The Mech Touch novel Chapter 322

The moment the three pirate-affiliated expert mechs moved into action, the rest of their ilk regained their courage. Unless an ace or god pilot came along, expert mech pilots enjoyed an unparallelled amount of regard. Their presence alone lifted up the pirates and depressed their opponents.

Ghanso Larkinson shivered as his memories cast back at the time when he almost died to an expert mech. Of the three incoming mechs, he recognized one of them as the foreign-owned swordsman mech.

As a light mech, the sophisticated swordsman mech excelled in both speed and offense. It was a one-trick pony that relied on its devastating speed to slice apart any mech in its way and avoid anything that posed a threat.

Right now, that light mech took a backseat to the rifleman mech at the center of their formation. The expert rifleman pilot had already begun to shoot at the Mech Corps with his precision focused laser rifle.

Even at such a ludicrous distance, the expert marksman never failed to miss a target. To consistently hit mechs after mechs when it moved so fast was a testament to the pilot’s skill and the mech’s advanced targeting technologies.

"Get your heads back together, men!" One of their commanding officer spoke over the channel. "Expert mechs aren’t invincible. They can be damaged, hindered and deterred just like any other mech! Pirate experts are the lowest of the low. They have forsaken all of their honor and dignity to pursue scraps of wealth. They are nothing compared to our conviction! We are the Volari Starhawks! We are the spaceborn might of the Republic!"

"For the Republic!"

"For the Starhawks!"

"Down with the pirate experts!"

Somehow, Ghanso got caught up in the excitement. His fears faded away once he realized he had thousands of brothers and sisters at his side. "Experts can go toe-to-toe against a hundred mechs, but fighting thousands at once is a tall order even for them. We have our own experts as well!"

Half of the Starhawks split up to deter the other pirates with long-ranged fire, while the remaining half tried to stall the approaching experts. Ghanso tried to recall his anti-expert training.

"Spaceborn expert mechs are fast and durable no matter their weight-class. As wasteful as it sounds like, the best way to prevent them from acting with impunity is to throw as much firepower in their direction as possible."

Many squads already started spraying their rifles and cannons in the direction of the experts. Unfortunately, the trio’s space knight flew forward and deployed a rectangular tower shield that extended into a half-dome after deploying extendable side plates. The entire shield also started glowing as some kind of energy screen set in.

"Flank the experts but watch your firing lines! Follow your assigned plots!"

More than a thousand mechs dispersed into a sphere that tried to envelop the incoming expert mechs. Despite the naked challenge, the pirate experts refused to be cowed by such tricks. They slammed head-long into the sphere. Dozens of mechs blew up to accurate high-powered laser fire and thunderous sword strokes.

"Open fire according to your sequence!"

The mechs that made up the sphere fired their weapons as soon as they received a special signal. Enough mechs fired at the same time to pressure the enveloped experts from each direction. They only stopped firing when the signal went out, which usually happened if they risked hitting a friendly mech on the other side of the sphere.

Though accidents occasionally happened, the tactic produced solid results. The expert space knight tried and failed to cover the expert rifleman mech. As one of the more fragile expert mechs, the rifleman mech started to sustain significant damage to its rear armor.

However, its rear armor’s toughness still surpassed the frontal armor of a regular heavy mech. The rifleman mech didn’t go down that easily.

In the meantime, the swordsman mech diverged from its comrades and started to assail the sphere with constant high-speed passes. Each time the expert light mech passed a mech, its swords managed to bisect them in two.

Many of the mechs that tried to target the light mech failed to land a hit. The mech was so remarkably fast and agile that even a hundred mechs failed to land a blow through saturation fire. The expert pilot skillfully moved his finely-tuned machine like an acrobat that always managed to find the tiniest gap in the volleys thrown in his way.

"This slippery bastard!" Ghanso cursed at Old Man Alex’s killer. He had no idea why this foreign expert sided with the pirates, but he promised to himself that he wouldn’t let this expert get away with his slaughtering this time. "Die!"

His Vhedra took up a stationary position in space, which turned him into a sitting duck. However, only by reducing all of his frame’s movement-related vibrations to a minimum could he ensure the highest accuracy.

"I can do this. I hit him once, I can hit him again."

The last time he scored a hit, the light mech charged at him head-on. It didn’t require too much technique to land a lucky hit.

This time was different because the expert flew back and forth throughout the sphere formation. Ghanso had to tilt his rifle in much greater angles in order draw a bead on the light mech.

As he tried to gain a feel for the light mech’s dodging patterns, he dialed up his laser rifle’s power to the maximum. A regular medium-powered laser beam didn’t cut it against this opponent. Even an expert light mech boasted enough armor to put an advanced medium knight to shame.

Once his mech received permission to fire, Ghanso pulled the trigger.

The laser beam went wide! It missed the light mech by more than ten meters due to the expert pilot’s abrupt maneuvers. The beam instantly travelled onwards into deep space for many light-seconds, growing ever wider until it scattered out of focus.

"Damn it!"

The previous time he hit the light mech turned out to be a fluke. Still, Ghanso tried to regain his calm and returned to his sniper state.

By now, the light mech destroyed seventeen mechs in a row. Fortunately, the expert pilot never deviated from his targets once he began his approach, so many of unlucky mech pilots ejected early.

Nevertheless, the Volari Starhawks kept getting chewed with hardly any results in return. The laser rifleman covered by the space knight continued to disable mech after mech with his lance-like laser beams that burned straight through compressed armor with each shot.

Ghanso took a deep breath and focused on landing his second shot. Once he pulled the trigger, his beam missed again, but only by five meters this time.

"So close!"

He made the right prediction this time, but his mech failed to keep its rifle steady. His nerves grew increasingly frayed as he checked the heat levels of his rifle.

He specifically applied to wield this model. It boasted a vastly higher maximum output capacity at the cost of generating an extreme amount of heat. His rifle could only take three more shots before it automatically entered a forced cooldown cycle.