The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1081

Lieutenant Eloise Pelican deployed on the battered but still functional Valiant Warden in the murky space of the Dark Sphere.

What struck Ves immediately was the lack of stars. When Ves used Eloise’s senses that had been patched into her mech to observe the surroundings, he only saw a great gnawing abyss in each and every direction.

It was a highly disconcerting sight! Without the stars of the galaxy and the wider cosmos to provide a soothing background, every mech pilot trapped within the Dark Sphere always risked becoming lost if they went too deep.

The Dark Sphere wasn’t completely empty, though. Asteroids and planetoids occasionally fell into the Dark Sphere, only to get corrupted and consumed by the indigenous astral life that resided in this isolated pocket space.

The constant threat of Starspawn forced the Insurmountable Drakes to maintain a ready patrol of mechs around their meager ships. Even though deploying them consumed more fuel or energy, they had no choice. They learned the hard way that deploying when the Starspawn attacked was already too late.

As Eloise led a small squad of rifleman mechs of many different models, Ves reflected upon the situation he found himself in. After eavesdropping on some of the conversations and observing some of the mechs and other tech the Insurmountable Drakes used, he figured out when and where this event took place.

The mechs piloted by Eloise and the others were either lastgen or two generations back compared to Ves’ current time.

This was quite recent!

If he garnered a guess, then would say he had traveled only thirty to forty years in the past.

As for their location, Ves surreptitiously dug up Eloise’s galactic geography knowledge from her mind. He found out that the Silent Nomad and the Pure Wheel was thousands of light-years away from the Komodo Star Sector.

They still resided in the galactic rim, but a bit further coreward. Due to their earlier colonization, the states that emerged in the two star sectors developed much further, to the point where they set aside internal struggles in favor of competing against neighboring star sectors.

The two star sectors differed a lot, though they somewhat took after their names.

The states of the Pure Wheel Star Sector possessed a strong religious character, as the star sector had been opened up specifically to house all of the troublesome religious organizations exiled from their old star sectors.

While the Pure Wheel states fundamentally disagreed with each other due to their strong beliefs, they eventually tired of beating each other up for their beliefs. Instead of warring against each other and thereby weakening the star sector against foreign aggressors, they pragmatically decided to put down their arms to expand their state religions into other star sectors instead.

The Silent Nomad Star Sector housed fiercely independent-minded secular organizations. The star sector was notable in that it hosted a very strong mercenary tradition, with some massive mercenary corps ballooning to such a size that people there referred to them as mercenary conglomerates!

The states there possessed a long history of picking all kinds of fights with each other, thereby providing mercenaries with plenty of business. Nonetheless, the states slowly put down their bickering when the states neighboring Pure Wheel Star Sector started making inroads into their territory.

Overall, the two star sectors were already at odds, but the appearance of the Dark Sphere around the border of the two sectors really blew up the conflict!

At this time, Eloise cared little about the conflict between the two states. She just wanted to go home to reunite with her son! For that matter, the Insurmountable Drakes and every other independent outfit trapped within the Dark Sphere also wanted to get out and go home!

Everyone wanted to go home!

To be honest, Eloise planned to only serve with the Insurmountable Drakes for a few months before her contract ran out. At that point, she intended to retire from the mercenary corps to work for a security company that allowed her to spend some time with her family.

The Dark Sphere ruined everything. This bizarre spatial anomaly hovered around the border of the two star sectors randomly popping up to swallow several ships and fleets in transit. There was no rhyme and reason for its appearances and movement patterns.

Even as Ves slowly dug up the circumstances around this mysterious Dark Sphere, he did not forget to pay attention to how Eloise skillfully piloted her space knight.

Due to its patchy, frankenstein-like repairs, her Valiant Warden no longer resembled its original model in any way. Much of the space knight’s internal components had all been salvaged from other mechs when the original ones wore out or got destroyed.

The armor plating by itself looked like an awful patchwork of crudely welded and fused plates from dozens of mechs. The inconsistent plating meant that some portions of the mech withstood energy damage well, while other portions performed better against physical damage.

Eloise knew her mech so well that she was able to proficiently take advantage of these traits to allow the right sections of armor to take the blows they were able to withstand the best!

It reminded Ves of his intentions of how the polarizing module should be used. Eloise’s skill in selective damage redirection resembled the skill the mech pilots of his new mech needed to master to shape most efficient polarizing fields!

"Keep chugging along, Warden." Eloise whispered affectionately as she skillfully piloted her mech in the most efficient fashion possible. "Just hold on for a week. We’ll get out of the Dark Sphere within that time."

Another notable aspect about the mech was that Eloise’s strong emotions affected the Warden on a spiritual level. The constant battling and piloting prompted Eloise to develop a strong affection towards her own mech. Her will to battle in order to reunite with her young son carried over to the Warden, allowing a minor X-Factor to take shape that echoed with her desires to return home!

"We have to return home!"

That phrase was being bandied about a lot among the fugitives in the Dark Sphere. Everyone wanted to exit the Dark Sphere and go home. Yet as far as they knew, none of them ever succeeded!

In truth, the outfits that all managed to survive up to now went to great lengths to keep themselves alive and combat capable. With no way to gain fuel and supplies from the dark and nebula-filled environment, they resorted to raiding isolated ships or each other!

In fact, Eloise and many of the other independents trapped in the Dark Sphere believed that the states from the Silent Nomad and Pure Wheel Star Sectors deliberately trapped them in this jar to feed the Starspawn! _{ƒreewebηoveℓ.com}