The Mech Touch (Web Novel)
chapter-6181

Across red humanity's borders, a hurricane crashed against all of the fortified positions at once.

The Red Tide Offensive had begun.

The native aliens spent so much time on building up their assault fleets and equipping them with more modern tech for the singular purpose of overwhelming the barriers that stood in the way of human extinction.

Pretty much every alien soldier yearned to do their part into driving the hateful humans back to the edge of the dwarf galaxy before wiping them out entirely!

This was pretty remarkable. The forces that had answered the call of the Red Cabal were composed of a lot of different races, cultures and other subgroups.

The full answer why this was the case would take too long to explain, but the essence of it was that the native aliens built up far too many grievances towards the humans over the past decade.

Since their explosive expansion across the new frontier, the extragalactic invaders had mercilessly wiped out every native alien that occupied the precious planets that had already been earmarked as future colonies.

The humans did not play by the rules and conventions that had been responsible for establishing a relatively stable galactic community.

The deification of phase whales had long kept the thirteen major races connected in a loose galactic community that transcended the barriers of race and cultures.

Few of the local races liked each other, but they deliberately controlled the intensity of every scuffle below a certain level to avoid any disastrous escalation.

Most of the alien leaders were rational enough to understand that if two civilizations went to war against each other, others would just sit back for a time before swooping in to mop up both sides at once!

When such conditions remained stable for a long time, the native races were unlikely to engage in all-out slaughter.

Despite fielding massive homeships that were capable of unleashing the same scale of destruction as human warships, the natives of the Red Ocean implicitly or explicitly agreed to withhold their most destructive arms in any violent conflict.

This was not actually all that remarkable. A similar status quo existed in the Milky Way before the Age of Conquest.

It was not until the rise and explosive expansion of human civilization that this uneasy but fairly stable balance shattered all at once!

In the old galaxy, the greedy but insecure humans saw no choice but resort to lying, stealing, cheating and other underhanded means to disrupt the regional status quo and supercharge their growth.

In the new galaxy, the much more arrogant and uncaring humans disregarded the rights of the native life forms to an extremely callous degree. Humans only saw everything in the Red Ocean as resources that were just waiting to be harvested!

Unfortunately for the greedy pioneers and colonists, the Red Cabal completely turned the situation around when they teleported the Red Ocean far away from the Milky Way.

Now that the red humans could no longer obtain any form of support from their much more powerful cousins in the old galaxy, the native aliens that previously got beat up more times than they could count finally gained a chance to exact their revenge!

Regardless of the alien language they used to express their feelings, the crew members of all of the alien fleets unanimously cried out for blood and vengeance!

The sheer collective fury and bloodlust among all of the aliens taking part in the first wave of the offensive boiled over to the point where it looked as if they dyed the space around them in red!

The red nebula background that suffused the dwarf galaxy seemed to become a little richer and darker. It was as if the Red Ocean itself heralded the true beginning of the Red War and all of the bloodshed that was about to ensue!

In the face of this momentous tide of red, the soldiers assigned to guard the strategically valuable border systems were all the first to face the brunt of this aggression.

The pressure among the star systems located in the most forward and vulnerable 1st defense band was especially high!

It went without saying that practically no sane human would want to reside in a star system located so close to angry aliens that wished to do nothing more than to genocide every human population center!

This made it difficult for the Red Two and the other major powers to assign enough troops in these crucial star systems.

The leaders of human civilization briefly considered the option of automating the defenses at the most vulnerable and doomed border systems.

However, they quickly dismissed this idiotic notion.

Automated defenses could always be hacked!

Even if the Polymath herself programmed the cybersecurity defenses of the automated defensive platforms and armies of battle bots, there was always a way to circumvent them, either internally or externally.

It didn't matter that the native aliens were much less capable of hacking state-of-the-art human AIs and algorithms.

The damned Cosmopolitan Movement were just as proficient in hacking, if not more!

These degenerate human traitors had proven many times that they were superior hackers, as they relied on their ability to subvert electronic systems to engage in untold amounts of data theft and sabotage!

The hidden presence of an unknown amount of cosmopolitan cells throughout human society was one of the real reasons why people developed such an unreasonable degree of fear towards extensive automation.

No matter how convenient AIs may be, as long as one competent bad actor came around and completely messed them up, a disaster would occur!

Human intervention and control therefore remained an essential component of red humanity's defensive layout.

This forced the Red Ocean Union, the Terran Alliance and the Rubarthan Pact to come together and hammer out a necessary addendum to the New Elites Program.

Only after offering additional incentives were the three colonial alliances able to attract enough soldiers to the most dangerous star systems in the new frontier.

