The Mech Touch

The problem was that the V\'gahnt-Zezne was not an ordinary warship!

Piracy was profitable but it was also a risky activity to say the least. Those who engaged in this business turned into outlaws and could no longer engage in regular commerce without the use of middlemen.

Before the arrival of humanity, the production and procurement of high-end warships had always been a tightly controlled affair. The most advanced warships not only utilized proprietary technology that were not available on the open markets, but they could only be built by specialized shipyards that were often tightly controlled by government institutions.

Typical outlaws only had two ways of obtaining a ship. They either hijacked one and converted the vessel for their own use, or they exchanged one from an unscrupulous seller.

Outlaws could forget about constructing advanced warships themselves. The amount of personnel, infrastructure, resources, research and industry required to set up such a massive operation could only be accomplished at the level of a state or star nation.

The Palace of Shame was far too small and isolated to function as a complete industrial hub!

So far, every warship employed by every pirate group largely conformed to what the pirates of this region could reasonably obtain through their limited means.

By the standards of the indigenous galactic community, most of their warships were common products that were widely available to civilian buyers.

The alien governments that used to exist in the surrounding regions never cared for them too much as they were simply far too weak to pose any threat against their rule.

This was what made the Unspoken so much different from every other pirate group based in the Palace of Shame!

The orven pirate group might not field the greatest amount of warships, but all of the vessels were by far the most advanced among the vessels taking part in the battle today.

From their many destroyers to their singular battlecruiser, each of them were originally military-grade vessels that had only grown weaker due to their age, inadequate maintenance and their technological obsolescence.

However, even if the indigenous alien militaries had already phased out warships built to these standards a long time ago, that did not mean they were weak!

Whereas many of the other warships found themselves unable to keep themselves going after getting targeted by a powerful human ace mech, the fearsome V\'gahnt-Zezne still managed to stay in one piece even after five minutes of tangling against the Jedda Sandivar and the Royal Jeem!

Saint Marissa Lewandowski of the Adelaide Mercenary Company and Saint Kalasandra Boojay had been working as hard as they could to overcome the defenses of the orven battlecruiser.

They initially assumed that even if the orven battlecruiser was able to project a stronger array of segmented energy shields, they could just concentrate their attacks and break through them in order to reach the hull of the warship.

An ace mech obtained an incredible advantage once they came close enough to a warship!

Many of the powerful armaments of a vessel could no longer target the mech directly, especially when the small but highly dangerous war machine reached one of the blind spots where many gun batteries simply couldn\'t target due to their physical limitations!

However, when the ace light skirmisher and the ace spearman mech cooperated with each other to overwhelm one of the segmented energy shields, they dove forward only for them to collide against another layer of segmented energy shields!

"This is ridiculous!" Saint Lewandowski burst out as the withering fire from the battlecruiser\'s secondary and tertiary gun batteries forced her relatively fragile light skirmisher to vacate the hole. "How can a warship maintain two layers of energy shields?! I have never seen anything like this from a human starship!"

Her fellow female ace pilot was also taken aback at this unwelcome discovery. "We are fighting against aliens. The common sense that we have long applied against humans is no longer valid anymore. This is merely one of several deviations that we have encountered."

"What do we do, then?! It has already taken us a great amount of effort to break through one layer of energy shields. We don\'t have the time or energy to break through another one before the first layer covers the gap again. The window of opportunity to produce a sequential breakthrough is too small!"

"Be patient." Saint Kalasandra Boojay spoke as her Royal Jeem kept testing the defenses of the V\'gahnt-Zezne while making sure to remain in Saint Lewandowski\'s obscuring domain field. "It will take more effort than we thought to eliminate this battlecruiser, but it is not a problem for us to occupy the alien vessel\'s attention for the time being. We are still fulfilling our main objective."

Saint Lewandowski growled as her Jedda Sandivar struck one of the segmented energy shields with both of its kamas!

"That\'s not enough! I don\'t have a problem if one of us can\'t do anything to this big warship, but it is a travesty that the two of us still can\'t make any progress."

As a light skirmisher specialist, Saint Lewandowski highly preferred taking action and making progress. Getting stalled and failing to produce any noticeable results was one of her worst pet peeves!

This was also one of the reasons why Saint Kalasandra Boojay had been paired with her.

As 230 year old mainstay of the Boojay Family, Saint Kalasandra possessed the age, wisdom, strength and prestige to restrain her younger and more impatient colleague.

"I have transmitted a request to Jelmer Osenring." Saint Kalasandra said after a while. "His Thunderer Mark II should have the firepower to break one of the segmented energy shields."

"Great! Let us combine our forces and break through the alien battlecruiser\'s turtle shell."

"Get ready. We need to plan and time our movements. The segmented energy shields rotate so quickly that we only have two or so seconds to launch all of our attacks."

The timing was so tight that ordinary mech pilots would never be able to pull off the required sequence of moves.

