The Mech Touch

The expeditionary fleet was leaving the star system.

Ves did not even want to wait for the arrival of the Cenatus Prospect fleet and exchange words with Mr. Magrin. He saw no purpose in doing so and it was much more likely that he would incriminate himself during any heated conversations.

A lot of people in the Golden Skull Alliance held mixed opinions about the abrupt departure.

After all of this effort and buildup, the decision to turn tail and run away when they had come so awfully close to their main objective was frustrating!

The Larkinsons were not accustomed to losing. Sure, they had suffered their fair share of setbacks, but it had been many years that they had suffered a defeat of this magnitude.

There was nothing worse than losing a battle before it had even begun!

The dip in morale was obvious among the more battle-hungry members of the Larkinson Clan.

Their previous successes had caused them to gain so much confidence in their ability to overcome more powerful foes that they thought that they still had a shot of defeating the Tower of Babel!

Of course, the cooler heads among the Larkinsons clearly understood the danger of attacking one opponent while another potential enemy was about to arrive in the star system.

Even if the Golden Skull Alliance could neutralize the Tower of Babel by relying on its own efforts, there was no way it was a good idea to do so with a vulture fleet hovering in the background!

It was too bad that there were a bit too many Larkinsons who failed to understand this logic.

"Oh, come on! Why are we running so soon?!" Venerable Rosa Orfan complained as she kicked her boot against the bulkhead. "That battleship might look scary, but we have beaten warships before, right?!"

"That is different, Rosa." Commander Casella Ingvar calmly retorted. "The only reason why we managed to defeat the orven battleship and the unclean whale that popped up afterwards was because we had seven ace mechs on our side. We only have one left. Even if the Tower of Babel is several times smaller, she is not a vessel that we can threaten with the combined power of the Mars along with the rest of us. The caliber of most of our mech weapons are simply too small and weak."

Venerable Joshua looked confused. "That doesn't matter as long as we have enough guns, right? In the last battle, most of us were locked into battle against cannon fodder. This time is different because the enemy ship is alone. We can concentrate all of our firepower against her defenses. Her energy shields might hold on for a time, but they will definitely get drained after withstanding millions of attacks."

"That may or may not be true." Casella replied. "The Tower of Babel is ostensibly equipped with orven energy shield generators, but the difference here is that they are more modern. They will be able to block many more attacks, especially when they have to cover much less volume. The alien battleship's thin profile will make it much harder for us to strike the ship when she is maneuvering at her full capabilities."

"We have many means to drain energy shields quickly. Once we fire thousands of disruptor beams at a time, there is no way all of those fancy transphasic energy shields will hold out forever!"

The Sentinel Commander shook her head. "That may be true, but then we will have to overcome the first-class hull plating that is protecting the interior of the Tower of Babel. The properties of physical protection make it so that all of those thick layers of alloy are much more effective at blocking the attacks of smaller caliber weapons. Aside from ace mechs, only cruiser-class warships and above have the requisite firepower to break open her exterior plating."

This was the reason why humanity favored armor over energy shields. The latter absorbed the full damage inflicted by any attack no matter how little damage it inflicted.

When hundreds of thousands of mechs converged upon a single target, even a CFA battleship's energy shields might get exhausted due to the sheer quantity of damage they withstood!

However, if the CFA battleship had to rely on her thick hull plating and any other physical armor solutions, she could easily bathe in the attacks of mechs all day due to how effective they were at bouncing or absorbing all of the incoming attacks!

"The Tower of Babel is not a battleship that is designed to fight against warships alone." Venerable Davia Stark concluded in her quiet voice. "The Red Ocean aliens are starting to take human mechs more seriously. Solid alloys are much better at resisting large quantities of sub-warship weapon attacks. I am not even sure whether my Amaranto with the Instrument of Doom can penetrate through all of those layers. Even her weak points are too well-protected."

All of this didn't even take into account the immense difficulty of attacking a warship that was submerged within a brown dwarf star. Many mechs couldn't even get too close to the stellar object because they couldn't handle the hostile environmental forces.

The unrest among the Larkinsons quickly subsided as enough people became convinced by the excessive risks of confronting the Tower of Babel. No matter what, they could dismiss the awesome power of a genuine warship.

That didn't mean the Golden Skull Alliance truly gave up on its mission and directly abandoned the Ramage Repulsor System.

A couple of shuttles flew out to add a few farewell gifts in different parts of space. A number of combat carriers had also been dispatched to different parts of the star system in order to plant a host of expensive observation devices.

No matter what, Ves at least wanted to know what was going on in the brown dwarf star system after the expeditionary fleet moved to another destination.

