The Mech Touch

The battle against the Sundered Phalanx initially proceeded according to Jannzi's expectations.

The massive, cumbersome battle lines of the Hex Army and the Sundered Phalanx collided against each other. The mech units from both sides then proceeded to grind each other down like they had always done during the Komodo War.

It was not as if brilliant commanders from both sides attempted to pull off clever plans that allowed them to catch their enemies off-guard or outflank vulnerable enemy units.

However, when the scale of mech battles had grown to such an enormous extent, everything pretty much turned into a numbers game.

Even individual expert mechs weren't able to single-handedly affect the outcome of a massive mech battle anymore. The times where heroes such as Venerable Stark or Venerable Joshua could single-handedly collapse an entire enemy mech force were largely over now that the Larkinson Clan took part in battles of this scale.

Only ace pilots such as Patriarch Reginald Cross possessed enough overwhelming power to single-handedly determine victory or defeat amidst the collisions between hundreds of thousands of mechs!

When Venerable Jannzi witnessed the rapidly increasing scope of the battle unfolding before her eyes, she felt more insignificant than ever.

"DON'T GET DISTRACTED, PARTNER. THE ENEMY RANGED MECHS ARE DIRECTING THEIR FIREPOWER TOWARDS OUR SHIPS. WE MUST DO OUR BEST TO LIMIT THE DAMAGE."

"Right."

Jannzi's initial participation in the battle was not that exciting, but that was nothing new to knight mech pilots. They chose their specialization with the knowledge that they would have to perform some of the least desirable combat duties on the battlefield.

No mech pilot liked to put his or her mech in the line of fire and allow their machine to get pummeled without being able to counterattack.

A part of Jannzi even wished that the Design Department added a pair of shoulder-mounted guns to the Shield of Samar so that she could keep herself busy during times like these.

It was a pity that the clan neglected to do so during the latest upgrade round of the Shield of Samar.

The mech designers who upgraded her expert mech a few years ago largely preoccupied themselves with replacing the outdated internal parts and systems with modern, high-end heartland-level alternatives.

Many performance parameters shot up after this upgrade. Jannzi was particularly happy with the massive improvements to the mobility of her battle partner.

Aside from replacing the old and rather inadequate flight system with a heavy-duty model that produced much more thrust power at the cost of increased energy consumption, the Shield of Samar also gained the option of equipping its own minidrive!

The Skidrock AF-2 Heavy-Duty Combat Drive was yet another miniature warp drive that Morton Tech developed for the Larkinson Clan.

Compared to the Stiletto equipped by the Dark Zephyr provided by the same high-end equipment developer, the Skidrock Drive was built like a tank!

Larger and more powerful than any other combat drive developed for the Larkinson Clan, the Skidrock Drive possessed the power and the resilience to propel a heavy space knight across the battlefield and take a beating if necessary.

Of course, the Skidrock Drive also integrated a whopping 800 grams of phasewater in order to effectively enable warp travel for a machine as large and heavy as the Shield of Samar!

Venerable Jannzi did not expect her expert space knight to win a race against the Dark Zephyr anytime soon!

The Skidrock Drive was already sufficient for her needs.

In fact, she only activated it once for a brief moment of time when she needed to reposition from the Spirit of Bentheim to the Gorgoneion in order to provide cover for the Amaranto.

The only downside of the new Skidrock Drive was that mounting it on the back of the Shield of Samar prevented the Amaranto from merging its frame with the expert space knight.

This was not a serious loss. The Amaranto was still able to fire its Instrument of Vengeance while huddling behind the Shield of Samar. The two expert mechs just weren't able to share certain resources with each other.

After that, Jannzi returned to her original duty of guarding the flagship of the Larkinson Clan against concentrated enemy attacks.

Though she would have liked to keep Venerable Stark company for a longer period of time, her Shield of Samar would just get battered after enduring one attack after another from powerful enemy expert mechs such as the Star of Liberation.

Massive armored capital ships like the Graveyard and the Gorgoneion were designed to absorb as much firepower as possible. It was much easier and cheaper to replace their damaged hull plating than to fix up a powerful masterwork expert mech such as the Shield of Samar.

Jannzi waited for the moment where her defenses would truly be put to the test.

As the Battle of Pima Prime entered its middle stages, a lot of Larkinson expert mechs began to get embroiled in their respective bouts against the enemy counterparts.

The Sundered Phalanx all fielded their own collection of powerful and modern expert mech. Many of them possessed transphasic weapons and armor systems, which allowed them to give most Larkinson expert mechs a run for their money.

"Still, it looks like this battle is largely proceeding as expected." Jannzi concluded.

The Flagrant Vandals along with Venerable Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson managed to overrun the right flank a lot faster than anyone expected!

The fall of the famous Dukes and Hawkes duo along with the retreat of other expert mechs stationed on this side of the battlefield spelled the inevitable defeat of the Nidin Vergers and other nearby light units.

However, not everything was proceeding smoothly for the attacking forces.

The units stationed at the left flank were encountering a lot more resistance. The reason for that was that the Sundered Phalanx stationed considerably stronger expert mechs at that side.

The Larkinson Army soon came under much greater pressure due to several reasons.

