The Mech Touch

Ves felt as if he had gotten a glimpse of mech heaven.

Of all of the mechs developed by humanity, the ones designed and built by the MTA were unquestionably strong!

Although the first-class superstates could give the MTA a run for its money, the differences between the two were too big.

If the Greater Terran United Confederation and the New Rubarth Empire were back in their prime, then it may very well be possible for them to develop mechs that could compete against the ones fielded by the MTA.

However, this was the Age of Mechs, not the Age of Conquest. The glory days of the two super empires had long passed.

Not only did the Terrans and Rubarthans lose access to a lot of high-end resources, they also weren't allowed to utilize every form of technology mastered by the human race anymore.

The Big Two prohibited the use of a lot of powerful tech and taboo weapons, which meant that the first-class superstates could only develop mechs that were powerful up to a point.

As one of the two creators and enforcers of this rule, the MTA naturally gave itself an exemption. It could put anything it wanted in its own mechs!

The result was the appearance of mechs that better showcased the greater potential of this weapon platform.

The ones deployed against the super whale that had appeared from the fleshy egg showed a whole variety of tech and methods that Ves had never seen before except in highly-edited footage of battles that took place a long time ago.

Different from archival footage, the current live feed portrayed all of the powerful mechs in the open without any editing or censoring!

The fact that this battle was taking place at the same time and star system also made it a lot more exciting to Ves. He was directly involved in the events leading up to this collision!

"Damn, the MTA mechs are really giving the super whale a hard time!"

There were mechs that were armed with large positron cannons that unleashed a continuous stream of deadly particles that slowly burned and annihilated the enormous scales, hide and flesh of the super whale.

There were also mechs that fired deadly projectiles that not only caved in a decent amount of whale flesh, but also broke down into corrosive particles that poisoned and degraded the surrounding flesh!

There were also mechs that launched strange payloads that anchored into the open wounds of the super whale.

While these devices apparently did not deal any damage to the enormous beast, they generated a strong, localized energy field that disrupted the phasewater and spatial fluctuations in the vicinity!

These inhibitors visibly weakened the various means the super whale tried to employ in order to fend off its human attackers.

Just because the Paracelsus Optimus and her mech contingent were in the process of beating up the super whale did not mean the creature was defenseless.

As a possible clean whale that was larger and possibly more advanced than any other living phase whale, it had already started to activate a large number of powerful abilities!

Their power was so great that many of them could easily defeat the expeditionary fleet!

"This battle is on an entirely different scale from the Battle of Purgatory!"

The earlier engagement was relatively constrained. The fish-whales were not that powerful and the mechs fielded by the Golden Skull Alliance were way too weak compared to the machines of the MTA.

This was different. The super whale was no mere fish-whale. By virtue of its immense body and powerful organs, all of its abilities possessed the power to wipe out armies and cities!

For example, one of the deadlier means of attack was breaking space to the point where an enormous spatial tear appeared that could split anything in half.

The spatial barriers summoned by the super whale were also as tough if not tougher than the energy shield deployed by the Paracelsus Optimus!

It was a pity that the super whale didn't even have an opportunity to show its full strength.

The harpoons along with the spatial inhibition devices that the MTA mechs sunk into the whale monster's massive body already crippled much of the super whale's spatial abilities!

It didn't matter how much phasewater it stored in its body or how much energy it was able to channel through its organs.

Any ability related to spatial manipulation automatically weakened before it took effect!

Even if a warp effect or spatial storm struck the mechs circling around the giant whale, the energy shields and inhibition fields provided by numerous auxiliary mechs negated the deadliness of these attacks even further!

If the spatial attacks had any power left after all of these rounds of weakening, then the extraordinarily resilient first-class multipurpose mechs could easily withstand the damage!

For a moment, Ves felt sorry for the creature that only had a short moment to enjoy its entry into the main reality.

"This super whale must feel incredibly miserable for fighting against the wrong opponent."

It was hard for the super whale to deal any effective damage against all of the MTA mechs. With the Interstellar Harpooners continuing to anchor and pin the enormous body down, the creature could not even leave without destroying these annoying first, but how could it do so when its main forms of attack were all weakened by successive measures?

The coordination and the various means utilized against the super whale already told Ves that this wasn't the first time the Paracelsus Optimus hunted down a phase whale!

Granted, the battlecarrier and her mech contingent probably never fought against a whale that was this big and powerful, but their specs were so high that not even a resurrected whale tyrant could overcome their resistance!

The only upside was that the 3000 MTA mechs still weren't strong enough to quickly go through all of the flesh that covered the more crucial parts of its body. It would take a long time for the machines to overcome all of this natural protection even if they concentrated their efforts.

Seeing that the mechs had already crippled its vaunted spatial attacks, the super whale eventually put down its pride and gave up on relying on them to free itself from its predicament.

"The whale is beginning to get serious!"

The super whale slowly opened up its enormous mouth and began to unleash an energy spray that looked highly familiar to Ves and the rest.

The energy spray unleashed by the super whale was powerful enough to burn an entire continent!

