The Mech Touch

Commander Casella Ingvar made a very calculated choice when she reserved her most potent form of empowerment to 35 Transcendent Punisher Mark III's.

Having Commandeered many mechs in the past, she knew that her empowerment was not entirely even. Weapons received a much greater boost in power than armor systems and flight systems.

Though Casella noticed that her ascension to ace pilot had caused the other amplification effects to become more respectable, there was no doubt that the weapon systems of mechs responded the best to her Command Field.

Given this logic, it made the greatest sense to reserve her limited quota of super-empowerment to the most offensive mechs fielded by the Larkinson Clan.

Three mech models came to mind. They were the latest standard living mechs published by the patriarch in the Hyper Generation, and the copies fielded byt the Larkinsons had all quasi-first-class standards.

She quickly ruled out the Larkinson Edition of the Fey Fianna. The drone mech was powerful, but it was also a machine that emphasized versatility more than anything. Its strengths were too scattered to make this model her first choice.

The Storm Swords released by Ketis had been a smashing success among the Swordmaidens. Though they were not too numerous, each quasi-first-class swordsman mech had proven to be insanely effective against the native aliens. Their iconic Stormbreaker Greatswords were able to tear through transphasic energy shields like no other standard melee weapon in the Larkinson Army!

However, as powerful as the Storm Swords may be, their range was distressingly limited. They were pure melee mechs that were entirely designed around the use of their giant electrified blades.

The orvens were currently throwing phasefighter after phasefighter at the Commandeered Larkinson melee mechs in order to prevent them from attacking more critical alien assets.

While Casella could still proceed with super-empowering the Storm Swords, they would just proceed to chop a lot more alien phasefighters, forcing the orvens to divert more reinforcements to their location.

This was not a significant enough strategic gain for her to waste her power in this manner.

She had a much more suitable candidate in mind.

The Transcendent Punisher Mark III's that the Larkinsons had transferred to the nearby orbital defensive installations were more suitable for various reasons.

First, their long-range attack capabilities enabled them to attack enemies across many distances. Their synergy with Ylvaine even allowed them to feasibly target enemies that were located so far away that no enemy would have been on guard against the heavy artillery mechs!

There was no need for the Transcendent Punishers to move at all, which made life much easier for Casella.

Second, their attack power was the most pronounced at all. They were among the quasi-first-class mechs whose pure attack power had reached the ceiling of what second-class mechs were supposed to accomplish. Since her Command Field amplified weapon systems most of all, Casella was confident that she could firmly amplify their lethality to match that of first-class mechs with ease!

Sure, Casella was not able to do the same for their defenses and mobility, but it didn't matter because these factors weren't relevant for heavy artillery mechs unless they were being targeted and needed to evacuate from their positions.

All of these reasons and more prompted her to bestow her souped up version of Commandeering to the Transcendent Punisher Mark III's. The 35 closest machines not only glowed in dark god, but began to strike at distant starships with a vengeance!

One of the most prominent features of the Mark III's was their shift towards modularity. They boasted 8 weapon hardpoints, each of which could fit 2 small weapon systems, 1 medium weapon system or 0.25 large weapon systems.

The Larkinsons mostly preferred to reserve 4 hardpoints to mount the infamous Devora Cannon, and fill up the remaining 8 slots with weapons most suitable for the occassion.

Currently, the Transcendent Punisher Mark III's equipped with a variety of 'secondary' weapons, ranging from rapid-fire point defense luminar crystal turrets to fourth generation luminar crystal cannons.

It didn't matter to Casella, because she only super-empowered the Transcendent Punisher Mark III's to make full use of their Devora Cannons.

The massive super-heavy high-velocity transphasic hyper gauss cannons were too slow and powerful to be employed against enemy phasefighters. The Transcendent Punishers had been using them to pound the defenses of distant warships in order to drive them away a little faster.

