The Mech Touch

The alien commander in charge of the Ghirard Fleet clearly possessed a good understanding of human expert mechs and the 77th Warborn Mech Division in particular.

There were many arrogant alien leaders that never really made a serious attempt to understand their human foes in depth.

Those leaders were most prone to suffering catastrophic defeats where far too many of their expensive warships got torn apart by mechs.

The longer the Red War persisted, the greater the likelihood of encountering alien commanders that showed serious respect towards their human adversaries.

The threat from another galaxy may have spread untold death and destruction across the Red Ocean, but the arriving humans had also introduced a lot of new technologies, ideologies, military doctrines and so much more.

The native aliens that weren't arrogant enough to assume that the customs of their race were superior to everything else all benefited a lot whenever they learned from the powerful humans.

The longer the war dragged on, the more the native aliens would begin to resemble their hated human foes!

The same applied in the other direction as well. Red humanity had already begun to integrate in the Red Ocean by mastering phasewater technology and attempting to produce human phase lords.

These concurrent trends basically described the inevitability of convergence of two completely hostile groups.

No matter whether they were enemies or allies, continued exposure to each other's culture, technology, armies and so on resulted in greater mutual understanding, if only so that they could figure out how to defeat their adversaries more effectively.

As the warships began to train their massive guns towards the only Crosser expert mech to take part in this lengthy approach, Venerable Lothario Cross did as instructed and immediately prioritized his survival above all other concerns!

The 80th Element flew away from the loose formation and started to make a lot of lateral movements.

Perhaps Venerable Lotheria had already made that conclusion, because just before the barrage of attacks arrived, the expert pilot steered his machine in a direction that allowed it to avoid several primary gun battery strikes at the cost of getting hit by two different secondary gun battery attacks!

10:45

Hundreds of energy beams, kinetic projectiles and more exotic attacks proceeded to flood the space around the smart metal mech!

This time, the Crosser expert mech was unable to avoid getting hit.

Perhaps Venerable Lotheria had already made that conclusion, because just before the barrage of attacks arrived, the expert pilot steered his machine in a direction that allowed it to avoid several primary gun battery strikes at the cost of getting hit by two different secondary gun battery attacks!

The 80th Element's resonance shield managed to resist the attacks with great difficulty.

The difference in power was considerable even though the mech ended up getting hit by a pair of secondary gun batteries. Smaller caliber or not, the second-largest gun turrets mounted on a large alien warship were still larger than any weapon that a mech could reasonably wield. They were also powered or supplied by a huge vessel that could devote a lot of capacity to keeping the weapons supplied with enormous amounts of energy and munitions.

Yet despite the enormous disparity in size and power, the 80th Element actually managed to withstand the incoming blows quite well!

The expert mech's resonance shield was one of the remarkable 'technologies' that the native aliens were still unable to replicate.

Based on willpower more than sophisticated engineering, the resonance shield's working principles were based on defying the laws of reality rather than exploiting them to the fullest.

In other words, the resonance shield easily resisted the pair of energy beams fired by secondary gun batteries because they weakened the principles that made the attacks so powerful.

In the end, the 80th Element managed to get away unscathed from a physical perspective.

The result did not come without a cost, as Venerable Lothario Cross's willpower had already become more strained from the exertion.

"I can't resist too many of these attacks!" Lothario informed the others. "My resonance strength is not as high as that of the rest of you. I think I can only keep this up for one or two minutes before I have to retreat in order to give me enough rest to recover my resonance shield."

"Two minutes is enough, Lothario." General Ark responded. "The more firepower you attract, the less the nunser warships are working to wear down the defenses of our own expert mechs. Keep doing what you need to do to survive. You may withdraw at your discretion once you judge you are close to reaching your limits."

"I will try to last as long as possible, sir."

Venerable Lothario was a younger member of the Cross Clan who had grown up hearing about all of the famous battles that led to the rise of the Golden Skull Alliance.

He had spent his years in the academy hearing about all of the feats accomplished by the heroes of the Larkinson Clan and the Cross Clan.

Lothario was anything but a coward, or else he wouldn't have been able to break through in the first place. Both his duty and his personal desires drove him to contribute as much as possible despite the danger of getting targeted by several dozen warships.

Perhaps the only consolidation was that his expert mech was not being targeted by the tens of thousands of phasefighters that the Ghirard Fleet deployed in space.

The effective ranges of the transphasic energy weapons mounted on the fightercraft were not particularly high. Perhaps they might score a lucky hit on a mech at such a long distance, but the more probable outcome was that they would waste their energy in vain.

No. The phasefighters were already moving to intercept and interfere with the other expert mechs that continued on their approach to Duqaste XI.

While the 80th Element continued to attract a lot of firepower, the remaining expert mechs soon had to contend against the swarms of nunser phasefighter that were probably willing to do anything to hinder the human champions.

