The Mech Touch

On a standard mech, the machine gun module mounted on its ċhėst hardpoint would have been classified as a light or ultralight weapon system.

Enemy mechs wouldn't have taken such a small and weak weapon seriously. Its rounds were too light and the firing mechanism could not propel them forward at impressive speeds.

The chances that a small machine gun module could penetrate the armor of a mech was practically minimal. The only chances they could inflict meaningful damage was if they struck the internals of a mech, but more powerful weapons could do that job even better!

One of the few advantages of a light machine gun weapon system was that it took up minimal capacity. The requirements were low and their small caliber allowed a mech to carry a lot of ammunition. Their firing rate could also be high.

This made them suitable for attacking lighter targets at a distance. They excelled at clearing infantry, shuttles and unreinforced structures.

Ves had never seen a humble light machine gun hardpoint wipe out an entire mech company within seconds!

The horrible rust red-coated ace mech had demonstrated its overwhelming power advantage by launching its first attack on the expeditionary fleet.

"How many rounds does it have?"

In his tentative judgement, the Olympus Mons shouldn't be stuffed with them. It was primarily a melee mech, so its ranged weapon modules were mostly meant to swat flies from afar or intercept incoming ordnance. It was unrealistic to conclude that this small but formidable machine gun was stocked with enough ammunition to shred every mech of the expeditionary fleet!

"What if… the Olympus Mons is equipped with a dimensional magazine?"

Dimensional storage containers existed but were prohibitively expensive. They usually didn't show up in second-class mechs in a more resource-poor region like the galactic rim, but there were always exceptions.

The design budgets of ace mechs were much more exaggerated than that of expert mechs. If a state wanted to provide an ace pilot with the absolute best it could afford to spend upon, investing in a dimensional magazine and other applications of high technology made a lot more sense!

Ves felt a chill running through his body. The Olympus Mons was clearly unbeatable at close range, but if it was able to employ its auxiliary weapon module to annihilate entire mech armies at a distance, then the Larkinson mechs were already in the killing zone!

The Mountain Hammer appeared to be taking her time, though. The machine gun module never spat any further rounds, but its mere existence practically doubled the dwarven ace mech's oppression!

"Keep firing! Avenge the fallen and don't let this ace pilot think it can shoot at us with impunity!"

Now that it had entered into true fighting range, the resistance had intensified as every mech pilot was cognizant that they didn't have much time left before their fleet came under threat.

However, despite not excelling at range combat, the Olympus Mons already possessed the capacity to threaten the ships of the expeditionary fleet.

"The Hiphayel Runt has been struck! She's suffered a massive hull breach!"

"The ship has lost power! She's drifting away!"

This wasn't all. The plasma turret slowly charged up and fired once rapid plasma lance every dozen seconds or so. Each strike vaporized right through the armored hulls of the combat carriers and struck the engineering bay. If their power generators or propulsion systems hadn't been melted to bits, the catastrophic damage the ships suffered was enough to put them out of commission anyway!

A lot of people were horrified at the ranged capabilities of the Olympus Mons.

They all understood that if they faced a ranged ace mech, they probably would have already died from the beginning! The mere thought of facing a superpowered version of the Amaranto was enough to collapse all thoughts of resistance!

"This isn't much better, though." Ves grumbled.

"Meowww!" Lucky nodded as his metallic body shivered as he clung to the Unending Regalia.

The Olympus Mons generated an increasing amount of despair among the people in the fleet. The dwarven ace mech's secondary weapon systems were already so formidable. Once it came close enough to employ its heavy maul, the power and lethality of its attacks would probably multiply by a hundred times!

Ves couldn't even think of dispatching expert mechs like the Riot or the First Sword to contend with this monstrous machine.

"I've managed to uncover additional information through my contacts in the mech industry." Professor Benedict's projection said. "The Vulcan Empire's mech industry is quite impressive for its age, but it is clear that its native Masters are not good enough to design an ace mech of this caliber. According to the information I've obtained, the Olympus Mons is actually designed by a team led by an experienced dwarven Master Mech Designer from the galactic heartland. Even though he is not a Vulcanite, the Master volunteered his services to ȧssist the Vulcan Empire."

