The Mech Touch

The draw nearly came to an end when Group A finally welcomed its fourth battalion.

[The Heartfall Battalion is the most normal among the tournament participants in Group A. It is comprised of mechs and mech pilots from the Heartfall Security Enterprise, a large and renowned mercenary organization from the galactic heartland.]

[As is typical for mercenaries, their mech roster is fairly balanced and devoid of any eccentric machines. All of the mechs of the Heartfallers are fairly mobile. With nothing slowing them down, the Heartfall Battalion can maneuver quickly on any battlefield. This can help them occupy favorable terrain or attack their opponents from difficult angles.]

[That sounds good, but doesn't the Heartfall Battalion suffer a disadvantage in direct combat? Its mechs can move around all they want, but without any pronounced attack or defensive power, they will have difficulty in defeating opponents such as the Ginetzy Battalion.]

[This may be true, but the Heartfall Security Enterprise is not an ordinary mercenary organization. Any mercenary group that has managed to grow to this scale must have developed an effective and mature combat approach. Let us see how they fare against the three other battalions in Group A.]

The Larkinsons sighed in relief as their third opponent in the third round was not that scary. They were not afraid of strong opponents, but they were quite wary to fight against those with strange and unorthodox battle strategies.

The Ginetzy Battalion with its protected ranged mechs and the Quizlam Battalion with its stealth mechs were both opponents that no one wanted to fight against! They fought so differently from other mech forces that the Larkinsons had to make specific preparations.

"Luckily, we didn't end up in the group of death." 1

The so-called group of death referred to Group C, which just so happened to include the 1st Battalion.

The Zpoeze Battalion was set up by the strangely-named Zpoeze Group. Nobody knew much about this private organization other than that it was founded just half a year ago somewhere in the galactic center!

The Zpoeze Group did not have any prominent leaders. None of their members were famous back in the old galaxy. The galactic net didn't even contain any word about where this obscure organization got its funding and how it was able to obtain passage to the Red Ocean.

Of course, that hadn't stopped people from spreading gossip and unfounded rumors.

"I bet these pussies are secretly working for Rubarthan prince!"

"Why would such a powerful person bother to play with second-class mechs? It makes no sense at all! It's much more likely that the Zpoeze Group is secretly testing out new and unannounced mech models on behalf of a mech company."

"That makes no sense either. If mech designers want to test out their products, they can just do that directly."

"All of you are wrong! The Zpoeze Battalion is clearly a fake organization set up by the MTA! All of its pilots are most definitely mechers who got bored and decided to have some fun by bullying second-raters in this group tournament."

Millions of people speculated about the truth behind the mysterious Zpoeze Group. No matter what outlandish theories they came up with, few of them thought that it was just a normal organization from the galactic center!

For their part, the Zpoezers never bothered to address the rumors. They avoided every possible media interaction and did not seem to chase after fame like the other tournament participants.

That didn't lessen the public's attention on them. The harder they tried to remain in the shadows, the more they came under scrutiny. Their presence certainly brought a lot more variety to the G-Aena League!

Once the pompous opening ceremony had concluded, the Larkinsons no longer had any obligations for the day.

The schedule that the tournament had just passed on to them revealed that they would fight their first match tomorrow.

Several leaders met in a private meeting room at one of the temporary bases that were expressly reserved for tournament participants. The five-hundred mechs of the Larkinson Battalion were all housed in various underground hangar structures.

Commander Casella looked at the schedule and frowned.

"Our first match will pit us against the Ginetzy Battalion." She began. "This is bad for us due to one big reason. Whether we win or lose, the massed firepower of our first opponent will most likely ruin hundreds of our mechs. Even if we can recover or replace our machines, there are always wrecks that are too gone for us to put back together. If we want to save enough mechs for the finals, we must not only defeat the Ginetzy Battalion, but do so in a way that minimizes our cost. Do you have any ideas?"

The other commanders and strategists in the room remained silent for time.

Director Raella cleared her throat. "Let's figure out the story behind the Ginetzys first. Let's take a look at their record and what the galactic net has to say about the Ginetzy Family."

The family turned out to be a fellow immigrant group from the galactic rim. The Ginetzys happened to come from a completely different star sector where the locals heavily favored ranged combat due to special reasons.

The Ginetzys didn't randomly decide to throw out all of their melee mechs and rely solely on shielding mechs and artillery mechs one day. They inherited their mech doctrine from their native star sector which had brought this mode of warfare to a greater height.

"The Ginetzys shouldn't have fought against a lot of forces that mainly deploy melee mechs. Maybe we can take advantage of their lack of experience."

"I don't think it's that simple. If the Ginetzy Family thinks it is good enough to take part in the G-Aena League, then it should definitely have countermeasures ready. Many of our mechs will probably be torn to shreds before they can even reach a Ginetzy mech."

