The Mech Touch

All of the fortified star systems located in the 1st defensive bands were never meant to last.

The Red Two and the first-rate colonial superstates may have a reputation for being wealthy and powerful, but their resources were ultimately finite.

This meant that it made little sense to invest too many resources in the star systems that were ultimately supposed to serve as speed bumps to the alien offensive.

Unlike the more well-equipped fortified star systems located further to the rear, the star system where Josh was about to fight the battle of his life did not receive a lot of luxuries.

The RF was entirely absent.

The RA only stationed a handful of aging warships as well as a far-too-small contingent of first-class multipurpose mechs.

The bulk of human resistance in this star system relied on the cheap but cost-effective second-class mechs and the bulky but relatively low-quality defensive platforms.

This ensured that when the star system eventually fell, red humanity would not suffer too many losses!

It was a pity that almost every mech pilot who volunteered for this exceedingly dangerous duty would not be able to make it out and leverage their abundant combat experience in other battles.

However, people found it morally unacceptable to station younger and more vigorous soldiers in this doomed place. They were the future of red humanity and deserved to live a lot longer.

As mech after mech started to launch from the hangar bays of many different space stations, the orbit of the planet quickly became a lot busier.

The mechs all grouped up with their respective units, but made sure not to enter into any tight formations.

The machines also hovered close to nearby space stations and defensive platforms in case they needed to shelter behind the only forms of cover in this space environment.

All of the mech pilots waited for the alien fleets to approach the fortified planet.

It shouldn't take too long. The alien vessels all relied on their warp drives to rapidly cross through realspace.

Soon enough, the ships slowed down and maintained their distance just outside of the effective ranges of most weapon systems.

"They're here." Franklin said as his rifleman mech flew in the vicinity of Josh Ketter's Fey Fianna. "The enemy carriers are not wasting time in deploying their phaseflighters. Look at how many of them are launching into space."

Thousands of them appeared within a minute. More and more phasefighters steadily flew out of the converted capital carriers with a remarkably high degree of coordination.

Most of the native aliens never took small craft seriously, but the astonishing performance of humans forced them to reconsider.

Many of the orvens in the cockpits of the phasefighters only received a year of training or less.

Mech pilots such as Josh and Franklin looked down on these aliens for that reason.

There was no way the skills of those alien phasefighter pilots could rival that of the worst professionally trained human mech pilot!

While there were certain alien races that adapted a lot better to fighter combat than others, the orvens did not demonstrate any notable affinity to them. The biggest difference was that their larger bodies made them tougher but also a little clumsier. Their learning speeds were not notably higher than that of humans.

The alien developers of all of these phasefighters took these limitations into account. All of the craft released during this early stage of the Red War were dumbed down in order to reduce their complexity as much as possible.

Clever applications of automations reduced a lot of the manual control requirements and enabled the low-caste orven fighter pilots to control their machines as if they were playing an immersive virtual reality game.

Perhaps the extensive automation might make the phasefighters more rigid, less precise and slower to respond, but it didn't matter because they could afford to make mistakes!

The aliens had access to so much phasewater that they were able to equip all phasefighters with transphasic energy shields.

A part of the phasefighters that deployed from the alien carriers even showed signs of enjoying the protection of more modern azure energy shields!

Fortunately, their quantity remained limited to the most elite fighter units.

Just as the humans did not invest extravagant resources in this star system, the orvens had done their homework and sent out fleets that could do the job without making any excessive commitments.

As the number of icons denoting phasefighters continued to multiply in the local plot, the full weight of having to square off against so many enemy small craft began to dawn upon all of the mech pilots.

Josh began to wonder whether he would be able to survive long enough to trigger a breakthrough!

"DON'T WORRY, JOSH. MY FEY AND I WILL WATCH YOUR BACK. YOU JUST DO YOUR THING."

"Thank you, partner."

The Fey Fianna was his first living mech, and boy it was an experience. Josh already found it creepy enough that the mech showed signs of life at the start.

He jerked in his piloting seat the first time the Fey Fianna grew clever enough to speak like a human!

Fortunately, everyone who knew about living mechs reassured Josh that this was completely normal behavior for a certain mech company's products.

"We can't take too many attacks." Josh spoke to his machine. "You're just the Standard Edition of your line. If you were the Elite Edition, we could have resisted a lot more attacks. Those phasefighters are all armed with transphasic energy weapon systems. Even if there's only a drop of phasewater in their cannons, their repeated attacks can shred through our defenses."

"THEN WE MAKE SURE TO STAY MOBILE AND RUIN THEIR AIM AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. WITH ALL OF THE ECM, JAMMING AND OTHER INTERFERENCE ON THE BATTLEFIELD, THE AMATEUR ALIEN PILOTS WILL HAVE TO RESORT TO MANUAL AIMING TO LAND THEIR SHOTS."

Josh was confident he could evade the attacks of a typical alien phasefighter, but he could not make the same guarantee when there were 5 or 10 of them attacking his machine at the same time!

"The orvens are done with deploying all of their fighter craft." Franklin mentioned. "Our intelligence was right. The orven carriers have no intention of rotating their craft. The enemy wants to break open our defenses in a massive assault, thereby ending our resistance within a single day."

