The Mech Touch

Almost two-thousand mechs advanced towards the outer perimeter of Ulimo Citadel.

The Larkinson Clan did not hide their approach. The energy signatures of so many spaceborn mechs advancing at once could not be hidden. Though the asteroids and complicated environment of Maynard Fields helped cover up their emissions, it wouldn't be long before the Dry Snakes and its subordinate groups discovered that something was amiss!

Still, no alarms began to ring as the Larkinson mechs flew closer and closer.

In order to mitigate the potential losses stemming from getting attacked by a nuclear mine or other destructive area weapon, the Larkinson Clan opted to utilize dispersed formations this time.

While that made it difficult for the mechs to support each other, there was no serious downside as long as the pirate mechs did not come close.

The last thing Ves and the Larkinsons wanted to see was a powerful detonation annihilating several mech companies at once!

Therefore, the various mech forces approaching the outer defenses of Ulimo Citadel resembled a swarm.

Initially, the swarm moved forth in unison, but at a certain point, it began to split up. Several splinters diverged from each other and headed towards specific coordinates.

What was even stranger was that a small transport and a number of shuttles tagged along these splinters as well. The units that had received special orders did not entirely consist of mechs!

Commander Orfan piloted a spearman mech and led one of these units. Hundreds of mechs of the Flagrant Vandals and other forces obeyed her orders, though so far she merely followed a prescribed plan.

None of her usual levity could be seen from her today. Attacking Ulimo Citadel was a difficult endeavor that relied on many events to go right. The clan drafted an elaborate, multi-step plan to dismantle the threats of Ulimo Citadel and the pirates who reigned over it. If even a single step didn't go as planned, hundreds of Larkinsons might die!

Such responsibility weighed heavily on her. In fact, she harbored quite a lot of misgivings about this operation.

It was one thing to smash some regular pirates.

It was another thing to attack pirates who possessed enough superweapons to wipe out entire cities at once!

None of the mech pilots of the Larkinson Clan felt safe in their fragile machines. As the clan continued to prosper, more and more mech pilots felt as if their cheap, low-specced machines were no longer suitable to them. They deserved to pilot better, especially when they heard that the LMC earned more than a trillion hex credits in the past couple of months!

Sadly, the timing wasn't right and many mech pilots still needed time to obtain the right qualifications.

Only the expert candidates and the Avatars assigned to the Bright Warriors possessed a little bit more confidence.

The iconic mech of the Larkinson Clan may just be a bridge mech, but its defense was superb! It might just be possible for the mechs to survive getting hit by a weaker superweapon!

That said, the clan only outfitted a couple of Avatar mech companies with Bright Warriors. The Commander Orfan and her Flagrant Vandals only had to make do with their old lastgen military mech models.

"I have to get ahold of Ves or Major Verle and tell them to replace our old mechs as soon as possible!"

With the growing wealth of the Larkinson Clan, even Orfan could see that fielding third-class mechs became less relevant over time.

Attracted by the power and majesty of second-class mechs, every mech pilot who joined the clan urgently trained to obtain the qualifications to pilot these powerful machines!

Their need became even greater once they entered the Nyxian Gap. The casualties they suffered could have been reduced if they piloted better mechs!

Therefore, almost every Larkinson mech pilot trained or studied earnestly whenever they were awake. They craved fighting actual battles and pirates because they improved by leaps and bounds. Each time they fought a serious battle, they discovered their shortcomings. They were also able to validate their newly-acquired skills and polish them even further in the furnace of battle.

Commander Orfan was fairly proud of her Vandals. Even though they consisted of average Brighter military mech pilots, their discipline and training was superior to most of the mech pilots of the Larkinson Clan.

Hopefully, her new bosses would recognize their strength and provide them with new machines once they returned to civilized space. If not, she was more than willing to raise hell to stand up for the interests of her fellow Vandals!

"Commander, we're approaching our target." A Vandal mech captain spoke. "The vault we are heading towards is currently guarded by around three mech companies, of which two are on standby. We expect their long-ranged sensors to detect us within five minutes. As for the vault defenses… hehe, if the Black Cats have done their job, we can easily take their vault!"

"What forces are we up against?"

"So far, two of the mech companies are from the Dry Snakes. The third one appears to be from Farmund's Own."

"Understood."

Commander Orfan did not ask about the fixed defenses of the vault. Even though the pirates built enough turrets and other protective measures to resist or stall the advance of hundreds of mechs, none of the pirates knew that those base defenses were completely compromised!

While it was challenging for the Black Cats to sabotage the core defensive systems of Ulimo Citadel, the vaults that held a lot of destructive weapons were different.

Grand Protector Roshaw, the pirate lord that reigned over Ulimo, personally ordered the construction of these outlying vaults to remove the risk of Ulimo getting blown up by nefarious actors.

The upside was this measure did as advertised. Even if a couple of nuclear bombs exploded, the only loss the pirates suffered was a lot of superweapons. The Dry Snakes were more than willing to compensate for any losses suffered by their customers.

The downside was that it was a c.u.mbersome chore to protect these outer positions!

The necessity to place them far away from the Citadel meant that it was difficult to guard them around the clock!

In ordinary times, only a single mech company guarded every vault. With the formidable array of base defenses, any enemy that wanted to mess with a vault would face stiff resistance, thereby buying time for the main garrison to dispatch a relief force from the main pirate stronghold.

Ever since the Dry Snakes smelled trouble, they tripled the garrisons of the vaults. This provided the pirates with even greater guarantees. They also dispatched numerous more technicians and specialists to keep an extra close eye on their defense systems.

