Venerable Jannzi Larkinson felt profoundly empty at this moment. Instead of sitting inside the cockpit of her trusty Shield of Samar, she took shelter in her grand stateroom that was as far removed from the battlefield as possible. Instead of fighting alongside her fellow expert pilots such as Venerable Stark and Venerable Isobel, was surrounded by her husband and children. Instead of working together with her battle partner to protect her clansmen from danger and shield her fellow mech pilots from retaliation, she had become a useless burden who could not contribute much in the fight but was too valuable to risk in battle. Jannzi felt especially upset about the latter. Just because she lost her Shield of Samar didn't mean she lost her piloting abilities. She could still hop inside the cockpit of a defensive mech like the Knight Warrior or the Rigid Spine and utilize her exquisite skills to contribute as much to victory as possible. She was even open to piloting the Quint in a different configuration than a space knight if that was what it took for her to save as many lives as possible! After all, an expert pilot like her could pilot rifleman mechs a lot better than the mech pilots who specialized in them. She was a demigod, a pilot whose skills and abilities had exceeded human limits. Ordinary rules no longer applied to her anymore. She could make much more use out of a mech than any other regular pilot. Not even expert candidates could come close to her skills, reaction speed, processing power and combat experience. Yet whenever she volunteered to defend the Larkinson Clan in the best way she could, General Verle and anyone else with enough say immediately rejected her proposal. "We can't." General Verle shook her head. "Mechs like the Rigid Wall and the Quint are good and all, but they do not match your identity in the slightest. Just like how the Cross Clan no longer dares to transport Patriarch Reginald Cross in a flimsy shuttle, it is the height of irresponsibility to allow you to venture into battle while piloting a mech that can be shot down at any time." "I won't allow that to happen! You know how good I am! I won't allow myself to get caught by a fatal attack!" Jannzi insisted. "You can't guarantee that, pilot! Look, we are about to do battle against a formidable alien pirate stronghold. Unlike the human mech forces that we are accustomed to fighting, the aliens are still stuck in the era where bigger is better. The pirates will deploy many warships against us whose guns are large and powerful enough to annihilate any mech upon a direct hit." "So? Other mech pilots do not have a problem with sorting into battle while they know they will have to fight against terrible warships. Why can't I do the same?" "Because you are not an average mech pilot! Your identity is different and your value is much greater!" General Verle shot back. "If you were still piloting your Shield of Samar, then this wouldn't be a concern, but the reality is different. Other mechs do not compliment you. Not only will you lack the protection of a resonance shield, but the machines themselves will not be able to keep up with your demands. Your chances of dying are far greater than before, which is what our clan least wants to see. If you are determined to make a sacrifice, then at least make it meaningful." That pretty much blocked any further attempts to set foot on the battlefield. Jannzi had no choice but to act like any other civilian and take shelter while watching other good Larkinsons fight in her stead. It made her feel profoundly helpless. The only reason why she hadn't gone crazy was because she was able to spend this tense and frustrating period with her husband and child. "Mama! Mama! What is happening?" Mercer Larkinson asked as he sat on his mother's lap. Jannzi lifted her hand and gently stroked her boy's adorable head. "Our forces have just found out that there is a powerful alien hiding within the asteroid base. All of our mechs are doing their best to finish it off before it can commit any further evil." "It will be over, then?" "Yup. The bad guys will lose while our clan and our friends will win. Trust in our soldiers and heroes. They are doing their best to keep us all safe." Though she was easily able to fool her young and naive baby, her husband was not as convinced. Though the public feeds that their family had access to did not provide any clarification or details, it was difficult to hide the desperate actions of all of the ace mechs. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎 The fact that they abandoned any further attempts to disable the V'gahnt-Zezne and launched as many attacks towards the interior of the Palace of Shame said much about their current priorities! Adenau Purnesse-Larkinson, who sat next to Jannzi, glanced towards his wife. The expert pilot without an expert mech silently shook her head as she conveyed her true feelings on the matter. Unlike ordinary people, she possessed a much better grasp of the flow of the battle. Her extraordinary senses and judgment allowed her to extract a lot of clues from the running feed. Those clues were now telling her that every human was in much deeper trouble than before! The more time passed by, the more she grew unsettled, both physically and mentally. Her physical unease came from the faint spatial fluctuations that were coursing throughout the entire battlefield and beyond. The power of the captured unclean whale who had previously been imprisoned inside the Palace of Shame was considerable! It appeared that long-term captivity over a span of over a thousand years only represented a brief nap to a member of the phase whale race. As the degenerated alien beast continued to build up a grand movement that would affect a huge chunk of space, even ordinary people such as Adenau and Mercer began to feel more nauseous due to the disturbances affecting their bodies! The young boy even burst into tears! "Mama! It hurts!" "It's okay, baby! Your mother is here for you. Everything will be alright." Though Jannzi tried her