Chapter 458. Breakdown (2/2)

All the while, the auxiliary regiments that turned traitor took control over enough anti-air turrets to make every ascent into space a risky prospect. They also deployed hidden missile launchers throughout Detemen IV to augment their air defense and bring down any vessel that tried to escape the planet.

Dozens of ships and shuttles fell before everyone learned their lesson. Unless they boarded a heavily armored combat carrier, they wouldn't dream about making another attempt.

The rebels still kept up their guard. They knew that Lord Javier was on the surface when the rebellion broke out. He might still be biding his time to get away aboard an armored or stealthed escape vessel, so they pulled out all the stops and constantly scanned the surroundings of the capital city.

High above the skies and beyond Detemen IV's atmosphere, the second detachment of the Vandal fleet approached the moons. Two of them posed a considerable concern to Major Verle. Without securing those two locations, he wouldn't feel reassured when he deployed his landbound mechs to the planet.

”Mr. Brandstad! Give me something!”

”We're working on it!” Alloc frazzedly replied. Both Ves and Alloc scoured through tons of data in order to find a way to ease the next actions.

Neither Ves nor Alloc found any obvious weaknesses in the laser rifleman mechs that formed the main line of defense at the lunar fortress.

The focus lay on the Amevon Mark VII Type D, which served as House Eneqqin's standard rearguard mech model. The House's in-house designers formed the Type D as a simpler and more affordable variant of their much more renowned Type A design.

The Type A was an impressive laser rifleman mech design that formed the mainstay of House Eneqqin's household troops. Therefore, a cheaper variant derived from it wouldn't be so easy to crack. The Type D inherited most of the Type A's strengths while hardly exposing any weaknesses.

Obviously, a lot of effort had been put into optimizing its design. Hundreds of mech designers spent many thousands of man-hours into working away its flaws. Try as he might, Ves peered at the Type D's design from every direction but couldn't put a dent in its seemingly perfect exterior.

”I don't believe this design is perfect! No design is perfect!”

The only weaknesses of the Type D they came up with so far were the generic ones that all laser rifleman mechs suffered from, such as their low burst damage and their vulnerability up close.

Even a toddler could figure that out. Ves had to dig deeper and find something more pertinent in order to make the upcoming battle a little easier for the Vandals.

Fortunately, he wasn't working alone. Alloc possessed a lot of experience in this area, and he quickly honed in on a potential weakness. ”Ves! Study its heat dispersal mechanisms! I remember that the Mark VI version of the Type A relies on disposable coolants to get rid of most of its heat in an instant. If the coolant tank got burst, the mech's internals almost always glitched out. See if this still applies for the Mark VII!”

The Amevon series had progressed by a major milestone since those weaknesses became known. Its designers must have certainly patched up the vulnerabilities, but they wouldn't have been able to mitigate the problem completely. The Type D possessed too little structure to do so.

Now that Alloc shone a light in a potentially promising direction, Ves rapidly called up past data on the Mark VI and Mark VII versions of the Type A and Type D. Most of the intelligence had been derived through a combination of analyzing past battle footage and stealing sensitive design documents by the intelligence services of the Republic.

This caused the data to be largely incomplete. Ves had to struggle through gaping holes and unreliable guesswork, but eventually he found a chink in the armor.

”I think they changed the placement of the coolant tank to the center and inwards! However, the discharge mechanisms are largely the same! It's harder to breach the coolant tank, but if our boys can manage it, the Type D's will certainly be taken out of commission!”

”Good work Ves, but it's not enough!”

They passed on the information to Major Verle anyway. This kept the mech commander off their backs for a tiny bit. The two mech designers continued to study the active cooling systems of the Type, knowing that there must be more they could find out.

”Deploying spaceborn mechs!”

A large number of spaceborn mechs launched from the hangar bays of the combat carriers and took up guard positions. For the assault of the lunar fortress, Major Verle wanted to drop close but not quite on top of the Vesian defenders.

With most of the turrets taken out by the rebels, the Vesian anti-air capabilities had become severely curtailed. While the Vandals still had to be wary of their rifleman mechs, Major Verle gambled on the possibility would be able to drop onto the surface without suffering any losses.

Ves thought that Verle had made a very bold bet.

Minutes away from starting the descent of half of their combat carriers, Ves finally achieved a breakthrough in his analysis!

”Reporting! The Amavon Mark VII Type D's are vulnerable to explosive and kinetic damage to their lower left sides! The armor doesn't need to be breached in order to cripple it. The Type D skimped on their structural integrity, so it won't be able to shield its internals against the concussive shocks from explosive and kinetic attacks.”

Ves sent along his analysis of the weakness. Attacking the lower left side of the Type D's would potentially allow their assailants to take them out with up to fifty percent less effort than taking it out conventionally!

”That's more like it!” Major Verle complimented him for once. ”Switch up the first wave! I want the missileers up front and advance to medium range before unleashing their payloads! Bring the Akkara's up front as well!”

”Sir, that would leave our carriers undefended!”

”Then hold the Hellcats and a couple of Inheritors back! They won't be of much use in the coming attack!”

The last-minute adjustments made it clear that Major Verle was prepared to stake the lives of his men and women over the vulnerability revealed by the mech designers.

This caused Ves to gulp. It was all well and good to state his observations, but if he spoke incorrectly, a lot of lives would be lost due to his words. Sweat poured down his brow as he watched the coming action with a lot of apprehension.