Yet no matter how much the pirates wanted to cover all of their vaults, they couldn't afford to spread their forces so thin!

In addition, the pirates themselves may be frightened by the threat of the Larkinson Clan, but they were not very disciplined and difficult to control!

Hardly any pirate could maintain their focus and remain alert for several weeks. Many of the pirates began to grow lazy and sloppy, and they no longer strictly adhered to protocol.

For these reasons, the mech companies garrisoned at the vaults adopted a simple three-shift rotation. Every eight standard hours, a different mech company deployed into space.

As for the rest? They either slept or had some fun!

This was why by the time the defenders of one of the vaults noticed the approach of Commander Orfan's detachment, no other mechs deployed from the hangar built next to the vault!

"Storm the vault! Don't let the pirates mess with the goods!"

More than a hundred charged forward while some other mechs followed at a slower pace.

The mechs that moved on ahead consisted entirely of melee mechs. The sight of so many eager mechs charging forward caused the currently-deployed pirates to quiver.

Their forty pirate mechs would never be able to block so many enemies!

"Wake up the other boys!" A pirate officer cried, panic suffusing his stimulant-addled body! "What the heck are our turrets doing? Shoot them already! Why aren't our missile banks firing any volleys? What has happened to our Judgement Lasers?"

In recent months, the Allidus Alliance supplied Ulimo Citadel with a batch of powerful warship-grade laser cannons. The Dry Snakes opted to mount the Judgement Lasers on a couple of sh.i.p.s while installing the rest at their various vaults.

The firepower of these Judgement Lasers should have been enough to blunt the enemy advance!

It wasn't the fault of the operators. Instructed by their superiors, they frequently inspected their weapon systems. They performed diagnostics at least several times a day and even test-fired their weapons if it wasn't too costly.

So far, every single weapon and superweapon worked as advertised.

Yet as soon as the operators wanted to bring their weapon systems to bear against the approaching Larkinsons, their systems suddenly shut down entirely!

"We've been hacked!"

"Switch to backup systems!"

"It's not working! Our backups have been hacked as well!"

"Damnit! Why didn't we find out sooner?!"

The pirates discovered to their horror that the tampering was more devious than they thought!

It wasn't actually difficult to disable the key systems of a weapon system. What was truly challenging was to tamper with them in a way to keep them functional until the key moment arrived. All the while, the tampering had to remain hidden, lest the pirates find out and fix the issue!

"Switch to emergency manual operation! I don't care if we have to eyeball our aim, just get our weapons firing as soon as possible!"

As more and more operators began to bypass the compromised electronic systems of their weapon platforms, a hidden command suddenly activated.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Various defensive systems blew up and became engulfed by explosions as systems overloaded, explosive ordnance detonated in their racks and smaller precision explosives wrecked a lot of key systems!

Hundreds of average pirate operators were swept away by the destructive fury. The few who survived were stunned by what had happened and completely lost their nerves!

Over eighty percent of the vault defenses succ.u.mbed to sabotage! The few laser turrets that began to attack the incoming Larkinson mechs soon attracted a heavy response from the attackers!

Upon Commander Orfan's command, her ranged mechs fired all of their guns at the surviving base defenses.

Though they were protected by a large amount of Kavenit-based armor, the fact that they were completely stationary made it easy for the Larkinsons to concentrate their fire!

The ranged mechs of the Larkinson Clan all linked their firing systems together. Through automating their aim, the ranged mechs all fired their weapons at very specific targets with pinpoint accuracy.

Such an extreme degree of concentration of fire meant that much of the armor protecting the defensive systems hardly played a role. With hundreds of laser beams and physical projectiles brought to bear at the same target, a lot of holes were rapidly being drilled in quick succession!

At this time, the melee mechs also ran over the active pirate mechs. Dry Snakes or not, their admittedly decent mechs simply couldn't withstand more than a hundred well-trained Larkinson mech pilots paired with higher-quality mechs.

"Additional enemy mechs are sorting from the hangar bay!"

"You know what to do. Stop them before they all manage to deploy!" Commander Orfan barked.

A few squads of Vandal mechs intercepted the new arrivals while some cannoneer mechs brought their ballistic cannons to bear at the hangar bay.

The cannoneer mechs fired their large guns, propelling specially-prepared explosive shells at their targets!

The weak energy screen that protected the opening succ.u.mbed after a single impact. Subsequent shells flew straight through and exploded in the large interior!

Numerous mech technicians and mech pilots in the open died with each explosion! The cannoneer mechs did not relent and continued to fire into the hangar, spreading death and destruction to such a powerful extent that no more pirate mechs launched into space!

With the mechs and base defenses of the vault taken out, Commander Orfan sighed in relief. Fortunately, none of the big weapons ever had a chance to fire.

"Commander, our sensors are detecting massed pirate mechs approaching our position! ETA four minutes!"

"Reform our mechs and stall them as best as possible. Tell me if additional pirates are on the way."

Now that the Larkinsons neutralized most of the pirate defenders, the shuttles and transports began to approach the vault. Armored infantry exited the shuttles and began to sweep up the panicked and demoralized pirates inside the vault complex!

Meanwhile, a well-protected team of engineers and weapon operators emerged from the transports. A number of bots also began to unload some heavy hardware such as power generators.

Their goal was clear. The Larkinsons wanted to breach the vault and take over as many superweapons as possible in order to use them against their former owners!

"What a crazy plan!" Orfan uttered.