The Mech Touch novel Chapter 3557

Chapter 3557 - Meager Firepower

The researchers over at the Dragon's Den played a crucial role in helping everyone understand what they currently faced.

Before, they thought that the Titania was a derelict bioship and that its flesh torpedoes were akin to conventional projectiles.

Now, they understood that both of them were actually complete living organisms that could think and act for themselves!

The Titania clearly proved its living qualities by adapting to the current situation. Not only was it squeezing out more out more 'offspring' from its body in an attempt to overwhelm the expeditionary fleet, its contracting exterior was constantly being hardened in order to resist more and more damage!

The current state of the battle did not look that good at the moment. Even if a biocreature as enormous as the Titania had almost perished after fighting against an unknown adversary, it still possessed so many resources that it could probably keep up its offensive actions for a long time!

Currently, the mech forces deployed by the Golden Skull Alliance found itself at a considerable disadvantage in this battle.

There was no helping it. The Larkinsons, the Glory Seekers and the Crossers had all formed their respective combat units with human opponents in mind. While they were all aware that they might have to fight against alien forces if they continued to roam in the Red Ocean, they did not expect that day to come so soon!

The fact of the matter was that the expeditionary fleet had been caught with its pants down. Almost half of its combat assets consisted of melee mechs, which were considered essential in fighting against other mech forces but were seriously inadequate in this situation!

No one thought about dispatching melee mechs to the Titania in order to tear her enormous body apart up close. From what they could observe, the astral beast possessed a high degree of control over its own biological structure.

Any mech that dared to attack its flesh would probably get swallowed whole by many tons of flexible and responsive biomatter!

Even if that wouldn't happen, there was little point in dispatching them anyway. The damage they could do to the surface of the Titania was as trivial as a bunch of ants trying to chew their way through a human body.

The best way they could perform their role was to drill past the surface and deal damage to the Titania's internal organs. If the melee mechs could quickly work their way deeper and reach the areas where the ranged mechs couldn't damage, perhaps there was a way for them to cut off the Titania's energy supply.

Yet who would possibly take the risk to order such a dubious action? The most likely consequence of sending melee mechs on this suicide mission was that the enormous astral beast's bulk would crush any of the annoying mechs that attempted to dig into its body!

Just like how human bodies possessed immune systems that destroy foreign germs, General Verle and many other humans were afraid the Titania would have a similar answer against intruding mechs!

Fortunately, the melee mechs did not have to sit out this battle entirely. The alliance partners had stockpiled a sufficient amount of basic energy rifles in case they confronted supermassive threats such as the Titania.

The Larkinson Clan still retained a lot of old rifles that its Bright Warriors used to wield before switching over to their new luminar crystal weapons.

The melee mechs all returned to their motherships and quickly returned to space with rifles in their hands.

This was the advantage of fielding humanoid mechs. Even if they weren't built with ranged combat in mind, they could still manipulate an ordinary rifle with decent effectiveness!

Ironically enough, the rather lackluster Bright Warriors possessed a considerably greater advantage in this aspect than other mech models such as the Ferocious Piranha.

With ranged combat capabilities already built into its base platform, its targeting systems and other relevant systems easily synced up to the familiar rifles without any friction or technical complications.

"The last time I fired a rifle was years ago."

"It doesn't matter. Those squishy torpedoes aren't evading our fire at all. Just fire straight ahead. If your aim is so bad that you can't even hit these obvious targets, then fire at the Titania instead. That beast is much bigger but it hasn't moved at all. There are no excuses if your shots go wide!"

The weight of fire from the expeditionary fleet increased as a result of arming all of the melee mechs with ranged weapons.

However, the effectiveness of the additional fire was marginal. The marksmanship skill of the mech pilots were wildly inconsistent and they were unable to concentrate their fire on specific weak points. This led to a lot of dispersed shots that haphazardly hit different surfaces without achieving much.

It was better than nothing, though. As time went by, the melee mech pilots slowly became accustomed to handling ranged weapons and sharpened their aim, not that it was difficult to do so. The continued lack of lateral movements from their targets meant that they were hitting the equivalent of stationary targets.

"It's just like target practice, except there are real stakes in play this time!"

The difference they made was noticeable. The organic torpedo creatures were being blasted apart at a faster rate than before. None of them had ever come close enough to threaten the expeditionary fleet.

However, that did not make the humans happy. They were successful in intercepting the Titania's flesh torpedoes, but the astral beast simply sent out additional waves!

The big creature possessed so much organic matter that it could keep this up for hours. At this point, the human mech forces couldn't divert a lot of firepower in order to damage and accelerate the collapse of the Titania.

The torpedoes would just get closer if they stopped intercepting the incoming biomissiles as hard!

General Verle and every leader realized that they had landed in a battle of attrition against their alien opponent. Many of their ranged weapons could not sustain their rate of fire forever. Heat buildup, energy depletion, increased wear and tear and other factors would slowly cause these weapons to fall silent in an extended battle.

Which side would be able to outlast the other?

This question weighed in the minds of many mech pilots.

Even the mechs that were much more effective in ranged combat than others were finding out that their advantages didn't mean much against an immense creature that could easily absorb a lot more damage.

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