The Mech Touch

The prospect of a sandman invasion sweeping through half the star sectors weighed heavily on the people aboard the Barracuda.

Ves already encountered the sandmen in battle during his Vandal days. While he did not rate their intelligence and reasoning abilities very highly, their peculiar racial abilities turned them into very formidable foes.

Fortunately, the sandmen were nowhere close to matching the strength of any of the Seven Apex Races. From a galactic perspective, they were a bunch of space vermin that humanity could squash like a bug any time they wanted.

The only problem here was that the Big Two discounted them so much that they barely lifted their fingers to address this crisis!

While it was true that the sandmen could be defeated by the local mech forces of the Komodo Star Sector, the aliens threatened to overrun a lot of states before they finally ran out of steam!

Practically all of the states in the vicinity of the frontier pleaded for more assistance. Yet the Big Two refused to take further action. In their eyes, the Komodo Star Sector was more than capable enough to fend off the sandmen by themselves!

"That might be true, but only if the entire star sector collectively takes action." Captain Silvestra opined when Ves visited the bridge. "If the Friday Coalition and the Hexadric Hegemony both commit a fourth of their mech militaries to the defense effort, the line will definitely hold."

"They'll never do it. Any reinforcement fleet they send out to the border with the frontier is one less fleet they can rely on to attack or defend their neighboring rival." Ves immediately guessed.

The rivalry between the Friday Coalition and the Hexadric Hegemony was as intense as the hatred between the Bright Republic and the Vesia Kingdom.

The only difference was that the two states hadn't fought a formal war yet since the opening of the Komodo Star Sector. The reason for that was that the firepower at their disposal was so destructive that the fighting would be incredibly ruinous.

Both sides bided their time kept accumulating their strength for the inevitable war that decided the fate of their star sector.

The winner of their titanic clash would gain complete dominance over the Komodo Star Sector as its sole second-rate state.

The loser faced complete dissolution and exile as all of their territories and most of their fixed assets fell in enemy hands.

No one dared to bet which side was destined to win. Both second-rate states hid a lot of cards up their sleeves. The mechs they showcased in public or revealed glimpses of only represented a portion of their might.

Still, even if they only exhibited a portion of their unfathomable depth, even a little bit of assistance could turn the battle at the border states around!

"I've recently came across a rumor about that, sir. According to the gossip that I have heard, the two second-rate states have already reached out to the border states of the first and second lines of defense."

Ves looked skeptical. "Are the Fridaymen and Hexers offering their assistance?"

"They are, but only a limited amount of forces. They have offered to dispatch some of their second-class mercenary corps to assist in the defense effort at their charge."

"That's not enough. They ought to dispatch their military mech regiments to blunt the invasion!"

"I haven't heard any word about that. The second-rate states have kept all of their military forces in place. They're only willing to contract their more dispensable and weaker mercenary corps to the border."

Neither of them understood the relative inaction of the second-rate states. Dispatching the dregs of their mech community against the sandman was hardly the commitment that Ves found acceptable.

The foremost powers of their star sector should have exhibited more leadership during this sudden crisis!

"The second-rate states were never under threat to begin with." Ves rubbed his chin as he formulated some guesses. "If the sandmen race overrun the Bright Republic and all the other states, they'll never be able to breach the defensive lines of the Coalition and the Hegemony!"

For this reason, neither states exhibited a lot of urgency towards this threat. While they could doubtlessly earn a lot of goodwill from the rest of the star sector if they selflessly deployed their premier mech divisions to the border, no amount of goodwill was worth decreasing their defenses against their hated rival!

"Your girlfriend is a dynastic Hexer, right? Maybe you should ask her for the inside story. I'm sure she's willing to explain the situation to you since your home state is in the invasion path of the sandmen."

"I'll try, but I'm doubtful whether she's aware of the inside story. She isn't affiliated with the military as far as I know."

The two chatted some more, but they gained little else. The lack of information hindered their attempts to figure out the bigger picture. All they could agree on was that they couldn't count on the Big Two or the regional second-rate states to bail out the border states.

Aside from some token assistance, the states facing the brunt of the sandman invasion were on their own!

When Ves exited the bridge of the Barracuda and walked back to his stateroom, Nitaa shared her own thoughts on the matter.

"The Big Two are concerned with greater threats. They have never prioritized individual lives. Even if the sandmen ruin half of our star sector, it doesn't affect the total strength of humanity at all. Eventually, the sandmen will exhaust themselves and go extinct. What has been lost can easily be rebuilt in a century."

"I know that." Ves sighed. "They're powerful, but their strength comes at a price. I think one of the reasons why they have reduced their presence in this region lately is because it's not economical for them to intervene."

A first-class mech might be able to defeat hundreds of third-class mechs in battle, but it cost vastly more to make and to deploy them in action!

"As for the second-rate states, you're right that they are guarding against the greater threat, sir. To the Friday Coalition, the Hexadric Hegemony is a far greater danger to them than the entire sandmen empire. They don't gain anything of importance if they commit their military forces to the border states."

