The Mech Touch

Chapter 6665 Asteroid Belt Skirmishes

The Flagrant Vandals fought hard to prevent the aliens from advancing with ease and collecting more information.

The Ferocious Piranhas, the Stingrippers and the Light Hunters formed a classic combination that allowed the Flagrant Vandal mechs to fare extremely well against other enemy small craft.

They made the aliens fight for every scrap of data. Their increasingly more experienced and veteran mech pilots as well as living mechs frequently outmaneuvered and outfought the clumsy phasefighters.

Yet it did not seem to matter.

The Ferocious Piranhas could dive close and use their space suppressors add-ons to weaken and disrupt the enemy craft in multiple ways.

Yet the light skirmishers had attracted so much notoriety among the alien fighter pilots that the Ferocious Piranhas usually got focused down first!

The Stingrippers were able to evade ranged attacks much better than other mechs by relying on a combination of ECM and the perception distortion effect produced by Kalo, but the value of these capabilities were severely discounted when the native aliens left the light harasser mechs for last.

The Light Hunters possessed excellent sensor and scanning capabilities, allowing them to detect enemy craft through the dense environment of asteroids and space dust with their powerful Samasel Orbs.

Unfortunately, the advance warnings granted by these scout mechs did not help friendly mech units all that much when the aliens deployed so many phasefighters in a wave that pretty much anyone could see them coming.

While the Flagrant Vandals did make use of other mech models to add more throwing weight to their mech legion, most of their machines were still predominantly lightly armored.

They could not evade every attack, nor fight the enemy phasefighter formations with favorable numbers.

Even if they pulled off several successive ambushes, more phasefighters arrived that were fresh and fully capable of gunning down mechs that had already spent half their resources or more!

"The aliens are deploying more phasefighters in the asteroid belts than expected!" "Is the intelligence wrong?! Did the aliens bring more phasefighters than we thought?!" "We need more help if we want to slow the enemy down further."

"Help is already coming. The Avatars of Myth, the Swordmaidens and the Penitent Sisters have all dispatched their mech units to the asteroid belt. There is a good

opportunity to eliminate a large amount of alien phasefighters without the interference of warships and phase lords. Fight them hard and try to take down at least three of the enemy before your mech goes down. For the clan! For humanity!"

The native alien forces committed a surprising number of phasefighters to clear out the asteroid belt.

The human commanders saw an opportunity to allow their mech forces to fight the enemy phasefighters on much fairer terms than was possible under other circumstances.

Most warships couldn't fly into the asteroid belt without crashing against several space rocks.

The phase lords that led the alien armada were so arrogant that they disdained the thought of participating in these small skirmishes.

For these reasons and more, the Larkinson Army dispatched additional forces that were already in reserve.

Bright Warriors, Red Axes, Lucid Rages, Buzzy Bees, Fey Fiannas, Valkyrie Redeemers, Maidens of Adversity, Second Swords, Storm Swords as well as the new Stormblade Samurais all entered the asteroid belt at different points and fought against the advancing alien phasefighters.

The medium mechs weren't as fast and maneuverable as the light mechs fielded by the Flagrant Vandals, but the mechs of the Avatars, Swordmaidens and Penitent Sisters made up for these shortcomings in other ways.

For one, they were much more suited to collide head-on against the alien phasefighters and brawl against them until they broke and scattered!

These medium mechs did not confront the alien phasefighters by themselves. They joined forces with the light mechs of the Flagrant Vandals in order to increase their detection envelope and prevent the alien craft from running away without penalty. The Larkinsons had fought alongside each other enough times to refine their cooperation!

"Come on, sisters! Take these phasefighters down while we are still drawing their attention!"

Three Maidens of Adversity flew together and joined forces to share their modular armor plating with each other. Their iconic Battle Skirt System not only allowed them to dynamically form physical barriers that could block quite a few attacks, but they also allowed the mechs who possessed the same armor system to share their modular armor plating with identical machines on the same side.

These were not the original modular armor plates that were derived from an outdated mech design.

These were improved transphasic hyper armor plating that could more effectively resist

enemy attacks, especially those launched by most phasefighters!

The three Maidens of Adversity hailed from the same squad of Penitent Sisters and were able to tightly coordinate with each other.

Not only did the hero mechs dynamically switch their formations to present the least amount of surface area to their most threatening opponents, but they also concentrated their fire against the same targets.

As the defense-oriented hero mechs did their job of attracting the attention of the enemy phasefighters, a pair of Valkyrie Redeemers swooped in from behind another asteroid and charged straight at two enemy phasefighters each, not even bothering to use their upgraded luminar crystal submachine guns to lay down harassing fire! The Valkyrie Redeemer Mark III was a classic among the Penitent Sisters, the Glory Seekers and the Hex Army.

Updated for the Hyper Generation, the Valkyrie Redeemer had proven to be one of the most effective mech models fielded by the Larkinsons and Hexers for one reason. When they channeled their glows, Helena's gaze seemed to pierce across space and directly pin the alien fighter pilots with a gaze that foretold their own impending deaths. Although persistent exposure to E energy radiation had passively spurred the growth of all alien spiritualities in the Red Ocean, Helena had grown a lot stronger as well, so the pilots of the phasefighters were still vulnerable to this effect!

