The Mech Touch

"What?! Who’s there?!"

Due to the intensity of the running battle, Ves had tunnel-visioned into controlling and directing his battle bots as best as possible in order to fend off the Coalition mechs.

This caused him to neglect the Scarlet Rose’s alerts when her sensors detected a couple of ships that emerged in the vicinity of the battlefield!

Though the distance between the new arrivals and the battlefield was fairly vast, a single mech managed to score two extremely accurate hits from an extremely long range!

Ves widened his eyes! Though laser beams traveled at the speed of light, in practice it was incredibly hard to land a shot on a target at such an extreme range!

Just a 0.0001 degree deviance in the aiming angle was enough for a laser beam to go wide!

Yet not only did the mech deployed by the new arrivals managed to strike the enemy light skirmishers, but also hit their flight systems in a way that crippled their mobility!

"What a supreme display of marksmanship!"

Only mech pilots and mech designers understood how challenging it was to achieve pin-point accuracy at such an extreme range! Not even second-class mech pilots ought to be able to accomplish this feat!

The distant ranged mech didn’t stop after releasing those shots. As it continued to accelerate towards the battlefield, the mech rapidly released a series of powerful laser attacks that systematically dismantled the two hapless Coalition light skirmishers as if they were meat on the chopping block!

Just a dozen seconds later, the light skirmishers finally succumbed when the new mech struck their cockpits and instantly killed their mech pilots!

Ves stood frozen behind his control panel as he witnessed a single defeat the two mechs as easy as drinking water!

After finishing off the two swift targets, the approaching mech quickly directed its firepower at the enemy space knight.

Though the Coalition mech did a good job at beating up the Paravin, the moment the distant mech attacked it, the space knight fared no better than the light skirmishers!

The power of the laser beams increased, yet the firing rate hadn’t declined! Powerful rays of lights continued to strike the various weak points of the space knight, causing it to lost a limb with every shot!

"This is incredible! How can a laser beam dismember a space knight so easily?!"

The power of those laser beams was beyond comprehension to Ves! A defensive mech should never succumb so easily! Even if his battle bots managed to destroy the space knight’s shield and soften up its surface armor, it would still take dozens of concentrated attacks for his Selzer to separate a limb!

Yet this new mech easily destroyed the space knight with a handful of high-powered shots!

"The Selzer’s rifle would quickly blow up if it attempted to fire such an overpowered laser attack!"

There was no sign the distant mech suffered from any overheating or other damage! In fact, the Scarlet Rose had a lot of difficulty trying to observe the distant mech.

"Even its ECM is powerful!" Ves gasped.

Once the new arrival wrecked the three mechs attacking the Scarlet Rose, the mech quickly redirected its flight and quickly struck down the retreating rifleman mech and striker mech that Ves had damaged earlier.

Due to their awful conditions, the remaining three mechs dispatched by the Fridaymen went down without a fight!

All six hostile mechs met their end within a single minute. Ves turned numb at the ease and speed in which these Fridaymen mechs fell like dominoes.

Even if Ves weakened them considerably, a single mech shouldn’t have been able to topple them over so easily!

The battle situation changed at an instant due to the intervention of a third-party. The Terrinac, which lost all of her mechs, instantly turned around and overloaded her propulsion system!

The Fridaymen knew they faced a fearsome opponent!

Though the Terrinac fled a lot faster than Ves thought, her acceleration paled in comparison to the new mech!

Ves watched with astonishment as the Scarlet Rose tracked the movements of his savior with difficulty.

"What is this acceleration?! The mobility of this rifleman mech is insane!"

The blue-and-black mech sped up towards the fleeing Terrinac like a shark smelling blood. While its powerful ECM system prevented Ves from studying the mech in detail, he could still observe its acceleration and compare its mobility to other mechs.

Ves made an astonishing conclusion. "It’s acceleration is multiple times greater than that of the Fliskin!"

The Fliskin was already a premier light skirmisher designed by Lady Curver. It was incredibly difficult to design a mech that accelerated just 20 percent faster, yet this new mech overpowered to such a degree that Ves suspected that it might be first-class mech!

Did the MTA’s Compliance Department come and save him or something? Why would they ever intervene in this battle?

"No! It’s not the MTA!"

Once he got over his shock, he stopped trying to observe the powerful new mech that would assuredly intercept the Terrinac.

Instead, he directed his attention towards the three ships that appeared some distance away from the Scarlet.

Unlike the sole mech they dispatched, the three ships did not hide their presence behind an ECM curtain. They openly announced their identities with their transponders as if they had nothing to hide.

Ves widened his eyes as he spotted a familiar name!

"The Stellar Chaser! Gloriana!"

Gloriana had finally come and rescued him! Not only that, she brought friends as well!

Ves briefly furrowed his brows. Shouldn’t Gloriana be stuck in friendly space? The Glory Battalion would never allow her to stray too close to danger!

Yet the Stellar Chaser somehow entered the space claimed by Crecia Republic without her usual escorts.

He did not recognize the two ships flanking the Stellar Chaser. He could only go by the information transmitted by their transponders.

The smaller civilian corvette was called the Frozen Leaf, and didn’t appear to be geared towards battle at all. Ves doubted the powerful mech came from this tiny vessel.