First, the Tensars began to target Commander Casella Ingvar. This made the battle in the center a lot more complicated as the Arma Tensar and the Fila Tensar put heavy pressure on the only command-oriented expert mech of the Larkinson Clan!

Casella had little choice but to stop Commandeering ordinary Larkinson mech units so that she could channel much of her energies to her brother instead!

Venerable Jannzi would have preferred to reinforce the Ingvar siblings and help the Minerva brave the threat from the highly mobile and highly dangerous pair of enemy expert rifleman mechs!

Yet before she could do so, the main fleet suddenly faced a huge threat!

A single hostile high-tier expert mech broke through the faltering left flank and approached the main fleet at high speed!

The speed and power of this expert space knight along with fire support from the rear helped the threatening machine overcome every challenger in its way.

Though it wasn't an ace mech, its combat strength was so formidable that no other mech unit or expert mech could halt its advance!

For a moment, the Eye of Ylvaine along with other friendly ranged mech units attempted to intercept this powerful threat, but the offensive space knight either evaded the incoming attacks or easily resisted them with its resonance shield or its physical round shield.

General Verle quickly opened a communication channel with the Shield of Samar.

"Venerable Jannzi, the Skorpion Kommando is swinging in our direction. It is highly likely that Venerable Oskar Virathon is aiming to distract us and force us to recall some of our troops to save our fleet. Do not let him get his way and stop him from threatening our fleet. Do not let it get close enough to threaten our flagship!"

"Roger that, general. I am on my way. I can only stall it for a time, though. I will need additional help in order to restrain it further and tear it down."

"We will do our best to have Venerable Isobel Kotin back you up, but there is great demand for her firepower. We are in the process of recalling a part of the Battle Criers. They are on their way to give you aid."

"Do not leave me with the Skorpion Kommando for too long. A high-tier expert mech is too strong of an opponent."

Jannzi could already sense the threat from a distance. The Skorpion Kommando was one of the most threatening enemy machines alongside the Star of Liberation and the Shockshell.

The performance of the latter two gave her a much greater understanding of the threat posed by the Sundered Phalanx's high-tier expert mechs. The mechs themselves were constructed fairly well and their veteran expert pilots were absolutely at home on the battlefield!

"Let's go, Sammie."

"I WILL NOT TOLERATE THE INTRUSION OF ANY ENEMY SPACE KNIGHT." The Shield of Samar voiced.

The living expert mech already possessed a greater desire to defeat the Skorpion Kommando than its expert pilot!

While Jannzi just wanted to stall the Skorpion Kommando in order to buy time for others to take it down, the Shield of Samar wanted to do more!

It wanted to defeat the enemy high-tier expert mech by itself!

Venerable Jannzi thought that this was an incredibly absurd idea, but she didn't voice her skepticism even though the Shield of Samar clearly knew what she was thinking with the help of the man-machine connection.

Even so, that did not stop the two from working together and resonating with each other in order to meet the incoming threat on the best possible footing!

If this was the old days, it would have taken both mechs a long time to meet each other.

In fact, an expert medium offensive space knight such as the Skorpion Kommando would have easily been able to run circles around the Shield of Samar!

If Venerable Oskar Virathon didn't want to tussle against the Larkinson Clan's famous expert heavy space knight, then he could have easily bypassed the Shield of Samar.

The current mech generation changed many rules. Not every heavy space knight was as slow and lumbering as before.

The sixth revision of the Shield of Samar focused greatly on improving the mobility of the Shield of Samar in order to make it more practical in many battle scenarios.

Right now, Venerable Jannzi made excellent use of the latest changes by employing her expert mech's Skidrock Drive to rapidly accelerate away from the middle of the main fleet.

She needed to stop the Skorpion Kommando from getting any closer!

Strangely enough, despite the fact that the Skorpion Kommando actually possessed a clear advantage in mobility even with warp travel taken into account, the enemy expert mech made no attempts to circle around the Shield of Samar.

The enemy space knight headed directly towards the Larkinson space knight as soon as it had a clear line of sight of Jannzi's battle partner!

The hostility radiating from the Skorpion Kommando was palpable now. Venerable Oskar clearly had it out for the Shield of Samar!

"The nobility radiating from your fat and stupid machine is disgusting." Venerable Oskar sneered as he broadcasted his voice on an open channel. "I detest naive little knights like you. Let me teach you a lesson and correct your misguided views!"

"Don't call my Sammie fat!"

The two expert mechs did not make much effort to slow down their speeds as they entered into a collision course against each other!

Soon enough, both expert space knights crushed their resonance shields against each other with great force, triggering an energy eruption that temporarily engulfed the surrounding space with extraordinary energies!

Surprisingly enough, both mechs managed to surface the collision without suffering much damage.

This was not that big of a surprise as the Shield of Samar was an expert mech that was designed according to the concept of extreme defense.

The Skorpion Kommando on the other hand was a genuine high-tier expert mech controlled by an expert pilot that matched its strength.

The only actual result of this collision was that the two opposing machines had largely depleted each other's resonance shield, making it easy for them to inflict real damage against each other!

"You shall advance no further!"

"I shall tear off your face!"