The Mech Touch - Chapter 6834

Ves and Gloriana held their umpteenth debate about the merits of sending mech designers a lot closer to the action.

It was a debate that neither f them could win. Their life experiences caused them to develop opposing stances towards this subject. Since neither of them was willing to concede easily, they could never come to a consensus.

The couple was accustomed to these kinds of arguments. They eventually decided to drop the topic after they reiterated their stances and made futile attempts to convince each other.

"If there is nothing else, I will go on my way to give our three new assistants a tour: Gloriana told Ves. "I will also introduce them to our SF-02 and give them a quick instruction on how to work with the smart Als!

He waved her on. "You can go ahead and do that. I need to have a talk with Alexa. See you later!" Several minutes later, Ves entered his design lab with his direct disciple in tow.

While Ves took his usual seat, Alexa Streon remained standing.

"Why did you call me over?" She asked.

"I wanted to check up on you. We haven't talked in depth for quite a while. My work has consumed so much of my attention that I almost forgot about you. How are you doing on a personal level?"

The younger mech designer gently sat down on a nearby chair as she carefully thought on how to answer this question.

"I am doing... fine." She eventually replied. "It is difficult to imagine what will happen to all of us now that the Middle and Lower Zones are beginning to suffer widespread incursions. Once those territories fall completely in the hands of the native aliens, the Upper Zones are at great risk. The Upper Zones that are located close to alien space will transform into isolated islands that can no longer be supplied or reinforced with as much case. Any cargo vessels that attempt to ship goods to these isolated zones are at great risk of getting intercepted by alien fleets. If that happens, the only way the Upper Zones will be able to persist is if there is at least one god pilot on guard. Even then, it is doubtful that he or she can cover more than a single star system.

Many first-raters feared the scenario that Alexa described. The Upper Zones only comprise a minority of the territories in the new frontier. They were also much less prevalent in the edge of the dwarf galaxy.

All of this meant that unless the first-raters who resided in the more vulnerable Upper Zones took the initiative to evacuate from their homes, many of them may end up dying if the aliens enacted a stranglehold against these isolated territories.

"As far as I know, the Streon Ancient Clan invested in the Red Ocean relatively early. Your former clansmen shouldn't be at great risk in the short term.

"I am not too concerned about the Streons: Alexa responded. "My grandfather is a good leader, and he has many forces at his disposal. He may not be able to save every Terran, but he will do his best. What I am concerned about is the greater societal consequences of losing those Upper Zones. They may not be too large, but each of them are endowed by large quantities of high-grade resources. They also host a large amount of vital industry and infrastructure. The loss of several Upper Zones will inflict great damage to our high-end production of mechs, warships and other essentiel materiel. So far, we are already on the losing end. When we lose all of those vulnerable territories, our ability to recover from our losses becomes even worse!

Ves grimaced when he heard all of that. None of this was a secret, but he still found it unpleasant to acknowledge these uncomfortable truths.

"It sounds bad, alright. We can only trust in the HHC and the other leading powers to preserve our core territories and buy time for us to launch a proper counterattack. Our clan is too small to shift the strategic outlook of red humanity, at least from a military approach. The most we can do is to win individual battles with our Premier Fleet!"

"I am not complaining about our lack of agency, sir! Alexa said. "I am mostly worried about whether we will reach a tipping point where we can no longer salvage a victory. If that ever happens, the only remaining outcomes left amount to different degrees of defeat. We can either preserve the few star systems that are permanently under the protection of god pilots, or we may no longer be able to preserve any openly held territories. The only people who are able to cling on to life are those who have hidden themselves extremely well and those who are stationed on starships that have outrun their pursuers"

Both scenarios sounded catastrophic, but one was more devastating than the other. In a more optimistic scenario, around 95 percent of red humans would get eradicated. In a more pessimistic scenario, over 99.9 percent of red humans would get killed.

"I think it is a little too premature to assume we will degenerate to that point. Ves said. 'Still, our clan should make preparations to survive in case those scenarios unfold. I would much rather prefer to focus on the short term for the time being. How is your work?"

"I am making good progress in my work so far! Alexa said. "If I encounter any problems, I know who to approach for help. That has not been necessary so far. My work on modernizing the Otalon Sprius is progressing slowly. It is impossible to fully update it to the modern era in a short amount of time. It takes significantly less time to repair it, so if you urgently require more combat power, we can make use of my preparations. I have made enough scans and identified plenty of parts that need to be replaced. With the help of Polly, I have even designed a crude but effective flight system that is scaled to a juggernaut. The expected mobility of the Otalon Sprius in space will not be great, but it should at least enable the giant machine to maneuver on the battlefield."