Depending on what exactly took place in the following days, Ves and the other leaders of the Golden Skull Alliance could either opt to return to the Ramage Repulsor System or keep running away as fast as possible!

When Gloriana learned of the dubious scheme that Ves had hatched this time, she couldn't help but cast doubt on this dubious venture.

"Your entire plan rests on the assumption that you can force both of our enemies to lock horns with each other as opposed to targeting us first. This might work if they are unaware of our existence, but that is not the case. We have already shown ourselves. Do you truly think they will be stupid enough to ignore an extra variable?"

"Don't worry, honey. I have it all figured out. They won't care about us after they have received my little surprises."

His wife still looked unconvinced. "Otrus Magrin is an experienced vulture. He has experienced ambushes in the past. How will you be able to convince him to commit his forces to a ruinous battle against an alien battleship when he can simply run away just as we have done?"

"His fleet is about to arrive in this star system." Ves pointed out. "Once it does, most of its starships will be forced to cycle their FTL drives. While we can expect that many if not all of this fleet's capital ships to possess a spare drive, Mr. Magrin will still have to make a choice whether he is willing to abandon all of his sub-capital ships that aren't important enough to carry redundant drives."

"That still leaves him with the core of his fleet, Ves. Sure, it will be a lot less threatening than before, but whatever Cenatus Prospecting has left behind won't be able to deal any significant damage against the Tower of Babel."

He grinned. "That is why I not only have to give him a reason to avoid a hasty evacuation from the star system, but also give him a reason to send his entire fleet closer to the brown dwarf star. Remember, neither he nor any of his men know that there is a formidable, intact alien battleship lurking inside that star. The Tower of Babel is so well-hidden that not even the Unrelenting should be able to detect any traces. At most, Saint Neville Magrin will detect something amiss as his fleet gets closer, but by then it will be too late to run."

His wife looked closely into his eyes. "Very well. I will trust you on this. You were always good at manipulating people, and you have an entire staff backing you up. There should be at least one clever person in your team who can figure out a reliable way to lure a rival pioneering fleet deeper into the star system. This is only half of the job. What about the Tower of Babel?"

"I will use another lure to encourage the commanders in charge of her to go out of the brown dwarf star and attack Otrus Magrin's fleet."

"HOW?! Aliens are much different from humans, Ves! They don't think like we do! They don't hold our values and are not motivated by the same incentives. You can't even implement a strategy that is specifically tailored to a single alien race as the identity of the alien leader is unclear. A stratagem that works against an orven won't necessarily be effective against a puelmer or a nunser. It might even have the opposite effect for all we know."

Ves smirked. "That's a problem, to be sure, but not an insurmountable one. I have already taken this variable into account. You see, aliens may be different from humans and each other, but they still share a few common traits. They possess desires. They desire to live, they desire to procreate, they desire to win and they desire to harm their enemies. Most of the major alien races of the Red Ocean all share these desires, so all I need to do is pick a number of them and provide bait that is attractive enough to invoke them. Unless the alien commander is a non-sentient AI, I do not believe he will remain unmoved by the temptation!"

"She."

"Pardon?"

"The alien commander could be female."

Ves rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Anyway, my point is that I have formed those doubts as well but managed to come up with answers for each of them. Besides, even if all of this ends up doing nothing, we won't necessarily lose anything. This is a gambit that won't cost us anything meaningful if it ends up falling flat."

The only cost the Golden Skull Alliance needed to pay was the lost opportunity cost of abandoning any attempt to rescue Lord Pearian Yorul-Tavik, but even then he had a fallback option in mind.

Ves had already agreed with Marshal Ariadne Wodin and Master Benedict Cortez that if they gave up on this mission entirely, they would just contact the Yorul-Tavik Clan directly and sell crucial information of their missing scion's whereabouts.

The payment wouldn't be as great, but once the worrying Yorul-Taviks successfully rescued their pioneer with a sufficiently powerful mech force, they would definitely see the Golden Skull Alliance in a better light!

It shouldn't be too difficult to cash in a small favor to give his son Marvaine more support while he was attending a first-class virtual school.

"What have you done to attract the attention of the vulture fleet and alien battleship?" Gloriana asked. "You haven't told me anything about the bait that you have cast into space."

"That is on purpose, honey. I don't want to divulge any more information than necessary. A few of them are a bit... sensitive. It would be a bad idea if word got around."

"I can keep a secret!"

"Uh huh. This operation is supposed to be confidential, Gloriana. Only a small group of people know the full story as they have helped me formulate my plan."

Gloriana grew angry at him. "I am your wife, Ves!"

"So?"