"Then how else should we beat these missile fanatics? We brought too few Transcendent Punishers and we have no specialized shielding mechs to beat the Ginetzys at their own game. Our other ranged mechs simply doesn't have the firepower to wear down the enemy energy shields fast enough before they get blown up by a flood of missiles."

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"Can't we hack or fool the missiles somehow?"

"Perhaps the Quizlams can do so, but electronic warfare is not our strength." Commander Casella stated. "We'll need the Black Cats for that, but they are not part of the Larkinson Battalion. Besides, even if they did join our lineup, they don't have the right tools."

The Black Cats possessed formidable information warfare capabilities if they were able to utilize the Blinding Banshee. It was impossible to leverage a capital ship in the G-Aena League, though. The mechs could only rely on their own capabilities to battle their opponents.

"No competitor is good at everything." Raella said. As the most authoritative voice on competitive mech battles, her opinion carried a lot of weight in strategy sessions. "Even if the Ginetzys have prepared a countermeasure against direct assaults, we shouldn't let that fear prevent us from pursuing the best possible strategy. It is a fact that the Ginetzy Battalion does not field any significant melee mechs. It is a fact that the Ginetzy mechs are all sitting ducks when they are attacked up close. It is a fact that our own battalion contains a lot of melee mechs. Let's not ignore these conditions and instead think about how we can smash these Ginetzys."

She set the right tone for this meeting. The Ginetzy Battalion might be nasty opponents, but their Larkinson Battalion was not weak!

They began to discuss specific countermeasures against the known methods of the Ginetzys.

"You know, these Ginetzys mainly large and relatively immobile landbound mechs. They don't even move when they launch their attacks. Our battle formations should easily be able to sweep them up en masse."

"That won't work as well as you think." Commander Casella shook her head. "We're not allowed to employ our death formation and the other ones can be blocked by energy shields. With how few mech pilots we have, we cannot be certain that our battle formation attacks will break through the enemy's defenses. Don't forget that the mech pilots that have engaged their battle networks will become exhausted when they are done."

"Hey, don't we have those new luminar crystal rifles? If I recall their specs, they have a firing mode that is especially effective against neutralizing energy shielding. What if we're able to overwhelm the main defensive measure of the Ginetzy Battalion faster than anyone expects? The Ginetzy mechs will become sitting ducks once their big barriers are gone!"

Many people's eyes lit up at that news.

Though the Larkinson Clan used to have problems supplying enough luminar crystal rifles to its mechs, that was no longer an issue once it pared down its fleet. The Larkinsons may have been forced to discard many of their living mechs, but the clan made sure to retain useful gear such as all of the luminar crystal rifles it produced!

Luminar crystal technology was one of the trump cards of the Larkinson Clan. Since Ves relied upon it to become a technological contributor to the MTA, there shouldn't be any legal problems with using it in this tournament.

"Okay, let's say we manage to break their energy shields quickly, thereby exposing their entire formation. Now what?"

"Our ranged mechs will switch firing modes and do their best to suppress the enemy missileer and cannoneer mechs." Another officer said. "In the meantime, our melee mechs will press forward and cross the distance as fast as possible so that they can tear down these threatening ranged mechs. We can ignore the shielding mechs since they're just auxiliary mechs. Even if they can put up a fight, they probably aren't very good at it, so we only have to divert a small amount of mechs to pin them down." 1

"I don't know. It sounds too simple. No one who has managed to enter the Red Ocean is that simple. The Ginetzys have to be readying additional surprises against these occurrences."

"What if… they blow up their own explosive payloads?"

That was a terrible scenario! If they utilized their missiles and explosive shells as mines, they could easily blow up both themselves and all of the melee mechs that had been drawn into their formation!

"Those bastards!"

"Even if we win, we'll lose all of our mechs as a result!"

"This strategy is suicidal if employed outside of the arena!"

The Ginetzy Family would only have guts to employ such a destructive strategy in a place like the Fortas Major Arena. The venue was packed with advanced technologies that made sure that no one actually died.

Since the cost of self-destruction was not that serious, then it made sense for the Ginetzys to employ such a trap!

As long as the Ginetzys won the match, they had a chance of getting further in the G-Aena League. The top prizes more than made up for any material damage they might suffer!

"So we're not going to overrun the enemy position with melee mechs?"

Casella shook her head. "Let's not rule any option out. The Ginetzys might not resort to this measure, but even if they do, we can beat as long as we have a plan. Let us go through our options. We have less than one day to prepare, but so does the enemy."

The Larkinsons tried to make good use of the time before the start of their massive arena match.

The next day, the Fortas Major Arena became packed again as everyone eagerly looked forward to enjoying a full day of large-scale battles!

The Larkinsons performed last-minute checks on their mechs before they entered the massive arena field.

Many of them were nervous. Others were excited.

The Quint was eager to defeat the Ginetzy Battalion. Commander Casalla could practically feel the battle lust from her own mech!

Equipped with a custom-built luminar crystal rifle, the masterwork mech did not intend to sit in the back for this battle!