The Mech Touch

The Palace of Shame was the foundation of the alien pirate groups that had chosen to remain behind.

Now that their only safe harbor came under serious threat, the aliens could no longer afford to procrastinate any further.

No matter how divided they were, each of them should still have enough sense to realize that all of them would undoubtedly become unmoored if the human aggressors managed to destroy all of the powerful transphasic energy shield generators.

"How long can the Thunderer Mark II go on like this?" Ves asked.

"It will not take as long to take down the subsequent segmented energy shields, sir. As long as there are enough gaps, the Thunderer Mark II can employ clever positioning to fire its transphasic gauss rounds at different angles to damage surfaces that should normally be covered."

The Santana Group's powerful ace heavy artillery mech continued to exert a lot of pressure towards the Palace of Shame.

Though a machine like this could mount even larger and more powerful guns if it wanted to, the advantage of its current set of heavy gauss cannons was that they offered a high rate of fire!

Once Saint Osenring managed to get into his groove, the machine under his control ran so smoothly that it was difficult to imagine that it was a large and clunky heavy mech.

Its heavy gauss cannons periodically boomed at the same time as Saint Osenring aimed to overwhelm his targets by triggering powerful earthquakes every few seconds.

Ves couldn't imagine what it was like to be an alien who was stationed in an underground area in the vicinity of the affected areas.

The shockwaves rippling through the rocky soil and reinforced spaces already inflicted catastrophic damage to a large chunk of the outer portion of the asteroid base, but also made themselves felt at much further distance.

The Thunderer Mark II must be terrorizing a lot of alien pirates at this time!

While this was great for inducing fear in the hearts of so many enemies, the downside was that the Thunderer Mark II also attracted a lot of heat in return!

If the aliens wanted to launch a counterattack, then they would most definitely focus their aggression on the ace heavy artillery mech first!

"Sir, we are detecting many fluctuations from the Palace of Shame! A massive amount of movements are taking place all across the surface of the asteroid base!"

"What is going on?! What is your best guess?!"

"The alien pirate fleets are no longer staying still. All of the alien vessels that can launch into space are about to ascend from the surface!"

"I see."

Ves half-expected the alien warships to continue to shelter in place while opening fire at the human mechs that threatened the Palace of Shame.

"I think the alien warships can't fire through the Palace of Shame's transphasic energy shields." Gloriana said. "It would explain why the aliens have yet to launch a serious counterattack at this time. It could be that the energy shield technology used to protect the asteroid base offers greater protection while forgoing the option to allow attacks to pass through from the other side."

That was a plausible guess.

"Maybe you're right. I have the feeling that the aliens were doing their best to stall for time. There ought to be good reasons why they have invested in so many powerful shield generators of this type. In that sense, it may have been for the best for the Thunderer Mark II to pressure our opponents into action."

Ves did not think that the aliens were stalling for time for irrational reasons like completing an elaborate religious ritual. Pirates never tended to last if they engaged in stupid or self-destructive behavior.

If he assumed that there was a rational reason to stall for time, then the most likely possibility was that the aliens were waiting for reinforcements!

"We need to destroy the alien warships as quickly as possible before any outside help can arrive and join forces with our current opponents!"

Just as Ves made this realization, the alien pirates finally exposed their main mobile combat assets!

The first fleet to emerge was the most familiar-looking one to Ves. It was the Unspoken pirate fleet that possessed the highest degree of threat towards the human coalition!

Surrounded by 14 destroyer-like vessels, the battlecruiser at the center of the neat formation attracted a lot of attention.

The size and presence of this capital ship were beyond anything that Ves had ever seen from an alien vessel.

Though the MTA and CFA's capital ships were even more fearsome, the orven-built battlecruiser was intimidating in her own way!

"What do we know about the opposing battlecruiser?" Ves asked.

"According to the latest intelligence provided by the Gemini Family, the battlecruiser goes by the name of 'V'gahnt-Zezne', though that is likely a shortened version of her full name. She is 3.2 kilometers wide, 0.6 kilometers long and 0.8 kilometers deep. While her armor is fairly good, it is in no way comparable to that of a CFA battleship. The V'gahnt-Zezne primarily relies on her segmented energy shields for defense. She boasts an unusually large amount of thrusters due to her design and can accelerate forward at a surprising rate, though her ability to change trajectory is not as great."

While the orvens designed their warships according to radically different principles than most of humanity, the properties of the V'gahnt-Zezne made her comparable to a human battlecruiser.

A battlecruiser was basically a budget version of a battleship. The former featured stripped-down hull plating that was not as thick or resilient, but made the massive vessel a lot more affordable to build!

The thinner and lighter hull significantly increased the thrust-to-weight ratio of a battlecruiser, enabling the armed capital ship to get up to speed a lot faster and also change directions a lot faster.

Of course, this was only relative to the performance of a battleship. The V'gahnt-Zezne was still an awfully sluggish vessel that took a long time to accelerate forward!

The 14 orven escort destroyers that accompanied the massive V'gahnt-Zezne could have easily outpaced the massive slowpoke, but they did not do so because protecting the flagship was their main priority!

"Tell me about her weapons."

