The Mech Touch

The gathered expert pilots all expressed varying degrees of shock and dismay at General Ark's bold plan to assault Duqaste XI.

It was insane to launch a raid on an enemy stronghold with so little mechs and support!

Sure, the expert mechs of the 77th Warborn Mech Division were not weak. Even if most of the machines were outdated by this time, their pilots had grown quite formidable.

All of the Larkinson expert pilots had managed to grow into high-tier expert pilots with the help of general cultivation elixirs.

The remaining two expert pilots of the Warborn consisted of two members of the Cross Clan.

Since these Crossers broke through only recently, they were still low-tier expert pilots, but Master Benedict Cortez made sure to supply them with powerful quasi-first-class expert mechs in order to ensure that they would not be reduced to a more elite form of cannon fodder.

The prosperity and the success that the Larkinson Clan and the Cross Clan enjoyed in recent years allowed them to invest a lot more in their high-end mechs than many other groups. The Warnborn had already stood out from the other linefighters due to this reason.

Evidently, General Ark had so much faith in the strength of the champions of his Warborn that he was willing to send them out on a naked raid on a somewhat fortified enemy position without any other form of backup or support!

Ark knocked his fist against the conference table. "I have not gone crazy. Rest assured that we have made elaborate preparations for this plan. The remainder of the defending forces will be making slightly more aggressive movements in an effort to provoke the native aliens into committing more of their assets to Duqaste VII. The rest of our mech division will remain behind as well in order to give off the impression that we are being held in reserve, when in reality we are already on our way to sneak up to Duqaste XI."

The projected map changed to show how this scenario might play out. Multiple big mech units moved from the orbit of Duqaste VII and sought to engage in more active confrontation against the harassing alien forces. The goal was to turn this local region into a steadily growing whirlpool that began to attract more and more alien phasefighters and warships without making the enemy too suspicious.

In the meantime, a single solitary RA stealth vessel quietly circled around all of the excitement and approached Duqaste XI from a different angle.

The planners still expected the alien forces to keep plenty of warships and carriers in orbit of the planet, but that was not necessarily a big hindrance.

This was because as long as the high-ranking mechs of the 77th Warborn launched from the stealth ship, they would immediately catch the defending aliens off-guard and easily thread through their unprepared orbital assets and proceed to wreck all of the rudimentary storage spaces built underneath the surface of the rocky planet!

"We are strong, and so are our mechs." General Ark boasted. "I expect that none of you should have any issue with bypassing the alien defenders, especially if we are able to catch them unaware at first. Once we are through, we should employ all of our armaments to destroy as many warehouses as possible. As you can see, all of our intelligence indicates that the storage and service facilities are hastily built and poorly constructed. Their physical defenses are practically zero. The only form of protection they enjoy are transphasic energy shields, but the native aliens have not invested too much in them as Duqaste XI is just a temporary staging point."

In other words, as long as the high-ranking mechs were able to break these protective barriers, the warehouses and so on became completely vulnerable!

An expert pilot raised his hand.

"Yes, Venerable Glendale?"

Glendale Kolak of the Larkinson Clan asked an important question.

"Not all of us are good at area destruction. My Greenaxe is only armed with a large axe. It will take minutes to destroy an entire warehouse filled with goods. Unless the place is filled with munitions or combustible fuels, I don't see any way for my Greenaxe to destroy everything fast enough."

"Same." Rosa Orfan said.

"We are aware of your strengths and weaknesses. You can leave this priority to other mechs that are capable of inflicting widespread damage. You should spend most of your time on breaking the transphasic energy shields. Your melee mechs are all equipped with strong space suppressors. Use them to weaken and break the transphasic energy shields that serve as the main form of defense against enemy incursions."

The melee mech pilots looked a little more reassured. That was a job that they could perform without too many complications.

Each of them were already accustomed to breaking transphasic energy shields. They did it all of the time whenever the Warborn confronted a hostile alien fleet.

"We cannot afford to linger too long." General Ark said. "The more time we give to the native aliens, the more time they have to form an encirclement around our positions. Once they are able to deploy tens of thousands of phasefighters and bring all of their other defensive measures online, the probability that we will sustain severe damage to the point of losing some of our mechs will increase quickly. We must retreat from the surface of this lifeless planet before we reach this threshold."

"The aliens will still try to pursue us. If we board the stealth ship after this, we will just expose her and attract a huge amount of enemy fire in her direction."

"That is a valid concern, Orfan, but we have already planned for this. I can guarantee you that all of us will be able to retreat from Duqaste XI in good order so long as we have slipped the noose."

The plan did not exactly sound reliable to the gathered expert pilots. None of them were tactical geniuses, but even they could see how the plan hinged on too many conditions that needed to be just right!

