The Mech Touch

Venerable Brutus was safe for the moment.

The Bright Beam Prime expended a precious full-powered shot in order to preserve the life of an expert pilot that had already served his usefulness on the battlefield.

With the destruction of the Star Dancer, Venerable Brutus was no longer a valuable asset as far as Ves was concerned.

A part of him even felt it was a waste for the Bright Beam Prime to intervene in saving the Hexer expert pilot's life.

The intervening attack not only wasted one of the three powerful chances of the Bright Beam Prime, but also exposed its existence to the enemy!

However, when Ves glanced at Gloriana looking incredibly relieved after she thought that her brother was about to die, his discontent faded.

He did not want his wife to suffer the pain of losing a loved one. He had lost his mother early on in his life, so he knew how much it hurt to live through this kind of experience.

Besides, on a pragmatic level, Venerable Brutus was still a bona fide expert pilot who would continue to add to the strength of the expeditionary fleet for many years in the future.

Ves wouldn't care too much about Brutus if he was as old and feeble as Venerable O'Callahan, but he was barely older than Gloriana. This meant that he was able to provide a lot of value to Ves over many decades and perhaps even centuries.

There was no way that Ves wanted to lose such a long-lasting asset when it was still in the early stages of its product life cycle.

This was why he commanded the Transcendent Punishers to redirect their firepower to smash the Charlemagne and the Scarra to the point where they couldn't take anymore potshots at the escaping cockpit.

That, and it just felt good to smack Venerable Ghanso around.

A couple of other Fridaymen mechs attacked the cockpit as well, but its sturdy construction was no joke. The cockpit only suffered a bit after it was grazed by a gauss round, but numerous Glory Seeker mechs quickly arrived and escorted it until it was safely able to reach the Indigo Tremor's hangar bay.

"I'm not sure you should have done that." Major Verle's projection quietly spoke to Ves. "Our artillery were doing a fine job of pressuring the elite Fridayman mechs. Now that you have predicted our firepower away, the enemies they've previously suppressed are now unleashed."

Ves minutely shook his head. "If Venerable Brutus dies, the morale of the Glory Seekers will sink. Besides, now that the Star Dancer is no able to keep the Charlemagne and the Scarra occupied, my cousin Ghanso can reinforce the other expert pilots on his side. We can't allow him and his remaining Scarra mech to precipitate a collapse at his side of the battlefield."

The unfolding clashes were all locked in a very tenuous balance. If even one of them tipped over, a cascade of defeats might quickly ensue that would spell inevitable doom to Ves!

Major Verle quickly understood the logic. "You're right. While we have managed to eliminate a lot of Scarra mechs, enough of them remain to pose a great threat to the remainder of our forces, especially when they are exhausted to this extent."

The Glory Seekers and the Crosser mechs that had swarmed the Fridayman expert mechs had achieved considerable results at this time!

An expert space knight serving in the Oni Guard had succumbed from all of the attacks it attempted to block. It had done an admirable job in intercepting the flood of attacks directed to the more vulnerable expert mechs, but the machine had eventually collapsed due to the incredible amount of punishment it was forced to endure!

Another expert mech piloted by a foreigner hired by the Vanguard Group had succumbed as well. The expert striker mech was one of the most destructive mechs against masses of standard mechs.

The powerful striker mech had actually felled hundreds more Glory Seeker and Crosser mechs than the other Fridayman expert mechs!

Taking it down was a high priority to the expeditionary forces. After sacrificing a lot of mechs, the Hexers and Crossers managed to destroy the expert striker mech's flight system, thereby impairing mobility to the point where a lot of concentrated attacks managed to breach its thick shell and take out the flame-spewing monstrosity for good!

The two aforementioned expert mechs weren't the only ones that sustained significant damage. The other Fridayman expert mechs aside from the Charlemagne and the Jeanne D'Arc also suffered a lot of damage from getting hit at least a thousand times!

Although that sounded like an absurd amount of attacks, the armor systems of expert mechs were much better than any standard mechs. Combined with superior mobility and the uncanny skill and intuition of expert pilots, it was not a surprise the remaining expert mechs managed to hang on. Teamwork also played a role in preserving their strength.

Though the surviving expert mechs were unquestionably damaged and low on some of their reserves, it was too difficult to finish the job.

The Glory Seekers and Crossers had lost too many mechs to make it to this point!

They came in with over 4000 standard mechs as well as the Star Dancer and the Leskin. Now, the Star Dancer was drifting into space in the form of a half-complete husk while the wreckage and debris of 3000 other machines kept it company!

The loss of so many mechs significantly depleted the firepower and the morale of the remaining forces assigned to block the Fridayman expert mechs.

In fact, the original battle plan called for the thousands of mechs to crush the enemy expert mechs. It was too bad that the powerful enemy machines were just too good at eliminating swarms of weaker mechs!

The expert striker mech as well as occasional attacks from Venerable Ghanso had taken a huge toll on the brave Glory Seeker and Crosser mech pilots.