That explained much. Ves shared the same suspicions as well. Even if the Masters of the Vulcan Empire did their utmost, it was too difficult for them to design a mech this high-end.

"Dwarves stick together." Ves observed. "The Vulcan Empire disgusts a lot of humans but also inspires a lot of dwarves throughout the galaxy. Even if these foreign dwarves live too far away to relocate to this star sector, they can still provide a lot of funding and technical ȧssistance by remote. That's one of the biggest reasons why this state expanded so quickly."

Even though dwarves were a minority group in human space, a huge amount of them were still scattered across the galaxy. Even though many of them were poor miners or average citizens in their respective states, there were always geniuses and lucky bastards among them who had achieved much greater success than others.

One of the success factors of the Vulcan Empire was that its dwarven population successfully managed to squeeze donations out of rich and powerful foreign dwarves. By appealing to their shared biological heritage, the Vulcanites became quite proficient in begging for handouts from powerful dwarves who were based in the galactic heartland or even the galactic center!

Otherwise, how else could a band of former mining slaves and a swarm of dwarven immigrants transform the Smiling Samuel Star Sector into a dwarven stronghold?

"What else did you find out?"

"The Olympus Mons is faster than you think." The Senior Mech Designer seriously explained. "It not only possesses a short-range boosting system, but also a medium-range cruising function. Aside from that, it is equipped with a powerful directional shield generator, a foldable shield and axe, incredibly resilient ECM and interference shielding and can operate in multiple environments including underwater."

Ves grew dizzy from all of these features, and that was just the more basic capabilities of the dwarven ace mech!

"Do you know anything about the more extraordinary capabilities of the Olympus Mons?"

Professor Benedict responded with a brief smile. "These details are hard to come by. The Vulcan Empire guards those secrets carefully. From what I have discovered, the Olympus Mons is an ace mech that is designed to operate a domain field based around three central concepts: mass, physical force and hammers."

These were the laws or concepts that Saint Yila Mayorka based her battle method around. All of her attacks and techniques were physical and kinetic in a way that transcended ordinary limitations!

Ves just had to recall the short burst of machine gun fire the Olympus Mons had released to confirm that the ace mech was truly designed to hit as hard as possible.

"The Olympus Mons is attacking again!"

Though the Mountain Hammer did not appear to take her opposition seriously, she did not allow the Golden Skull Alliance to attack her ace mech with impunity.

With another burst of machine gun fire, a seemingly unending streak of glowing rounds tore through the hull of three Larkinson sub-capital ships at once!

"We can't wait any longer!" Ves stood up from his chair. "General Verle, commence our alpha strike."

"The range isn't optimal yet, sir. The Olympus Mons will see our mechs coming."

"That dwarven ace pilot is still underestimating us at the moment! There's a good chance she won't try her best, so let's strike before she changes her mind."

The Larkinson Army finally made its big move. For the first time, it employed all of its battle formations at the same time!

He felt more vulnerable than ever, but that did not stop him from participating in this high-risk attack maneuver.

"It doesn't matter if I pilot a regular mech, a prime mech or an expert mech. My chances of surviving against an ace mech is equally low in all three instances!"

With the Valkyrie Brunhild leading a large formation of Penitent Sister mechs, their mech pilots steadily began to reach out to the Superior Mother.

Approaching from another angle was a smaller but more sharper formation of Swordmaiden mechs.

Led by the First Sword, Venerable Dise had the illusion that she was thrown right back onto the battlefield of Aeon Corona VII.

Back then, Venerable Foster and her regenerating expert mech proved to be the bane of her sisterhood.

"I will not let that happen again." Dise vowed as her expert mech gripped the Decapitator. "Sisters, let us pierce through this veil and slay this beast!"

The Battle Criers led by Captain Dietrich were more subdued but did not stray from their mission. They had a poor run as of late and it seemed that this time wouldn't be much better.

"We need to show our best. Even if we fall, our mech legion shall be remembered!"

In the rear, Commander Taon and the Eye of Ylvaine also stood ready. The Rod of Ylvaine was suspended right before the legion commander's artillery mech.