"We have double-checked the information we have with our long-ranged observations. The V'gahnt-Zezne has an unusual weapon arrangement where all of her main guns are placed on top or on the sides of her large and wide forward-facing surface. This allows the battlecruiser to open fire with all of her primary weapon systems at a target that is in front of her orientation. Her primary armament consists of 14 evenly-placed plasma cannons, 132 secondary kinetic cannons and 317 tertiary laser cannons. She is presumably capable of launching missiles as well."

The entire bridge of the Spirit of Bentheim seemed to have fallen silent.

Leaving everything else aside, the potent array of weapon systems alone was enough to allow the V'gahnt-Zezne to annihilate entire mech divisions and their accompanying ships!

The V'gahnt-Zezne even had the power to compete against a smaller MTA or CFA warship!

While the overall tech and material quality of the battlecruiser might not be the best, the immense scale of this warship alone was enough to ensure it was capable of inflicting a crushing amount of damage!

The 317 tertiary laser cannons were comparable to the energy cannons of a ranged mech, but better.

The calibers were similar but the battlecruiser possessed a vast reserve of energy and could absorb a humongous amount of heat. This made it so that all of the laser cannons that were placed throughout the hull could keep firing at their maximum possible rate for a long period of time!

The V'gahnt-Zezne mainly relied on her tertiary guns to intercept incoming ordnance, starfighters or other smaller annoyances. Their power was lacking but their accuracy and rate of fire made up for this shortcoming.

The 132 secondary kinetic cannons were much more concerning. Even if not all of them faced the front, the sheer quantity of frigate-grade cannons was enough to pound and shred any starship, especially one that was lacking in shielding and hull plating!

Their main purpose was to demolish as many small-to-medium sized warships as possible. Any force that tried to rely on quantity to overwhelm the orven battlecruiser would likely regret it after facing so many powerful guns at once!

However, the true reason why none of the mechs and ships of the human coalition dared to move too close to the Palace of Shame was the biggest guns of the battlecruiser.

Though the V'gahnt-Zezne was much like the Thunderer Mark II in that she could have mounted heavier guns, the original designers of this battlecruiser opted to equip her with a larger quantity of slightly smaller main cannons.

The 14 plasma cannons gave the V'gahnt-Zezne an enormous degree of deterrence against both alien and human adversaries!

Just a single salvo from all of these huge guns was probably enough to overwhelm the shielding of the Spirit of Bentheim and melt a quarter of her hull into molten slag!

Given enough time, the V'gahnt-Zezne could destroy every ship of every human fleet present in this star system!

"We can't give the orvens the time to intercept our starships!"

Right now, the human pioneering groups had parked most of their starships far away from the battlefield.

There were tradeoffs to this decision.

The Larkinsons and many other groups did not have to worry about their precious assets getting demolished by the V'gahnt-Zezne or any other alien warship.

The downside was that mechs had to travel a long way back to reach their motherships and replenish their supplies.

"We can't let this battle drag out. The longer it goes on, the more we are at a disadvantage."

Even as the other alien fleets rose from the protective envelope of the Palace of Shame, the long-ranged sensors detected a massive buildup of heat and energy from the orven battlecruiser!

"The V'gahnt-Zezne is on the verge of opening fire with her primary armaments!"

"What are the plasma cannons aiming at?!" Ves requested.

"They… they are aiming squarely at the current coordinates of the Thunderer Mark II!"

Just as predicted, the ace heavy artillery mech of the Santana Group most certainly attracted the ire of all of the pirates!

Though Ves grew concerned at the fate of one of the crucial ace mechs of this operation, the Santanas and the Geminis already accounted for this possibility.

Though the Thunderer Mark II had quickly shifted its priority from attacking the Palace of Shame to attacking the orven battlecruiser, the plasma cannons finally unleashed their destructive energies!

Fourteen miniature stars escaped the sizable muzzles of the plasma cannons and zipped across the battlefield at a relatively astounding speed!

A brief instant later, many of the immense plasma bolts collided against the asteroid where the Thunderer Mark II had anchored upon while the remainder soared past at slightly different angles to cover any escape routes!

The sensors observing the asteroid in question temporarily became blinded as the plasma bolts released energies at levels comparable to the detonations of a dozen tactical nuclear missiles!

"This is an insane level of firepower! No wonder the Big Two stripped the right of owning warships from the rest of humanity. The destructive potential of a battlecruiser is enough to wipe out entire cities or continents within a single day!"

Yet as the blinding effects of the plasma bolt impacts finally faded, Ves and many other observers sighed in relief when they saw that the Thunderer Mark II was still in one piece!

Much of the asteroid had been wiped out in its entirety, but the chunk that was well within the influence of the ace heavy artillery mech's Saint Kingdom remained partially intact.

The Thunderer Mark II's domain field also experienced a lot of stress, but it had bled away so much of the destructive energies of the plasma bolts that whatever was left couldn't inflict any significant damage onto the ace mech's extremely thick and dense armor plating.

Though it was clear to Ves that Saint Osenring and his ace mech could not withstand repeated attacks of this caliber, the current demonstration amply proved that the human ace mech possessed the capital to contend against the alien warships!

"The real battle begins now!"