The juggernaut did not seem necessary a few months ago. It was an outdated landbound juggernaut. that had been rotting for multiple decades in the Evolution Witch's private trophy collection. This did not give Ves much confidence that the Otalon Sprius would be effective in combat after getting fixed up. It was too clumsy and did not possess any advantages over warships.

The Otalon Sprius was a massive combat machine when fighting on land, but it was distinctly less impressive space where warships could mount much more devastating armaments across their hulls!

Perhaps the only area where juggernauts could gain an advantage was in melee combat.

Even then, it was extremely difficult to make these giant machines vast and maneuverable enough to get into position.

Any attempt of a juggernaut to close in on an enemy warship would quickly attract a lot of concentrated attacks!

No alien would be willing to let such an ostentatious machine get close!

"I do not see any compelling reason to fix up the Otalon Sprius and make it suitable for spaceborn combat. Ves told his disciple. "If we want to convert it into a proper war machine, then we need to do a proper job. We have to reinvent it as a living mech, and also implement powerful design applications that take advantage of its ludicrous scale. Do you have any suggestions in this regard?'

"I have a number of ideas, sir. It is pointless to convert the juggernaut into a slow but well-armored gun platform. It will just end up as an inferior version of a warship that happens to be controlled by a single person. I believe it is much better to turn it into a melee-oriented executioner. We can use advanced technologies and fairly high-end materials to quickly turn it into a devastating ship killer. It would be similar to deploying an artificial phase lord."

That fell in line with Ves' thoughts.

"Do you have any specifics?"

"In fact, I do. My juggernaut proposal is still incomplete, but it should give you a thorough impression of what we can do to transform it into a powerful asset in a matter of months:

Alexa activated a projection that showed off a draft design for a much more powerful version of the

Otalon Sprius.

"This juggernaut... is clad entirely with superdimensional alloy!" Ves reacted with surprise! "We don't have that much stuff to cover an entire 350-meter long juggernaut!"

"It is not what you think, Ves! Look closely. It is true that this proposal calls for replacing the old and outdated armor plating with superdimensional alloy armor plating. However, the latter should ideally make heavy use of hull-grade superdimensional matter. This variation is considerably cheaper and more abundantly available than armor-grade and weapon-grade superdimensional matter!

That sounded a lot more reasonable. Although hull-grade superdimensional alloy was not too common, it was not too scarce either.

If there was enough hull-grade superdimensional alloy to clad a starship, then it could most certainly be used to cover up a juggernaut in armor plating that significantly outperformed transphasic

defenses!

The reason why Ves disdained the use of hull-grade superdimensional alloy in mechs was because its defensive properties were not that much better when processed in relatively thin plating. However, a huge juggernaut was clad in much thicker armor plating!

Even if its thickness could not match the armor belt of a serious warship, the armor of a juggernaut

was not small!

This degree of thickness should make the use of hull-grade superdimensional matter a lot more

viable.

Ves grew more and more intrigued in the proposal.

"Cladding the juggernaut with mid-grade superdimensional alloy is a clever idea. Its material composition may be slightly inferior, but the thickness of the armor plating that can be made out of this material will help enormously in keeping our juggernaut intact.

Alexa pointed at the prominent melee weapon held by the superdimensional juggernaut.

"In order to make the Otalon Sprius as effective as possible, I have chosen to strip much of its ranged armaments. The only serious weapon it has left is what I call the Doomaxe. This is a large two-handed axe with a considerable amount of reach. The juggernaut should be able to crash it down onto enemy phase lords and warships with crushing force. Much of the structure of the axe should be made out of hull-grade superdimensional alloy. The only exception is the edge. This must be made out of armor-grade or ideally weapon-grade superdimensional alloy. The combination of abundant physical force and exceptional penetration can turn the Otalon Sprius into a nightmare to the Red Cabal. This is especially the case when the superdimensional juggernaut also integrates a

starship-grade space suppressor

That sounded like a lethal combination!

What Alexa just described was a juggernaut that made excellent and strategic use of its advantages.

It could do what other warships could not do, and that was to chop a giant superdimensional axe repeatedly onto a hapless enemy target!

Such a machine might lack the flexibility and the true resonance of an ace mech, but it was the best. way to quickly add an ace mech-level asset to the Premier Fleet.

"It is too difficult for me to predict whether this superdimensional juggernaut can become one of our trump cards. Ves said as his frown deepened. "Superdimensional matter is precious. There may not be enough hull-grade superdimensional matter in our inventory to apply it all to the Otalon Sprius.' "That is not a serious problem, sir. We can selectively apply superdimensional alloy over the core components of the machine. We can apply for additional hull-grade superdimensional matter after our next exploration of the Blue Dimension!