The Mech Touch

After Commander Melkor finally suspended the basic confinement spell array and caused the mists to disappear, everyone was able to observe the outcome.

The orvens instantly grew dismayed when they saw that their third and last ’god’ had also perished at the hand of a human expert mech!

As the Everchanger, the Greenaxe and the Bloodripper hastily withdrew from the corpse with sloppily removed phasewater organs in their arms, the orven soldiers serving in several of the assault fleets participating in this battle completely lost their composure!

The aliens who suffered a crisis of faith went completely crazy!

All thoughts about following orders and pushing the humans away from the Viola Magnifica System left their alien heads. All they cared about was retrieving the divine corpses of their fallen phase lords and getting the hell away from this cursed location as fast as possible!

Although the expeditionary fleet preferably wanted to claim the bodies of the phase lords for themselves, this was not a viable choice.

The orvens were too protective of the bodies of their gods. Even if the phase lords had already perished, there were still plenty of orvens that believed that their gods could be resurrected so long as their remains were brought back to their other gods!

Of course, the Larkinsons believed that the true reason behind the existence of this custom was to give living phase lords a chance to claim phasewater organs for free.

Whatever the case, the orvens fanatically stopped anyone that attempted to steal away the bodies of their deities!

Although the orvens grew offended by the sacrilege, the crime was not severe enough for them to dispatch a powerful force to retrieve the stolen organs. They unwillingly let the Larkinsons take their pound of flesh and focused on preserving the rest of the corpses.

As the orvens took the bodies of their deities and proceeded to turn around to flee, they completely ignored the angry calls by the other alien leaders to remain in the fight.

"The orvens are leaving!"

"The plan actually worked!"

"The other aliens must be pissed that the orvens abandoned them all. We should take advantage of this opening as much as possible!"

The remaining human forces gleefully pounced on the weakened enemy forces. The reduction in phasewaters, warships and phase lords had left large parts of the alien armada vulnerable to counterattacks!

Even if the humans had lost so many assets that they were not able to launch a vigorous counterattack, they did not need to put too much effort to devastate a lot of vulnerable phasefighters and warships.

The alien armada crumbled as they found themselves outnumbered and outgunned.

If not for the fact that the two greater phase lords were able to press forward despite all of the resistance they encountered, the humans could have rolled up the confused and demoralized alien forces and secure their hold on this star system for a while longer!

"Begin the next step of our phased withdrawal."

"80 percent of our orbital defense facilities have been evacuated. Automated systems hav taken over and have received commands to overload their remaining guns in an attempt to take down one or two additional warships."

"All planetary facilities have been evacuated and scuttled. We have also left plenty of mines and other surprises behind to keep the native aliens busy."

"Suspend all search and rescue efforts. The aliens have advanced too far forward to make it viable for us to pick up any additional ejected cockpits and escape pods. We can only leave the surviving mech pilots and other soldiers to the mercies of their alien captors."

Those were empty words. Although neither side explicitly talked about it, the humans and aliens had never treated their captives well.

The Red War centered around domination and extinction. Both sides wanted to eradicate each other.

Most red humans believed that the only way they could attain peace was to wipe out all of the powerful aliens that called the Red Ocean home.

Meanwhile, the native aliens wanted to stamp out every single human presence to cleanse their dwarf galaxy of extragalactic invaders!

Neither side possessed much of an interest in taking prisoners of war. It was a burden to confine and feed millions if not billions of aliens.

While there were plenty of researchers and entrepreneurs who could recognize the value of alien captives, their demand was not too high, so it was fine with taking a limited amount of prisoners while killing off the rest.

As far as most mech pilots were aware of, if they failed to return to their motherships in time, they may as well press their sidearms against the side of their heads and pull the trigger. It would be too late for them if they got captured by the native aliens!

In the end, the final battle of Viola Magnifica ended with both sides suffering severe losses.

The expeditionary fleet and the other participating mech forces all sustained serious damage.

Many mechs got wrecked.

Plenty of mech pilots had died as well.

Red humanity lost all of the resources invested in the fortification of the star system.

A lot of trained, educated and experienced soldiers paid the price of their lives.

What was worse was that all of the human as well as alien assets that met their end in the Viola Magnifica System had left multiple debris fields behind. This meant that as long as the enemies maintained control over this location, they could collect abundant quantities of salvaged materials and use them to speed the production of high-quality replacement phasefighers and warships.

The aliens and the puelmers in particular would also love to get their hands on broken and abandoned pieces of high technology.

Leaving all of this stuff behind was painful to the members of the expeditionary fleet.

Normally, they were the ones who controlled the battlefield at the end and earned the freedom to pick up any salvage that they wanted!

Still, Human High Command should be satisfied with how much the defenders made the attacking aliens bleed.

It would take time for the native alien factories and shipyards to churn out replacement hulls based on more modern designs.

