This battle was different from many of the other ones fought by the Golden Skull Alliance. Unlike the ambushes and relatively short pitched battles of the past, Ves and his fellow leaders wanted to employ an advance unit to disrupt the enemy warships that had grouped into at least two separate formations. At the very least, the Spirit of Bentheim and her accompanying mechs needed to do whatever they could to pull Stingray 2 away from the partially crippled Stingray 1! With the main fleet slowly making its way to the battlefield, the Larkinson Clan and its allies would be able to reduce the projected casualties by a massive degree if Stingray 2 was no longer around to provide support! Aside from that, the Phobos had never entirely left the site either. The expert stealth mech continued to remain in hiding in the hopes that he could exploit any openings while the alien warships were fully preoccupied with fighting against their more visible opponents! The key was whether the Spirit of Bentheim detachment could produce enough of a commotion to provoke a serious reaction from the aliens! So far, the enemy warships had done nothing aside from channeling more power to their transphasic energy shields. Aside from that, the aliens still behaved as if they were determined not to split up in order to chase after the Spirit of Bentheim. Everyone else seemed to hold their breath and remain silent as the Macharia Excelsia struggled to land a single shot with its Hexfire rifle. No matter how well Saintess Ulrika tried to aim at the distant starships, none of her shots had landed onto an enemy vessel as of this time! The mood across the ship gradually dropped. The optimism that people felt before started to fade and make way for a more pessimistic outlook of the situation. "It is not working so far." General Verle spoke to Ves over a private communication channel. "It was a low-probability event anyway. We have already accounted for this eventuality. If our ace mech has yet to produce a positive result in five minutes, we will move closer until we are a light-second away from the closest enemy warships. That may put us in range of getting struck by their most precise armaments, but that is the risk that we will have to take." Ves grimaced as he took in the static situation. "I think we should wait a bit more. Saintess Ulrika is not the sort of pilot who gives up easily. We need her to land at least one strike in order to restore morale." "I know, but the longer this drags on, the greater the cloud that will hang over our heads." Reports of misses continued to sound across the bridge. "Miss! The Macharia Excelsia was 20,000 kilometers off-target this time." "Miss! The energy beam is off-target by 9.7 kilometers." "Miss! The beam has deviated from its target by 50.3 kilometers." Ves almost felt tempted to say a few words of encouragement to Saintess Ulrika, but he declined to do so in the end. This was a struggle that she needed to fight on her own. There was no one that could help her increase her hit rate aside from maybe Ylvaine, but her lack of belief in the design spirit precluded any possibility of cooperation. "HIT! The Macharia Excelsia has managed to strike its target!" "The attack inflicted effective damage on the target." Another bridge officer reported. "The transphasic energy shield of the largest yurzen warship has just lost a small amount of integrity." The damage was relatively minor, but the symbolism of landing an attack was significant! Ves grinned but quickly schooled his expression. "Let's see whether this is a fluke or the beginning of an improving pattern." The Macharia Excelsia did not stop and continued to fire whenever Saintess Ulrika felt the time was right. The interval between shots remained fairly long at around 70 seconds on average. Each time, everyone waited to see whether the ace pilot could repeat her earlier success! "Miss!" "Miss!" "Miss!" "Hit!" Hits remained few and far between. Though there were signs that the aliens grew a bit more annoyed at the sporadic attacks, the aliens did not do anything else aside from engaging in more serious evasive maneuvers. This was also partially why the Macharia Excelsia's hit rate gradually began to drop. "I believe this is the best result that we can attain at this range." General Verle told Ves. "It is impressive that Saintess Ulrika and her ace mech are able to occasionally land an attack, but we are not exerting enough pressure to force the aliens to make more proactive moves. The alien vessels struck by the attacks can restore the integrity of their energy shields easily enough." "I know." Ves let out a soft sigh. "Let's get closer then. Try to err on the side of caution whenever possible. I don't want my newly upgraded factory ship to get battered by the combined firepower of lots of enemy warships." The Macharia Excelsia temporarily ceased fire and landed its feet onto the solid hull of the Spirit of Bentheim. The factory ship accelerated forward while also engaging her superdrive for a bit. This enabled the capital ship to move forward just enough so that she ended up approximately a light-second away from the enemy warships! It took a solid second for light to pass from one side to another. While that still represented an impractical range for conventional space combat, both the humans and aliens had a few more ways to ensure they could land their attacks at this distance! Before the Macharia Excelsia could fly out and begin to snipe the relatively closer enemy warships, the puelmer heavy cruisers already launched their first salvo of attacks! A small forest of powerful laser beams struck the general area around the Spirit of Bentheim! "We are under attack!" "Stingray 1 and Stingray 2 have both fired with all of the secondary transphasic laser cannon batteries that they could bring to bear on our starship!" "None of the enemy attacks has struck our vessel. The