The Mech Touch

"This is impossible… the Bloody Herons shouldn't have died so easily…"

Lady Aisling Curver simply couldn't believe what her console was telling her. The Bloody Heron mechs had become completely unresponsive. She patched into the cockpit feeds and looked at the bodies of the pilots.

Not a single one of them moved. Aside from performing unconscious body functions such as breathing, the pilots seemed to have gone completely still.

According to the brain monitoring systems, the mech pilots were no longer alive according to the Friday Coalition's interpretation of what constituted a living being.

It was as if the bodies had turned into clones. Aside from containing a self-maintaining system of blood, flesh and bone, the collection of organic tissue was no longer alive in the truest sense of the word!

This was impossible. No attack should have been able to bypass every defensive barrier and strike straight at the minds of the Bloody Heron mech pilots.

Even if such an odd attack was able to affect normal mech pilots, the proud elites hand-picked and nurtured by the great Master Huron himself shouldn't have perished so easily!

They were some of the most excellent mech pilots of the Gauge Dynasty and by extension the Friday Coalition. Even if they weren't expert pilots themselves, they were the very best among the standard mech pilots that served in the Sundered Phalanx.

For them to fall over like this en masse was a huge injustice!

Aisling simply couldn't comprehend how the Larkinson Clan was able to kill them all in an instant.

It was one thing to defeat the Bloody Herons through ordinary combat. No matter how well they fought, they were still mortals who piloted mechs that were significantly worse than expert mechs. It was normal for the Bloody Herons to sustain casualties, especially against opponents who were close to them in strength such as the Glory Seekers and the Cross Clan.

Yet the mechs responsible for triggering the devastating losses did not belong to the Hexers, but the mech designer who created them in the first place. The Valkyrie Redeemers led by a strange variant had displayed a power that was completely unprecedented in the history of this mech line!

Was every Valkyrie mech capable of evoking this mysterious power? Why were the Valkyrie mechs in the hands of the Larkinsons much more special than the ones in the hands of the Hex Army? What role did the custom Valkyrie mech in the lead assume in their odd formation?

So many questions whirled in Aisling's mind that she had completely forgotten about her earlier responsibilities.

While there weren't many living Bloody Herons that needed her monitoring and support, Venerable Ghanso Larkinson clearly noticed the lack of attention.

Whenever he fought in a serious battle, he frequently received support from the rear. As the mech designer responsible for maintaining the Charlemagne and the Scarra mechs, Aisling provided considerable technical support to him in many different ways.

Whether it was unlocking some of the limiters of his expert mech to advising him how to best dismantle an enemy expert mech, Venerable Ghanso could not have achieved as much success as he did without the support of an excellent Journeyman mech designer.

"Aisling!" Ghanso gritted his teeth as his Scarra mechs kept getting picked off by his invigorated opponents. "Get your head back together! We're switching to plan F!"

"Wait, what?" Aisling suddenly shook.

Her hazard suited form sat up straighter in the seat as she brought her mind back to the present.

This was no time for her to wonder how in the hell her beloved Ves had managed to turn his Valkyrie design into literal engines of death.

They still had a mission to perform!

"General Pierce has just relayed the order!" Ghanso quickly continued as he fended off a squad of rabbidly-fanatical Glory Seekers. The crazy women willingly launched suicide attacks under the belief that the Superior Mother was watching their performance! "We're unlikely to achieve a conventional victory at this rate. The best-case scenario is no longer attainable. We've all agreed to switch straight to our most desperate plan. Only this way will we be able to maximize our remaining chances."

The mech designer couldn't keep up with the changes. So much had already happened that she was barely able to wrap her mind around the decision to switch over their last, most desperate plan.

"That will mean…"

Venerable Ghanso did not hide his ferocity and desperation.

"WE HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE! In order to take down Ves, we must be willing to sacrifice everything! None of us joined this operation expecting to make it back alive, remember? We have made a vow to complete our mission to the best of our ability or die trying, and I am not about to go back on our word. Are you with me or not, Aisling?!"

Her body shook again. She thought about the expectations of her state, the suffering she enabled by letting Ves escape from her grasp and the deaths of all the Bloody Herons she previously supervised on behalf of her Master.

As her gaze centered around the lifeless and immobile mechs of the Bloody Herons, her eyes hardened.

Letting Ves go was one of the greatest oversights she had ever made. If not for her inability to bring her back to the Warsaw Giant System, she could have prevented him from introducing the power of glows to the Hex Army. Without glows, the aggressive and overconfident Hexers would have never been able to overrun the hinterland of the Carnegie Group and the Vermeer Group!

How many trillions of Fridaymen civilians had suffered from the Hexer incursions?

How many brave Fridayman mech pilots had died from facing Blessed Squire and Valkyrie Redeemer models?

How could the Bloody Herons attached to Task Force Umbra have died so suddenly without any chance of mounting a proper defense or counterattack?

The deaths of all of these fellow people weighed heavily on her conscience. Her carelessness and selfishness resulted in a huge chain reaction that had ruined the lives of many people she considered her friends and comrades.

There was only one chance left to earn her penance. In order to serve the greater good, she had no choice but to sacrifice her happiness, her goals and possibly her life.

As a human, she didn't want to go this far.

As a loyal member of the Gauge Dynasty, her duty compelled her to set aside her individual desires.

