The decisions made by the alien pirate groups made a lot more sense after the human coalition discovered that enemy reinforcements were on the way. No one knew who originally created the Palace of Shame, but it had to be a powerful group or faction among the alien community. Ves was thinking back on what the orven prisoners had told him when he interrogated them all. Each of them shared numerous pieces of hearsay that suggested that the Palace of Shame had always been supported by hidden backers. He even recalled an instance where one of the alien crew members claimed to have witnessed a clandestine meeting between the Unspoken and an actual phase whale! Though Ves had no idea if the reinforcements comprised of one or more phase whales, he had to admit that it made the most sense out of all of the possibilities! Most of the aliens that previously occupied the territories that encompassed the Krakatoa Middle Zone and the Zelmar Upper Zone had long packed up their bags and left before the scourge of humanity could arrive. The aliens that couldn't leave had mostly been wiped out or reduced to the point where they no longer posed a significant threat to human pioneers. It was far too improbable that the orvens, the nunsers or the puelmers had left any powerful warships behind. Only the phase whales remained too elusive for most humans to catch. Their mastery of phasewater and spatial technology meant that they could easily hide in pocket spaces for long periods of time. Ves wasn't sure whether he should share this possibility to everyone. They might lose a lot of confidence if they learned that a phase whale may be inbound to their location. Then again, he may be wrong. The phase whales weren't too numerous to begin with and it was rare to encounter any of them throughout the Red Ocean. It may be that the reinforcements might comprise a different alien race that none of the human pioneering groups had ever encountered before. The aliens had buried a lot of secrets in the Red Ocean over the eons. It would be a mistake for Ves to only take the known alien races and what he knew about the region into account. This was the danger of making assumptions. They could occasionally lead people astray. In any case, as soon as everyone learned that they were pressed for time, they increased their efforts and worked harder to defeat their opposition! The fight had become incredibly hot now that the distances had narrowed. Though the seven ace mechs of the human coalition were doing a great job at occupying and reducing the number of alien warships, the other mechs were all doing their best to defeat the remaining alien forces. Many different mechs and mech units distinguished themselves today. Commander Taon Melin and his fellow soldiers of the Eye of Ylvaine played a key role in suppressing the opposing starfighters and wearing down the defenses of the enemy warships. "Don't waste your attacks on the cannon fodder." The expert candidate and legion commander instructed his subordinates. "The other mech legions that handle the weaker small craft. Do your best to limit the movements of the elite starfighters and prevent them from going any further forward. Also make sure to weaken the energy shields of the opposing warships. We do not need to attack them any further once their hulls are exposed. The other mech legions can take care of the rest." The humans involved in this battle gradually figured out that the aliens they were fighting against all liked to depend on transphasic energy shields as their main form of defense. The transphasic segmented energy shields were highly effective at withstanding attacks that weren't transphasic in nature, especially if they were able to spin and rotate like a mono-colored disco ball. The amount of phasewater needed to make an energy shield generator transphasic was much less than cladding an entire warship with transphasic hull plating! The only upside to the defensive habits of the indigenous aliens was that their warships were much easier to damage once they lost their main form of protection. The Transcendent Punishers therefore played a key role in wearing down the energy shields of the alien warships. Their volume of fire was far greater than any other standard mech in the Larkinson Army. Although the Eye of Ylvaine was mostly known for its heavy artillery mechs, the mech legion was no longer solely confined to shooting matches. As soon as the alien starfighters started to get close enough, the Transcendent Chargers finally had the chance to fight on their own terms! The lancer mechs readily discarded their spare luminar crystal rifles and began to pick up their lances while building up their momentum. Just as with their artillery counterparts, it wasn't worth it for them to target the weaker small craft. "Aim for the heavier and slower gunships. They are stronger but much less maneuverable than the other starfighters." The gunships employed by the alien pirate groups varied considerably in design, but the ones that were fighting against the Golden Skull Alliance tended to be two-seaters. Two different alien pilots were needed to control the various systems of the gunship. Since one of them could fully concentrate on maneuvering and defenses while the other could concentrate on attacking and auxiliary measures, the performance of the gunships was always good! What was more concerning was that every gunship carried its own energy shield generator, allowing them to withstand a lot of attacks before they finally became vulnerable. It took far too many attacks from ordinary mechs to break open their energy shells. Not even the Transcendent Punishers wanted to target them because of how few gunships they could destroy in the same amount of time they could wipe out a swathe of smaller starfighters! "Come on! We're almost there. Ylvaine has shown us the way, so ready your lances and pierce their energy shields!" "For Ylvaine!" "For the clan!" The Transcendent Chargers built up a lot of momentum after