The Mech Touch novel Chapter 4612

Once the Golden Skull Alliance settled for launching a daring rapid assault on the alien battleship, the alliance partners quickly prepared for the journey back to the Ramage Repulsor System.

Most of the ships of the expeditionary fleet weren't able to turn around and transition into FTL travel in an instant. They only possessed a single FTL drive which had to cool down and complete their mandatory cycling process before they were safe to activate again.

Only a part of the vessels possessed redundant FTL drives. Fortunately, fleet carriers generally came with 2 FTL drives in their standard configurations as their military roles required them to move quickly if necessary. The more time they wasted in realspace, the longer it took to reach their destinations!

Since the plan called for bringing in at least 3000 mechs, most of which consisted of the Valkyrie Redeemer Redeemer Mark II and its many variants, the Golden Skull Alliance needed to dispatch at least several fleet carriers, which included Wild Torch, the Feminine Grace, the Antonio Cross.

The planners of the upcoming blitz operation purposefully decided against sending out the larger and more heavily armored fleet carriers such as the Gorgoneion, the Hemmington Cross, the Indigo Tremor and the brand-new Vengeance of the Hegemony.

Instead, they intended to stuff the remaining Valkyrie mechs into the combat carriers that happened to be luxurious enough to be outfitted with a redundant FTL drive.

"Our greatest priority is speed." Chief Minister Abigail Evern told Ves over a comm call. "If we want our rapid strike force to reach the Tower of Babel as soon as possible, we cannot afford to bring a single slow ship along. The pace of the strike force will be constrained by its slowest element, so adding a single elephant is enough to slow down a pack of cheetahs."

Though she was mostly engaged with leading the clan as a whole these days, that didn't mean she lost her expertise in starships and naval combat. She could still help the Larkinson Clan a lot in naval affairs.

"I understand that, but is it worth it to rush towards the battlefield with a bunch of flimsy carriers? Aside from the Wild Torch, all of the other vessels on the list weren't designed to endure a lot of attacks. Their hull plating is thin and they aren't equipped with a lot of shield generators."

"Whether we send in a slim and fragile vessel such as the Antonio Cross or a large and heavy behemoth like the Vengeance of the Hegemony makes no difference against our current opposition." The former commodore of the Penitent Sister responded with a rueful smile. "It only takes two salvos from a single primary kinetic cannon battery to destroy the Seeker of Wealth. If even a higher end battle-oriented fleet carrier cannot withstand six heavy kinetic rounds from the Tower of Babel, no second-class fleet carrier can do any better."

Ves sobered up when he recalled how easily the alien battleship destroyed fleet carrier after fleet carrier in the earlier battle. Cenatus Prospecting lost almost its entire complement of capital ships in so little time!

"Okay. I understand why we shouldn't bring our bigger ships. What makes you think our smaller and faster carriers will do any better?"

"The effective range of the Tower of Babel is not unlimited, especially now that she has incurred heavy damage." The chief minister smiled. "There are many practical constraints, sir. As long as our carriers remain far away enough, it becomes much harder to track and land accurate shots with the primary gun batteries of the Tower of Babel. We just need to deploy our mechs early and have them approach the alien battleship under their own power for the final leg of the journey."

Ves understood what she was talking about. When ships were thousands of kilometers away, it became exponentially more difficult to nail a target with a gun. Just a minute shift in angle or position was enough to make an attack miss by hundreds of meters!

The problem was much greater in the case of projectile weapons as it took precious time for their physical output to reach their intended targets. The small delay was enough for faster and more maneuverable units such as mechs and warships to evade any incoming attacks.

Landing a successful hit often came down to luck rather than skill.

"What about the Tower of Babel's secondary laser cannon batteries?" Ves critically asked. "Those primary gun batteries are obviously designed to achieve naval firepower superiority at short to medium ranges, so they're not as effective at longer ranges. In order to compensate for this shortcoming, the designers of this warship have cleverly paired her with smaller and nimbler laser cannons. These guns might not be able to destroy a fleet carrier in six shots, but they can still wear down our more fragile fleet carriers with highly accurate fire."

The effective range of those warship-grade laser cannons was incredible. Even if many of the laser cannons incurred varying degrees of damage and misalignments that made it a lot more difficult for them to maintain a concentrated beam at extreme ranges, Ves did not dare to gamble on this matter!

However, the planners already formulated a countermeasure.

"Those laser cannons are accurate, alright, but can they land their shots on ships that are traveling at relativistic speeds?" Chief Minister Abigail grinned. "If we maneuver around the star system and slingshot our strike force around the brown dwarf star, we can approach the Tower of Babel at relative speeds that make it a lot harder for the enemy battleship to destroy any of our ships. This is the only way we can protect our fleet carriers and combat carriers from getting downed in open space."

Relativity screwed up a lot of battles in space. When both sides traveled at wildly different speeds, it became a struggle to calculate where to aim a weapon so that its output struck a ship that would be at that specific coordinate in an indeterminate time in the future!

There were so many extreme variables at play that not even the best processors could ensure a single hit.

While Ves understood how his strike force could take advantage of this phenomenon to prevent themselves from getting demolished in an instant, there was one enormous downside to this maneuver.

"If we do this, any mechs that launch from those carriers will also travel at relativistic speeds. They will essentially launch an extremely fast flyby past the Tower of Babel. Their contact time will be measured in milliseconds!"

Verify captcha to read the contentVerify