The Mech Touch - Chapter 7259: The Spread of Gloom
Another skirmish took place in orbit of Philaster Crestia III.
They called it a skirmish because the mutated voribugs did not bother to make a pretense of conquering the fortified star system.
Even so, the swarms that flooded the planet from a single broad direction exerted a lot of pressure on the defenders.
Orbital platforms fired both energy blasts and kinetic projectiles.
Many of the weapon systems currently in use had been modified to inflict short to medium-range area damage.
Laser beams that excelled at long-range accuracy had no value in the Voribug War.
The enemy units were simply too numerous to place any value on sniping.
The vast majority of voribugs were also cannon fodder, so taking them out one by one was the stupidest and most inefficient way to deal with this threat.
As such, the Rubarthans rapidly learned that it was better to sacrifice range for area damage.
While that gave the voribugs a lot more freedom to get close, as long as they came into the effective range of human weapon systems, they would get flooded by cone-shaped energy blasts and lots of shotgun pellets and flechettes.
Most of the factories that were still in operation on the surface of the planet were frantically trying to produce as much physical ammunition as possible.
The specifications for these rounds were no longer as important as before. Unlike the native aliens that utilized proper armor systems and powerful transphasic energy shields, the voribugs mainly relied on throwing endless tides of cheap cannon fodder at their adversaries.
When that was the case, bug killing became a logistical concern rather than an operational concern.
A high-quality round may be able to wipe out twice or thrice as many voribugs at a time, but its cost and logistical pressure may be 100, 1000 or even a million times as great!
The Rubarthan Pact would probably bankrupt itself before it could defeat the mutated voribugs if they kept squandering so much expensive ammunition.
Therefore, an odd phenomenon started to spread.
First-class mech designers purposefully downgraded the weapons or ammunition systems of their mechs.
Existing weapons were either replaced or tuned down so that they became economical again.
As long as a cheaper solution could do the job, there was no reason to keep the more expensive solution around.
This was what stood out the most in the initial exchanges between the attackers and the defenders.
Bugs in space continued to get scorched or blasted into pieces as the defensive platforms did their jobs with remarkable efficiency.
It was rather inspiring that the Rubarthans had managed to make these adaptations so quickly. They clearly faced less opposition from an overbloated bureaucracy.
“The foremost contender to the throne deserves credit for this.” Lord Richard Brownstone mentioned to Ves as they both watched the unfolding battle. “The Inferno Spear Prince has not yet become our sovereign, but as war continues to consume our territories, many of our citizens yearn for his protection. He is the most ardent fighter among the descendants of the current Star Emperor, and he is good at inspiring fellow Rubarthans to take up arms. He may not be as strong as the Spacelock and the Destroyer of Worlds, but his birth and ancestry gives him the legitimacy he needs to convince many citizens that only he can lead us to safety.”
“You sound as if you don’t agree.” Ves voiced his suspicion.
The Rubarthan Senior Mech Designer chuckled. “I have to admit that I have my misgivings. As impressive as the Inferno Spear Prince can be, he is not too keen on matters that fall outside of direct combat. That is a great shortcoming in the Voribug War. We cannot defeat this new adversary with individual feats of heroism. The only way to defeat the bugs is to beat them at their own game. We need to outproduce their military production. We need to leverage our full resources into building cheap and disposable war machines. To do that, we need to build up our infrastructure, forge new trade deals, attract more industrial investment and so on. These are matters that do not hold the interest of a peak ace pilot.”
Ves looked at Lord Richard with a growing look of realization. “Are you a supporter of the Smokestack Prince?”
“Not… entirely.” Richard carefully replied. “The Brownstone Prince, my grandfather, has not yet voiced his official position, but he is closely aligned with the Smokestack Prince. They are both cut from the same cloth more or less. They have both been spending time on building up their industrial empires. They understand each other much better than they understand the Inferno Spear Prince. Although it sounds boring, I do believe that their emphasis on production and logistics is the best way to win the Voribug War in a conventional fashion.”
Ves raised his eyebrow as he heard that last sentence. “Is it even possible to win against the voribug in a conventional war? From what I have seen so far, the voribugs play this game so well that no competitor can be their equal.”
Lord Richard conceded the matter. “It does seem this way. We are still lacking in truly effective weapons and tools, but even that may not be enough to defeat all of the swarms, especially now that the voribugs have more time to ramp up their production across their newly conquered territories. I fear that the only reasonable way to defeat the voribugs is through cheating. Whether we can do this by assassinating the Devourer Queen or developing a supervirus that is precisely tailored to destroy voribug bodies, we must rely on unconventional solutions to defeat an unconventional opponent.”
That sounded awfully similar to Ves’ own secret determination to fulfill his mission.
This reminded him of why he was here to observe the unfolding battle.
Ves peeked into the display and tried to identify the Goliaths that were accompanying the subsequent waves of attackers.
It appeared that the Goliath Hive was not in a hurry to push them into the spotlight yet. It still needed to complete the opening act.
