The addition of the new Stiletto Combat Drive completely transformed the combat effectiveness of the Dark Zephyr.
As a short-ranged mech that needed to be within tossing distance of its target in order to make meaningful contributions to an ongoing battle, speed had always been its greatest strength and limitation.
On one hand, it was by far the fastest mech in the Larkinson Army.
On the other hand, other expert mechs such as the Amaranto and the Promethea could easily deal more damage to distant targets without moving from their places.
Venerable Tusa had always been afraid of losing relevance on the battlefield. The rising trends of the Red Ocean posed a grave threat to him as light mechs were not as suited to fight against large enemies as other machines.
The new customized combat drive solved most of his concerns.
As long as the Dark Zephyr mounted this extravagantly expensive module onto its back, it could activate it at any time, allowing the expert mech to warp the surrounding space and effectively speed up its flight.
There were only two major flaws to the Stiletto Combat Drive.
The first major flaw was that it was a fairly vulnerable component. Tusa needed to pay close attention to incoming attacks. None should ever be allowed to strike the rear of the Dark Zephyr without any mitigation.
In order to help the Dark Zephyr protect this sensitive and valuable module, Ves and Gloriana had worked hard to integrate a compact emergency shield generator inside the frame.
It was not easy to stuff such a component inside the chassis of a small and cramped light mech, but they somehow managed to succeed by replacing many other components with miniaturized alternatives.
By default, the small and fairly weak shield generator was tasked with serving as an additional layer of defense for the Stiletto Drive.
Since the combat drive integrated 70 grams of phasewater, the Larkinson Clan would have to pay Morton Tech almost double this amount in order to obtain a new Stiletto Drive!
Ves had tried his best to negotiate a more favorable deal with the high-tech development company, but he had failed to make much progress.
There weren’t that many companies out there that were qualified to develop minidrives, and there were even less of them that were based in Davute!
All of these companies spent phasewater like water, so none of them were eager to compete against each other based on price.
The result was that Ves and the Larkinson Clan would have to pay the same amount of phasewater no matter which company he approached!
Settling for going into bed with Morton Tech was a helpless decision on his part. Rather than go for a company that offered slightly more attractive conditions but was based in a completely different zone, Ves might as well partner up with a local company that he could at least pay a visit to if anything went wrong with the Stiletto Drive.
Ves had made it abundantly clear to Venerable Tusa that he should never put the Stiletto Drive at risk. If it somehow broke to the point where the Larkinsons couldn’t salvage the pieces, then they needed to pay 135 grams of phasewater to Morton Tech in order to supply a replacement!
Though the clan’s reserves of phasewater was still fairly abundant at this point, Ves did not want to squander this strategic material too quickly.
“Let’s see how much better he has become now that he has been able to practice with his upgraded mech for a longer time.” Ves muttered as he brought his mind back to the present.
He concentrated his mind in order to get in touch with Vulcan.
His incarnation effectively functioned as the server of the Mental Simulation Training System, so Ves could conveniently access it at any place and time.
He quickly sought out the scenario that Tusa and the Dark Zephyr were engaged in and dove in to spectate the ongoing battle.
Explosions immediately overwhelmed Ves’ senses as Tusa and a portion of the Larkinson Army fought against a powerful alien fleet!
Although the enemy force did not field any starfighters that could dogfight against human mechs, the formidable array of weapon systems were more than enough to swat out one Larkinson mech after another!
The threat posed by these warships was incredible. The dense web of firepower thrown out by these warships easily intercepted every mech that attempted to push forward.
Without a sufficient quantity of ranged solutions of their own, the Larkinson mechs were unable to take down the enemy warships fast enough.
The alien vessels were simply too well-protected!
However, even as the beleaguered ranks of Larkinson melee mechs tried and failed to get closer, a single expert mech managed to bridge the gap.
The Dark Zephyr had quickly and speedily managed to cross the void between the two fleets in a remarkably short amount of time!
It had even done so while circling around instead of taking the shortest possible route!
While it would have been faster if the expert light skirmisher went straight from point A to point B, it would have been too easy for the enemy warships to bombard the speedy machine with accurate fire.
By circling around and approaching the alien fleet at a different angle, it became a lot harder to land a blow on the Dark Zephyr.
This was especially the case when it had activated its signature Untouchable resonance ability!
The mass of kinetic rounds fired by the enemy’s abundant cannon batteries occasionally struck the apparent form of the Dark Zephyr, only for them to pass by harmlessly as it turned out that they hit a mirage.
It took over a minute of futile effort for the alien commanders to figure out that the real Dark Zephyr was hiding in the vicinity!
After adjusting their targeting strategy and firing solutions, the alien fleet finally managed to land real blows onto the Dark Zephyr.
Unfortunately for them, the human expert mech had already completed over half of its journey at this time!
This was absolutely remarkable because it would have been forced to cross a much longer distance in the past.