Josh sneered. "Then let's make sure these aliens will break their teeth when they attempt to gnaw on our hard bones."

Minutes went by as many orven phasefighters and warships began to close the distance.

The orbital space fortresses interrupted the relative peace. Their warship-grade gun batteries fired their hyper energy beams straight at the distant enemy warships!

The well-protected orven warships all began to struggle as their transphasic segmented multi-layer energy shields quickly got drained.

Though the targeted vessels ultimately managed to get away with their hulls unscathed, they lost so many segmented energy shields that their coverage had become severely inadequate!

The enemy warships retaliated with their own energy weapon barrage. Hundreds of thick warship-grade energy beams collided against the titan shield of a single orbital space station.

The orven spacers responded quickly by having the partially depleted warships fall back and hide behind the hulls of other large vessels.

The enemy warships retaliated with their own energy weapon barrage. Hundreds of thick warship-grade energy beams collided against the titan shield of a single orbital space station.

"It's holding!"

The exchange of fire grew more intense.

The orbital defenses with clear firing lines began to pummel the approaching enemy warships.

The orven vessels struck back with their own powerful transphasic cannons.

Josh found it strange that both sides flung so much firepower at each other, yet failed to inflict any material damage up to this point.

Transphasic energy shields were simply too strong!

The azure energy shields were even stronger due to making use of hyper technology!

Just as Josh and many other mech pilots assumed that they would remain spectators for a while, a mutation occurred when a very bright and powerful source of light flashed across the battlefield and struck the beleaguered space fortress!

"What was that?!"

"These energy readings are insane!"

"Which enemy ship fired this attack?!"

The initial confusion quickly made way for dread as the humans observed what just happened to one of their space fortresses.

"The titan shield… has been breached…"

"The enemy's super attack has breached the fortress walls and disabled multiple power generators and other essential systems. Many sections are losing power as we speak. Fortress Antadin is partially crippled!"

"The orvens have secretly brought a capital ship armed with a spinal energy cannon! Our initial analysis on the tech and materials of this vessel indicates that she is a fairly economical vessel that the orvens have hastily constructed to serve a single purpose. She happens to do her job fairly well, and therefore poses a massive threat against our orbital defenses. Spinal cannons love targeting stationary targets the most!"

"Change of plans!" One of the commanding officers spoke over a public channel. "Turtling up is not an option anymore. We must take the fight to the enemy and eliminate the siege ship as soon as possible. Our orbital defenses can last long against the firepower of the enemy vessel's spinal cannon."

New orders quickly arrived. Most of the mech pilots had to leave the cover of the orbital defense network and cross through open space.

Most mech units did not receive orders to destroy the siege ship. Their job was to escort and remove any obstacles that could hinder the advance of the powerful first-class multipurpose mechs of the RA!

As powerful as these machines may be, even the mechers were reluctant to send a single squad in the middle of all of the enemy phasefighters and anti-mech warships!

"Advance."

Tens of thousands of mechs flew forward. Although many of the less mobile machines remained behind in order to guard the orbital defenses against ambushes, it was remarkable to see how many human machines left their reassuring confines and made themselves vulnerable by flying through open space!

The mech unit that Josh belonged to happened to fly closer to the first-class multipurpose mechs.

Josh took a brief moment to enjoy the reassuring sight of these powerful machines, but he also felt uncertain how many mechs would get destroyed by moving so close to the enemy fleets so soon.

The siege ship is firing again!

Another blinding flash occurred as an extremely powerful transphasic energy beam struck another orbital fortress, shattering its titan shield and dealing crippling damage to its internal systems!

"Damn, how do the aliens know where to aim?! That energy beam accurately eliminated three power generators at once!"

"Do you really have to ask? The cosmopolitans must have stolen and passed on the blueprints to the Red Cabal."

"Those damn cosmo's!"

More assets began to open fire. The smaller but much more numerous defensive platforms all fired their energy or kinetic armaments at the approaching enemy warships.

In turn, the orven vessels returned fire with their own primary and secondary gun batteries.

The energy shields protecting all of these assets began to deplete at varying rates. Some of the smaller and weaker alien warships already began to suffer serious damage as they failed to take shelter behind friendly vessels in time.

However, the human orbital defenses were being reduced at a rapid pace. The enemy warships did not need to spend too much effort on aiming in order to land all of their shots on their targets.

Debris fields began to emerge as the large combatants from both sides continually pummeled each other without any finesse.

Josh tried his best to ignore all of this activity. He knew he had to take action very soon as a huge amount of alien phasefighters had split away from the alien fleet and attempted to intercept the approaching human mechs!

"I am opening fire!"

Franklin's rifleman mech proceeded to fire one positron beam after another. The searing energy attacks struck several different alien phasefighters, yet only lightly reduced their transphasic energy shield integrity.

Without concentrated fire, it would take too much time and effort for a single rifleman mech to eliminate just one of the alien small craft!

"This is just my luck! These orven phasefighters are even tougher than I expected!" Franklin complained. "Josh, I am counting on you to soften them up. Don't let them bully us with their obnoxious energy defenses."

"I am on it, Franklin!"

Unlike many other Fey Fiannas, the one piloted by Josh flew forward along with many other melee mechs.

This was because his drone mech was uncharacteristically equipped with a full melee loadout!

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