Combat had begun in earnest. As the most critical phase of the Red Tide Offensive unfolded across the fifth defensive band, the defense of the Kayana System was one of many that could decide the outcome of the entire war! After the Amaranto Mark III kicked off the battle in earnest by shooting down a warship that turned out to function as a makeshift carrier for cosmopolitan mechs, both sides eventually began to shoot each other in earnest! The firepower at the disposal of both sides was cataclysmic. The native aliens had brought an abundance of modernized transphasic hyper warships. These vessels not only enjoyed the protection of formidable azure energy shields in both segmented and multi-layer configurations, but also possessed heavy armaments that could unleash a huge amount of firepower. However, the human defenders were not incapable of matching that firepower. Not only had the RF sent a modest contingent of warships to share the pressure, the huge and extremely well-built orbital defense network was well-matched to face this onslaught of cannons and alloy! While there were many differences, the orbital fortresses and orbital platforms functioned as the equivalent of alien battleships and alien escort vessels. It was just that the orbital defenses lacked strong propulsion capabilities. They were never designed to move unless an asteroid or out-of-control warship threatened to crash into their structures. The Rubarthans hadn’t even bothered to install teleportation modules onto them because they were explicitly designed to absorb as much firepower as possible before succumbing to all of the damage. To that end, these orbital fortifications were able to pile up on lots of thick armor layers. The alloys may be inferior to those used to protect high-end mechs, but their affordability and ease of sourcing made it easy for the Rubarthan Pact to produce high volumes of armor plating and structural components! Combined with the fact that they were equipped with Titan Shields and enough battleship-grade cannons that could reasonably be added without compromising too much of their defenses, these orbital defenses served as the obstacles that the native aliens had to overcome in order to conquer Kayana VIII-E. Right now, many of the orbital defenses still held strong. Due to the range that separated the two sides, the advancing alien warships primarily brought their biggest guns to bear onto the large and easy-to-hit orbital fortresses. Their Titan Shields were designed to resist punishment from warships. While the concentration of firepower was great enough to drain the capacity of these immensely powerful energy shields in less than a minute, this was already enough to pay for the beleaguered fortresses! This was because attracting a minute’s worth of cannon fire from dozens if not a hundred of alien warships bought the human defenders enough time to take down the advancing alien warships! The enemy did not make it easy to take down their hulls. As the native alien vessels flew closer, they began to employ formations and rotate back and forth. So long as their warp drives worked, they were able to move pretty quickly. They constantly used their excellent energy defenses to shield each other and give nearly exhausted warships time to recover their segmented energy shields. The enemy warships were making the best possible use of their mobility. Their highly intricate and highly coordinated dance prolonged the survival of every hull and enabled them to pump out more firepower. This was an excellent tactic to employ against attacks that mainly arrived from one direction! While the orbital defenses were orbiting above Kayana VIII-E just enough to be able to target the same warships from different angles, the human gunners struggled to inflict enough damage to make a difference. So long as the distance between them remained great enough, the amount of firepower that could be brought to bear against warships sheltering behind other vessels remained limited! Another factor that inhibited their effectiveness was the use of segmented energy shields. Attacks launched by an orbital fortress from the ’left’ side did not overlap with the attacks launched by an orbital fortress on the ’right’ side. This made it difficult to blow open a temporary gap in energy barriers and take advantage of it to inflict crippling damage to the hull! The orbital defenses therefore had to whittle down the segmented azure energy shields the old fashioned way. While the alien crew members in charge of managing the energy defenses did their best to stretch the dwindling amount of active segmented energy shields, they were gradually being overwhelmed due to the sheer firepower the bigger orbital fortresses possessed. Unlike warships that possessed a lot of limitations on mass and volume, orbital fortresses could be made as thick and massive as their builders could afford! This not only enabled them to bear lots of armor, but also mount guns that were as big as those found in larger battleships! These formidable armaments surpassed the caliber of most primary gun batteries. No matter whether they flung gauss rounds, positron beams or exotic particles, every warship that got struck by them suffered a lot of pain! They possessed a lot of downsides, however. It was easy for the enemy to target these stationary guns once the orbital fortresses lost their energy shields. Their firing rates were abysmally low. Their tracking and precision characteristics were also low, causing them to miss a lot of shots if they attempted to target smaller and more maneuverable warships. Despite these many shortcomings, these guns were doing the heavy lifting when it came to reducing the number of enemy warships. Even so, the operators manning the guns found themselves overwhelmed by the enormous torrent of transphasic hyper alloys. The modernized aliens were even trickier to defeat than usual, and the excellent coordination exhibited by the enemy fleets further reduced their loss rate. In contrast, the immobile orbital fortresses were sitting ducks that were only able to last for a respectable amount of time due to the stacking of defenses. The Rubarthan state had invested a great amount of funding and resources into building up the orbital defense networks of many different planets across the fifth defensive band. Unfortunately, all