Chapter 5675 Spiraling Down 5675 Spiraling Down Humans were not as unfamiliar with their alien foes than when they just arrived in the Red Oceans. They all learned that so long as an enemy warship kept up her transphasic energy shield, any damage inflicted on the vessel would ultimately be wasted as the barrier regenerated back to full strength. The only way to actually hurt the aliens was to inflict real material damage to the hull! While the melee mechs were on their way to make this job a lot easier, it was unlikely for the mechs of the four remaining mercenary outfits to succeed in their job. There were too few melee mechs and too many alien warships! The problem became compounded by the need to keep melee mechs back in order to guard against the coming attack from the Grimly Brothers. Many mercenaries realized that the only way to survive was to soften up the alien warships and take a few of them out at range. The less vessels the melee mechs had to deal with, the more they could survive long enough to finish their mission! "Commander Pellicky! You boasted so much about your newly purchased Ultimatums during our last meeting. Why have they not produced any results?" "They are powerful, but we have too few of them. 4 of our Ultimatums are stuck on the surface of the planet, and our remaining 14 don't have the weight of fire to break a transphasic energy shield in a single salvo." "Then coordinate your fire with other ranged mechs!" "We are already doing that, but it isn't working! At this range, the larger alien warships are tough enough to withstand all of our firepower, while the smaller ones are agile enough to cause many of our attacks to miss." "Our melee mechs are about to get shredded by the tertiary gun batteries of those warships if we don't give them enough cover. We need to do better! Forget about targeting the flagship or the other large starships. Focus your fire on the enemy frigates and destroyers. They are weak enough that enough successful hits should be able to pop their bubbles fast enough. They also have the most armaments that pose the greatest threat against small craft." The mercenaries abandoned their plan to decapitate the leadership of the native alien fleet. The enemy flagship was simply too tough! Yet that did not leave them in a better position. The Hullsi Wardogs actually fielded the largest quantity of ranged mechs, but the Grimly Brothers had made short work of them all. The remaining mercenary outfits also had their fair share of ranged mechs, but their collective firepower had dropped below the threshold where they could comfortably down any enemy warship. Every mech pilot endured greater pressure as a result. They were all tasked with a mission that seemed impossible to fulfill under the circumstances. However, they had no other choice! At this time, many mech pilots were praying for a miracle, only for none to arrive. The pilots assigned to the recently delivered Ultimatums endured greater expectations than most. The hype and the excessively high expectations placed on the mech model caused a lot of people to expect the new wonder machines to bail them out of this predicament. When this did not happen, the heavy artillery mech pilots all felt as if they were letting everyone down! "I don't know what you are doing so far, Yuri, but you are not making everyone convinced that you are piloting a mech that is worth at least 30 MTA credits." "We can still do better, commander!" Yuri Enfame insisted as he tried his best to wear down the defenses of a distant enemy warship. "We still have too little training and experience with piloting these beasts. They are capable of hitting harder and more accurately, but it turns out that it is a lot more difficult to enter the right mindset in the middle of a desperate battle." "If the problem does not lie with the mechs, but rather what goes on in your head, then fix it right away! If nothing changes within a few minutes, then we won't have enough mechs left to turn this battle around. Isn't your Ultimatum supposed to be a shipkiller? The only ships being killed are our own! Put your heads in order and start making the aliens hurt before it is too late!" The increasing pressure wasn't doing the pilots assigned to the Ultimatums any favors. As mercenaries, their ability to perform under pressure was not great. Even the ones that had prior military service usually weren't all that great, or else they would have stayed. Yuri Enfame did not quite fit this mold. He was a 40-year old veteran, but he left the service because it seemed unlikely that he would be spending his time on activities other than training and participating in exercises. He experienced more scuffles when he joined the Pellicky Praetorians. The mercenary outfit was not bound by borders and always moved where mech pilots could occasionally put their skills to good use. However, that also meant that mercenaries such as Yuri ended up fighting in strange places on behalf of people or employers he didn't care about. Right now, Yuri's mind had entered a mess. The stress and fear evoked by the betrayal of the Grimly Brothers as well as the prospect of fighting an alien raiding fleet at a disadvantage sapped his confidence. "What am I doing here?" "Why must I fight alongside unreliable allies?" "Are my actions making any difference?" The doubts plaguing Yuri wasn't doing him any favors. This was the wrong time and place for him to get distracted. His pessimism reflected in his performance as he was doing the Ultimatum a major disservice by failing to draw out its potential. It was not for lack of trying. Yuri tried multiple times to activate the Guided Aim and Amplified Destruction embedded abilities. Just activating one of them was already enough to make a more meaningful difference in this battle! Yet while the