If anything went wrong at these junctions, then there wouldn't be any backup plans that could bail them out! At best, they could rely on brute force to overcome obstacles, but that was bound to bleed them even further!

"General?" Kolak Glendale raised his hand again.

"You may proceed."

"Thank you. As far as we know, the main elements of the alien forces assigned to conquer the Duqaste System is the Ghirard Assault Fleet led by a fairly powerful phase lord. We will definitely meet him if we try to attack Duqaste XI. Who will be assigned to hold him back?"

"Patriarch Reginald Cross."

The mention of the most powerful mech pilot attached to the 77th Warborn caused everyone to look relieved.

Pulling off this operation without an ace pilot accompanying them was not impossible, but it would be incredibly difficult for the expert mechs to return intact!

Having Patriarch Reginald and his increasingly more powerful Mars by their side massively reduced the difficulty of this operation!

That is, as long as everything proceeded as anticipated.

There were still a number of expert pilots who did not feel comfortable with the thin margins they were working with. What if the enemy received greater reinforcements than expected? What if the defenses of the warehouses were unexpectedly stronger than the analysts assumed? What if there was a second phase lord stationed at Duqaste XI?

Patriarch Reginald Cross may be powerful, but he could not be everywhere! He could only deal with one or two difficult challenges at most. If the native aliens were able to deploy even more tricky measures after that, the expert pilots would have to tackle all of the subsequent issues themselves!

General Ark Larkinson could not possibly be ignorant about these concerns, but that did not deter him from going through with this bold initiative.

"There are risks to this operation. Many of them can lead to great danger. This is why I never thought about bringing the rest of the troops along. Only we can pull this off. Many of us are high-tier expert pilots. While only the Mars and my Lionheart among our high-ranking mechs are truly powerful and up to date, your machines are more than adequate for the responsibilities that you are expected to fulfill. Even if we encounter setbacks, we should still be powerful enough to resolve them by relying on our combined strengths. Combined with the fact that we are not weighed down by any other baggage such as the need to escort and protect a lot of standard mechs, we can fully exploit the superior performance of our machines."

That sounded nice, but Venerable Orfan was sharp enough to notice a very big discrepancy!

"Ark, you're a command specialist. Won't you be crippling yourself if you distance yourself from your own troops? I don't see how your Lionheart can glow brightly on the battlefield and borrow the belief that our troops have in your strength to inflict massive blows on the enemy."

She raised a very good point. Even Vincent grew concerned about how much he could rely on General Ark.

A complex expression appeared on Ark's face. "I am well aware of that. I… am conducting a trial of sorts. A trial that I have set upon myself. I believe it is necessary for me to become reacquainted to my own strength as a high-tier expert pilot. It is imperative that I do not receive any power boost from the support of friendly troops, because that will taint the measurements."

"Does that mean that we won't be able to count on you on the battlefield?"

"No. I would not say that. I am still an experienced high-tier expert pilot, and the Lionheart is the strongest expert mech in our mech division. Even without the amplification from my command specialization, it is still a quasi-first-class transphasic hyper mech, a fifth generation living mech, a masterwork mech and so on. It might not be equipped with the powerful new Ultimate Module that my nephew has recently developed, but it possesses all of the other bells and whistles."

"It's not a real living mech." Rosa Orfan accused. "It doesn't possess a soul of its own like my Riot. It's as quiet as the Mars."

"The Mars certainly doesn't appear to suffer from it, and neither does my Lionheart. I have made a careful choice on what sort of mech I wanted to pilot, and my nephew and his wife have obliged to many of my requests to the best of their ability. If you do not believe in my strength, then at least believe in the work of Ves and Gloriana."

That was as good of an answer as any. The Lionheart was not weak. Its relatively young age along with the fact that Ves and Gloriana specifically designed it for a high-tier expert pilot meant that it was definitely strong without factoring in General Ark's ability.

That was as good of an answer as any. The Lionheart was not weak. Its relatively young age along with the fact that Ves and Gloriana specifically designed it for a high-tier expert pilot meant that it was definitely strong without factoring in General Ark's ability.

Yet… many expert pilots couldn't help but wonder whether they would end up missing Ark's amplified strength whenever he successfully inspired the hope and adoration of his troops.

Did General Ark have a different way to compensate for the absence of so many supporting troops, or did he truly intend to conduct the entire operation by relying on his strength and the strength of his expert mech alone?

Venerable Orfan, Venerable Vincent and the others all felt as if they were being dragged along their superior's ride.

However, it was not as if they stood to gain no benefits from this difficult challenge. The more desperate the situation, the more they needed to surpass their limits. It was very much possible that they might be able to break through in the coming operation!

That was enough for them to withhold their remaining complaints and concerns. Everyone was eager to attain their breakthroughs. They all wanted to become the next Saint Tusa or Patriarch Reginald. This was the best opportunity for them to fulfill this ambition!

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