The Mech Touch

The battlefield became the canvas of an unequal exchange of fire.

The full spaceborn mech contingent of the Echo Spears desperately poured their firepower at the Scarlet Rose in an attempt to stop the battle bots from threatening their ships!

Yet the bulk of the mobile supply frigate shielded the bots too well! The shipʼs though armored surface was designed to withstand a decent amount of firepower from Hexer mech units.

While the might of a hundred ranged mechs was a sight to behold, the Scarlet Rose danced around in space and evaded much of the incoming fire!

Whatever struck the ship harmlessly bounced away as her armor withstood virtually all of the impacts while suffering only a minimal amount of damage!

While it was possible for the Echo Spears to breach the armor of the Scarlet Rose if their mechs concentrated their fire, the range was too long to achieve pinpoint accuracy!

Even if the Echo Spears closed in and reduced the distance, the Scarlet Rose nimbly rotated like a drill, causing every volley of fire to spread across the entire circumference of her hull!

Like a torrent of rain, all of the laser beams and projectiles that struck the former Coalition ship failed to penetrate her surface!

The desperate mech pilots fired their weapons without regard for heat or ammunition concerns.

Their motherships were in danger!

As mechs depended heavily on carrier ships to travel through the void of space, losing them was a catastrophe!

How could they risk becoming homeless by allowing their target to blow up all of their ships?!

”Keep firing!” A mech captain ordered over the command channel. ”No ship can resist so much damage forever! Even if we have to damage the mission target, donʼt stop firing! Bringing back half a ship is better than bringing back nothing at all! Keep flanking and circling around the target! Those mechs canʼt hide from every angle!”

The plan of the Echo Spears was sound. As long as their mechs caught up to the Scarlet Rose and surrounded her from every direction, there was no way the more vulnerable mechs could avoid their attacks.

Compared to a large and sturdy vessel like the Scarlet Rose, the four mechs were much more susceptible to their attacks!

There was no way the artillery mech and the rifleman mech would be able to last for long against a sustained bombardment!

While Ves was aware of this threat, he did not exhibit any panic at all. Instead, he grinned as the battle proceeded exactly according to plan.

While he wasnʼt a military officer, he had been through enough battles to develop a rudimentary understanding of contemporary warfare.

Combined with his keen understanding of mechs and all manner of technology, Ves gained enough confidence to navigate through this crisis!

”They key is to cripple their motherships! Without their light carriers, where can their mechs return after a battle?”

After spending a lot of time among the Flagrant Vandals and several other outfits, Ves understood how much a mothership weighed in the hearts of mech pilots.

If necessary, they were willing to accept the loss of their mechs. As long as they ejected, they could always return to their motherships and wait until their superiors assigned them a replacement!

By threatening or destroying this safety net, the morale of the mech pilots would certainly plummet!

If there was one thing he learned from the likes of Major Verle, it was that changes morale, confidence and conviction could affect the outcome of a battle just as much as taking out a large number of mechs!

The moment Kravon released an imposing missile volley, the Echo Spears panicked!

They knew the threat of the missiles as well as anyone!

The missile models employed by the Friday Coalition were much more powerful than those employed by the Great Zona Republic!

Each missile cost as much as a premium mech, if not more!

Though expensive for something that was meant to be a consumable, an anti-ship Coalition missile potentially packed enough punch to shatter the armor of the Scarlet Rose!

Against an inferior vessel such as a third-class light carrier, a handful of missiles might be enough to shatter their hulls in half!

Though the Echo Spears werenʼt able to guess the potency of the missiles launched by the artillery mech, there was no way the missiles were harmless!

”Intercept the missiles! Donʼt let them reach our ships!”

The Echo Spears all redirected their firepower from attacking the Scarlet Rose to intercepting the missiles.

Yet how could it be so easy to strike them down?

Ves programmed the missiles to spread out and disperse like a net, making it harder for them to be taken out simultaneously.

Not only that, but the missiles possessed an excellent ECM system that scrambled every targeting system, causing most of the attacks aimed at the missiles or their flight trajectory to miss!

Though a handful of shots managed to down a couple of missiles, that was more due to luck than skill!

On top of all of this, the missiles accelerated far faster than the missiles that the Echo Spears were accustomed to! Their insane acceleration caused the missiles to accumulate so much velocity that they reached the position of the vulnerable light carriers far too quickly!

Commander Quint and the other Echo Spears could barely react to the sudden onset of the missiles! Just as the missiles were about to strike the light carriers, they missed!

”What!? How come these missiles are passing us by? Is their programming faulty?”

”Maybe our ECM managed to fool them at the last second!”

”Idiot! How could our ECM systems ever beat Coalition tech?”

”Watch out! Theyʼre circling around!”

The missiles may have missed, but they continued flying along a tighter arc! After circling around the light carrier several times, they finally achieved an angle that allowed them to strike at the vulnerable rear of the fleet formation!

Just as the crews of the three undamaged light carriers received the order to brace themselves, the salvo of missiles each impacted their exposed stern, detonating numerous small explosions!

