The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1026

Senator Tovar didn’t linger his gaze towards Ves for long. No matter what happened just before, he could hear it all later. Right now, they still needed to get through this crisis.

Once Captain Hoskie issued some orders to her men, she turned back to the most critical person in their midst. "Senator, the Felicitous Remembrance is highly compromised. The odds are high that the ship will either blow up from within or becomes a target to the enemy mechs outside. Word will come at any time of their failure to capture you. Once they realize it’s not feasible to capture you, there is a great chance that they’ll settle for killing you and everyone on this ship instead! You need to make a decision. I highly suggest we evacuate the Remembrance."

"I will defer to your judgement." The old man spoke.

The senator’s gracefully admitted that he was no good in combat situations. Despite his authority, his expertise laid in statecraft, policy-making and diplomacy. Military matters were far outside his ballpark.

Fortunately, aside from Professor Ventag, they also managed to rescue Lieutenant Colonel Xelven. Although the high-ranking military official served behind a desk for most of his career, he was competent enough to take charge this time.

"I concur with Captain Hoskie." Xelven said as he emerged out of the pod. "The Felicitous Remembrance is rotten from the inside. We should go down to the lower decks and head to the shuttle bay in order to evacuate to the Lormant Carnival as expediently as possible. If the flagship of the escort fleet isn’t a convenient destination, then any other light carrier that is escorting the peace delegation will do!"

"Why not take the escape pods? They’re much closer." Lord Javier asked.

Xelven ignored the question. Escape pods may offer a faster exit, but they lacked the speed and maneuvering power of a shuttle. They also only held one or two passengers at most and it would be difficult to keep everyone together.

They abandoned the breached site and moved towards the nearest stairway leading downwards.

Ves walked alongside Professor Ventag, who seemed awfully shaken at what happened to them all. The assault on the bridge had been a particularly traumatic experience to him, though Colonel Xelven and Senator Tovar brushed managed to brush it off or hide their discomfort.

The vacsuited professor turned to Ves with admiration. "I’ve just heard you’ve been pivotal in rescuing the stranded survivors at the armory and freeing us from captivity. Captain Hoskie reports that you are in a possession of a very powerful weapon."

"I’m the only one who can use it." Ves replied defensively. "Besides, a weapon like that has a cost. It’s out of power."

The professor smiled sardonically. "I won’t quibble with how you could possibly manage to smuggle such a deadly weapon through all of the security checks. I must admit that I am a little out of my depth here. Your actions so far on the other hand stood out enormously. I regret not letting you into the bridge when you arrived at the entrance earlier. When someone informed me you wished to enter, I declined to consider it as your presence wasn’t needed."

The regret in the professor’s voice was palpable. If he knew that the Felicitous Remembrance was compromised and that the pirates were so determined to attack the bridge, he would have made a lot of other choices than that!

To Ves, the earlier issue didn’t bother him anymore. With the determination shown by the pirates in their successful attempt at breaching the bridge, he might have been one of the bodies there by now.

"Do you know what’s going on outside? I’m not patched to any important comm channels or networks. Why hasn’t our escort fleet sent any assistance?"

"As far as I am aware of before the pirates overtook the bridge, the pirate vessels that emerged out of FTL entered into fighting range within minutes." The Senior Mech Designer explained. "The carriers disgorged a large number of mechs, outnumbering our forces by at least one-and-a-half times. It is taking every bit of effort for the Spiral Shockers to hold such a large number of mechs back. It doesn’t help that the Remembrance has lost all power and propulsion. Her predictable ballistic course through space makes it exceptionally easy for the enemy to concentrate their fire on this ship!"

This added a bit more urgency to their evacuation as those mechs could turn their weapons on the Remembrance at any moment once they gave up on capturing Senator Tovar alive!

"Did you figure anything out from their mechs?" Ves asked.

"I’ve observed much." Professor Ventag nodded. "The enemy makes use of genuine pirate mechs. Some of them are low-quality products designed by unworthy Novices. However, at least half of them are high-quality mechs designed by an infamous mech designer from the frontier."

"Oh?" Ves looked up. "Which infamous mech designer are you talking about?"

"The main mech models utilized by our attackers are on par with the mech models employed by the Spiral Shockers. I recognize their make. They carry the uncharacteristic pursuit for perfection exhibited by the Skull Architect!"

Ves suddenly stumbled in his steps. He quickly recovered. "What?! Are you certain?"

"Oh yes." Professor Ventag said seriously, not even realizing that Ves once talked to the Skull Architect in person! "He is one of the few Senior Mech Designers that somehow managed to base himself in the frontier. His continued existence is an affront to the MTA."

"I see." Ves said flatly, trying to keep himself calm. "So what does that mean for our defenses?"

The professor chuckled. "The quality of the Skull Architect’s mech models are truly praiseworthy. Even if the fabricated copies are a little inconsistent compared to the design specifications, they are all high-performing machines and deadly in the right hands."

This was a familiar-sounding flaw to Ves. After all, he once worked with the Skull Architect’s mech designs! "Are the pirate mech pilots good enough to take advantage of the full capabilities of their machines?"

"It is to our luck that the skill requirements are very stringent. While the pirate mech pilots are better than you’d expect from pirates, even the best of them can only utilize eighty percent of the capacity of their quality mechs at most. This skill mismatch is the only reason why the Spiral Shockers have managed to hold back the pirates while outnumbered."

Ves was very glad that he hadn’t been able to help the Skull Architect solve this fatal flaw of his! He made a deal with the infamous criminal and fugitive mech designer to design variants that offered a much easier and comfortable piloting experience than the Senior’s usual mech designs.