard for me. Don't let my sacrifice be in vain!"

Josh's eyes grew a little strained when the swordsman mech succumbed from the transphasic attacks.

The damage inflicted by this small machine was not great, but the story was different for the other melee mechs.

Fortunately, the elite phasefighter did not have enough time to mop up the other mechs before it became assailed by the remaining human machines!

The light skirmisher arrived first and continually pummeled the transphasic energy shield with its daggers.

The damage inflicted by this small machine was not great, but the story was different for the other melee mechs.

The two surviving swordsman mechs tried to box in the phasefighter and utilized power moves to quickly deplete the fighter craft's transphasic energy shield.

The Fey Fianna joined in as well and thrust its spear at the energy barrier on a repeated basis.

The melee mechs also tried their best not to put themselves in the crosshairs of the ranged mechs.

The attacks of so many mechs began to take a toll on the half-depleted transphasic energy shield.

Not only that, but the space suppressors from the light skirmisher, the two swordsman mechs, the Fey Fianna and two additional supporting fey all produced a stacking effect that successfully negated the powerful phasewater reinforcement of the affected phasefighter!

The elite alien fight craft's energy shield became a lot more fragile, allowing the attackers to deplete it much faster than before!

What was also important was that the attacks launched by the phasefighter also became weaker.

Even though the elite phasefighter tried to resist as much as possible by launching attacks at the more distant ranged mechs, Franklin's machine only received light to moderate damage up to this point.

"We're through!"

As soon as the suppressed energy shield shattered apart, the light skirmisher zipped forward faster than the other mechs and instantly shoved its knives through the surprisingly fragile exterior and demolished the cockpit.

The alien pilot died instantly!

The fighter craft lost all activity and began to drift aimlessly through space. Though it still retained a bit of functionality, there was no point in attacking it further as the orvens weren't stupid enough to automate their phasefighters.

"Again!"

The four melee mechs and five ranged mechs did not rest and decided to gang up on another phasefighter.

At this time, their group was hardly the only one to achieve a result. Many other veteran mech pilots had successfully teamed up to eliminate one elite phasefighter after another.

The orven fighter pilots could no longer afford to ignore the threat posed by human reinforcements than before!

The angry orvens turned away from the first-class multipurpose mechs and began to turn their guns against the much weaker second-class mechs!

As the Fey Fianna and the other mechs approached another elite phasefighter, two more phasefighters came to the rescue and started to launch a counterattack!

"We are being targeted!"

The incoming damage was terrible!

One swordsman mech got ripped to shreds within seconds as energy weapons designed to take down first-class multipurpose mechs were no joke!

The sole remaining swordsman mech broke away and invested its full power into evasive maneuvers.

The mech pilot of this machine had made the right decision. By no longer flying forward, the mech gained a lot more freedom of movement!

Alas, the three phasefighters were too powerful. They ignored the ranged attacks splashing against their transphasic energy shields in order to finish off the remaining swordsman mech as possible!

Josh grew dismayed. Only the light skirmisher and his Fey Fianna were left. The loss of several mechs equipped with space suppressors increased the burden of the survivors.

The pilot of the Fey Fianna suddenly felt a lot threatened. He could guess that the three phasefighters had set their sights on his Fey Fianna next!

Multiple powerful transphasic energy beams ripped the Fey Fianna's hyper energy shield and began to burn out dozens of modular armor plating!

As the second volley arrived, Josh desperately put the two shield generator fey in the way in order to prevent an early collapse!

Even so, the fey got so badly beaten that they had become littered by holes!

"No!"

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