The Mech Touch

The meetings didn't help.

Everyone had different ideas about Cenatus Prospecting and its notorious leader, yet all of the analysis and guesswork could not bring them closer to a solid solution.

As the starships of the expeditionary fleet came closer to completing the cycling process of their FTL drives, the time to make a decision loomed behind everyone's backs.

"I don't see why we are dilly-dallying around." Patriarch Reginald Cross crossed his arms in the virtual meeting room. "Just go ahead and attack the opposing fleet! Everything I've read about Otrus Magrin makes me believe he is a cretin. There is a 99 percent chance that this guy will instruct his fleet to follow us into the next star system and hover behind our backs until he sees a chance to stab our kidneys. Rather than let the man have his way, we should destroy his fleet before he does the same to ours!"

"Unacceptable." General Verle shook his head. "We cannot recklessly engage in a confrontation against a fairly powerful fleet on our own. Our mechs and expert mechs may outnumber theirs, but the disparity in numbers is not too great. We can win, but we will incur medium to heavy damage depending on how the battle unfolds. Then there is your duel against Saint Neville Magrin. This will be another coinflip. We were fortunate enough that your previous duel against Saint Jeremiah Gauge ended in our favor, but we have no guarantee that we can win the bet once again."

"I AM NOT WEAK!" The Cross Patriarch angrily slammed his fists against the deck! "I have proven myself in one ace mech duel and I will do so again!"

His Saint Kingdom exuded so much force and dominance that a part of its influence affected the attendees despite the virtual setting!

General Verle pointedly did not look at Patriarch Reginald. Instead, he turned to the second-most powerful figure of the Cross Clan.

"Master Benedict Cortez, how would you judge a matchup between your patriarch and the ace pilot that is watching over the Cenatus Prospecting fleet?"

The shrewd mech designer had already performed the necessary calculations and guesswork in advance.

"I judge that we have a 60 percent chance of winning this mech duel. This is based on the assumption that there is a level playing field and no external interference."

Reginald turned to his own mech designer as if he had been betrayed? "60 percent? Are you serious, Benedict?! You are underestimating me and my ace mech too much! Didn't you recently complete an update on the energy transmission systems of the Mars?"

"Those are minor updates that I implemented because the Mars needed to undergo a minor overhaul after the Battle of the Boryan Belt. They do not constitute a major upgrade. That is still years away from now. While I judge that our Mars is a superior ace mech to the Unrelenting of the opposing force, Saint Neville Magrin is significantly older than you. Unlike Saint Jeremiah Gauge, the opponent that you are dismissing too lightly is a seasoned ace pilot who has had decades to grow his resonance strength and techniques."

In other words, the ace mech of the Golden Skull Alliance was stronger, but Cenatus Prospecting most definitely had the stronger ace pilot.

"I don't believe that my Mars and I will lose against Neville and his Unrelenting." Patriarch Reginald stubbornly claimed as if he could not imagine any scenario where he would lose. "Just look at those images of the Unrelenting. It's an inferior ace hybrid mech that doesn't have as much phasewater as my own machine. There is a limit to how much phasewater that Otrus Magrin can steal or swindle from foolish pioneers."

That was true more or less. Cenatus Prospecting had been fairly successful in its own right, but it had hardly achieved massive victories against hard, resource-rich targets such as Purgatory, Pima Prime and the Palace of Shame.

Whereas the Golden Skull Alliance dared to take on greater challenges and reap greater rewards in the process, Cenatus Prospecting mainly picked on opponents that were weaker and less endowed with resources.

It was a pipedream for Otrus Magrin to harvest hundreds of kilograms of phasewater from a single operation!

That said, Cenatus Prospecting did not always go after the weakest targets. A big score like the expeditionary fleet that had obviously plundered a lot of resources from a former alien stronghold was an exceptionally juicy target at the moment!

As the argument about Patriarch Reginald's chances to win against his main opponent continued to rage, Ves quietly called up the intelligence that the Black Cats had gathered on the enemy ace pilot and ace mech.

It was difficult to get a solid estimate on Saint Neville Magrin's strength and development, but he had probably become a strong junior ace pilot.

There was a possibility that he had reached the standard of a senior ace pilot, but it was unlikely that this was the case. Cenatus Prospecting would have been a lot more aggressive in its actions if Saint Neville Magrin possessed the power to defeat junior ace pilots with little suspense.

The man's record was colorful but not particularly unique as far as ace pilots were concerned.

The powerful mech pilot excelled early on as his ambitious father, his abundant augmentations and his natural talent allowed him to stand out among other mech pilots.

His increasing strength and his continually stellar performance played an increasingly large role in enabling Otrus Magrin to succeed in his schemes!

Now, over one-and-a-half centuries later, Neville Magrin had become a powerful Saint that lent his strength to a cause that was less than honorable.

It was unimaginable for most ace pilots to lower themselves to banditry and other dishonorable  acts, but the man had been raised by a scumbag all his life. Indoctrination was a powerful force and it could twist the hearts of any warrior.

