Chapter 6186 Josh & Franklin The battlefield turned into an entire mess. Orbital fortresses continued to get breached by the siege weapon brought forth by the invading aliens. Countless engineers and technicians worked hard to control the damage and allow the alloy bulwarks to last a little longer. The longer these fortresses remained operational, the more enemy fire they attracted. The fortresses were also able to employ their own turreted gun batteries to retaliate against the distant enemy warships. Alas, the volunteers who had all chosen to stay behind in this doomed star system could not do much to undo the catastrophic damage inflicted by the invading enemies. There were too many enemy warships! Even if more of them adopted an anti-mech weapon configuration, they still possessed enough primary armaments to wear down the structure of the exposed space fortresses. Meanwhile, the large capital ship that bore a mighty spinal cannon accumulated a lot of energy before launching an extremely penetrating transphasic energy beam at the next fortress! "That's the sixth space fortress that this siege vessel has broken open! We are losing our strongest defensive assets far too soon! Why haven't we eliminated this ship yet?! She should be broken up into billions of pieces at this time." "We can't, sir! Our teleportation strikes are being hindered by the alien versions of interdiction fields. Our ship-killer torpedoes are always intercepted before they reach their target. As for our more direct energy and kinetic attacks, the orvens have placed multiple capital ships around their siege vessel to intercept our direct fire." "What of the mechs we sent out?!" "Our second-class mechs are being entangled by at least twice their number of enemy phasefighters. Our first-class mechs are being hindered by ten times the number of elite orven phasefighters of a model that we have never encountered before. Our observations and analysis indicate that they are expressly designed to counter first-class mechs." "Give me the data on those elite phasefighters! Are they individually on par with our first-class multipurpose mechs?" "No, sir. They are only a fraction as powerful and expensive. However, the gap in performance is not so crushing anymore. The aliens are able to field many more elite phasefighters and rely on their superior numbers to destroy or at least stall our first-class mechs." The first-class multipurpose mechs that were supposed to hinder or destroy the alien siege vessel could not proceed any further. So many elite phasefighters swarmed them from every direction that the outnumbered RA mechs would probably get mowed down in quick succession if they forced their way through. Despite their excellent defenses and the use of shield link technology, the orven pilots were not deterred by the superior mechs. They all knew that as long as they landed enough attacks onto any mech, they would steadily be able to deplete the excellent protection that kept the first-class machines safe up to this point. The first-class mech pilots were all smart and perceptive enough to understand they could not remain active on the battlefield for long if they tried to push towards their objective. They had no choice but to alter their trajectories and move as unpredictably as possible in order to avoid getting struck too many times. Their collective azure energy shields could resist a lot of attacks, but everything had a limit! Even then, the first-class multipurpose mechs truly found it unbearable to deal with so many elite phasefighters at once. Their defenses and mobility were not that impressive, but the aliens had massively increased the phasewater content of their energy cannons, allowing the fighter craft to inflict slight but real harm on the famous first-class mechs of the Red Association! If that wasn't bad enough, the elite phasefighters were also equipped with expensive but threatening transphasic missiles. Any first-class mech that showed the slightest sign of faltering instantly became targeted by at least 5 transphasic missiles. If they impacted their target and detonated at the same time, the resulting explosions were powerful and violent enough to overcome the upper limits of the mech's shield link module, thereby causing the machine to become exposed and a lot more vulnerable! The superior armor systems of the first-class multipurpose mech should have given it a chance to disengage and retreat to safety, but many of the surrounding phasefighters behaved as if they smelled blood in the water. Over fifty elite phasefighters instantly prioritized the vulnerable mech and fired as many transphasic energy beams at the poor mech as possible. Unless the mech possessed a special defensive module that still remained working, there was no way a first-class mech could withstand the combined firepower of so many potent elite phasefighters for long! "Damn!" "These elite orven phasefighters don't have that many alien design characteristics. It is too human. The cosmopolitans must have designed this model for the orven race!" A human design was ultimately responsible for helping the orven kill first-class multipurpose mechs in a much more cost-effective manner than before! 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶 It was not as if the orvens were unable to eliminate first-class multipurpose mechs. They just relied on a lot of huge and technologically advanced warships in order to crush the much smaller mechs. As long as the advanced alien vessels directed enough massed firepower in their direction, even first-class mechs could be mowed down en masse! This was similar yet also different. It still took too many phasefighters to defeat a single first-class multipurpose mech, but the disparity between the two was a lot less lopsided than before! All of this was of hardly any relevance to Josh Ketter at the moment. The melee mech pilot did not have the attention to spare on what was happening further away from his mech. Now that his Fey Fianna joined the fray in earnest, his machine immediately came under pressure by getting targeted by over a dozen phasefighters as they circled and