of this buildup took place in the open. The native aliens were not stupid, and they understood the human strategies even better once the cosmopolitans helpfully explained their own doctrines and strategies. The native aliens assigned to attack the Kayana System had purposefully delayed this grand assault for multiple days. It was all worth it as the native aliens brought so many warships that the orbital defense network was beginning to crumble a lot faster than the enemy assault fleets! "The native aliens made sure to bring enough warships to crush all three orbital defense networks in the star system!" "Their firepower is too great!" Continue reading stories on freewebnovel "Are you crazy?! We are getting overwhelmed by the alien naval assets. We can’t spare our guns to suppress the enemy phase lords! Isn’t that what our ace mechs are for?! They look fine for now, so let them stall the enemy gods a while longer!" The most Rubarthans never thought the orbital defense network could repel the aliens alone. They had always placed the greatest hope on their mechs. A strong core of 8 Rubarthan mech corps led the assault with 6 Rubarthan irregular mech corps providing support. The former consisted of 400,000 first-class multipurpose mechs. Each of them were quite deadly at range and could hold their own at close range. If these mechs were allowed to attack the approaching enemy warships without hindrance, then they could work in unison with the orbital defense network to quickly tear apart one alien hull after another! However, the native aliens easily deployed over 2 million elite phasefighters! These elite craft that were tough and piloted by well-trained alien fighter pilots were not necessarily expected to defeat the formidable alien mechs. Even with their advantages, the humans had proven in more battles than anyone could count that they were masters at maximizing the value of their small craft! Let alone getting outnumbered by 2 to 1, mechs had managed to win with worse odds! The alien phasefighters were merely ordered to stall the human mechs and keep them busy as long as possible. Again, their azure energy shields played a huge role in fulfilling their missions. "These azure energy shields are tougher than the ones used by the alien craft we have seen in the past." "The accuracy of their forward cannons have improved. Their targeting systems have become considerably more effective." "Watch out for their transphasic missiles! Their payloads are strong enough to blast open your own azure energy shields and create a formidable hole in your armor." "These phasefighters are too persistent! Our unit can’t shake them off, and they’re already calling reinforcements!" The clash between mechs and phasefighters was a frustrating ordeal to the human defenders. Mechs should be better in almost every criteria, but the native aliens have managed to close the gap to the point where phasefighters truly served as effective distractions on the battlefield. The alien developers had purposefully amplified their most annoying performance characteristics so that they became a greater nuisance to mechs! If that was not enough to make the Rubarthans upset, then fighting against other humans made them even more furious! "TRAITORS!" "Why are you trying to kill us all?!" "You have thrown away the dignity of the human race!" The angry Rubarthan mechs threw themselves at their cosmopolitan counterparts! Both sides initially utilized their many weapon modules to exchange fire with each other ,but that did not satisfy the defending mech pilots. The Rubarthans subsequently sent out their more melee-capable mechs to close in on the cosmopolitan mechs and entangle them at close range! This caused the fight between the two groups of mechs to intensify. What surprised the Rubarthans during the initial contact was that the cosmopolitan mechs were well-designed and well-built. Their quality and material usage also matched the standards of first-raters. However, the cosmopolitan mechs also lacked support from the Red Kingdom! None of the machines were affected by anyone’s design philosophies. Whoever designed these cosmopolitan mechs clearly did not want to leave any trails. While this should have caused the cosmopolitans to falter as they were missing a critical component that enabled mechs to rise above the competition, they had one undeniable advantage. Every cosmopolitan mech featured high phasewater saturation! The Cosmopolitan Movement evidently earned enough appreciation from their alien masters to receive an abundance of phasewater. The human traitors put these resources to good use by applying stronger transphasic components to their mechs! Combined with a fantastic understanding of how humans fought, their mechs were holding back a surprising amount of Rubarthan mechs! "These traitors are more skilled than expected! Their phasewater tech is too strong as well!" While that did not enable the traitor mechs to defeat all of their opposition in a decisive fashion, it helped them last longer and hit back harder. Numerous Rubarthans mechs succumbed as they struggled to defeat their demented mirrors. It was just too strange to see humans fighting on the same side as the native aliens in this day and age. While there were modest amounts of flanking mech units that made it past the obstruction of enemy strike craft, the point was moot so long as there were too few mechs left to cripple the alien positions. All of this meant that the alien attack plan was working. Sending out enough powerful phasefighters and warships to choke the human defenders and prevent them from pooling their strengths was a devious and cold-hearted idea.. It was because of this that the Rubarthan defenders looked to their champions for hope and inspiration. Of all of the ace mechs in the field, the only one that could surpass the Lamia Kailamassu in splendor was the Amaranto Mark III! While the battle continued to wage around the machine, Saint Davia Stark had been doing her part by knocking down one warship after another. With the help of the impressive firing rate of the new Instrument of Vengeance, the Amaranto Mark III had already claimed over a dozen warships! Each of them were large hulls that were bristling with weapon emplacements. For the Amaranto to be take them out with such each attracted a lot of unwelcome attention.