The Mech Touch

As tens of thousands of mechs were about to come into contact with an even greater quantity of alien phasefighters, the space in between already became filled with energy beams, projectiles and missiles!

"Watch out for the missiles fired by the phasefighters. Each of their warheads are transphasic, so they are powerful enough to cripple most of our mechs if they manage to score direct hits!"

"Rifleman mechs, intercept the missiles!"

Every phasefighter mounted at least a pair of transphasic missiles under their wings or fuselage. This increased their threat by a huge margin so long as they had yet to launch their payloads!

The initial salvo of missiles launched by the enemy phasefighters crossed the distance and attempted to nail down any mech they could lock onto. Rifleman mechs managed to shoot down many of them with each passing second, but the slender cross sections and evasive movements made it challenging to intercept the missiles.

However, the mech pilots proved their mettle and succeeded in blowing up the majority of missiles.

The few that managed to get through overwhelmingly went on to blow apart energy shields and blast through multiple layers of armor plating. Only a small proportion of heavily damaged mechs had to retire from the battlefield.

The damage was small, but this was just a probing attack!

The only question on everyone's minds was whether the orven phasefighters chose to save their transphasic missiles for the ensuing dogfight or planned to unload them right away.

"Damn!"

Even if many of the mech pilots had not fought against the newfangled alien phasefighters in reality, they already spent plenty of time tangling against them in virtual training settings.

The performance of the virtual phasefighters might not be a total match to the actual alien craft, but the principles should still be the same.

It was terrifying to encounter a huge missile swarm right at the start. If the mech force did not possess enough missile interception capabilities, then the human machines would almost certainly suffer a heavy blow.

The abrupt losses inflicted by this thunderous missile strike could even set up a chain reaction that caused the damaged mech force to suffer continuous setbacks until it lost entirely!

However, many mech pilots preferred to get it over with. As long as the phasefighters emptied their missile reserves at once, the fighter craft no longer became as threatening as before. Pilots such as Josh did not have to watch his back all of the time for fear of getting waylaid by a missile launched during inopportune moments.

Seeing that the orven small craft still clung to most of their missiles, Josh grew more nervous but also more excited. His blood pumped faster as he tried to make his Fey Fianna navigate through the energy beams whenever the enemy craft occasionally aimed in its direction.

"We can take it, at least for now." He judged. "I will leave the management of the fey and ther hyper energy shields to you, partner."

"I KNOW WHAT TO DO. WE PRACTICED THIS."

Josh Ketter felt a little guilty for not possessing the multitasking skills to properly pilot a drone mech.

The Fey Fiannas kind of made that requirement optional, but it was well-known that drone mech specialists could get much more use out of these machines.

This was also why he deliberately chose a fey configuration that required as little manual control as possible.

Since his mech had been modified to fight with a spear, he saw no need to pair it up with any of the ranged weapon fey.

Josh eventually settled for a balanced but boring selection of 2 water energy shield fey and 2 space suppressor fey, thereby augmenting his base mech with additional defense and utility.

The shield fey added a lot of fault tolerance to his mech, allowing him to last a lot longer so long as he and living mech properly juggled the multiple active energy shields.

The space suppressor fey worked well in weakening nearby transphasic energy shields. They had practically become mandatory for any melee mech expected to fight against the native aliens.

Josh was counting on his pair of suppressor fey to quickly eliminate the enemy phasefighters. Without the transphasic qualities to their tech, they were not as scary as they sounded.

The only issue was getting close enough for the two fey to do their job and for his mech to attack with its spear.

The Fey Fianna was not built for high mobility.

That honor went to the light mechs that flew ahead and to the sides of the main mass of mechs.

"Our light mechs are beginning to tussle with the enemy phasefighters!"

The leading orven craft suddenly came under a lot of pressure as thousands of light skirmishers assaulted them without any reserve.

The aggressive mech pilots relied on the impressive mobility of their light machines to close in and catch up to the phasefighters that possessed no effective means to fight at point-blank range.

Every phasefighter that became haunted by a light skirmisher immediately stopped what they were doing and tried their best to shake off the mechs that sought to tear them to shreds!

The initial contact made it difficult for a lot of phasefighters to avoid contact. Hundreds of them ended up getting swarmed by at least two light skirmishers that rapidly chipped away at their transphasic energy shields!

The lighter orven phasefighters appeared to save on costs by placing much less emphasis on material defenses. Their fuselages were light and slender, granting them superior mobility at the cost of becoming incredibly vulnerable if they lost their transphasic energy shields!

In order to make sure they would last, the orven developers had made sure to equip the craft with fairly strong transphasic energy shield generators, but there was only so much they could do with a limited budget and phasewater allowance!

The space suppressors equipped by light skirmishers were very small and weak, but two of them working in concert was usually enough to remove the transphasic factor from the enemy fighter craft.

The sight of all of the light skirmishers working together to eliminate the phasefighters was beautiful.

The paired machines coordinated their movements and always made sure to box in their targets.