”Thank the president! They arenʼt ship-killer missiles!”

”Donʼt get complacent! Theyʼre still dealing a lot of damage!”

The missiles launched by the Kravon was a light missile type designed for intercepting heavy fire and hitting small but exceptionally agile targets.

They werenʼt designed to attack ships. Against a Hexer starship, the missiles would only inflict minor to superficial damage.

Against a light carrier from the Great Zona Republic, their payloads were much more threatening!

Explosions powerful enough to ruin some of the interior compartments of the Scarlet Rose ruined the propulsion systems of the affected vessels in an instant!

Every thruster and every related system turned into wreckage as the detonations swept through the nearby compartments and threatened the engineering section!

One light carrier suffered an unlucky explosion that affected a critical fuel line! A secondary explosion soon occurred that breached the engineering compartment, sweeping all of the engineers and the vulnerable ship components away!

The other two light carriers managed to avoid this unfortunate fate, but their conditions werenʼt much good either.

After losing their main propulsion systems, the light carriers could no longer accelerate and keep up with the Scarlet Roseʼs flight!

After crippling the flagship, heavily damaging a second light carrier and disabling the propulsion systems of the remaining three vessels with a single missile volley, the mobile bases of the Echo Spears all turned into sitting ducks!

Ves widened his eyes as he witnessed the results. The missiles performed much better than he anticipated! He only expected a small portion of the missiles to make it through, and he did not dare to dream that he would be able to cripple all three targeted ships!

”The disparity in ECM is too big!”

The countermeasures built into the missiles of the Coalition completely negated the targeting systems employed by the mercenary mechs. Their mech pilots had been forced to aim their weapons manually without benefiting from aim assist or accurate sensor data!

”Itʼs too bad I donʼt have enough missiles.” He sighed.

The Scarlet Rose was not on a combat mission, after all. She only carried a standard amount of ordnance, and none of them were impressive by Coalition standards.

While the Scarlet Rose possessed enough supplies to sustain a couple of more battles, eventually Ves would run out of missiles!

He could not afford to squander his limited assets!

Fortunately, the effect of this singular missile volley had been good. After continually shocking the Echo Spears, this final strike appeared to be the straw that broke the camelʼs back!

On board the crippled flagship, Commander Quint no longer maintained a controlled and confident demeanor.

The chaotic command center conveyed all kinds of awful news to him. Each and every light carrier sustained severe damage! Aside from a single ship, all of his other ships were no longer able to keep up the chase!

The Scarlet Rose continued to burn her thrusters, accelerating further and further away from the crippled mercenary fleet.

Commander Quint had to make a very difficult decision.

Should he recall the mechs deployed to intercept the Scarlet Rose?

If he let the mechs continue their mission, then they would only fly further and further away from the light carrier!

If they expended too much fuel or energy, then they might not have enough juice to return to their motherships!

If he recalled the mechs, he would essentially have to give up on the mission and miss a huge payout. Not only that, but he would also have to force the Echo Spears to go in the red in order to raise enough funds to repair the damaged light carriers.

This was very expensive!

The mercenary commander contemplated whether he could have it both ways, but the intimidating firepower from the ranged mechs of the Scarlet Rose instantly doused this option.

If he split up his forces, then the mechs of the Scarlet Rose would definitely be able to annihilate his weakened pursuit force!

In the end, Commander Quint possessed a responsibility to his crew. None of them were willing to undergo battles where they lost just as much as their opponent!

Most of his mech pilots and support personnel never received military training! They lacked the will and discipline to endure punishing battles!

Even if the mech pilots managed to eject their cockpits from their broken mechs, with the light carriers stranded in space, how long would they have to wait for rescue?

Thinking of all the damage his mercenary corps would suffer if he pushed through with the mission, Commander Quint finally issued the order that was best for the Echo Spears instead of his clients.

”Cease fire recalls our mechs. Stop the pursuit and let the Scarlet Rose go. Mr. Larkinson has won this battle.”

Though his announcement cut deep, many of the Echo Spears inwardly sighed in relief.

Who knew what kind of other deadly surprises the Scarlet Rose and her mechs would show off next?

As soon as Ves observed the mechs breaking off their pursuit, his grin bloomed into a brilliant smile!

”Haha! I won! They finally gave up the chase!”

The Scarlet Rose happily flew away from the battle site as the mercenary mechs started to gather protectively around their crippled motherships.

Ves believed that word would definitely spread about this battle. With that, most outfits who aimed to intercept his ship would definitely think twice before trying to intercept her! Even a mercenary corps capable of fielding 170 mechs had been forced to abort the mission in the face of all of the firepower at his disposal!

”Itʼs only going to be more difficult from here, though.” He sighed.

Exposing his cards meant that the rabble should no longer block his way. However, those who were strong and powerful to cope with the threat would definitely be undeterred!

Out of all of the possible enemies that might pursue him, Ves never discounted the possibility that a force dispatched by the Friday Coalition would manage to intercept his ship!

In this case, Ves would no longer be able to crush his opposition by virtue of his tech disparity!