The gap between Helena and these mortal alien fighter pilots was too big! Since the alien soldiers had not yet engaged in systematic cultivation, their untrained spiritualities were not strong enough to withstand an attack on this level.

Their lack of experience and tempering put them at an even greater disadvantage!

Even if they heard about mechs that were able to fill their heads with illusions about their impending demise, learning about it and experiencing this frightening effect for themselves was still different!

The alien fighter pilots targeted by Marked For Death ability froze for varying amounts

of seconds.

This made their craft a lot more vulnerable!

Not only did they get hit by more energy beams from the Maidens of Adversity, they also failed to evade when the Valkyrie Redeemers finally closed the distance and thrust their spears straight into the azure energy shields that protected them from damage! Though the spears deformed upon collision, they had successfully completed their jobs. The weakened energy shields failed to withstand the kinetic impact damage and bursts

like bubbles!

The two phasefighters suddenly became exposed, causing them to get torn to shreds by

the Valkyrie Redeemers with the help of supporting fire from the Maidens of Adversity.

The mechs subsequently teamed up to eliminate the remainder of the alien fighter craft. They went down much easier due to the prior losses and due to the intimidation factor of the two Hexer mechs.

"Good work, sisters! We have eliminated another batch of alien scum, and without

suffering losses this time!"

"Do not become complacent. According to the latest transmission, the aliens have already begun to adjust their strategy. They are no longer trying to sweep everything at once. They are beginning to concentrate their phasefighters to make them much harder

to defeat."

"That will just give us all a fixed target to fight against! Let us rendez-vous with our other sisters and introduce these poor aliens to the power of hexism!" Though the Penitent Sister mechs performed well against their alien foes, their

machines wore down after encounter.

The Maidens of Adversity could only use up so much modular armor plating before their Battle Skirt System became bare.

The Valkyrie Redeemers were inherently offensive mechs that inevitably sustained damage over the course of fights. Their round shields provided them with a little bit of physical protection, but they weren't as big or thick as the tower shields of typical knight

mechs.

The Swordmaidens fared a little better. Ketis had taken such good care of them that they possessed the highest proportion of quasi-first-class transphasic hyper mechs! Aside from the lastgen but still fairly capable Second Swords, the Storm Swords and the brand new Stormblade Samurai Mark II's proved their worth whenever they closed in on alien phasefighters!

Unlike most other mechs that had to attack many times in order to break the azure

energy shields that protected the physically fragile phasefighters from harm, the

transphasic hyper swordsman mechs equipped with stormblade technology were especially designed to counter their defenses!

The Swordmaiden mech pilots employed no trickery or deception. They simply charged directtly towards a squadron of phasefighters!

If the phasefighters flew in empty space, then they may actually be able to outpace their

pursuers.

However, the mechs were considerably better at lateral movements. Although the aliens

tried to be clever by employing the basic tactic of weaving around so that they could always target a mech from the flanks, the Swordmaiden mechs mostly ignored the incoming attacks and closed in just to deliver one or more good hits!

Every strike was accompanied by a soundless but violent electrical discharge!

The transphasic hyper version of stormblade technology was much stronger than the

original version.

The azure energy shields destabilized much faster than normal, causing the shield

generators of the phasefighters to work at full capacity to maintain the active defenses!

Though both the Storm Swords and the Stormblade Samurai Mark II made use of the same tech, their applications were different.

The Storm Sword was designed with the classic Swordmaiden fighting approach in mind. They were armed with electrified versions of greatswords that not only possessed greater reach and power, but were also able to contain much higher charges than most

other weapons.

This meant that a Storm Sword typically only had to land two or three good hits to completely overwhelm an enemy fighter craft's azure energy shield!

The Stormblade Samurai wielded a pair of one-handed stormblades instead. What they lacked in power and reach, they made up for it with faster attacks and slightly better

mobility.

The two mech models did not have to rely on fancy glows or strange gimmicks to defeat their alien adversaries.

They only had to rely on the power of their space suppressors, their physical attacks and the stormblade effect to quickly scramble the enemy's azure energy shield and cut the phasefighters to shreds!

Unfortunately, their biggest problem was that they too suffered in terms of defense. While the quasi-first-class mechs were still able to withstand a number of hits, none of the Swordmaiden mechs were designed to withstand repeated attacks. Combined with relatively average mobility compared to light mechs, the alien phasefighter pilots learned to keep their distance and wait until they amassed larger numbers before confronting the native aliens.

"The aliens are wising up. If we keep this up, these skirmishes will turn into full-blown

battles." "Then what would you have us do? If we keep evading their larger units, we will just give

up ground and allow them to clear out the entire asteroid belt."

"We need to consolidate our forces and fight harder."

"The Avatars of Myth have already transmitted a rallying call. Commander Melkor

apparently wants to launch at least one big push in order to give the aliens a bloody

nose."

"That sounds interesting. He is being bolder than usual."

As the fighting all along the asteroid belt intensified, more and more mechs and

phasefighters began to gather together.

All of this culminated in a series of battles where both sides fought against each other

more directly!