Ace pilots were much different! Each of them had already evolved beyond the limitations of their mortal coils. A problem like this was no big deal to the likes of these powerful Saints.

The only problem was that they could not fully predict the enemy\'s responses. Though Saint Lewandowski\'s smokey domain field managed to cover a substantial portion of the V\'gahnt-Zezne\'s interior, it could not envelop the entire hull!

Only the closest gun batteries and crews were blinded by the Jedda Sandivar\'s Saint Kingdom.

The other gun batteries that were situated further away could still fire into the smoke cloud.

Though the two ace mechs could still rely on their Saint Kingdom\'s to mitigate the incoming attacks, they could not do so repeatedly when struck by too many powerful attacks.

The enormous plasma bolts fired by the primary gun batteries were especially exhausting to block!

Each time one of the fourteen plasma cannon batteries discharged its energies, a hot and searing bolt passed through at least a fifth of the volume of the obscuring smoke cloud!

Over time, the crew of the V\'gahnt-Zezne began to wake up and began to wait until at least half of the plasma cannon batteries were ready to fire.

Whenever 7 or more city-destroying plasma bolts launched into the smoke cloud at once, the Jedda Sandivar and the Royal Jeem were forced to abort their current actions and do their best to evade or block the attacks!

This was why the two ace mechs patiently waited for the battlecruiser to launch this attack sequence. The power of her primary armaments was incredible, but the downside was that it seemingly ages for them to get ready to fire again.

Soon enough, the sensitive ace pilots instinctively sensed an acute threat heading in their directions!

"Now!"

The two ace mechs darted away an instant before a torrent of plasma bolts engulfed their previous coordinates and many of the areas around them! The spread of searing hot plasma was so massive that neither ace mechs got away unscathed!

The Jedda Sandivar was much faster and managed to avoid most of the attacks. Saint Marissa Lewandowski only had to exert a bit of effort to weaken the edge of the remaining plasma bolt.

The Royal Jeem was not as quick to escape the danger zone, but its defenses were much more considerable. Saint Kalasandra Boojay\'s domain field was much stronger and could neutralize a lot more incoming attacks than any other individual ace pilot on the battlefield.

The rest of the plasma energies that managed to get through could only splash uselessly against the powerful transphasic armor of the ace spearman mech.

"It\'s our turn now!"

Saint Jelmer Osenring had already been paying attention to the fight that was taking place around the V\'gahnt-Zezne.

His Thunderer Mark II quickly shifted its cannons away from his previous target and locked onto one of the segmented energy shields of the alien battlecruiser.

The ace heavy artillery mech opened fire as soon as it could!

Ten resonance-empowered gauss rounds streaked across the battlefield struck the segmented energy shield with full force!

This time, the Thundered Mark II did not discharge any shield bypassing rounds. They may be enough to get through one layer of energy shields, but two of them was a bit too much, especially when they were on the stronger side as was the case with the V\'gahnt-Zezne.

No, the salvo this time consisted of more mundane shield breaking rounds that were especially designed for just these kinds of occasions!

Saint Lewandowski and Saint Boojay both lit up as they saw one of the segmented energy shields of the outer layer explode in a dramatic fashion!

"There\'s a hole!"

The Jedda Sandivar and the Royal Jeem both dove in while preparing their strongest attacks!

The former\'s Saint Kingdom still maintained a smokey field, but a portion of the smoke solidified and magnified the range of the ace mech\'s kamas.

"Break!"

When the Jedda Sandivar finally attacked, its empowered kamas struck with enough force to break through any other barrier, but only managed to deplete only a part of the power of the segmented energy shield of the second layer.

This was not that big of a surprise as the attack power of a single strike from an ace light mech was not that much.

This was where the Royal Jeem came in. As the ace spearman mech charged forth as if it was a lancer mech, Saint Kalasandra Boojay gathered her power and shaped her Saint Kingdom into a giant spear in front of her machine!

Before her charge attack could hit the mark, Saint Boojay opened her mouth and issued a royal proclamation!

"I decree that you shall break in front of my spear!"

The damaged segmented energy shield seemed to destabilize all of a sudden. The vulnerability only lasted for a short amount of time as it was far too difficult for an ace mech to interfere with the operation of such a strong defensive measure, but this was more than enough for the Royal Jeem to exploit this golden opportunity!

The massively empowered spear struck the energy shield in question and pierced through as if the ace mech was poking its spear through a fragile piece of glass!

Yet just as Saint Kalasandra Boojay wanted to extend the charge and push her Royal Jeem inside the protective envelope of the orven battlecruiser, her expert mech\'s spear suddenly collided against a third layer of segmented energy shields!

"What?!"

The Royal Jeem barely had time to pull back before a furious salvo of plasma bolts, kinetic rounds and laser beams flooded its former position with an ocean of attacks!