The reason for all of this progress was the active Stiletto Drive equipped by the Dark Zephyr!
Venerable Tusa made sure that he always kept up a resonance shield around his machine. He also oriented the Dark Zephyr so that the alien warships received the least amount of opportunities to strike at its rear.
Unfortunately, the heavy blows from the enemy warships seriously depleted the resonance shield of the Dark Zephyr!
Even if most of the warship cannons tasked with intercepting the lone expert mech missed their mark, a single hit was enough to put a mean dent onto an armored starship.
The Dark Zephyr couldn’t afford to withstand all of this firepower for too long!
Venerable Tusa had already accounted for this, though.
At the start of this run, his Dark Zephyr traversed the battlefield 10 times faster than normal, but that was hardly the limit.
One of the general rules of any form of warp drive was that the longer it was running, the more it was able to ramp up its warp effect.
The Dark Zephyr was only able to speed up 10 times at shorter distances, but now that its Stiletto Drive had taken up the time to ramp up, its current amplification was had surpassed 30 times!
What did this mean?
It only had to remain in travel for less than a third of the time in order to reach the enemy fleet!
The simulated battle indeed proceeded in this fashion.
Though the Dark Zephyr continued to slam into one shell after another despite Tusa’s best attempts to evade them all, it had managed to arrive next to the nearest enemy warship at record time!
This was an extremely serious problem to the enemy fleet. The closest warship couldn’t even orient most of its gun turrets at the expert mech.
The ones that were further ahead did not dare to fire their heaviest armaments because they would do far more damage to their own side!
This left Venerable Tusa free to act as he wished!
The expert mech did not even disengage its Stiletto Drive at this point. Unless the alien opponents were able to disrupt the active warp field, there was no easy way to knock the Dark Zephyr out of its accelerated state!
The only problem was that all of the rapid turning and other extreme maneuvers reduced the Stiletto Drive’s amplification factor.
It didn’t matter though as the Dark Zephyr only made a single attack pass before it flew towards the next enemy warship!
Even though the expert mech had already departed its initial target, the warship subsequently fell into a crisis as three transphasic grenades completely blasted all three of her main gun turrets!
Though the alien vessel was still able to stay in the fight by firing her mostly-intact secondary armaments, knocking out her biggest guns provided the Larkinsons with a lot of relief!
Those main cannons had been pounding the capital ships of the Larkinson Clan for a while now. If they continued to do their work, then the Larkinsons were liable to lose all of their carriers before they lost their mechs!
In the next few minutes, the Dark Zephyr repeated the same trick. All of her grenade holsters were filled with insanely expensive transphasic grenades.
Ves, who had been observing this scenario for a while now, winced each time Tusa threw around those transphasic grenades like candy.
“Don’t you know how much they are valued on the open market? You’re throwing away thousands of MTA credits with every toss!”
The price was worth it, though. The grenades were extraordinarily potent. Much of their destructive potential bypassed many layers of thick hull plating and easily demolished the vulnerable internal components that made the gun turrets work!
Even if the gun turrets were clad with transphasic armor plating that could partially resist this effect, the grenades still would have done a lot of damage since they contained an extravagant mix of explosive materials!
Soon enough, the Dark Zephyr managed to defang six enemy warships in quick succession.
Though it was still being fired upon by lots of secondary gun batteries, the Dark Zephyr cleverly utilized the enemy hulls as cover, thereby frustrating most attempts at taking it down.
By now, it only had two transphasic grenades left. The Dark Zephyr rapidly flew towards an undamaged warship but did not choose to take down any of her main cannons.
The expert light skirmisher instead tossed the grenade towards the side of the hull.
Soon, a powerful blast opened up a hole which the Dark Zephyr eagerly dove in. This time, it drew out its Unending alloy daggers and began to carve deeper through the less sturdy internal structural bulkheads.
If the Dark Zephyr had to breach the interior of the enemy warship with its daggers, then it would have probably taken at least a minute to carve a large enough hole!
However, the transphasic grenade allowed it to bypass all of this work and save precious time.
Most starships were built like eggs. Their toughest part was their exterior. As long as the shell had been breached, it was much easier to mess up the insides!
The Dark Zephyr clearly experienced this as its resonance-empowered daggers, which were ordinarily lackluster against large targets, easily tore into the warship, cutting apart everything that looked important until the entire vessel lost power!
Venerable Tusa soon brought his expert mech back out and jumped towards another nearby warship and tossed the final transphasic grenade in order to repeat the same routine!
Ves steadily watched as Tusa single-handedly tilted a major battle in the favor of the Larkinson Clan through his own efforts.
The training scenario wasn’t so much of a challenge as it was just the latest attempt of Tusa to indulge in the powerful new upgrades of his revised expert mech.
When the Dark Zephyr deployed onto the battlefield in its most powerful loadout, its threat towards enemy warships was not that much inferior to the Mars when it was bombarding a hostile fleet from a distance!
