Chapter 5681 Spaceburst Shells 5681 Spaceburst Shells Rage. Pain. Destruction. This was all the mutated Ultimatum had on its incoherent mind. The living mech that existed just a short time ago was gone. So was the mech pilot known as Yuri Enfame. Due to a confluence of strange circumstances, the two had actually merged together to such a degree that it was unclear whether any distinct part of them was left intact in the resulting fusion. Fortunately, the mutated Ultimatum still retained much of the original functions of the mech. Its vastly more powerful spirituality had also inherited much of Yuri's piloting skills and judgment. This was important because the machine was still able to effectively channel its power towards demolishing its foes! Its aura of destruction grew at a perceivable rate with each and every attack. It derived great satisfaction from breaking open the alien warships that intimidated Yuri a lot and caused him to feel so much distress. As the other surviving mechs of the Pellicky Praetorians and the other three mercenaries tried their best to finish off the weakened alien vessels through their own modest efforts, it looked as if they had established a good rhythm. That was until the nunser battleship and the mechs of the Grimly Brothers both focused all of their efforts on taking down the Hooligan Barke! It became abundantly clear to the aliens and the cosmopolitans that the Ultimatum stationed inside one of the bunkers of the combat carrier was the only lifeline left for the mercenary forces. Once the strange mech got wiped out, there shouldn't be anything standing in the way of a total human defeat in this star system! At this moment, the enhanced defenses of the Hooligan Barke were being sorely tested. The nunser battleship's transphasic energy shields might not be in a good condition at the moment, but her full weapon arsenal still remained fully operational! Each attack from her primary and secondary gun batteries was powerful enough to give the Red Two's own warships a run for their money. There was no way the Hooligan Barke could have withstood this much concentrated firepower for such a long time! The only reason why she managed to hold out while only suffering much more reduced damage was due to the magical domain field projected by Ultimatum One. Yet everyone worried that the odd machine was rapidly approaching its limit. The damage inflicted with each subsequent salvo struck the flagship with greater force, causing her to lose more hull plating and suffer more severe hull breaches. If the nunser battleship wasn't dealt with, then this vessel alone could wipe out the remaining mercenary forces by herself! "Commander! Ultimatum One has almost managed to strip the segmented transphasic multi-layered energy shields of the nunser battleship. If we force our most effective shipkiller asset to attack the mechs of the Grimly Brothers, then all of its efforts may have gone to waste." Once broken, energy shields could be restored so long as their generators remained intact. Every human fighting against the aliens knew that it was taboo to leave this kind of job half-done. The only way for them to produce a lasting result was for Ultimatum One to commit to this attack and break the hull of the nunser battleship. This would not be easy as the nunsers generally built their vertical tower-like homeships thick and tall. Since the vessels functioned as their homes as well as a fighting vessel, the nunser battleship attached to the alien raiding fleet consisted of a lot of strong alloys. Key sections were even covered with transphasic alloys, making them far tougher than any other part of the massive alien hull! Commander Andrea Pellicky furrowed her brows and looked down to analyze the projected map. A lot of mechs and combat carriers had already fallen due to prior attacks launched by the alien raiding fleet. What was left might not be enough to keep the aliens on the backfoot while at the same time fend off the cosmopolitan assault from the rear. If the surviving mercenaries wanted to get out of this battle alive, then it had to deal with both groups of enemies at the same time! Focusing on one enemy at the exclusion of the other one was a great taboo! As Pellicky observed the movement of friendly forces and witnessed how the remaining mercenary mechs around the combined fleet failed to stop the Grimly strike force from approaching her flagship. There were precious few assets left to fend off the incoming mechs. "Wait." She suddenly recalled an important piece of information related to the newly acquired heavy artillery mechs. "How many Ultimatums remain operational?" "We only have 9 left if we exclude Ultimatum One. Three of them are stationed in the remaining intact bunkers of our flagship while the rest are assigned to our other surviving combat carriers." "That is enough!" The mercenary commander grinned! "Instruct all of our bunker mechs aside from Ultimatum One to concentrate their firepower on the incoming enemy melee mechs. Make sure the other Ultimatums load spaceburst shells in their heavy artillery cannons. Do not bother to conserve any ammunition!" "Acknowledged, commander. What of Ultimatum One?" "Make sure to orient our flagship in a way that allows it to continue to pummel nunser battleship. The leading alien vessel must fall. Hopefully, the remaining aliens will be a lot more hesitant about pressing the attack once their capital ships have all been struck down." It was obvious what Commander Pellicky wanted to accomplish. She wanted to rely on the other heavy artillery mechs or more specifically the 9 other Ultimatums to intercept the traitor mechs! She took a massive risk with this decision. The lives of her mercenaries as well as her allies hinged on whether the recently sold mechs could do their jobs during this critical time! The odds were stacked against them. The Grimly Brother mechs were not exactly top-tier, but they were all based on well-regarded mech models released during the Phasewater Generation. More concerning was the custom mechs piloted by Alexander Grimly and Cory Grimly! The former piloted a powerful rifleman mech that completed his skills well enough to accurately pick off individual mechs from a notable distance with its powerful laser rifle. The latter piloted