The Mech Touch

The Komodo War raged on with greater intensity than ever!

Though half of the territories of the Carnegie Group and the Vermeer Group fell into the hands of the Hexers, the Fridaymen took them back at a steady pace!

Starships exploded, mechs fell by the thousands and an incredible degree of ordnance was being consumed with each passing second!

The Hex Army fought hard, but the different militaries of the Friday Coalition hit their enemies back with vengeance and desperation!

"Don't let these Hexers catch a breath! As long as we let up, these witches will go on the attack again!"

"Take revenge for Carnegie and Vermeer! Don't let the sacrifices of our brothers be in vain!"

Hundreds of star systems that had become the site of Hexer invasions just months ago suddenly dealt with another wave of invasions.

The Sundered Phalanx and the Oni Guard both advanced relentlessly despite the opposition in their way!

The Hex Army's overreach and the lack of time spent on fortifying the conquered star systems meant that the Fridaymen could take them back on the cheap!

The Fridaymen encountered significantly less resistance in taking them back than their counterparts!

This was a given, as the Hexers pretty much had to dismantle all of the centuries of accumulation spent fortifying the Fridaymen star systems. Once the conquests succeeded, there was no way the female supremacists were able to entrench their new gains in a short amount of time.

Even if they were capable of doing so, they might not even want to do so! To the Hex Army, its resources were better spent on strengthening their main mech units than building up some marginally useful fortifications.

One of the categories of mechs that recently received a lot of attention from the Hexers was the expanded Valkyrie product line!

No longer were the Hexers forced to work with a one-size-fits-all solution. The introduction of five additional variants brought enough variety to the mech divisions of the Hex Army to form Valkyrie mech units with a greater degree of specialization!

While the Blessed Squires still served a very vital role to the Hex Army, the Hexers naturally gravitated towards the LMC mech dedicated to female mech pilots.

The mech just called to these aggressive and bloodthirsty women like no other machine designed by the Hexers had ever accomplished!

Other aerial mechs may feature greater optimization, offer more varied modules and so on, but the truth was that the Komodo War was fought by people, not machines.

The latter only served as an extension of the former!

Therefore, the original Valkyrie Redeemer model had already captured the hearts of many Hexer military mech pilots.

Now, the release of several new variants made the mechs accessible to many more female soldiers!

In an answer to the onslaught unleashed by the Gauge Dynasty and the Konsu Clan, the Hex Army decided to bet big on the Valkyrie product line.

High command had little choice.

"Only the Superior Mother can help us now. We must ask for her blessing to pull us through this war!"

Too many Hexers fighting on the frontlines demanded the powerful new mech models. Restricting the supply of Valkyrie mechs would have a major impact on their morale. Yet as soon as the mech regiments received their new toys, they fought harder and with less complaint!

The Hex Army had also lost the initiative. The Fridaymen constantly pushed them back, causing many plans and movement orders to fall through. The Hexer planners and strategists constantly had to readjust their deployments because the frontlines collapsed faster than they could cope!

What high command noticed about the Valkyrie mechs was that they slowed down the Fridaymen aggressors after deploying them en masse. The mechs were having a very telling effect as they seemed to egg on their mech pilots to do more!

While the Valkyrie mechs succeeded in hindering the Fridaymen forces to an extent, the casualty rates among their mech pilots tended to be higher than usual.

One of the downsides of the mental influence that LMC mechs exerted onto their mech pilots was that they were less willing to retreat and more willing to take risks!

The Valkyrie Redeemer and its variants were offensive mechs by nature. They featured above-average defense for their mech type, but that did not mean their margin of error was huge.

One mistake might doom an entire mech company of Valkyrie Redeemers!

Despite this hefty cost, the Hex Army still went through with deploying the Valkyrie mechs in greater numbers. Slowing down the Fridaymen mattered more than anything else because the Hexers needed time to adjust to the sudden shifts.

Whether on land or in space, the female mech pilots who were lucky enough to be assigned to a Valkyrie unit all fought with the blessing of the Superior Mother!

In one battle above orbit, several hundred Valkyrie Huntresses sped up while firing their modified short-capacity gauss rifles at an incoming formation of Fridaymen mechs.

The Sundered Phalanx deployed a mix of lancer mechs, space knights, spearman mechs and rifleman mechs.

This balanced unit was very hard to deal with, yet the Hexer mech pilots harassing them utilized their mobility advantage to the fullest. The Valkyrie Huntresses nimbly stayed out of the range of the enemy melee mechs while focusing their fire on the rifleman mechs.

It was quite difficult to get through the protection offered by the space knights, but the Valkyrie Huntresses split up into smaller squads and spread out in order to assail their targets from multiple angles!

No matter how hard the Fridaymen space knights tried to cover for their ranged mechs, the Valkyrie Huntresses only had to concentrate their Marked For Death ability on them for an instant to produce an opening!

Hardly any Fridaymen mech pilot was able to keep their cool when being subjected to multiple simultaneous death glows of the dreaded Valkyrie mechs.

While several kilometers of range was fairly short in space battles, it was more than enough for the ranged variant of the Valkyrie Redeemers!

"We're out of ammunition!"

"Pull back and resupply. Don't let these brutes take advantage of us. Our mechs aren't as good up close!"