"The appreciation of the third-rate states they've assisted is of little consequence in their struggle for dominance against their rival." Ves described the brutal truth. "Even if every third-rate state in the star sector hates their guts, as long as they defeat their archenemy, everyone else has no choice but to fall in line!"

The staring contest between the Hexers and the Fridaymen lasted for centuries. Neither side had made a move. Ves did not expect this pattern to change. Launching an attack against their rival in the middle of a large-scale sandman invasion was extremely unwise!

Yet even if the two second-rate states kept all of their military forces on standby and in peak condition, neither of them were charitable enough to bail the border states out! Not if it affected their readiness against the greater threat!

"Even in the face of a common foe, humanity still can't let go of their grudges against their own kind. Infighting is a poison that has brought our race to the brink of extinguishing ourselves. The Age of Mechs is practically defined by internal struggles!"

That was a remarkably insightful opinion from Nitaa.

"It's true that we have stopped addressing external alien threats." Ves agreed. "That has given races like the sandmen enough breathing room to become serious nuisances."

Since the end of the Age of Conquest, humanity stopped conquering new territory. Aside from sporadic cleanups, their race needed a lot of time to recover from the ravages of the previous age.

The question was whether they spent enough time at peace. Just as humanity rebuilt their forces and repaired their society, so did the defeated aliens who had been displaced from their old territories.

A centuries-long stalemate between the human race and the alien races in the galaxy was never supposed to last forever.

One day, the greatest conflict of the entire galaxy threatened to begin anew, forcing the Big Two to exert all of their strength to fight against the true threats they had been guarding against all this time!

With such humongous concerns weighing on their minds, 'minor incidents' such as the sandman invasion barely merited their attention!

Once he reached his stateroom, Ves sat behind his desk and began to rearrange his thoughts.

The remainder of his truncated tour through the star sector no longer served to expand his horizons. Instead, Ves planned to dedicate the rest of his time away from home towards studying and preparing against the sandman threat.

Since the Hertog Dominion was close enough to the frontier to begin getting targeted by the sandmen, Ves planned to learn as much as possible.

He wanted to study how the sandmen fleets attacked and how the defenders were best able to repel the raids and invasions.

Since this migrationary invasion was so massive that it might take years before the sandmen exhausted their invasion forces, Ves believed he could take advantage of it by designing the right mechs!

"As a mech designer, the best way I can contribute to this conflict is to design mechs that are tailor-made to resist the sandmen!"

From his own experiences with this perplexing race, Ves knew that only a limited set of configurations stood a chance against them in battle.

The most annoying part about fighting this perplexing race was that melee mechs were almost always completely ineffective against them! The sandmen basically fought by animating their own bodies into huge amalgamations of sand-like particles that lacked a solid structure!

They were similar to smart metal and ASMAS in that fashion. However, a number of traits of the sandmen race gave them a distinctive edge. Their ability to absorb energy and engulf entire mechs in sand meant that any melee mech would be committing suicide if they attempted to hit a sandman amalgamation with a sword!

Even if a melee mech managed to land a blow, it hardly mattered as only a negligible proportion of individual sandmen broke!

"Dispatching melee mechs against this formless threat is no different from putting the machines through a massive grinder!" He declared with certainty!

The near-total irrelevance of melee mechs in battles against sandmen practically rendered half of the mech forces of every state helpless!

The most a state could do was to station their useless melee mechs at various strategic facilities and sites to guard against human malcontents.

The best way to resist the sandmen was to deploy ranged mechs in battle. However, the damage type mattered a lot.

Kinetic weapons such as ballistic rifles and ballistic cannons fared the best. Kinetic and explosive weapons generally transferred a lot of energy in a dispersed manner against sandman targets.

Just like smart metal, a collection of sandmen was individually weak. As long as every single animated grain of sand or other substance received at least some damage, ballistic weapons could kill a lot of sandmen with every shot they fired!

The same didn't apply to laser weapons. Though effective against most human threats, the performance of laser weapons had been very lackluster so far.

All of the news reports from the border states described many instances where sandman vessels absorbed hundreds of laser beams and still remained aloft!

In fact, firing laser weapons at the sandmen partially charged their energy reserves! Though the sandmen weren't able to withstand extreme heat, the problem was that laser beams were generally thin and very bad at dispersing their energy!

"It's like poking a lot of hot needles through someone's skin. Though it hurts a lot, the actual damage dealt to the body is hardly impressive!"

Someone who poked their target with a dozen needles inflected less damage than someone who wacked their target with a mallet!

All in all, the mech forces effectively had to set aside yet another portion of their battle strength. While mechs armed with laser weapons still inflicted some damage against sandmen, their influence was so minor that they might as well not be involved!

"No. The starring role will definitely go to the mechs armed with ballistic and kinetic weaponry! Mechs armed with missile weapons will also be vital!"