Therefore, the defenders had definitely met their original goals. They inflicted just enough material losses to delay the advance of the native aliens.

The unexpected orvan withdrawal had made it much harder for the native aliens to renew their offensive and attack the fifth defensive band. If the orvens stationed in other star systems began to relent all of a sudden, then the aliens would soon suffer from their lack of coordination.

As the Everchanger triumphantly returned to the Spirit of Bentheim, Venerable Joshua shut down his expert mech, but not before he commanded his machine to carefully return the Bitter Scimitar to its isolating container.

"...!"

"You don’t want to get stuffed in a dark and confining box? Well, I am fine with letting you remain by the side of the Everchanger. Just make sure to behave and never put any human crew member under threat unless they literally go on the attack. I am trusting you to behave. Do not screw this up. I will put you back in the box if I hear any complaints about your behavior."

"..."

Joshua decided to place the Bitter Scimitar in a weapon rack that was located close to where the Everchanger was stationed. The living mech was already scheduled to get serviced by one of the best maintenance crews serving on the Spirit of Bentheim.

As soon as he exited the cockpit, he sought out his fellow expert pilots and asked for Venerable Rosa Orfan’s condition.

"She is still alive, thankfully." Saint Commander Casella Ingvar answered his question. "We rescued her in time. The Riot has done a good job of preserving the cockpit. It was breached and deformed, but not to a severe extent. Orfan’s personal shield generator and armored piloting suit managed to keep her alive, though they weren’t able to protect her entire body. The doctors who have applied emergency treatments on her estimate that she will require 3 to 6 months of recovery and rehabilitation. She will remain out of commission during this time."

"Hm, that is good news. Suffering injuries is better than dying. Will she retain any lasting injuries?"

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"The doctors have no reason to believe so. Her helmet did an excellent job of cushioning and protecting her skull, so she is still able to use the neural interface. Well, brain injuries aren’t as devastating as they used to be. Orfan can always opt to become a Carmine mech pilot… like you. How did you manage to form a Blood Pact with the Everchanger without the inclusion of the Carmine System?"

"It’s complicated." Joshua shrugged. "I think you can get a clearer explanation from the patriarch or my wife. They taught me how to do it. You can possibly form a Blood Pact with your Minerva as well, though I am not too sure about it. I don’t regret my decision. The Everchanger is my sole mech for a number of years, so it is not as if much will change for me. I just need to be more careful about not losing my bonded mech in battle."

That was a serious concern for Joshua as well as others that had a stake in his future.

"You almost broke through, didn’t you?" Casella asked.

The pilot of the Everchanger nodded. "I deployed on the battlefield in the hopes of becoming stronger when I return. In a way, I reached my goal, but not in the way I expected. I am not too upset that I hadn’t managed to become an ace pilot like the others, but I have learned stuff that is almost just as good. It turns out that I haven’t reached my limit yet. There is so much I can do to take advantage of my versatility and find new synergies to stack up my combat power. I think… it is best if I explore and master my new capabilities first before attempting another breakthrough. Next time, I will be much better armed and ready to fight at a higher level."

The Saint Commander noticed that despite fumbling his latest breakthrough moment, Joshua had truly changed for the better. His posture radiated confidence and his willpower had grown a lot firmer than before.

It shouldn’t be as easy for Joshua to fall into doubt or falter at a critical moment.

Whether that was enough for him to succeed in his next serious breakthrough attempt was another matter.

Nothing was set in stone. The successive breakthroughs of Davia Stark and Ark Larkinson provided strong support for the validity of the Heaven Earth Man Trifecta, but the results were not conclusive enough to convince any scientists.

"If you have anything to share that other expert pilots may find useful, then write a report and transmit it to my account. I will read it and decide whether it is worthwhile to pass it on to our colleagues."

"I will do my best, Casella, but I don’t think anyone can do what I can do. None of our peers are as versatile as myself."

"I see. If you have nothing to share with other expert pilots, then at least write a report for the Design Department. Once the Miracle Couple have begun to design the Everchanger Mark III, they can use your feedback to adapt your expert mech to your new capabilities."

"That is a good idea. I will do so quickly."

The two continued to talk about various topics.

"So what is next in store for our expeditionary fleet?" Joshua asked.

"We have sustained serious damage and lost plenty of mechs. We are currently withdrawing from the frontlines. We need to spend at least a couple of weeks replenishing our mech roster and transfer new personnel to take the places of those who have sacrificed their lives."

"A couple of weeks?! That is too short!"

The Saint Commander sighed. "We have no choice, Joshua, or rather red humanity has no choice. All indications show that the native aliens are determined to storm through the fifth defensive band and blitz straight through our vulnerable hinterland. We need to be ready to fight when that happens."

"If that happens."

"I did not misspeak."

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