Right now, hundreds of mech pilots assigned to an elite mech unit had gathered in one of the briefing rooms of an orbital space fortress.

A gloomy atmosphere pervaded in the compartment. All of the uplifting and motivational banners displaying thrilling scenes of human victories or blood-pumping slogans failed to lift the mood.

A relatively old 55-year old mech pilot called Josh Ketter stood in the middle of a crowd of fellow soldiers.

Each of them adopted grim expressions as they listened to the speech of the RA liaison.

"Your hour has come." The well-dressed and impeccably handsome man said. "After months of waiting, the native aliens have unleashed their Red Tide upon us all, seeking to flood the defenses that we have painstakingly built in the border regions. As one of the many nails that our race and civilization has hammered into this star system, we must stand up and hold our ground no matter the cost."

None of the mech pilots showed any cowardice or hesitation. Sure, they might harbor a lot of fears inside their minds, but they possessed enough discipline to avoid exposing their insecurities.

"Each of you have chosen to do their most sacred duty to uphold the 1st defensive band. I shall not lie to you. Our forces are stretched too thin. The entire 1st defensive band is projected to fall within a week if not less. This means that most of us may end up dead by the time seven days have passed."

The gathered mech pilots did not show any strong reactions towards this news. They already expected as much. They knew what they signed up for. It would be stupid for them to change their stance on the matter now that so much time had passed.

The mecher liaison continued to address the honored soldiers. "Our preliminary analysis on the alien fleets that are on their way to break our planet's orbital defenses and bombard our strongholds on the surface has revealed several lethal threats. The more updated warships are not only armed with greater quantities of tertiary gun batteries, but also feature many more missile launchers. Do not get close to them, and do not group up too much. These anti-mech warships can shred entire mech companies in a matter of seconds under the right conditions."

A projection of several different alien ship models appeared. Josh Ketter already recognized the distinctly broad hulls as warships belonging to the orven race.

Just as the liaison had said, the orvens had chosen to install less primary gun batteries in favor of installing a lot more tertiary gun batteries!

The largest orven hulls boasted over a thousand tertiary gun batteries, thereby allowing them to vastly exceed the firepower of a typical ranged mech regiment!

"Aside from that, the native aliens have also prepared another specific counter to our mechs in the form of phasefighters."

The projection changed to display several civilian cargo haulers that had hastily been converted into dinky carriers.

Although the conversions had been completed in haste, the terrible qualities of these former cargo haulers did not affect the immediate combat power of the state-of-the-art alien phasefighters!

Not only did they look fairly new and modern by human standard, their quantity was absolutely dazzling!

"These cheap capital carriers have shown up on every star system under siege." The RA liaison said. "They may look fragile, but don't think they can be blown up with ease. They are equipped with strong enough transphasic energy shields to resist sustained attacks. What truly matters is the fact that they can all transport at least 2000 phasefighters each. Since there are so many converted carriers within the alien fleets, we have already estimated that our mech forces will be outnumbered three to one."

That caused the mech pilots to finally express more emotion. Many looked dismayed at the prospect of trying to fend off three times as many phasefighters!

"Do not be intimidated!" The speaker shouted! "The alien phasefighters are difficult to eliminate, but you can still do it! The more you are able to eliminate, the more time you buy for us all. No matter how hopeless the battle may seem, remember what you are fighting for. As the most selfless linefighters to exist, each of your names will be remembered in our greatest halls of honor for as long as our civilization persists."

A lot of mech pilots puffed up their chests after they heard this. It was a dream to many of them to matter in some way. So many humans lived and died that it was too difficult for any of them to leave a notable legacy behind. If these elite mech pilots were able to receive one of the highest honors by sacrificing their otherwise mediocre lives, then they would gladly make this trade!

While Josh Ketter desired this honor as well, it did not excite him as much as his other goal.

His thoughts strayed to his teenage daughter who resided in a much safer star system far away from the dangerous border region.

"Many of you are not just fighting for yourself, but also for your families. The Red Association has already guaranteed that all of your offspring will be awarded with the title of Warchildren, thereby officially recognizing them as the immediate descendants of war heroes. The better your performance, the more generous the pensions, subsidies and other privileges we bestow on your spouses and children. Our Association will further grant all of your Warchildren a chance to pass a low-barrier test to join its ranks. The greater your contribution, the more bonuses your offspring will receive."

The eyes of many mech pilots lit up as they heard this! Many of the veteran soldiers signed up for this duty for this express purpose!

They fought not for themselves, but for their precious children!

In a galaxy where many humans were about to experience a deterioration in quality of life and life opportunities, it would be great if their children could become a part of one of the most powerful human organizations in the Red Ocean!