The Mech Touch novel Chapter 547

Chapter 547

The Vesians lost over forty mechs, which was more than enough to cause any commander to disengage their attack run . Not so for the commanding officer of the Frosty Meteors . Their mech doctrine emphasized an attitude of committing to an attack . No matter how many mechs they lost, they wouldn't break and scatter .

Why?

Because they were the Frosty Meteors . Billions of Vesian citizens looked up to them . They upheld their creed of getting hit but hitting back harder . In no way should any mech pilot of the Meteors falter before they reached their targets . Their myths said nothing about abortive attacks .

Still, the Flagrant Vandals made it harder for them to reach the stranded enemy vessels intact . Venerable O'Callahan picked off several mechs of the Frosty Meteors with disturbing regularity .

In front of the Parallax Star, no amount of armor could save a mech from doom . The famed heavy armor of the Frosty Meteors turned from asset into a liability .

The Caca Similas, their rifleman mechs, their Rwindo Secundus, their medium space knight, and their Charix Magansus, their medium lancer mech, all benefited from some of the finest mass-produced compressed armor from Venidse .

The benefits all of this armor brought to the Frosty Meteors enabled them to excel in frontal clashes .

However, getting pelted from all sides by the Flagrant Vandals was a whole different beast . Besides the unstoppable attack runs from the Parallax Star, the rest of the Vandals proved their mettle as well . The copies of the Caca Similas barely endured the focus fire from the harassasing Vandal mechs . Due to the low firing rate of their heavy ballistic rifles, the Caca Similas mechs barely managed to land a hit on the agile Vandal mechs .

However, any Vandal mech that did managed to get hit often went down for the count . Even a single hit was sufficient to disrupt them, leaving them open to follow-up attacks that instantly wrecked the disoriented mechs .

Vesians and Brighters screamed in fury as they let the battle consume their fears . None of them held back from doing their best in the battle . Every now and then a mech of the Frosty Meteors or the Flagrant Vandals spun out of formation with debris expanding from the wreckage like a cloud .

Sometimes, cockpits ejected in time, and these would navigate back to the safety of the combat carriers . Other times, the cockpits hadn't escaped in time, and their occupants suffered the fate of those who died in space, with their piloting suits breached and their bodies broken, frozen and decompressed .

The entire battle showcased the determination of both sides . Two different mech doctrines clashed against each other in a brutal confrontation . While it appeared the Flagrant Vandals held a decisive advantage with the help of their expert pilot, in fact they were running out of time!

They couldn't pick off the mechs of the Meteors fast enough!

Back at the command center, everyone who hadn't changed into their hazard suits had already done so . With the Frosty Meteors reaching the ships of the Vandals in just a couple more minutes, the odds of sustaining heavy damage was high .

Nobody could be sure how many ships would be left after this battle .

Ves worked frantically to discover any weak points in the Meteor mechs, yet nothing stood out that was worth focusing on except for their flight systems, and even those had been clad with armor .

"We're all out of cards . " He sighed . "Even though we're downing the Meteor mechs by the dozens, we don't have much time left . "

Iris placed her armored gauntlet over his own . Their suit armor clanked as they collided against each other . "You're wrong . We haven't put in everything in the battle . There is still one more decision that the Vandals can make . "

She looked onwards to Major Verle, who seemed to struggle with an invisible dilemma behind his helmet's faceplate .

Eventually, the commanding officer gave the fateful orders . "Go all in . No holding back . "

Those words set off a chain reaction as the captains of the different mech companies in the field received orders to switch up their tactics . Instead of using their superior mobility to peck at the edges of the Frosty Meteor formation, they had been ordered to commit to a charge!

The Inheritors took the lead . As the lightest, fastest and most expendable mechs of the Vandals, their pilots had become accustomed to their role as cannon fodder . They all spiralled towards the hedgehog-like formation of the Frosty Meteors .

In this, their excellent acceleration and agility preserved most of their mechs . The heavy ballistic rifles of the Caca Similas mechs fared poorly against such agile targets . It was as if they attempted to shoot a cannon against an annoying fly that flitted around them with zippy wings .

Once or twice, the rifleman mechs took out an Inheritor, but the Vandal mechs came as a swarm . It didn't take long for the Vandal mechs to reach their formation, and that was when hell broke loose .

"Inheritors, decoys!"

The Inheritors couldn't penetrate the Meteor's formation . All the melee mechs formed into a ball with their weapons and shields directed outwards . The ranged mechs hid safely inside as they shot their weapons through the gaps of the formations .

The light skirmishers instead turned into a nuisance . They harassed the melee mechs and baited them into making a fruitless attack . Very few Inheritors sustained any damage because they always managed to dodge long before the sluggish mechs finished swinging their weapons .

A short time later, the real attack arrived .

"Hellcats, impact!"

The Inheritor mechs at the rear of the charging Meteor formation dispersed just in time for a substantial volleys of missiles to crash against the hefty mechs . Their defensive formation held up against the explosions, but solid spikes of giant nails followed soon after . The kinetic energy behind the nails further unbalanced their defensive posture .

The Hellcats themselves arrived soon after . The hybrid mechs had been designed for shock attacks, and right now they attempted to pull one off against mechs that could arguably do much better!