Though Commander Taon did not foresee much optimism ahead, he did not let that dictate his actions.

"Ylvaine, lend us the power to defy the future!"

Even though Saint Mayorka had to know what was coming, the Olympus Mons calmly allowed the advancing battle formations to approach unimpeded. General Verle was not inclined to look a gift horse in the mouth and commanded his units to action."

"Battle Criers, spread your wings!"

A massive energy projection in the form of Angel Wings appeared over the Battle Crier battle formation.

These pure and white wings made a powerful flap forward, causing it to separate and launch hundreds of mech-sized feathers forward!

Those feathers each exuded a glow that was capable of disrupting, suppressing and negating many different spiritual energy manifestations.

Once the feather volley reached the edge of the domain field of the Olympus Mons, the massive glowing barrier finally rippled!

"It's working!"

Unfortunately, the feathers didn't have enough power to pop the domain field outright. It was already good enough for this opening move to destabilize the ace mech's intimidatingly resilient defensive field.

"Penitent Sisters, show them how women fight!"

"You heard the general! Let this ace mech hear your roar!" Venerable Joshua cried!

The huge visage of the Superior Mother in her most womanly aspect emerged as well. The giant female projection thrust a finger forward, causing it to release a sharp and concentrated energy wave that thrust through the same spot that the Battle Criers had just attacked!

The domain field exhibited further damage as the remote poke seemed to have penetrated much further towards the Olympus Mons.

"Swordmaidens, thrusts your greatswords!"

A giant greatsword stabbed forward, causing it to pierce through the channel that had already been made. This time, the Sword of Lydia had almost penetrated close enough to hit the Olympus Mons.

Unfortunately, it was just short by a couple of dozen meters!

"Eye of Ylvaine, pass judgement on this dwarf!"

As hundreds of Transcendent Punishers began to align themselves to the Great Prophet at the same time, the large Rod of Ylvaine glowed increasingly more white as a large and vague energy silhouette of a stylized eye appeared in front.

This giant eye seemed to gaze at the secrets of the Olympus Mons. Once it discovered a weakness, the Transcendent Punishers all fired their weapons at once in specific orientations!

Some of the artillery attacks hit the field around the damaged zone. These strikes seemed to hit sėnsɨtɨvė spots that further destabilized the domain field.

Other attacks ran straight through the tunnel excavated by earlier empowered attacks.

Whatever the case, the Olympus Mons had become more vulnerable than ever before!

"Venerable Stark, the time is now!" Ves shouted as his Worclaw energy started to drain from his body again!

Blinky had already transferred to the Amaranto. With the help of the Worclaw crystal embedded on his forehead, he channeled all of the incoming Worclaw energy onto the expert mech's exclusive crystal rifle.

The Amaranto fired a blindingly bright light beam! The thick and powerful beam instantly passed through the gap in the domain field and struck the Olympus Mons, dealing a mixture of extraordinary energy and kinetic damage!

As the brightness faded, everyone closely watched their feeds to see the result of the collective superattacks of the Larkinson.

"No…"

"It's… it's still alive!"

Ves looked ashen as they saw that the Olympus Mons had remained completely intact after all of that effort. Though the Larkinson Clan had made a valiant effort in breaking through the domain field, the ace mech's directional energy shield had managed to block the Amaranto's maximum power strike!

"Look! The domain field is already repairing itself!"

With just a single effort, Saint Yila Mayorka reversed all of the damage the Larkinsons had inflicted on it. Not even the storm of attacks launched by thousands of other ranged mechs had managed to get past the defenses of the Olympus Mons. Their impact was like a gust of wind as far as the powerful dwarven ace mech was concerned.

The ace pilot began to make her own move.

"Hammer Storm."

Hundreds of spinning hammer projections appeared in her domain field. They orbited around the ace mech and the frigate at increasingly greater velocities.

Though no opponent was currently close to this deadly hammer party, its appearance caused every melee mech pilot to lose confidence.

They instinctively knew that if they tried to close in, their machines would get smashed apart by one of those many spinning energy hammers!