The Mech Touch novel Chapter 4583

The expeditionary fleet was leaving the star system.

Ves did not even want to wait for the arrival of the Cenatus Prospect fleet and exchange words with Mr. Magrin. He saw no purpose in doing so and it was much more likely that he would incriminate himself during any heated conversations.

A lot of people in the Golden Skull Alliance held mixed opinions about the abrupt departure.

After all of this effort and buildup, the decision to turn tail and run away when they had come so awfully close to their main objective was frustrating!

The Larkinsons were not accustomed to losing. Sure, they had suffered their fair share of setbacks, but it had been many years that they had suffered a defeat of this magnitude.

There was nothing worse than losing a battle before it had even begun!

The dip in morale was obvious among the more battle-hungry members of the Larkinson Clan.

Their previous successes had caused them to gain so much confidence in their ability to overcome more powerful foes that they thought that they still had a shot of defeating the Tower of Babel!

Of course, the cooler heads among the Larkinsons clearly understood the danger of attacking one opponent while another potential enemy was about to arrive in the star system.

Even if the Golden Skull Alliance could neutralize the Tower of Babel by relying on its own efforts, there was no way it was a good idea to do so with a vulture fleet hovering in the background!

It was too bad that there were a bit too many Larkinsons who failed to understand this logic.

"Oh, come on! Why are we running so soon?!" Venerable Rosa Orfan complained as she kicked her boot against the bulkhead. "That battleship might look scary, but we have beaten warships before, right?!"

"That is different, Rosa." Commander Casella Ingvar calmly retorted. "The only reason why we managed to defeat the orven battleship and the unclean whale that popped up afterwards was because we had seven ace mechs on our side. We only have one left. Even if the Tower of Babel is several times smaller, she is not a vessel that we can threaten with the combined power of the Mars along with the rest of us. The caliber of most of our mech weapons are simply too small and weak."

Venerable Joshua looked confused. "That doesn't matter as long as we have enough guns, right? In the last battle, most of us were locked into battle against cannon fodder. This time is different because the enemy ship is alone. We can concentrate all of our firepower against her defenses. Her energy shields might hold on for a time, but they will definitely get drained after withstanding millions of attacks."

"That may or may not be true." Casella replied. "The Tower of Babel is ostensibly equipped with orven energy shield generators, but the difference here is that they are more modern. They will be able to block many more attacks, especially when they have to cover much less volume. The alien battleship's thin profile will make it much harder for us to strike the ship when she is maneuvering at her full capabilities."

"We have many means to drain energy shields quickly. Once we fire thousands of disruptor beams at a time, there is no way all of those fancy transphasic energy shields will hold out forever!"

The Sentinel Commander shook her head. "That may be true, but then we will have to overcome the first-class hull plating that is protecting the interior of the Tower of Babel. The properties of physical protection make it so that all of those thick layers of alloy are much more effective at blocking the attacks of smaller caliber weapons. Aside from ace mechs, only cruiser-class warships and above have the requisite firepower to break open her exterior plating."

This was the reason why humanity favored armor over energy shields. The latter absorbed the full damage inflicted by any attack no matter how little damage it inflicted.

When hundreds of thousands of mechs converged upon a single target, even a CFA battleship's energy shields might get exhausted due to the sheer quantity of damage they withstood!

However, if the CFA battleship had to rely on her thick hull plating and any other physical armor solutions, she could easily bathe in the attacks of mechs all day due to how effective they were at bouncing or absorbing all of the incoming attacks!

"The Tower of Babel is not a battleship that is designed to fight against warships alone." Venerable Davia Stark concluded in her quiet voice. "The Red Ocean aliens are starting to take human mechs more seriously. Solid alloys are much better at resisting large quantities of sub-warship weapon attacks. I am not even sure whether my Amaranto with the Instrument of Doom can penetrate through all of those layers. Even her weak points are too well-protected."

All of this didn't even take into account the immense difficulty of attacking a warship that was submerged within a brown dwarf star. Many mechs couldn't even get too close to the stellar object because they couldn't handle the hostile environmental forces.

The unrest among the Larkinsons quickly subsided as enough people became convinced by the excessive risks of confronting the Tower of Babel. No matter what, they could dismiss the awesome power of a genuine warship.

That didn't mean the Golden Skull Alliance truly gave up on its mission and directly abandoned the Ramage Repulsor System.

A couple of shuttles flew out to add a few farewell gifts in different parts of space. A number of combat carriers had also been dispatched to different parts of the star system in order to plant a host of expensive observation devices.

No matter what, Ves at least wanted to know what was going on in the brown dwarf star system after the expeditionary fleet moved to another destination.

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