Ves shook his head when he contemplated the notion of trying to persuade Saint Neville to stop aiding and abetting his father's unscrupulous ventures. Many other people had tried and failed to make this stubbornly loyal ace pilot turn to the light.

Perhaps inspired by his father, Saint Neville's fighting style largely reflected his father's philosophy.

The Cenatus Prospecting ace pilot vastly preferred to go on the offensive. He focused on employing speed and impact to deliver unrelenting offensive strikes that were meant to break his opponents before they could mount a proper defense!

According to the analysis on the ace pilot's performance in past battles, Saint Neville preferred to take the initiative and firmly grasp the rhythm of a battle or a duel. The man may not be as comfortable when put on the defensive, but he relied heavily on speed and mobility to ensure that he would never be pinned down in one location.

The Unrelenting perfectly complemented his aggressive, high-mobility combat approach.

At first glance, the ace mech appeared to be a hybrid mech, similar to the Mars. Its weapon configuration made it clear that it was also oriented towards assault.

Ves was quickly able to discern the differences in purpose and fighting approach between the two hybrid mechs.

The Mars was a more balanced hybrid mech that happened to hit an excellent sweet spot that balanced out offensive, defense and mobility. It was not weak in any of these major areas and could compete adequately against most mechs at the same level.

The Unrelenting was a more specialized and pronounced ace hybrid mech. Its armor system was not as strong and amazing as the Abasis Armor that made the Mars so resilient.

This was not a surprise as it cost a lot of phasewater to provide such an exaggerated level of damage resistance to a mech.

Instead, the Unrelenting pursued a more economical route to victory, and that was by possessing respectable offensive power while piling as much advances to its mobility as possible!

Unlike the Mars, the Unrelenting was much more geared towards short, high-impact engagements than more drawn-out slugfests where longevity was key.

Its primary weapon was its lance. This allowed the Unrelenting to fight like a lancer mech, with devastating results!

Saint Neville had a history of utilizing different expert mechs and ace mechs to pierce its lance through tough targets and utterly shattering them through overwhelming force!

The threat of this lance was too great. Ves could easily guess that not even the Mars would be able to withstand a charge attack from the Unrelenting!

If the Unrelenting was ever caught in a brawl where it had no opportunity to pull off any further charge attacks, then it switched to wielding a hammer that inflicted relatively slow but brutal impact strikes.

The ace mech was also equipped with a round shield that offered additional defensive power.

As for its ranged options, it mainly relied on its shoulder-mounted gauss cannons to pound enemy mechs and starships at range.

It also came equipped with a pair of wrist-mounted flamethrowers that allowed it to engulf close targets with damaging and destructive flames in a wide cone.

Though the Unrelenting never exposed any weapon systems that were integrated into its torso itself, that did not necessarily mean that they were absent.

Perhaps Saint Neville Magrin never encountered an opponent that was challenging enough to expose a trump card.

Although Ves found it reasonable to assume that the Unrelenting had already filled up its capacity with too many features, he still could not discount the possibility that it was equipped with hidden chest-mounted weapon systems.

Regardless, the offensive configuration of the Unrelenting made it clear that it heavily relied on physical weapons to vanquish its adversaries.

This was quite a break from the Mars which consistently relied on its ARCEUS System on to flood enemy targets with sustained energy attacks.

The weapon selection of the Unrelenting made a lot more sense when Ves examined its mobility.

Its transphasic flight system was not inferior to the Pulsvar V-1 equipped on the Mars, yet that wasn't all. Ves could spot elements onto the frame of the Unrelenting that were usually found on light mechs!

The Unrelenting's maneuverability in combat must be insane due to the addition of powerful and prominent maneuvering thrusters.

It might not be too much of an exaggeration to claim that its maneuverability came close to that of an ace light mech!

Of course, an authentic ace light skirmisher like the Jedda Sandivar was still significantly faster and more agile than the Unrelenting, but that was not important.

The Golden Skull Alliance didn't field the Jedda Sandivar. All it had was the Mars, and while it was faster than any other expert mech, its mobility was only moderately above average when compared to other ace mechs!

Ves was quite thankful that he had become a lot more exposed to different ace mechs. He was able to witness them in battle in person and collected useful data on all of these exquisite machines.

He also had the opportunity to examine their frames or at least a part of their weapon systems up close!

This granted him a much better understanding of ace mechs in general and allowed him to make an accurate assessment of the Unrelenting.

For all of its hard-hitting weapons and amazing mobility, its defense couldn't keep up with the rest of its performance.

As long as the Mars exhausted the Unrelenting's Saint Kingdom and kept striking its relatively weak armor plating with accurate strikes from the ARCEUS System, the guardian of the Cenatus Prospecting fleet should fall!

However, as Master Benedict Cortez had reminded everyone earlier, the strength and experience of Saint Neville Magrin should not be underestimated.

Ves too couldn't imagine a scenario where the Mars would be able to crush the Unrelenting in a one-sided mech duel.

He generally agreed with Master Benedict's estimate that Patriarch Reginald only had a 60 percent chance of winning against his opponent. Perhaps this figure was a little too optimistic because Saint Reginald couldn't stomach anything lower.

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