a time, but not too much. There was an art and a science to guessing how speed and momentum was required to take down an enemy in a single charge. Many lancer mech pilots tended to build up more momentum than was necessary to fulfill their goals. This was because they wanted to have a safety margin and still be able to destroy their targets if their estimates were slightly off. This also caused them to waste a considerable amount of time and energy. One of the less obvious ways the Transcendent Chargers was superior to other lancer mechs was that its mech pilots always seemed to know exactly how much momentum they needed to build up over their attack run. They knew that spending any further time on speeding up their lancer mechs would only give the gunships more time to deal more damage and attract the attention of other mechs that were less equipped to take them down. This was why the lancer mech pilots did not bother to build up any safety margin at all and directed their Transcendent Chargers to close in on the alien gunships right away! The alien pirates quickly noticed the threat. It was hard not to miss the intimidating formation of lancer mechs that was bearing down on the gunships at greater speeds than any other human mech! The gunships along with other friendly alien starfighters tried their best to shoot down the charging human machines, but the thick, triangular-shaped armor layout of the Transcendent Chargers easily withstood most of the incoming attacks! Occasionally, the alien starfighters managed to damage a Transcendent Charger to the point of destroying it, but just before the attacks could finish the job, the lancer mechs in question always dropped out of formation and circled around so that they could return to their motherships while remaining intact! It might be a coincidence if this happened once, but after more than twenty lancer mechs turned away at just the right time to preserve their remaining integrity, many of the more hotheaded alien species became absolutely frustrated at their inability to kill their targets! While the Eye of Ylvaine had been forced to recall a bunch of Transcendent Chargers this way, the remaining ones were more than enough to finish the job! The crews of the alien gunships had tried their best to stop the charging mechs from getting close. When they saw that their efforts failed to produce the desired result, they tried their best to block or evade the incoming strikes. None of the targeted gunships succeeded in getting away! The mech pilots of every Transcendent Charger knew exactly in which direction they should charge. On top of that, the power of foresight also told the religious mech pilots where they should point their lances. It turned out that alien energy shield technology could not produce protection that was equally strong in every direction. There were variations that could reinforce the protection in a single direction. There were also other variations where the degree of protection fluctuated on a random basis. The energy shield generators equipped by the gunships were not too high in quality, and their maintenance over the years had been less than ideal. This caused their performance to be rather spotty and less consistent than normal, though the typical alien pirate didn't notice any difference. It was only in this specific situation that their neglect had come to haunt them! As soon as the lances of the Transcendent Chargers struck their marks, they easily popped the energy barriers! Not only that, the lancer mechs still had plenty of forward momentum left to continue their charge and impale their weapons deep into the much more vulnerable chassis of the gunships! Every lance that sunk into the gunships just happened to inflict the right kind of internal damage to completely disable the alien small craft! "Brilliant!" Ves remarked as a part of him had paid attention to one of the few lancer mech models of the Larkinson Army. "The efficiency of my Transcendent Chargers is far superior to any other lancer mech model!" It was a pity that the Eye of Ylvaine didn't have enough lancer mechs to wipe out all of the enemy gunships at once, but the Larkinsons were already happy with this result. The enemy gunship force had lost such a large proportion of its small craft that its weight and significance had crumbled! The remaining gunships could no longer oppress the mechs of the Larkinson Clan as much as before, but that didn't stop the Transcendent Punishers from making a wide circle so that they could pull off another attack run! Many other Larkinson mechs were also doing their part in reducing the number of enemy starfighters. One of the curious facts about these alien craft was that almost all of them were equipped with ranged weapons. Laser weapons and kinetic weapons were their prevalent means of attack, though there were also starfighter models that employed positron weapons, plasma weapons, gamma laser weapons and even more exotic attack solutions! The larger and heavier starfighters also carried bombs and missiles that possessed enough punch to destroy a mech upon direct impact! The explosive ordnance was the biggest threat to the various human mech forces, but that did not stop the enthusiastic melee mechs from closing in on their alien adversaries! An enormous interspecies exchange took place. Humans began to teach their alien 'conversation partners' about the wonders of mechs. The aliens for their part taught the humans that starfighters also possessed a lot of depth! Aside from the Transcendent Punishers, many other Larkinson melee mechs experienced a lot of trouble in their attempts to defeat their respective opponents. "Stop running, you cowards!" This was because the starfighters didn't stupidly allow the melee mechs to get within hitting distance. Instead, the fast and maneuverable alien small craft teasingly flew around the melee mechs and made sure to keep their distance from any mech. "Gah! We need to box them in! We can't go on like this!"