Occasionally, the Ylvainan mech pilots borrowed the guidance of Ylvaine to target faster and more distant targets, but they refrained from doing so if there weren't any obviously good opportunities.

There was not much point in doing so in a battle as large as this. The Transcendent Punishers needed to conserve their resources and make sure they did not invest excessive resources to produce mediocre gains.

All of that changed once Casella empowered them far beyond the limit of her usual Commandeering ability. The Ylvainan mech pilots and their living mechs all became delighted when they gained such an immense degree of amplification that they truly felt they could fight on equal terms against other low-tier expert mechs!

Although the chosen Transcendent Punishers still did not come close to matching the extraordinary firepower of the Amaranto, there were 35 of them at this time!

There was a point where quantity translated into greater quality. Commander Casella herself did not exactly know for certain whether upgrading 35 Transcendent Punisher Mark III's into pseudo-expert mechs resulted in this transformation, but she was eager to try it out and see for herself!

"Open fire."

"Thy will be done, Saint Commander!"

35 resonance-empowered Devora Cannons opened fire within a span of half a second!

With Casella in control of all of the heavy artillery mechs, she was able to synchronize their actions to a superhuman degree.

35 super-heavy high-velocity transphasic hyper gauss rounds surged from their muzzles and began to cross across the busy battlefield at a respectable speed!

All 35 projectiles glowed with such dark golden vigor that they seemed to produce magnificent trails from one side to the other side of the battlefield. Their passage mesmerized many nearby humans and aliens, not fully understanding that their craft would have been completely pulverized if their machines suffered just a glancing blow from these rounds!

Soon enough, the 35 rounds approached an already besieged orven cruiser that had already lost half of her segmented transphasic energy shields.

The cruiser might not be as tough or massive as a capital ship, but the alien vessel performed respectably in the battle so far. She had withstood the attacks of hundreds of heavy artillery mechs for a while and allowed her gun batteries to pummel numerous orbital defense platforms into shattered debris.

Under normal circumstances, the alien cruiser was not afraid of getting his by a mech company's worth of Transcendent Punisher Mark III's. The slightly outdated vessel was originally designed to exchange fire with other warships, so she was quite accustomed to enduring heavy firepower.

This was something else, though!

6 rounds simultaneously struck a segmented transphasic energy shield that was already partially depleted.

A single resonance-empowered round already struck the energy shield pretty hard, but when 6 of them slammed against it at the same time, the energy shield was not able to buffer the attacks properly, causing it to break when it could have done more!

A short instant later, 12 Devora Cannon rounds slammed into the segmented transphasic energy shield underneath, producing the same effect, but this time on a fully intact layer of protection!

A short moment after that, 12 more super-heavy gauss rounds removed the third and final layer, thereby exposing a momentary hole that led directly to the hull of the orven cruiser!

Though the alien warship was capable of rotating her segmented energy shields to patch up any straight holes, the timing of the successive breaches was so tight that not even the automated systems of the alien warship was able to respond in time!

5 remaining resonance-empowered rounds went on to strike the hull in quick succession.

Each of them practically traveled along the same line as they breached the hull plating and successively produced deeper craters into the structure of the alien cruiser.

What was remarkable about this tightly coordinated sequence was that the very last resonance-empowered Devora Cannon round just managed to breach the engineering bay and destroy the main power generators and other critically important parts of the vessel!

The broad and 'upright' cruiser began to suffer multiple explosions from her center, causing her hull to break into different chunks that flung in separate directions!

"What was that?!"

"How can that be?! Even if these heavy artillery mechs temporarily gained the power of an expert mech, it is still outlandish for them to breach the defenses of an alien cruiser and cause her main power generators to explode."

"It's not just their power that is impressive. It is their perfect control and coordination that truly makes them shine."

"No alien cruiser or smaller is safe when she is empowering those heavy artillery mechs!"

The sudden loss of a fairly healthy orven cruiser caused significant trouble to the surviving alien vessels. The impact of this loss was much greater because it advanced the timing when the native aliens were forced to signal a retreat.