“Do you believe that the Inferno Spear Prince can help the Rubarthan Pact develop an unconventional solution that works?”
“Yes.” The Rubarthan scion responded. “Not directly, of course. The Inferno Spear Prince is a saint, not a scientist. It is the people around him and under him that has earned him a measure of my trust. He is a prince that attracts many different talents. Many of the other princes cannot equal him in this aspect as many professionals feel honored when they are permitted to work for the saint among the princes. It helps that the prince in question can easily filter out those who harbor malice or duplicity in their hearts. Only the pure and innocent are permitted to attend to him. This has fostered a close brotherhood within his network. When I look at them, I see a band of heroes.”
“I see.”
The Inferno Spear Prince built up a strong network of talented people who trusted each other. He had no need for a kinship network as his Saint Kingdom could fulfill many of the same functions.
However, this network was far too dependent on the continued existence and well-being of a Rubarthan prince that readily threw himself in battle.
The greater his mortal entanglements, the harder it became for him to shed the remaining vestiges of his mortality and ascend to godhood.
Had the Inferno Spear Prince given up on advancing to the rank of god pilot?
Ves did not believe this to be the case. No ace pilot should be that easy to break.
While he was certainly making his life harder for himself, the Inferno Spear Prince was still a fiery Rubarthan nationalist and a protector of his people.
The dilemma here was that crossing the road of no return would most likely kill him. His chances of survival were too slim to deny this reality.
If the Inferno Spear Prince stuck to his current rank, then he could expect to last for a long time while possessing personal power that was only second to that of god pilots.
So long as the risk of failure was too great, then the Inferno Spear Prince may see no other way forward than to sacrifice his personal advancement in order to dedicate himself fully to the Rubarthan Pact.
Ves personally disapproved of such behavior.
The Inferno Spear Prince did not have to be politically active. What was the point of fighting over a throne of a newly independent colonial empire that was being hammered by two powerful alien enemies at once?
As far as Ves was concerned, it was much more logical to let the Smokestack Prince become the emperor and let him play with his factories and supply lines. This would ensure that the Rubarthan Pact would still be able to maintain its crucial military industries during these difficult times.
The Inferno Spear Prince meanwhile could devote his full attention to preparing for his next breakthrough.
It would be great if he succeeded, but even if he failed, other Rubarthan heroes would eventually be able to fill his shoes.
While Ves felt tempted to share his contemplations with Lord Richard Brownstone, he thought better about involving himself in this multi-faceted political succession crisis.
Instead, he focused on the more immediate problems at hand.
“The Goliath Hive is throwing away an awful lot of cannon fodder.” He remarked. “Are these bugs solely being expended so that they can keep the orbital defenses and other units preoccupied?”
“Yes, but the bugs are also thrown at our defenses in the hopes of exhausting our war materiel. Energy cells are being drained while our ammunition canisters are being emptied. Gun barrels are getting worn down due to repeated exposure to friction. Energy weapon emitters are melting from overheating. The rate of malfunctions continues to grow as the battle drags on. What is worse is that the enemy never gives us enough time to rest and repair our hardware. The voribugs will send more swarms within 12 to 24 hours, forcing us to keep making use of worn-down weapons and equipment.”
This was a fairly insidious way of conquering the Philaster Crestia System.
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Not only were the mutated voribugs using the defenders as whetstones, they were also grinding down the defenses.
Once the voribugs stopped holding back, they could topple the Rubarthan defenses much more easily due to their extensive wear-and-tear!
What Ves also found notable was the psychological toll of the repeated voribug attacks.
The bugs kept getting killed in astronomical numbers, yet still they sent out billions more cannon fodder in a remarkably short amount of time.
This made the Rubarthan soldiers feel as if their painstaking efforts to kill as many bugs as possible was meaningless.
What was the point of killing 1000 bugs when the Goliath Hive only needed to expend minimal effort to produce 10,000 bugs?
Holding the line did not work against the mutated voribugs. Their expansion rate was too high to make a defensive strategy work in the long term. All red humanity was doing was delaying the inevitable.
Ves could easily perceive the gloom among the Rubarthan soldiers. The longer they had been posted on this front, the more morose they became. They had lost virtually all hope of being able to secure a true victory against the voribugs.
This was a problem.
Although there were still Rubarthans who tried to keep up their fighting spirit, they were increasingly becoming an endangered species.
Perhaps that was why Ves was here. He needed to figure out a solution that could shake them from their malaise and make them feel hope again.
“The Goliaths are on the move.” Lord Richard said. “The highlight of this skirmish is about to start.”
The Goliaths varied in range. While all of them were larger than a typical mech, they were not as large as most juggernauts.
Their shapes and sizes varied considerably from each other. They were all based on specialized strains that allowed them to excel in a specific mode of combat.
“This is going to be interesting.”
In order to complete his secret mission, Ves already latched on to the plan of capturing a living Goliath by corrupting it with the power of darkness.
Before he could begin to develop targeted measures, he needed to choose the Goliath strain that was more vulnerable to his methods than others.
