Chapter 2668: Resilient Fridaymen (2/2)
As long as it remained whole, the Larkinsons would never break in battle!
”The work that your mech designers are doing are all taking effect.” Major Verle briefly pulled his attention away from his own responsibilities. ”Look. Ever since your Valkyrie Prime started to relay a lot of data to us, the Fridaymen are almost losing as much mechs as ours. This is a significantly better ratio than before.”
”It's not enough.” Ves grimaced inside his helmet. ”We have already lost a lot more mechs at the start on this side of the battlefield, so we are still fighting at a disadvantage.”
Despite all of the setbacks they suffered, the elite Fridayman mech units still put up a lot of fight. The Holvein Grenadiers, the Bloody Herons and the Silent Swords each showcased why they were considered to be the best of what the Friday Coalition had to offer!
The Transcendent Punishers heavily suppressed the Holvein Grenadiers in the earlier stages of the battle. Plenty of grenade-carrying mechs succumbed before they could even show their might. No matter how well they performed at close range, they were still as helpless as other mechs when faced with relentless bombardment!
Unfortunately, now that the Transcendent Punishers redirected their fire to suppress the Charlemagne, the Scarra and the other surviving Fridayman expert mechs, the Holvein Grenadiers fought back with a vengeance!
A string of powerful high explosive grenades enriched with volatile exotics blew up near a cluster of Crosser mechs, heavily damaging their sides and disrupting their rhythm enough for the Grenadier mechs to make a quick breakthrough.
It took twice as much mechs to stop the Grenadier mechs in their tracks and prevent the lines from becoming more disordered.
A handful of rifleman mechs safely floating at the rear of the formation fired a volley of grenades with their under-barrel grenade launchers. Once the grenades detonated, they spread out of a huge amount of dark foam that didn't do anything but dirty the mechs in the vicinity.
However, when this foam touched the flight systems of mechs, they suddenly fizzled out, causing the mechs to lose a lot of maneuverability for a time.
Without their flight systems, mechs weren't able to fight anymore! They had lost too much mobility and not even the secondary boosters and thrusters built inside the other parts of their frame was enough to compensate for the loss.
They turned into sitting ducks against the prepared Holvein Grenadier mechs at the front!
”These damn grenade-slinging mechs are too outrageous!” A Larkinson mech pilot complained. ”I bet that some of these grenades cost as much as one of our mechs!”
The Holvein Grenadiers basically gained their advantages in battle by spending lots of money! The grenades they flung would never have as much potency against mechs as now if they didn't incorporate a lot of expensive exotics with a myriad of powerful and unusual effects. This was the only way to make a deadly package that was also compact and able to be carried by mechs.
Even though the Grenadiers had already expended most of their grenades by now, they still clung to at least one of them until the moment their mechs succumbed.
Explosions rippled through the frontline as Grenadier mech after Grenadier mech did not hesitate to take down their opponents with them. Often times, the diehard mech pilots actively overloaded the power reactors of their mechs in order to give their enemies an even bigger surprise!
The Silent Swords of the Konsu Clan fought in a completely different approach. Every mech pilot was a swordmaster and their mechs were completely tailored to the swordsmanship style that has been bestowed upon them. They all fought in the same way, but because of the exquisiteness of their technique, hardly any other melee mech was able to get the better of them in a one-on-one duel!
In some cases, the mech officers and mech champions of the Silent Swords were even able to fight two opposing melee mechs to a standstill!
As long as the circumstances were equal, the Silent Sword mechs were always able to carve their way through the ranks of their opponents and lay waste to any mech that entered their reach.
If not for the fact that they had no effective solutions against ranged attacks, the Silent Swords would have been enough to fight at least four times as many opponents!
The expeditionary forces had to reserve most of their rifleman mechs to put pressure on the Silent Swords. If their tricky wandering squads weren't put under fire as soon as they approached a contentious area, the elite Konsu mech pilots would have easily been able to harvest the enemies locked in battle against other Fridaymen mechs!
Yet what gave Ves the most dread was the Bloody Herons.
Even though the Herons lost a lot of mechs over the course of the engagement, the powerful mechs still punched above their weight due the impeccable teamwork they showed.
Only the prime mechs and the Valkyrie mechs piloted by the Glory Seekers and the Penitent Sisters were able to constrain them to an extent.
While Ves was previously fine with letting the battle play out against the Bloody Herons, he began to feel more concerned about what happened on the other parts of the battlefield.
The enemies here needed to be cleaned up as quickly as possible in order to free up a lot of friendly mechs that could be deployed to reinforce others.
Ves struggled a bit before he made a decision. He opened a private communication channel.
”Venerable Joshua.”
”Yes, sir?” The expert pilot hurriedly spoke.
His Valkyrie Prime was currently in the heat of battle!
”Do it. Show them what the Superior Mother can truly do. Wipe out as many Fridayman mechs as possible.”
”Isn't it too soon?! If we do this, our mech pilots will be…”
”I'm aware, but there is little point in delaying.” Ves replied. ”The elite Fridaymen mechs are no longer as numerous and oppressive as before, and their mech pilots have exerted heavily to the point where they are far from their peak. The timing is right. Delaying any further will just result in needless casualties. Just do it before anything changes.”
”..Very well, sir.”