"The nunser race is characterized by high cohesion as well as a high degree of collectivism." General Ark Larkinson said. "Out of the major alien races, the nunsers are the most willing to engage in self-sacrificing behavior. In past battles, the nunsers have already demonstrated a proclivity for engaging in suicidal ramming attacks, especially against expert mechs. I think that all of our mechs will become targeted by this method attack soon. No matter whether your machine is a melee mech or not, be careful about approaching phasefighters and do not let yourself get pinned down in any way."

"I hear that the native aliens have begun to deploy more solutions against expert mechs." Venerable Vincent said. "I think that a force as well-equipped as the Ghirard Fleet should have multiple tricks up their sleeve."

Ark agreed with that assessment. "You are likely right, though intelligence has been unable to gather any details about these new solutions. Most of the solutions that the different major alien races have employed so far have focused on inhibiting our mobility. Think about nets, gravitic traps and so on. Our enemies know that our mobility is the main reason why we are able to wreak havoc on their forces. As long as they can pin us down, they can bombard our expert mechs with their heavy guns, so do not let yourself get caught. Try to watch out for your fellow comrades and do your best to save any that have gotten caught."

Everyone silently nodded. Multiple expert pilots already suspected that these measures would soon be needed.

A short time passed by. It was not until the expert mechs began to get targeted by lots of phasefighters in earnest that the battle had entered a new phase.

A massive amount of smaller energy beams began to strike at the incoming expert mechs!

Of course, most of the shots missed their mark, but it was inevitable that at least a few of them hit their targets.

The expert pilots all maintained their cool despite the huge amount of guns arrayed against them. This was because the attacks launched by the phasefighters were not that powerful.

Not only were the calibers of the energy cannons mounted on the phasefighters a lot smaller, but their phasewater concentrations were also a lot lower. The resonance shields of the 5 Larkinson expert mechs easily withstood the damage as they were all derived from the willpower of 5 high-tier expert mechs.

Even so, none of the expert pilots dared to underestimate the phasefighters. The enemy craft might not be able to attain any immediate results, but as long as they kept enough hits, they could easily grind down the resonance shields over time!

This was why the expert pilots still did their best to move in unpredictable trajectories and evade as many attacks as possible. Their efforts at the start of contact may directly determine whether they could get away from Duqaste XI with their mechs intact!

"Have we identified what kind of starfighter models we are up against?!" Venerable Orfan asked as her Riot still had difficulty determining the exact capabilities of the small craft in front.

"Partially." General Ark answered. "The Ghirard Fleet has deployed many familiar starfighter models, but most of the known fighter craft are on the low end. The nunsers have deployed numerous new fighter models this time that appear to be more powerful and better equipped. We lack the analytical support of our fleet, so my Lionheart's processors and analysis engines are working overtime to decipher their capabilities. The results are limited so far as the new fighters have yet to unveil their full capabilities."

Rosa Orfan scowled when she heard that. This was yet another disadvantage of launching a raid without involving most of their fleet. In a risky operation like this, intelligence became extremely crucial. The more they knew about their enemies, the lower the chance of getting caught off-guard.

Right now, Venerable Orfan did not like the look of some of the larger and heavier fighter craft. They did not look like pure combat machines, but instead appeared to be designed for specialized support functions.

The fact that they made her feel uneasy gave her the suggestion that they were designed to deal with expert mechs like her Riot!

She would soon have a chance to see whether her hunch was on the mark as dozens of specialized fighter craft in green had separated from the greater swarm and proceeded to approach the C-Man, which arguably appeared to be the least versatile mech of the bunch.

"Be careful, Vincent!"

"Hah! I don't know what the fighters are up to, but I will smash them with my fists in no time!"

Despite his boastful words, Venerable Vincent did not charge head-long towards the strange green-coated fighter craft.

Once the nunser craft came close enough and surrounded their target from multiple angles, they simultaneously launched expanding nets made out of transphasic alloy cords at the C-Man!

"What?!"

Most nets missed the C-Man, but three nets successfully managed to entangle the C-Man!

The nets did not envelop the mech all that tightly as the resonance shield prevented them from touching the mech frame, but they still clung tightly nonetheless.

This soon became a serious concern as the C-Man struggled to get rid of the nets.

"Damnit! I can't punch these nets apart! I need to retrieve one of my spare knives."

While the C-Man attempted to do so, the fighter craft began to fire a second salvo of nets.

This time, many more of them managed to entangle the C-Man.

What was different this time was that the green fighter craft were still connected to their nets via very sturdy but flexible lines!

The green phasefighters that managed to bind the C-Man on their leashes proceeded to fly in different directions until their lines grew taut!

The C-Man abruptly lost the ability to move where it wished. It had become almost completely trapped in place as the green phasefighters did their utmost to turn the C-Man into a sitting duck, if only briefly!

"Eliminate those net fighters!"

The Lionheart already began to utilize its integrated luminar crystal cannon to shoot down the green phasefighters one by one, but the other expert mechs either had to close in on the enemy fighters or use their backup pistols to damage the enemy craft at range.

It took far too long for the other expert mechs to get rid of the net-launching fighters. This gave the enemy plenty of time to launch a concentrated salvo of attacks towards the trapped C-Man!

"I'm in trouble!"

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