closest laser beam was only off-target by 3050 kilometers." The puelmers wasted a lot of energy just to strike empty space, but they did not appear to be undeterred. The firing rates of their laser cannons was rather high on account of their relatively smaller calibers. That did not mean that they were weak! Sustained hits from a continued barrage of secondary laser beams had the same effect as being attacked by hundreds if not thousands of mechs at once! The defenses of the Spirit of Bentheim could not resist such attacks for long, but that was exactly why the ship maintained a respectable distance from the enemy warships. "It looks like the pair of puelmer heavy cruisers don't have an effective response at this range." Ves determined. Stingray 1's accuracy was quite respectable as her laser beams generally strayed a lot closer to the Spirit of Bentheim. Stingray 2 on the other hand exhibited much more deplorable accuracy. This was primarily because she was moving and firing while still engaged in warp travel! The latter eventually gave up on wasting her energy after seeing that there was no point in persisting at this range. Stingray 1 continued her attacks. The groupings of energy attacks slowly began to tighten, which showed that the puelmer crew members were slowly making improvements. Meanwhile, the Macharia Excelsia began to land a lot more hits than before! Saintess Ulrika clearly did not consider the challenge to be as insurmountable as before, because the interval between attacks had shrunk to around 30 seconds! "Hit." "Hit." "Miss." "Miss." "Hit." "Miss." The presumed flagship of the yurzens began to suffer more sustained attacks. The yurzens had to take the resonance-empowered shots more seriously as her transphasic energy shields began to drain at a more concerning rate. Of course, the enemy ship was nowhere close to experiencing an actual threat. The yurzen raiding fleet began to make targeted adjustments and moved a couple of untouched starships in the firing line to temporarily take over the burden of withstanding the ace mech's distant strikes. The enemy fleet could do this all day. One of the greatest advantages of energy-based defenses was that they could easily be restored to full if they were given enough time to recuperate. The aliens readily made use of this advantage and showed through their responses that they still did not take the Macharia Excelsia too seriously at this point! While this was happening, Stingray 1 finally managed to land a hit on the Spirit of Bentheim! "We've been struck by the latest salvo from Stingray 1! One of our transphasic energy shields has lost a negligible amount of integrity as the Macharia Excelsia's Saint Kingdom has already weakened its power." The Stingray 1 replicated her earlier success a few times, but the hits were too sporadic to pose a serious threat towards the Spirit of Bentheim. Ves continued to observe the proceedings. As he analyzed the data, he felt that there may be a better way to pressure their opposition. "Saintess, if you are feeling confident enough in your aim, you should try to attack the yurzen destroyers instead. Their transphasic energy shields are much weaker. It may be possible for your ace mech to punch through them with a single strike, especially if you borrow the power of the Phase King." The Macharia Excelsia proceeded to shift its aim towards the smallest and weakest enemy warships. This time, the ace mech's interval between shots had increased to an average of 50 seconds, but many of its attacks came close to hitting the narrower and nimbler yurzen destroyers! "Hit! The resonance-empowered transphasic positron beam has inflicted severe damage to the enemy destroyer's energy shield! There is a high likelihood that it will break after getting struck again!" The yurzen destroyer in question appeared to panic and quickly tried to move behind the hull of a nearby cruiser-sized vessel. This took quite a bit of time as the enemy warships had deliberately spread out their formation. Nonetheless, the Macharia Excelsia failed to land another hit on the threatened yurzen destroyer before the latter succeeded in taking shelter behind a bigger vessel. "We're still not getting much done at this rate." Ves communicated to General Verle. "Maybe it is time to move forward by half a light-second." "That... is a much riskier proposition, sir. We have found that the secondary laser cannon batteries of the puelmer heavy cruisers are in excellent condition. They are well-designed, well-built and well-maintained. The only way we can reduce their hit rates is if we enter into warp travel ourselves. We can choose to take the Macharia Excelsia along, but that will reduce the ace mech's hit rate. We can also choose to leave it behind, but that will deprive us of its most powerful defensive feature." Their choices became harder and harder once the distance shrunk. It was already fairly amazing that the puelmers were able to threaten the Spirit of Bentheim to this extent. It made Ves a little more fearful of how much more effective the aliens might be if his flagship moved any closer! "We don't have many choices, general." He retorted. "I suppose we can keep up the current attacks in the hopes of eventually annoying the aliens so much that they will send a few ships at us, but I don't think that will work. We will just be giving the crew of Stingray 1 more time to repair her warp drives." The Golden Skullers were all operating on a timer. There was no way to attain victory by playing the long game. They needed to get closer and take greater risks in order to advance their plan! General Verle knew this as well, but he was being careful because the margin of safety was razor-thin this time. A single serious error in judgment might be enough to doom the Spirit of Bentheim and everyone aboard her including Ves himself! This was how tense their situation had become!