an offensive space knight that was tough enough to resist a lot of damage with the help of its kite shield but also fast enough to keep up with other offensive mech units. Commander Pellicky gritted her teeth. She just had to hope for the best, because she did not see any other way out. She just hoped that the generational gap between the mechs of the Phasewater Generation and the Hyper Generation was truly as people claimed. As the Hooligan Barke and other combat carriers spun around and made sure to give most of their bunker mechs clear firing lines towards the approaching enemy melee mechs, they soon began to open fire! The older heavy artillery mechs that the mercenary forces had yet to replace mostly utilized laser cannons or positron cannons. Energy weapons were more economical and convenient to use for mercenary forces operating at a limited budget. They were more accurate at longer ranges. The logistical constraints were much less severe as the spent energy cells could always be recharged by the power generators of a combat carrier. In addition, there was no need to reserve a lot of cargo space for ammunition. However, their ability to hit fast-moving targets at a distance was not only dependent on the quality of the machines, but also the skill of their pilots. The traitor mech pilots may be crazy for embracing the cosmopolitan cause, but their skills were still just as good as any professional! Mercenaries tended to prize any skills related to survival a lot more. The Grimly mech pilots had not forgotten how to employ evasive maneuvers to make it as difficult as possible for their opponents to accurately land their energy beams on their agile machines! Pellicky grimaced as she observed the performance of the older heavy artillery mechs. The power of their attacks may be good, but it was useless if they weren't able to hit anything! "Stop trying to fight by yourself and work together with other ranged mechs to box in the enemies. Weave a net of energy beams around their mechs!" The heavy artillery mech pilots fortunately possessed sufficient training to employ this cooperative tactic. It took a few moments for them to coordinate their fire across multiple different mercenary forces, but soon the Grimly Brothers started to lose melee mechs at a faster rate than before. Unfortunately, it was not enough! By employing this tactic, it took multiple ranged mechs working in coordination to take down a single melee mech at a time. The remaining ones experienced much less pressure as a result and advanced with greater confidence. Yet after a short delay, the Ultimatums that were still in normal working conditions finally began to open fire! This time, the heavy artillery mechs did not employ their iconic Onyx Cannons. The massive super-heavy gauss cannon was more of a siege weapon than a fly swatter. The recently purchased mechs instead relied on their more reasonable and proportionate heavy artillery cannons to launch spaceburst shells at the incoming swarm of melee mechs at a steady firing rate. Silent booms erupted from the heavy artillery mechs as they alternated their fire to improve their ability to track rapidly-moving mechs. The space around the Grimly Brother mechs soon became engulfed in black puffs that seemingly burst out of nowhere and engulfed the immediate space with a combination of heat and pressure! It was a pity that the cheap shells bought by the Pellicky Praetorians lacked a homing function. It was generally too easy for ECM systems to blind them or fool them, so this feature was generally left out unless it was powerful enough to resist these countermeasures. Most of the spaceburst shells therefore reached their programmed distance and exploded into empty space. Yet as the Ultimatums continued to fire, they threw so many explosive shells into space that a few of them eventually managed to detonate close enough to an enemy mech! "Five down!" Two of the melee mechs struck by an Ultimatum artillery shell faltered in their flight as their exterior armor and multiple internal components received significant damage! The remaining three machines flew a bit further away from the exploding shells, enabling them to get away from the hit with light to moderate damage to their exterior. However, their flight systems still got affected, causing them to lose enough mobility for them to be easy targets for follow-up attacks! Pellicky grew more and more satisfied by the results of the regular Ultimatums. While the spaceburst shells lacked the force and penetration power to eliminate the mechs in a single blow, they more than made up for it by exploding across a wider volume of space. It was quite difficult for the melee mechs to get away unscathed if a shell exploded just close enough. The accuracy of the Ultimatums was fairly average, but Pellicky soon noticed that the attacks of three of the heavy artillery mechs struck with significantly greater power than the others. Each of their explosive shells never failed to cripple or outright disable an enemy melee mech as long as they came close enough! It just so happened that the three Ultimatums also happened to be stationed in the other remaining bunkers of the Hooligan Barke! "Find out why these three Ultimatums are dealing more effective damage than the rest of our new heavy artillery mechs!" It only took seconds before a bridge officer reported back. "The mech pilots report that it has become much easier for them to resonate with one of the design spirits, commander! For whatever reason, the activity generated by Ultimate One has produced an environment where it has become much more conducive to employ the Amplified Destruction embedded abilities of the new mechs. The Destroyer of Worlds is on our side!" More and more people started to believe in this when they witnessed the Ultimatums shredding the incoming enemy mechs. The Grimly Brothers were suffering significantly greater casualties than they wished, and it was all because of the excellent firepower of the Ultimatums! However, the excellent performance of the Ultimatums also attracted a lot of attention from their opponents! "The Bison Chive is under heavy fire! Alexander Grimly and his contingent of ranged mechs are focusing their fire on one of her bunkers! We... we just lost one of our Ultimatums!" "No!"