best to put up a brave face in front of her son, inwardly her frustration was mounting. She was tired of feeling helpless! She was tired of getting pushed to the side! She was tired of needing to wait for many months before she could pilot a real mech again! Her lack of agency in this situation was form of torture to her. The transition from being one of the most powerful and influential combatants of the Larkinson Clan to a harmless woman without a mech was too abrupt. She couldn't get used to returning to a life of indolence and anonymity. Jannzi vowed to never end up in this situation again. Once she finally obtained the reborn Shield of Samar that she had been promised with, she would never allow herself to get pushed back to the rear again! "The clan needs me." She whispered to herself. "Ves can't protect our people as well as I can. Only I have the ability to protect our family in these moments!" Her conviction burned brighter than before! Despite being far away from any mech, her force of will grew stronger. She not only regained the strength that she had before, but also pushed her extraordinary willpower to the point where she was able to cover her husband and son with a weak domain! Their expressions eased. they were no longer affected by the spatial fluctuations because Jannzi willed it so, simple as that. No demented phase whale was allowed to harm the objects of her protection! As Jannzi continued to dream about getting back in the saddle again, Ves was not having a good time at the moment. Nothing much happened in the next dozen or so seconds. The only meaningful developments that took place was that the analysts confirmed much of his suspicions. The Palace of Shame had been built as a prison. They knew this now because the exposed inner structure was made out of materials that were especially good at dampening spatial phenomena and resisting a huge amount of physical force. If that wasn't enough, the giant 'prison chamber' also featured numerous giant chains that previously restrained the only captive! Normally, these chains should have locked the alien beast in place and suppressed his potent spatial abilities, but when the ace mechs had breached the chamber, none of the chains were bound to the prisoners anymore! "Upon their imminent defeat, we believe the Unspoken may have activated an emergency measure that freed the captive phase whale. It may have been an act of spite as well as a planned contingency measure!" Since the humans were about to kill off the orvens as well as the other alien pirates, the defeated party might as well go for broke and release a terrible monster as their ultimate form of vengeance! "Since we know that those giant chains previously inhibited the unclean whale, can't we find a way to reattach them?" Ves desperately asked. "We can't! Our mech will need to lift those chains and bring them to the body of the hostile subject, but this isn't possible as long as the latter keeps projecting a powerful spatial barrier." It all came down to the unclean whale's powerful defenses which were even more absurd than the energy shields of the V'gahnt-Zezne. While the battleship had to rely on multiple layers of weaker energy shields to protect herself from damage, the unclean whale only had to rely on a single, all-encompassing spatial barrier to completely resist the combined firepower of seven ace mechs! This was a true first-class opponent! Perhaps not even the Terrans or Rubarthans were able to put a dent into the unclean whale! At least there was one piece of good news. "Our collective attacks aren't getting through the defenses of the unclean whale, but they are at least slowing down the creature's progress. The attacks from our ace mechs and our other mechs are forcing the whale to put more effort into bolstering the spatial barrier!" While that slowed the monstrous phase whale down, it did not prevent the powerful aquatic alien from continuing his or her original effort. "Has the Lehrer Foundation figured anything out?!" Ves asked. "The Lehrers have lots of scientists and engineers on their payroll. Surely they know something, right?!" A representative of the Lehrer Foundation sighed over the command channel. "I am afraid that we cannot offer any major breakthroughs. We have many theories and we can offer you many possible explanations on what the alien whale is attempting to do, but none of them offer any helpful solutions. None of our suggestions matter as long as the source of our current problems can block any external manipulation with a spatial barrier." That caused Ves to gain an idea. "Can't we make use of the Gravity Net and other phasewater tech to disturb the spatial barrier? We only need to greate a gap that is large enough for an ace mech to squeeze through!" "We have already thought of that, Patriarch Larkinson, but not even all of our phasewater devices put together can overcome the power of the unclean whale. Our scanners have detected over a thousand kilograms of phasewater inside the creature's body. All of it is currently being leveraged. There is no conceivable possibility that our weaker measures can induce any changes. The difference in power is far too great." "Damnit! Is there a way that you can figure out a clever way to utilize all of our phasewater tech that might exploit a possible weakness and open up a gap in the spatial barrier?" "That is possible in theory, but it will take days, weeks or even months for us to present the inkling of a solution. We do not have the time to perform the necessary calculations!" Time! It was all about time! The human coalition simply didn't have enough time to resolve this matter in a calm and rational manner. Just as Ves was about to resign himself to the inevitable outcome, his eyes suddenly widened. He just remembered that he had a way of buying a little more time for himself. He might even be able to obtain what he needed to resolve the current crisis! Ves closed his eyes and concentrated hard on an existence that he had long shoved to the back of his mind. "Let me in, System!"