She closed her eyes, calmed down her conflicting emotions, and regained her focus.

"Tell me what you need from me, Ghanso." She spoke with determination.

Venerable Ghanso briefly shared his idea with her. The moment she heard what he expected from her, she became shocked.

"That's not supposed to work! You're asking me to go outside the boundaries of Master Huron's work! This is one of his masterpieces!"

"Then contact him and get his help instead if you can!" Ghanso heatedly retorted. "Time is short! We're launching our breakthrough attempt soon! I need you to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together before it's too late. If you fail, our mission will very likely fail! I am counting on you, Aisling. One way or another, we must correct the mistake that is Ves' continued existence!"

Correcting a mistake. Was that how Venerable Ghanso thought of this situation? It aptly described her feelings on the matter.

Aisling Curver briefly paused before she nodded. "Very well. I will try and contact Master Huron as soon as possible in order to facilitate your plan. Do note that you and the Charlemagne were never set up for this. We absolutely cannot make any guarantees that it will work out the way you think."

The expert pilot displayed a savage grin. "Oh, it will work, one way or another. I don't need it to last very long. I just need it to work long enough for us to reach that blasted factory ship. Once we are there, it's game over for my corrupted cousin."

Shortly after the discussion ended, the Fridayman expert mechs changed their fighting posture.

From the start of the battle, they had continually been suppressed by the thousands of Glory Seeker and Crosser mechs tasked with wearing down.

The losses had been horrendous on the attacking side. Initially, 8 expert mechs along with a score of quasi-expert mechs worked together to fend off the flood of enemy attackers.

Even gods could be gnawed to death by an endless flood of ants!

Yet these expert pilots quickly learned to work together and utilize the utmost of their powerful machines to wear down the enemy. Their powerful machines remained mobile and constantly used their excellent mobility to stay out of the reach of the enemy.

The expert pilots rationally sacrificed the various resources at their disposal to kill as many opposing mechs as possible.

To be honest, without the intervention of the Star Dancer and the Leskin, the Fridayman expert mechs may have been able to succeed in defeating the thousands of enemy mechs!

Yet because of the addition of two additional opposing expert mechs, Venerable Ghanso and the rest had to work a lot harder in order to stay relatively even!

At this time, many of the Fridayman expert mechs were already at the end of their rope. The energy reserves, armor integrity and ammunition stores of their powerful machines were already running dry.

They should have returned to their motherships at this time. Yet there was no way they could do so under these circumstances.

Returning to resupply their spent and damaged mechs took too much time. The battle might very well be over once the half-replenished mechs deployed into space again!

Besides, how could the enemy allow the damaged expert mechs scurry back to their mothership in peace?

The Glory Seekers and the Crossers were already smelling blood! Too many of their comrades had died to reduce the expert mechs to this point! There was no way they would allow the job to remain unfinished!

Every expert pilot in the service of the Friday Coalition was already aware that there was no turning back.

Once they agreed to implement Plan F, they had already made their peace.

"We must break through all of our opposition no matter the cost." One foreign expert pilot stated in a fatalistic tone. "The Hexadric Hegemony must not be allowed to take over our star sector."

He reminded everyone what they were fighting for. They held no intrinsic loyalty to the Friday Coalition. Each of them agreed to fight to this extent to save their home states.

"Break out!" Ghanso shouted as he commanded the ten remaining Scarra mechs forward! "We must last as long as possible, but don't hesitate to give something up as long as we can advance forward!"

"The Larkinsons may have slaughtered our comrades aboard the Auralis, but we shall do the same to their fancy factory ship!"

When the surviving 6 expert mechs no longer tried to preserve themselves as best as possible, they could unleash surprising power.

Even though the expert mechs incurred significantly greater damage than before, they easily managed to bull through the mechs blockading their way forward and soar straight at the Spirit of Bentheim in the rear of the enemy formation!

"VICTORY OR DEATH!"

"THE FATE OF THE KOMODO STAR SECTOR RESTS UPON OUR SHOULDER!"

"SLAY THE DEVIL WHO HAS BEWITCHED THE HEXERS!"

The expert pilots all burst out greater power than before! Their mechs glowed bright as their exhausted resonance shields seemed to be revived all of sudden. The desperation in their hearts had fostered their willpower and boosted the strength of the force of will beyond their previous levels!

Expert pilots never accepted defeat!

Expert pilots never gave in to despair!

Their valiant performance as well as the orders to facilitate the breakthrough also affected the other troops on the battlefield.

The surviving Fridayman elites seemed to find new strength in desperation. They could not allow themselves to be slain without accomplishing their mission. They were better at this! Rather than allow themselves to get butchered like helpless lambs, they would rather go down in one final blaze of glory!

One of the few surviving Bloody Heron mechs even started to glow in an uncontrollable fashion. Its desperate mech pilot was breaking through to expert candidates all of sudden!

"THE HERONS SHALL NOT BE SILENCED!"

The space knight affected by forced resonance temporarily gained the power of an expert mech, allowing its evolving mech pilots to batter away any enemy mech.

The glowing Bloody Heron space knight charged into a formation of Avatar mechs and collided against a Tamris Stellar, crunching the cheap and inferior defensive mech as if it was made of sticks!

The final counterattack of Task Force Umbra had begun!