When four different knives struck the weakened transphasic energy shields on a repeated basis, the poor alien shield generator usually reached their limits in just half-a-dozen seconds even though they were supposed to last at least three to five times longer at their phasewater level!

As long as the fighters lost their fancy shields, their exposed frames became incredibly vulnerable!

Dozens of fighter craft got crushed or cut into several pieces with ease.

Once the predatory light skirmishers finished off their prey, they did not delay and move on to eliminate other phasefighters!

"Woohoo!"

"Kill em, skirmishers!"

"Don't let the cowardly phasefighters fly away!"

Josh became impressed by the sight of these mechs at work. He never had the reflexes or guts to specialize in light mechs, so he always held a greater degree of respect towards these daredevils.

Despite piloting cheaper and more breakable machines, the mech pilots maneuvered around the battlefield without betraying any fear.

Perhaps the mech pilots were all secretly scared out of their wits, but their strong discipline and sense of duty kept them clear-headed enough to do their jobs without any interruption.

"Kill! Kill as many orven fighters as you can!"

"Kill two of them and you have proved you are not a waste of space. Kill three of them and you'll break even with the orvens. Kill four or more of them if you want to earn a profit!"

The calculus of war did not quite work that way, but the light skirmisher pilots did not care. They just wanted to take down as many alien fighter craft as possible before their mechs eventually met their end, which was an inevitable outcome.

Although the light skirmishers were able to take down the orven phasefighters with ease, they were just as vulnerable against the craft they were hunting!

The orvens knew how to exploit the fragility of human light mechs.

The native aliens may not have made use of small craft on a large scale for much of their recent history, but they still retained much of the tactics and combat doctrines in their historical archives.

The orven fighter pilots did not panic but instead maneuvered around in accordance with their training.

Many phasefighters began to circle around in chaotic patterns. While the frequent turning allowed the pursuing light mechs to close the distance faster, when many phasefighters weaved into each other at the same time, it became possible for the craft to shoot down the pursuing mechs!

Lots of energy beams began to strike the light skirmishers from different angles. The phasefighters did not bother to shoot down the mechs on their tail, but instead took advantage of any moment an enemy machine briefly entered their crosshairs!

Most of the orven pilots were rather clumsy and formulaic when employing these basic weaving tactics, but it didn't matter as their numbers advantage allowed them to fire a lot of shots at the light skirmishers in a short interval of time!

Both sides began to suffer a lot of casualties. The light skirmishers continued to pair up and shred any alien phasefighter they managed to get close to. The orven fighter craft utilized their superior numbers and their rapid-fire energy cannons to shred the relatively fragile light skirmishers with just as much ease!

"There's too many of them! Our light mechs can't hold out long if they are left by themselves!"

Fortunately, it did not take too long for the main wave of mechs to crash into the swarms of orven phasefighters!

The collision between human mechs and alien phasefighters caused an entire section of the battlefield to turn into an indiscriminate cloud of moving metal pieces.

Mechs and phasefighters weaved into each other, making it difficult for human orbital defenses and alien warships to intervene in this chaotic melee.

Tens of thousands of small craft on each side tangled against each other without trying to impose any greater sense of order.

This was not a surprise. The orven fighter pilots were too inexperienced and poorly trained. The human mech pilots were restrained by their numbers disadvantage and their fear towards the new anti-mech warships.

It was impossible to adopt any greater formations or establish teamwork on a wider scale.

The commanding officers of both sides could not even force their subordinates to retreat as the combatants on both sides had become utterly devoted to eliminating each other to the very end!

Josh had lost almost all of his awareness of the greater battlefield once he truly entered the fight.

As a member of one of the elite units, it was not his job to hunt down the most fragile orven phasefighters.

Instead, Josh set his sights on the heavier, bulkier and most importantly tougher phasefighters!

The heavy phasefighters intimidated a lot of mechs due to their vastly superior firepower and defenses. While their mobility was not as great as their lighter counterparts, the more massive craft were able to rely on their more powerful arms and higher phasewater content to shred one mech after another.

Not just the light skirmishers, but also the thicker medium mechs faltered quickly when under attack by a heavy phasefighter!

"No more!"

Josh's Fey Fianna intercepted a heavy phasefighter that had just crippled a swordsman mech and thrust out its spear!

The mech pilot made sure to limit the interception speed to make sure the contact did not result in anything breaking, but the Fey Fianna still shook as it suffered a rattling collision!

Josh quickly shook it off and renewed his attack on the enemy phasefighter. The enemy craft was losing its shield integrity quickly as the two space suppressor fey did their jobs and blocked most transphasic effects!

Even so, the Fey Fianna was too clumsy and simplistic in its attack moves to wear out the energy defenses of the alien craft quickly enough.

The 'elite' orven fighter pilot quickly started to bend and corkscrew around in order to give other available phasefighters the opportunity to take potshots at the enemy drone mech.

Josh's mech indeed began to receive more attention from enemies, but its two hyper energy shield fey ensured that the machine remained physically unharmed!

"If you think this can deter me from pursuing you further, then you are sorely mistaken, alien!"

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