The Mech Touch novel Chapter 768

When the Flagrant Swordmaidens understood how difficult it would be to penetrate the astral wind, they treated it as both a benefit and a detriment to their survival.

The higher-dimensional particles never physically touched anything material, but they blocked any form of scans or signals from penetrating past a hundred kilometers. On land this distance spanned a small province, but in space it might as well be a couple of footsteps away.

This condition benefited the Flagrant Swordmaidens because it would be exceptionally difficult for the other forces that entered the Aeon Corona System to band up and track them down.

The disadvantage was that if an enemy force ever succeeded in bumping into the Flagrant Swordmaidens, the fight started right off the bat at close range in spaceborn combat terms!

Certain types of enemies fared better or worse in close-ranged combat.

The Flagrant Vandals for example fielded a relatively balanced spaceborn mech roster, though they slightly put more emphasis melee mechs.

Lydia’s Swordmaidens on the other hand leaned heavily on melee mechs. Though each swordsman mech had the ability to sheathe their swords and wield spare ballistic rifles when they encountered sandmen, they usually chose to flee if they ever encountered a whiff of the aliens.

Unfortunately, the sandmen almost literally bumping into their patrols had left that choice off the table! Their forces approached far too close to each other to contemplate a withdrawal!

"The sandman escort vessel has entangled two of our Inheritors! One pilot has ejected in time but the other cockpit has been caught!"

Anyone caught by the sandmen would get crushed by the sentient sand particles as they sought to absorb as much energy as possible. Getting into melee range against any sandmen conglomeration was a recipe for disaster!

"Inform Captain Rakeshir to shift our formation away from the trajectory of the sandmen!"

The fleet turned around a moment later, every ship trying to curve to starboard in order to evade the lone sandmen escort that had very likely informed the rest of its buddies that it had encountered human machines to snack upon!

Major Verle quickly issued a set of orders that basically amounted to following a modified contingency plan in the event a sandmen force ambushed the fleet. All melee mechs had to withdraw and if possible exchange their melee weapons for simplified ballistic and kinetic rifles!

In the meantime, half of the Akkara heavy cannoneers started readying their physical cannons while shutting off power to their laser cannons.

Laser weapons generally inflicted limited damage against the sandmen due to their excellent heat conductivity. Dealing localized spot damage was nearly impossible as the individual sandmen constantly shifted around and diverted heat away!

Even the Parallax Star gave up its lance in exchange for a customized railgun that Miss Lisbeth once fabricated as an emergency option.

Ves didn’t want to admit it, but for once, Miss Lisbeth’s insane drive towards fabricating as many spare parts and options as possible actually turned out to be useful. The railgun packed a lot of punch, though the energy it expended and the high degree of wear and tear incurred in its use made it a very expensive weapon to deploy.

Right now, every single credit put into its construction and payment would be worth it if it gave Venerable Xie a powerful means of fighting back against the sandmen.

Sandmen vessels fared poorly against single powerful physical attacks. Though their fluid amalgamations were capable of absorbing a lot of shock, the energy constructs that animated them could only sustain so much shock before they fractured, essentially killing the consciousness that animated the sandmen.

"The Parallax Star will be ready to deploy in three minutes!"

"Clear the firing lines for our Akkara mechs! Tell the laggards to move their metal butts out of the way!"

The sandman escort ship had moved quickly in chasing after the fleeing Inheritor mechs. Armed with double knives or daggers, the light skirmishers fared exceptionally poorly against a sandmen vessel that engulfed anything that strayed close enough as their main means of attack!

Although the Inheritors moved fast, the sandman ship somehow managed to move even faster through their reactionless sublight propulsion! Two more mechs almost got caught, but managed to confuse the sandman ship by splitting up in diametrically opposite directions, causing its reigning intelligence to pause in indecision.

"Detecting several new sandmen signatures! Sir, we have made positive identification of their fleet type! It’s a low-intelligence sandmen fleet based around a single cruiser-sized mothership and twelve frigate-sized escort vessels!"

The sandmen for some reason loved the number six, and their more basic fleets often deployed escort vessels in multiples of six. A twelve escort fleet posed a significant threat to the Flagrant Swordmaidens, especially if all twelve ships as well as the massive mothership managed to get into point-blank range!

Whatever Flagrant Swordmaidens did, they had to stop the sandmen ships from going any closer!

"Order the Akkara mechs to lay down suppressive fire. I want all of the sandmen frigates facing a storm of firepower!"

Half of the Akkara mechs immediately received new targeting orders, prompting their mech pilots to unleash their ballistic and kinetic cannons. Around a quarter of the rounds hit their mark, causing the sandmen frigates to encounter difficulties in closing in on the fleet that desperately tried to turn aside.

An increasing amount of Akkara mechs came online and started to add to the soundless barrage. Half of the mech pilots had remained on standby in their cockpits so could immediately jump into action, but the other half had to be roused from their sleep, causing them to be delayed for a critical moment!

A few other ranged mechs already deployed on patrol added their firepower, with mixed success. The fast and agile sandmen frigates moved as nimbly as a light mech despite massing much more than them. They zigged and zagged towards the Flagrant Swordmaiden fleet in an inexorable advance even as the frequent hits chipped away globs of lifeless sand.

The sandmen ships were undeterred!

One of the most annoying things about the sandmen was that they knew no fear, at least not the way other sentients experienced. Damaging them caused their amalgamations to grow smaller, but that only made them faster and more agile. They were like mechs outfitted with modular armor in that sense. Only by crushing them down until they reached the size of a melon did they finally become inert.

By now, the Misty Slashers, the Inheritors, the Hellcats and many other mechs launched out of the combat carriers as fast as possible armed with cheap backup rifles. While they packed less of a punch than anyone would want, they were cheap to procure and did not require too much complexity to operate.

Any humanoid mech could make use of them, even melee mechs. Their accuracy left a lot to be desired, but the large sandmen ships were easy to hit at medium range.