He scratched his head at her familiar name.

However, it was the other ship that truly caught his attention. The Serendipity was a sleek and aggressive-looking frigate that shared some common points with the Terrinac. While the former was smaller and possessed a smaller mech hangar, she was probably faster.

According to her transponders, the Serendipity was a ship that belonged to the Glory Battalion.

Ves understood why Gloriana left her usual escorts behind in favor of the Serendipity. The combat carriers that accompanied her to the Bright Republic were too large and cumbersome to sneak through unfriendly space.

All three ships that showed up in this star system were all fast and agile enough to evade most Fridaymen hunters.

Yet what if they met an ambush? What gave them the confidence to traverse the potentially dangerous territories of the Crecia Republic while possessing hardly any space to carry any mechs?

Ves knew that the Stellar Chaser could only carry a couple of mechs at best.

The Star Dancer probably resembled the Barracuda in that she could only bring along a single mech.

The Serendipity was a little better off since she was designed for combat like the Terrinac, but her mech hangar could only fit four mechs by his estimate.

This meant that the three ships could only bring eight or so mechs in total, which was an extremely precarious number!

Ves couldn’t help but glance back towards the sole mech the Hexer fleet deployed. The obscured mech already started to bombard the fleeing Terrinac with powerful kinetic strikes!

"What a powerful gauss rifle!"

The mech seemed to have switched its weapon. The round fired by its gauss rifle impacted the Terrinac with a force that surpassed that of the gauss cannon rounds fired by the Kravon!

Glowing round after glowing round systematically damaged the propulsion system of the hapless Terrinac. Though the CRC frigate was virtually doomed without the protection of mechs, the crew still tried to do their utmost to escape this calamity!

Yet the hammering impacts from the powerful’s gauss rifle put a stop to any attempt at escape!

The glowing rounds instantly reminded Ves of something. Ordinary gauss rifle rounds didn’t glow when fired.

Only when imparted by some sort of energy would they leave bright streaks through empty space!

Ves belatedly moved his hand and expanded the data collected by the sensors of his ship.

"Resonance!"

One of the sensors designed to detect and measure resonance had become active!

The mech that saved him and went on to capture the Terrinac turned out to be an expert mech!

Gloriana somehow managed to gain the assistance of a Hexer expert pilot!

"How did she do it?! How much did she pay to enlist such powerful help?!"

Expert pilots ought to be precious even to the Hexadric Hegemony. With the Komodo War raging in the border regions of the two second-rate states, Ves could scarcely imagine why the Hexers allowed one of their expert pilots to travel so far away from the frontlines.

Yet no matter the circumstances, Ves felt incredibly relieved that his ordeal had finally come to an end. With Gloriana here, he could finally let down his guard.

With an expert mech under their wing, no Fridayman raiding force stood a chance against its might!

At this time, the Scarlet Rose finally received an incoming communication request from the Stellar Rose.

Ves instantly accepted the call.

"I’m here!" Gloriana’s projection brilliantly smiled. "I’m so sorry I couldn’t be in touch with you for so long! I had to work hard to convince my stubborn family to go out and meet you halfway. We also had to restrict our communications once we set off in order to avoid giving the Fridaymen too many clues."

"It’s fine!" Ves held up his palm. "I managed to do fine on my own for so long. Don’t underestimate me. I do appreciate your arrival. How did you manage to get an expert pilot, by the way?"

She sighed, though she still looked incredibly pleased. "It’s a long story. Let’s talk it over when you transfer to my ship. I have missed you so much! It was unbearable for me to be away from you for an entire month!"

Ves felt incredibly warm when he heard her words. He sensed no duplicity from her at all. She was truly sincere with her feelings.

The love they shared between them hadn’t weakened at all. Their month-long separation reinforced how much they enjoyed each other’s presence!

Though Ves wanted nothing more than to run up to her and pull her into his embrace, he considered what would happen to his spoils of war.

The Scarlet Rose was his possession! He didn’t want to give her up to his rescuers!

Not only that, Ves wanted to keep the mysterious escape pod and Cassandra Breyer a secret! There was no way the Wodin Dynasty would ignore a renewable source of high-grade exotics!

"Ehm.. can you come to my ship instead? I don’t want to let go of the Scarlet Rose. She’s my prize, after all. I risked my life to capture this ship!"

Gloriana briefly looked sideways and quietly conferred with someone outside of the range of her projection. She soon turned her attention back to Ves with an apologetic expression. "The Glory Battalion won’t allow me to step foot on your captured ship. She’s not secure enough in their eyes. Just transfer to my ship. I’ll tell the Glory Battalion to station a small prize crew on your capture in order to bring her back. Will that be okay?"

He knew that Gloriana would never allow him to stay put. She would probably go crazy if he refused to reunite with her when they were so close!

Knowing that his departure from the Scarlet Rose was set in stone, Ves at least wanted to receive some assurances.

"The Glory Battalion won’t force me to give up the Scarlet Rose, right?"

Gloriana looked amused. "I’ll make sure you get to keep your stolen ship, alright?"

Ves looked relieved. "Okay then. Can you give me some time? I have to wrap up some matters here."

"Fine, but don’t take too long!"