The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1570

Chapter 1570 Abnormal Sandman Fleets

The Coman Federation was splintering apart. Having long adopted a superior attitude, the transhuman fanatics hadn't been able to solicit the Bright Republic or other neighboring states to assist in its defense.

The Comen had been left on their own to face the brunt of the sandman invasion. No matter how much they trusted their bionic augmentations, implants and artificial limbs hardly made any difference in fighting off the sandmen!

In fact, the sandman devoured the heavily-augmented Comen much more eagerly than normal people!

Engulfing flesh and blood hardly yielded anything useful to the silicon-based lifeforms. They would much rather eat energy sources and valuable metals, something which most bionic augmentations possessed in spades!

Something unexpected happened. The sandmen devoured the Coman Federation with much more fervor than anyone initially expected! Their eagerness to wipe out the Comen led them to attack their star systems with a bit more urgency than normal.

The increased pressure was too much for the Federation. Not only did the increased pressure led to a greater number of desertions and flight, the Comen also lost their star systems at a rapid rate.

Within a month, the Coman Federation as an independent state ceased to exist! All that was left was a collection of splintering star systems which became engulfed in total chaos! Every Coman left behind desperately tried to flee their crumbling homes, but all the starships of the Federation had already left by now!

Countless Comen died from the tides of sand every day. The messages and recordings transmitted by the sobbing civilians flooded the galactic net. It was as if almost every doomed person wanted to leave proof of their existence.

Even if they died, they would not be forgotten! Their names, faces and voices were all included in a virtual memorial that continuously registered an alarming influx of entries!

Due to the rapid collapse of the Coman Federation, the Bright Republic began to experience more than a couple of sporadic sandmen fleets.

The Bright Republic's war against the sandman had commenced in earnest.

During the initial battles, existing rifleman mechs formed the Republic's mainstay. These mechs already existed long before the crisis and their mech pilots spent years to get in tune with the machines.

Only some of the new rifleman mechs saw battle. Nonetheless, their performance during these initial battles already proved that they were sufficient for the job.

Against the sandmen, the quality of the mech did not matter as much. As long as a mech could fly in space and fire out kinetic or ballistic rounds, then they were already useful!

Having learned from the lessons of the states that fell before, the Bright Republic allocated most of its resources into defeating the sandmen in space. While the government still fortified the surfaces of important planets such as Bentheim, it largely gave up on reinforcing the surfaces of lesser planets.

It was just too difficult to defeat the sandman under the various limitations of landbound combat!

Everyone started to put more emphasis on spaceborn mechs that could fight the sandmen at a distance.

Mechs like the Desolate Soldier began to showcase their capabilities during actual combat.

In one corner of the Bright Republic, a half-company of Desolate Soldiers calmly fired at the sandmen in steady, synchronized volleys. The sandman vessel they targeted continually lost significant chunks of sand as the explosive shells blasted them out into space!

However, the scale of the explosions paled in comparison to the mass and volume of a sandman vessel!

Not only that, but there were six of them orbiting an even greater sandman mothership!

The only upside to fighting a standard sandman fleet like this was that their ranged offensive power was very poor. Though the sandman vessels fired powerful lasers, their firing rate left much to be desired.

This gave the twenty-or-so Desolate Soldiers plenty of time to whittle down the advancing sandmen.

"Keep up the fight, men." A mercenary captain shouted over the communication channel. "There's a vulnerable planet behind us! If the sandmen reach the surface, all of the people who are living there will die!"

His words gained more strength due to the collective auras working together to amplify their sense of duty.

Compared to the other units resisting the sandmen that invaded this rural star system, the half-company of Desolate Soldiers immediately distinguished themselves.

The Rescue Particle Generator module placed at their 'hearts' caused them to look especially valiant. While the mechs themselves weren't very impressive, the orange modules released bright red vapor trails that marked their passage in space.

With around twenty trails forming in unison, the half-company of Desolate Soldiers clearly attracted the most attention!

Their performance stood in stark contrast to the other units participating in this battle. Only the small detachment from the Mech Corps fought the sandmen more valiantly than the commercial mechs!

"We are the light in the dark! We shall not let a bunch of commercial mechs upstage our military machines! Fight harder!"

The competition from the Desolate Soldiers spurred the detachment from the Mech Corps to fight even harder!

However, not every unit was doing so well right now.

Even if the other units were made up of more expensive mechs, the fear and stress of battle against an implacable foe such as the sandmen took a significant toll on their courage.

Lasers struck out every couple of minutes. These bright red beams were far stronger than the typical laser beams fired by mechs. They were so powerful in fact that the beams often melted through the torso of a mech, instantly wrecking it and harvesting the life of the mech pilot inside the vaporized cockpit!

"Larry! No!"

"Hang on, Cassie! Keep firing your rifle! Larry wouldn't want you to break down in the middle of a battle!"

Every mech pilot participating in the current battle had to keep their composure. That was getting harder and harder to do as the strain on them increased.

Each bright laser beam that lit up the battlefield promised guaranteed death upon getting hit!

Just as a formation of mercenaries began to grow increasingly more ragged, a couple of Desolate Soldiers arrived.

The reinforcement of a couple of mechs ordinarily wouldn't achieve much of an effect. In fact, adding unfamiliar elements to another outfit was usually a recipe for disaster!