weaved around. The good news was that the phasefighters only made opportunistic attacks as the Fey Fianna whenever it was convenient. The bad news was that there were so many enemy craft that the hyper energy shields were getting drained at a rapid rate. "THERE ARE TOO MANY!" "I know! We need to catch up to one of the phasefighters. The orven fighter pilots are at least reluctant to commit friendly fire." It was not too difficult for his living mech to catch up to a heavy phasefighter, especially when the orven pilot did not initially pay too much attention to the Fey Fianna. By the time that Josh's mech came close enough, it was already too late for the heavy phasefighter to shake off the threat! The Fey Fianna thrust out its spear with both hands multiple times, causing the transphasic energy shield to flare. At the same time, the two space suppressor fey stacked their effects and caused the enemy fighter craft to lose most of the benefit of phasewater technology! Not just the transphasic energy shield, but also the transphasic energy cannons lost a lot of their impressive performance amplification. To a melee mech pilot like Josh Ketter, the offensive value of the two space suppressor fey exceeded that of any armed fey. That did not mean that Josh rejected additional assistance. "Franklin!" "On it! Do you know how difficult it is to avoid all of the attacks launched in my mech's direction?!" Further away, Franklin's rifleman mech evaded another barrage of energy beams before aiming its weapon directly at Josh's target. Bright and hot positron beams struck the weakened transphasic energy shield, causing it to deteriorate at an even faster pace! If the rifleman mech attacked the heavy phasefighter by itself, it wouldn't be able to inflict nearly as much damage. Only when a melee mech like Josh's Fey Fianna brought its short-ranged space suppressors to the enemy was it possible for a non-transphasic ranged mech to strike so hard! The two mechs were pretty decent if they fought by themselves, but the two became much deadlier if they fought together! As the compromised energy shield finally collapsed, the heavy phasefighter tried its best to distance itself from the Fey Fianna, but it was too late! The thicker frame and outer plating did little to stop the Fey Fianna's spear from punching through and destroying the powerful engines that kept the craft mobile. The penetrating spear strike must have hit something important, because secondary explosions soon blew the heavy phasefighter apart! "ANOTHER ONE DOWN. WE ARE STARTING TO EARN A PROFIT." "It's not enough." Josh scowled. "You missed Franklin's share. We still need to eliminate more!" He checked the condition of the hyper energy shields. Despite rotating them to give the other shields time to recover, their overall conditions had deteriorated to a dangerous extent. The constant attacks hitting his Fey Fianna's hyper energy shields worsened his mood and made him feel as if he was getting short on time. There was no reprieve on this battlefield. "More!" His Fey Fianna flew towards another heavy phasefighter that was putting a lot of pressure on a friendly swordsman mech. The pilots of the two mechs did not even need to communicate in order to work in conjunction with each other. The swordsman mech altered its trajectory and curved around to make it more difficult for the heavy phasefighter to avoid the incoming Fey Fianna. The orven pilot did not even realize that his craft was getting led into a trap. This was because his phasefighter already managed to inflict serious damage onto the swordsman mech. The fighter craft only needed to put a bit more effort to finish off the machine entirely. When the phasefighter finally alerted the orven pilot to the danger, the alien knew he would get in trouble unless he decided to disengage as well. The orven grew furious. He wanted to add another kill to his name. Instead of turning around to avoid getting within spear-striking distance of the incoming machine, the alien pilot instead made use of the missile lock onto the swordsman mech and launched the remaining transphasic missile that he had left. "NO!" The transphasic missile flew out at rapid speed and only had to traverse a relatively short distance before blasting apart the damaged and vulnerable swordsman mech! A hefty explosion spread lots of debris in each direction! Even if the mech pilot of the swordsman mech activated the eject command, the cockpit would not have survived! "Franklin!" "On it, Josh!" If the distance between the phasefighter and its target was a lot larger, then Franklin might have been able to shoot the warhead down. Alas, the interval was too short for the rifleman mech to intervene. Josh and Franklin could only take revenge by ganging up on the offending heavy phasefighter with the same measures they utilized before. Though the phasefighter went down easily, its destruction hardly gave any consolation to the two mech pilots. Similar tragedies were happening everywhere around them. So many mechs and mech pilots perished with each passing minute that there was little that the two could do to turn the tide. Just as the duo sought to eliminate another heavy phasefighter, they suddenly received priority orders from a mech colonel. [RA FIRST-CLASS MULTIPURPOSE MECHS ARE UNABLE TO COMPLETE THEIR SOLE OBJECTIVE. EVERY ELITE MECH UNIT MUST CEASE TO FIGHT AGAINST THE LESSER PHASEFIGHTERS AND FOCUS ON HELPING THE RA MECHS ELIMINATE THE ELITE PHASEFIGHTERS.] Josh's expression became grim. If the elite mech units were not able to suppress the alien heavy phasefighters, then a lot more second-class mechs would get eliminated as a consequence! However, Josh did not question his orders. He knew that the purpose of the RA mechs was far more important than any other consideration. The mechs piloted by Josh, Franklin and other elite mech pilots all tried to disengage from the big fight, with varying degrees of success. The elite mechs that were able to get away with assistance of other mech units soon proceeded to fly towards the center where a much more intensive fight took place! "These phasefighters are too strong!"