The orvens did not wish to overstay their welcome and suffer massive losses due to losing their numbers superiority!

If Commander Casella piloted an actual ace mech, she would have continued her current strategy and tear down other enemy warships.

Alas, her current power level was mostly sustained by the temporary forced resonance state.

Casella was already running out of time since her accumulation was a bit shallow.

She wanted to make the best of this gift while she still could, and she knew exactly how to make this happen.

She set her sights further than usual and fixated on a phase lord that was fighting on another section of the extensive battlefield.

"The Trampler of Stars."

The familiar nunser phase lord was a known presence in the Arvest Lima System. The alien apparently managed to redeem himself from his last setback and fought valiantly alongside the orvens as a representative of the Red Cabal.

The Trampler was especially good at clearing entire swarms of human mechs and starfighters!

Due to his exceedingly high threat against the mainstay of human forces, it was practically mandatory for the defenders to dispatch an ace mech to block the Trampler's passage and keep the phase lord far away from any human small craft.

Though the Trampler of Stars was not that great when fighting against ace mechs, he was still more than capable of lasting by assuming a more defensive posture.

At this time, the Trampler of Stars had been enduring the attacks of an ace swordsman mech for a while now. The machine inflicted serious damage, but it did not have any way to speed up the teardown of the phase lord's energy defenses.

Just like many other phase lords, the Trampler of Stars wore a massive raiment that generated additional segmented transphasic energy shields.

It was due to this that the ace mech was delayed in inflicting actual damage onto its adversary.

Though its relentless sword attacks enabled the ace mech to eventually strip the Trampler of his technological defenses, there was still his spatial barrier in the way!

The ace mech's high-quality space suppressor may be weakening the strength of this barrier to a notable degree, it would still take a lot of sword attacks to actually deplete this layer of protection.

That was until 35 resonance-empowered Devora Cannon rounds struck at the spatial barrier!

The rounds not only depleted a significant chunk of the integrity of the barrier, but also caused it to temporarily become more vulnerable at this section!

"%#$&%#$?!"

"WHO DARES TO INFERERE?!"

Saint Casella grinned from far away. "I dare. FIRE!"

Another salvo of resonance-empowered projectiles struck the spatial barrier despite the Trampler's attempts to become more mobile.

Though each salvo did not weaken the barrier drastically, what mattered was that they continued to slam against the Trampler's defenses without interruption.

The Transcendent Punisher Mark III's fired their main guns again, and again, and again.

As the successive salvos struck their mark without any shots going wide, the Trampler of Stars began to panic as his true body would soon become vulnerable to all manner of attacks!

"#$%$#@@!"

"FILTHY LARKINSONS!"

Despite his taunting alien words, the Trampler decisively turned around and attempted to flee to the rear of alien lines as fast as possible!

However, Commander Casella's heavy artillery mechs continued to fire whenever they had a clear shot.

The spatial barrier eventually broke, partially because it could not handle the strain of withstanding so many attacks that were concentrated on a very specific point.

Subsequent attacks blasted open holes in the phase lord's raiment and began to dig into his transphasic flesh!

Unfortunately, Casella was only able to land two entire salvos inside the phase lord's fleshy body before her forced resonance had run its course.

"Almost." Casella sighed in regret.

"WE WILL GET HIM NEXT TIME, PARTNER."

Though Commander Casella Ingvar had become exhausted to the point where she needed to make an early retreat from the field, there was no one among the defenders who dismissed her prowess anymore.

A lull occurred on the battlefield as both humans and aliens processed the rise of such a powerful command talent.

Soon, a chant began to spread among the ranks.

"Saint Commander!"

"Saint Commander!"

"Saint Commander!"

Casella Ingvar may not be the only ace pilot with a command specialization, but from the perspective of the rank and file who already benefited from her Commandeering, she was the only one who deserved to be regarded as a true saint among mech commanders!

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