glows of the two design spirits still remained present, Yuri failed to engage them sufficiently enough to borrow from their powers. He knew it was not their fault. They were so distant that it took a lot of effort for mech pilots to reach out to them. Even if Yuri knew that his mindset had diverged too much from what it took to activate the special abilities of his mech, it was not easy for a human to take control over his own emotions! His Ultimatum unleashed another powerful attack with its Onyx Cannon. However, Yuri winced shortly after as the alien frigate under his sights utilized her boosters and thrusters to spin and cause the round to miss. At this distance, it was too hard to score consistent hits against the smaller and more agile enemy vessels! The native aliens possessed a better understanding of their human foes than before. They discovered that their warships had a greater advantage at longer ranges due to the quantity and power of their gun batteries. If not for the fact that lingering too long in this star system would invite overwhelming retribution from the Red Two, the aliens would have chosen to stay at maximum range and whittle down their enemies over a longer stretch of time! However, even if they were forced to go on the attack, the aliens weren't in a hurry to get closer. Doing so not only made ranged mechs such as the Ultimatum more effective, but also enabled the melee mechs to close the distance a lot sooner! In short, the circumstances were anything but favorable to Yuri and his fellow heavy artillery mech pilots. "Ahh! My ship is going down! I am sorry everyone, but I have to abandon my machine." "Wait! Don't leave! You can still fight as long as your mech stays in one piece! One of our carriers can pick up your Ultimatum." "It is too late!" One of the combat carriers of the Pellicky Praetorians broke into several pieces after the warships of the opposing side unleashed their latest salvo. Numerous escape pods managed to get away in time, but many more did not launch quickly enough to bring the crew to safety. The heavy artillery mechs that had been placed inside the handful of bunkers embedded along the hull experienced a wild time. The ones that got affected the most became inoperable. One received so much damage that only a third of the machine was left intact! The other bunker mechs managed to get loose or still remained stuck in metal coffins that were flying and spinning away in an uncontrollable fashion. The downfall of every combat carrier meant that there were less bunker mechs contributing to the fight. This increased the burden on the remaining heavy artillery mechs even further! Without access to rare and expensive transphasic rounds, the mechs could only make do with cheaper alternatives. The Ultimatum was lucky enough to be a modern hyper mech that was designed to work with hyper ammunition. Many of the other mechs fielded by the mercenary outfits were mostly relics from the Phasewater Generation. They were not designed to work with hyper technology and could not fire hyper rounds without undergoing substantial modification. Mercenary organizations were usually among the last customers to update their mech lines. Regardless, the use of hyper technology wouldn't have made much of a difference in this instance. The numbers disparity was too great and the morale among the human mech pilots was too low. Everyone waited for a lucky break that just wouldn't come. Neither the native aliens nor the Grimly Brothers had made any mistakes so far. The only accidents took place among the four remaining mercenary outfits as fear and chaos affected the remaining personnel to an increasing degree. In this dire time, Yuri Enflame tried his best to turn this situation around by correctly utilizing his Ultimatum and lighting the flame that would reignite the hope in everyone's hearts. He failed to complete the first step! This frustrated him increasingly more, which predictably caused his performance to drop even further! "This cannot go on! How can I make this right?!" There was very little a heavy artillery mech could do aside from attacking. Yuri Enflame might have access to the greatest individual firepower a mech had at its disposal in this battle, but if it wasn't properly utilized, then it was of no use! Doubt and self-loathing continued to engulf his mind as he failed to grasp a turning point. His performance became so pathetic that he even felt that his living mech was starting to reject his presence. The Ultimatum was a proud mech despite being so young! It expected a lot from its pilot, so when Yuri continued to deteriorate with no end in sight, even the second order living mech became fed up with this dolt! Strangely enough, that was the signal that finally caused Yuri to pause. He had never piloted a mech that possessed enough intelligence to form its own opinions. Yuri felt appalled at the increasing sense of disgust and rejection from his own machine! Even if he was about to die in this doomed battle, he at least wanted to perish in an honorable manner! Getting kicked out by his own machine on the cusp of defeat was incredible to his pride, as brittle as it may be at the moment. His mentality reset. Many of the doubts and fears in his mind spontaneously vanished, but not entirely. In the end, the fear of disappointing his new living mech superseded all other concerns, including his life, the lives of his comrades and the outcome of this battle! Though the Ultimatum had fallen completely silent at this time, Yuri became numb to the complaints of his commanding officer. Instead, his entire world and vision diminished until he was only able to register himself and his Ultimatum! It was only after he entered this introspective state of mind that he saw the true form of his living mech for the very first time.