It was so energetic that it blinded the sensors of the scout ship in an instant, forcing the crew to make adjustments.

When the live feed went back to normal, Ves was able to see the aftermath of this powerful outburst.

"The mechs… are still intact!"

None of the MTA mechs suffered any damage from the super whale's attack!

The same shield link technology that was responsible for extending the energy shields of the Paracelsus Optimus to the various mech units had kept them all safe and sound!

Although the battlecarrier incurred a moderate hit to her reserves, this level of consumption was well within her tolerance.

The super whale did not give up, though. The creature's body was so huge that it possessed a lot of different attack methods.

In one instance, it grew out a kilometers-long bone spike from its spine and launched it at a cluster of mechs!

The gigantic kinetic projectile launched forth with the power to trigger an extinction on a life-bearing planet, yet the same energy shields generated with the help of shield link technology kept all of the MTA mechs undamaged!

The same happened when the super whale tried to be more creative. Its enormous surface shook and bubbled as fish-whale after fish-whale spontaneously formed from its flesh and subsequently launched themselves at the surrounding mechs!

Since the fish-whales had separated themselves from the main body, their spatial abilities were no longer inhibited to the same degree.

This allowed them to accelerate forward by warping the space around their own bodies and launching all kinds of attacks on the mechs.

However, not even this clever measure was able to shake the defenses provided by the battlecarrier.

The fish-whales were nowhere near as strong as their source, so the mechs quickly shredded them down before they could do anymore damage.

As the super whale continued to launch different forms of attack, the mechs began to get more serious as well!

The most obvious sign of this was when the mechers took their linking capabilities to the next level!

Ves became amazed when he saw that the mechs and battlecarrier began to form multiple different kinds of linkages.

They formed data links that completely pooled the data and the processing power of the mechs and battlecarrier.

Mechs were no longer limited in their ability to analyze their opponents and the environment by relying on their own software, sensor systems and processing capabilities.

By pooling these capabilities together with other mechs as well as borrowing a portion of the enormous capabilities of their mothership, the MTA mechs gained a huge boost in analysis and threat assessment!

As a consequence, the mech pilots knew exactly where to attack, which weapons they should employ and so on. The support provided by abundant data allowed each of the affected mechs to fight a lot more effectively than before!

"What's even more perverse is the energy link technology."

The MTA used this function a bit more sparingly because the demands on the mechs were higher.

Nonetheless, Ves noted that specific first-class multipurpose mechs with high demand for energy all possessed receiver arrays that could directly receive the energy streams beamed by the Paracelsus Optimus.

With such an abundant power source available to them, the mechs in question did not have to worry about running out of juice at all as they fired their power-hungry weapons!

Although these mechs were slightly constrained by the huge amount of waste heat generated by their systems, the MTA had done their best to mitigate this by making use of dimensional heatsinks as well as highly efficient parts.

The use of data link, shield link and energy link technologies essentially endowed all of the compatible and affected mechs with the powerful performance parameters of the Paracelsus Optimus.

The super whale wasn't necessarily fighting against a lot of mechs.

It was actually fighting against the Paracelsus Optimus! The 3000 mechs deployed by the battlecarrier were an extension of herself rather than independent weapon platforms.

Ves was absolutely fascinated by this combined approach to mech combat!

Although it was not as effective and efficient as relying on ordinary warship-grade weapons to defeat powerful opponents, it was still a method that solved many of the shortcomings of mechs!

The most prevalent criticisms of mechs as a weapon system was that their limited size and scale made them too weak and too fragile to fight against the most formidable enemies of human civilization.

Given that a single battlecarrier succeeded in suppressing a powerful alien entity that was possibly the Flesh Conqueror reborn, Ves could readily conclude that the MTA had already made great strides in addressing these long-standing weaknesses!

"It's still a form of cheating, though."

Though the kid inside Ves was really enthusiastic about the effectiveness of linking technology, his mech designer side was more skeptical.

"The tech is too advanced for second-class mechs."

The high technology was not only too complicated and expensive for the current Larkinson Clan, it also happened to be taboo!

When Ves quickly searched for more information about linking technology on the galactic net, he immediately learned that most forms of linking technology were prohibited by the MTA.

His face quickly turned sour.

"Data linking is still okay, but shield linking and energy linking is apparently a step too far for space peasants."

The reason why this was the case was that the latter forms of linking essentially allowed mechs to possess destructive potential that far exceeded what they should possess.

Linking a ranged mech with the energy output of a starship was no different from plugging it into the power network of the same vessel!

If these measures became widespread, then ranged mechs would quickly obtain the power to inflict mass destruction!

Since this was what the MTA expressly tried to prevent, the organization prohibited both forms of linking, which meant that Ves and the Larkinsons wouldn't be able to use these handy features anytime soon.

"A pity…"

It was so painful to see the MTA making great use of linking technology in front of his eyes but not being able to use the same means himself!

As Ves lamented the MTA's restrictive regulations once again, he suddenly paused.

"Wait a minute… haven't I developed my own forms of linking technology already?"