Due to the incredible lethality and penetrative power of expert mechs, much of the mechs they took out also killed the pilots. A significant portion of the wrecks also carried traces of human remains!

This was an especially major loss to the Cross Clan. Every mech pilot in the clan was not only a trueblood member of a much-diminished clan, but also a highly-trained veteran that had survived the calamitous flight from Vicious Mountain.

Such high-quality mech pilots were incredibly difficult to replace to the Cross Clan!

Unlike the abnormal Larkinson Clan that had opened its doors wide to any talented outsider, the Cross Clan wasn't able to rely on external recruitment to replenish its depleted manpower.

It was practically unheard of for a long-standing clan to open its doors. That would affect internal cohesion far too much while also allowing a lot of people with ulterior motives to corrupt the clan from within.

This was why organizations like the Cross Clan only sparingly recruiting outsiders. Their main source of manpower always relied on internal replenishment.

That took time. A lot of time. Far too much time considering their precarious strength.

Of course, these were later concerns for the Crossers. For now, Ves saw that the artillery support provided by the Transcendent Punishers offered the remaining Glory Seekers and Crossers crucial help in constraining the surviving expert mechs.

It became more important than ever to seek a quick advantage somewhere.

Ves turned his attention to the confrontation against the elite Fridaymen mech troops not too far away.

His greatest hope for victory lied here.

While a lot of mechs had already fallen in this grueling slugfest, there were plenty of mechs left on both sides to make it relatively even.

No. That wasn't quite true. Ves recognized that the Fridaymen had started off with a slight advantage and were quickly in the process of expanding their lead.

The reason for this was because the Transcendent Punishers no longer forced their heads down!

"Gloriana!" Ves shouted from the rear of the bridge.

"What is it?" She asked as she slowly calmed down after seeing her brother make it back.

"If you want to keep your brother and the rest of us alive, you must rein yourself in and focus on what you can do to help. Pay attention to the observation data provided by the Valkyrie Prime. I recently installed a very good sensor on it that can make detailed scans on any mech within its range. Take a look at it and take your revenge on the Fridaymen in your own way!"

Tears stopped flowing from her eyes as determination welled from her heart. Her fear turned into anger as she thought of how close she was to losing the relative who had accompanied her throughout her life!

"These Fridaymen will pay…"

Her purple-armored form sat back onto the chair. She accessed the data supplied by the Valkyrie Prime and became surprised at the breadth and depth of information she received.

"This is ridiculous! No sensor is that good, especially in a battle!"

She quickly set aside her amazement as her fury took over again. She could not allow those who threatened her and her family to get away with their actions!

She soon immersed herself in the detailed data. As a consummate mech designer who constantly strove for perfection, she was extremely familiar in all of the ways that made mechs flawed.

The varied mechs of the Holvein Grenadiers, the Bloody Herons, the Silent Swords and some other troops became an open book to her determined gaze.

The designs themselves didn't contain any major flaws. The Fridayman Mech Designers weren't that sloppy most of the time. Even if she identified a number of design vulnerabilities, they weren't really weak enough to change the equation.

What truly stood out to her was the flaws that emerged when the mechs sustained battle damage. As long as the mech in question bore at least some holes, their frame gained at least a dozen additional weak points aside from the obvious holes!

Anyone could tell that a breach in the armor represented a major vulnerability. The mech pilot who piloted a damaged mech would always do their utmost to prevent their enemies from targeting those holes.

Yet what about the weak points that weren't visible? Sometimes, the mech's operating system identified some of these vulnerabilities and helpfully conveyed them to their pilot.

They weren't perfect however. Some weak points were not as obvious. It took a mech designer of Gloriana's caliber to determine how certain changes opened up new opportunities.

She analyzed the observation data of a single Holvein Grenadier mech that suffered a breach in the lower waist area. She did not even lift her finger to manipulate any projection. In the interest of efficiency, she utilized her implant to point out a dozen new vulnerabilities.

She identified that the armor plate on the side of the mech had loosened a bit. It could probably be dislodged if it was attacked with physical force coming from a specific direction.

Within a second, she rapidly conveyed a lot of other exploitable vulnerabilities to the Spirit of Bentheim. After the ship's systems inspected the data, they uploaded it to the communication network that constantly supplied relevant data to all friendly mechs.

An Avatar mech pilot that confronted the Holvein Grenadier mech became surprised as his view of the enemy mech had changed. The overlay highlighted the additional vulnerabilities.

In fact, ever since the Valkyrie Prime had entered the fray, the surrounding mechs already received some additional information. The Odineye was already capable of interpreting and identifying the most obvious vulnerabilities by itself!

Now that its power was combined with a mech designer that could make much better use of the data, the battle gradually swung back in the favor of the expeditionary forces!

It wasn't just Gloriana who was supplying the mechs at the frontline with crucial information. Ves and the rest of the Design Department were hard at work as well.

The more data they supplied, the faster the Fridaymen lost their mechs!