Their non-standard issue gauss rifles gave the Valkyrie Huntresses a lot of punch, but the mechs weren't able to carry a lot of ammunition. This was fine, as the nimble and mobile ranged mechs all turned around and flew back to the safety of their own lines before the Fridaymen could entangle them in place, leaving over fifty broken Fridaymen mechs behind!

In another part of the battlefield, a different variant of the Valkyrie Redeemer eschewed hit and run tactics and dove straight into the Fridaymen formations!

Hundreds of Valkyrie Interceptors bore their spears and shields with steady grips as they flew into a barrage of enemy fire!

Various auxiliary mechs in the midst of the Hexer elements all projected various shields, ECM and other forms of assistance.

Yet various Valkyrie Interceptors, some of them issued to their mech pilots just days ago, continued to fall off or explode due to the focused fire coming from their targets.

"Don't slow down, sisters! We will pay them back at least three more times for all of the good Hexers that fell. Ready your spears and mark your targets!"

As the Valkyrie Interceptors charged forth, their third eyes all began to shine hundreds of spotlights at the Fridaymen mechs that were in their way.

Though the Sunderers already knew what to expect from the Valkyrie mechs, no amount of preparation could truly prepare them against the sensation of being stared at by a mother who was much greater than they ever thought!

The Fridaymen mech pilots began to quail in their piloting suits.

"I can't hold still!"

On the other hand, the Hexers who piloted the Valkyrie Interceptors each felt as if the Superior Mother blessed them more than usual!

The commander of the Valkyrie mechs felt inspired. She transmitted an order that caused all of the Valkyrie Interceptors to activate the small projection modules built onto their frames.

As the Hexer mechs rapidly closed in, a huge projection began to appear in the middle of their formation.

A giant representation of the Superior Mother came into existence! The projected illusion held a spear and began to thrust the giant weapon into the Fridaymen formation at the same time just before the Interceptors slammed into their targets!

"GIVE THEM DEATH!"

The Valkyrie Interceptors expanded their glows, causing them to overlap across the entire Fridaymen lines!

The Sunderers weren't able to adjust to the sudden changes!

Crash!

Hundreds of silent collisions occurred within a span of a dozen seconds as a succession of Interceptors ran their spears through shields, armor and other delicate components!

A large number of Fridaymen mechs coasted backwards as they were either downed or damaged to the point where they couldn't regain control!

Of course, the Valkyrie Interceptors didn't come out unscathed. Dozens of them got struck by instinctive or lucky counterattacks. Others botched their attacks and collided head-on against an enemy mech, thereby concussing their entire frames!

"Push through their lines! Initiate Shock And Awe!"

Before the Fridaymen could recover and take advantage of the relatively static Valkyrie mechs, the latter simultaneously fired their Starburst grenades which quickly overwhelmed any nearby sensor systems.

"Hah! Did these witches think that would work? Think again!"

Surprisingly, the Sundered Phalanx mechs withstood the Starburst grenades! The Fridaymen had modified and hardened their machines to resist the interference generated by these grenades!

However, at the same time the grenades exploded, the Valkyrie Interceptor mechs also unleashed powerful pulses that never failed to shock the minds of any nearby enemy mech pilots.

Yet despite unleashing these powerful pulses, the Fridaymen mechs seemed to take no notice and continued to launch their counterattacks, if with a little less fluency than before.

Many Valkyrie Interceptors were caught by surprise! They either suffered crippling damage or received blows that would take days to repair.

"Retreat! Shock them again!"

The Valkyrie Interceptors performed the same as they receded, but the Fridaymen mechs continued to stick to them as best they could, downing more Hexer mechs before the two sides finally separated.

"Damn!" The Hexer commander cursed. "The blasted Fridaymen have adapted!"

In order to counter the Shock And Awe Pulse of the Valkyrie mechs, the Fridaymen not only hardened the sensors of their machines, but also added some automation!

Whenever their mech pilots blanked out, the Fridaymen mechs would automatically hand over control to an AI that had been tracking the entire battle in the background. Once the AI gained control of the mech, it could automatically form the correct response in theory!

Though letting AIs take over control was not the most ideal solution, against a measure that often succeeded at incapacitating mech pilots, it was better than nothing!

No longer were the Valkyrie Redeemers able to force the enemy mechs to lose control either.

After a few days of recording successful results, the Fridaymen expanded the scope of this counter to more measures.

Now, even when the Valkyrie mechs managed to paralyze an enemy mech pilot with several focused death glares, the AIs always kicked in whenever a mech pilots lost a certain degree of attentiveness in battle.

As the Hexers increased their use of the Valkyrie mechs, the Fridaymen weren't sitting still. Aside from developing methods to mitigate the latest toys of the Hexers, the Coalition also began to deploy an increasing number of expert mechs in battle.

This was the real killer to the Hex Army!

The more time passed, the more expert mechs the Fridaymen were able to muster. Every third-rate that was at least somewhat aligned to the Coalition were 'persuaded' into lending their expert pilots.

With the Fridaymen Masters and Seniors developing hastily-customized expert mechs as fast as they were capable of outputting, not even glows could dent the increasing damage these powerful mechs inflicted on the Hex Army!

"We can't go on like this! We need to put a stop against these endless enemy expert mechs!"