The Mech Touch novel Chapter 183

The situation changed abruptly the next day. Doctor Jutland had finally made his move. The mercenaries in the field started coming back with damaged and half-broken mechs. They moaned about getting overwhelmed by large hordes of hexapods.

"More than a dozen of the beasts popped out of nowhere! They destroyed Jimmy’s mech in an instant! If he hadn’t ejected in time, he would have ended up in their bellies!"

"I looked over the hill and saw six of the hexapods following this giant monstrosity. It’s like a mech, but not! I don’t know how to describe that crazy thing! Here, my mech recorded the whole thing. Do you see that weirdo sitting atop its head? He’s not even wearing a hazard suit!"

The mercenaries hadn’t lost too many mechs, but all of them returned to base with extensive battle damage. This led to endless frustration as the unseated mech pilots hounded the overworked mech technicians to bring their machines back to prime condition. Practically every mech technician had to work around the clock.

The absence of the main fleet up in orbit exacerbated the problem. The base’s logistics became severely strained as far too few mech technicians had to repair too many damaged mechs.

No matter how hard they worked, they ended up with even more mechs waiting for repairs the next day.

The brass wanted to keep the presence of Doctor Jutland and the departure of the main fleet quiet, but the deteriorating situation caused everyone to know of their new circumstances.

Doctor Jutland deliberately showed up and taunted the hapless mercenaries whose mechs crumpled in a single hit when faced with the awesome might of his Kaius.

"I’m not sure whether I’m glad the mad doctor is taking his time." Chief Ramirez remarked to Ves as he looked over the spotty repairs they rushed through for both Olympians. "The man’s turning the mercenaries against us just as Lord Kaine and his fleet are gone, but at least he’s giving us a chance to bring the Olympians back in action."

Even if a vast horde of hexapods descended upon the base, its defenses provided the expedition with a formidable advantage. Nonetheless, the Kaius exceeded everyone’s expectations and could easily open up the base by charging through a wall. Only the Olympians stood a chance of surviving a head-on charge.

Ves shook his head. "Three days is far too little time to restore these machines."

Both Olympians sustained a moderate amount of damage. The main issue with these mechs was that their highly advanced armor required a lot of time and effort to replace. They simply couldn’t replicate the original armor system with the facilities on hand.

Thus, Ves and Chief Ramirez made a difficult decision. They gave up on the original composition of the armor and used a cheaper formula instead. The alloys they chose to work with possessed a decent amount of strength and could be formed quickly. However, its production wasted a lot of exotics, which depleted a large amount of their available stock of raw materials.

This worsened their already awful reputation. Not only did the hunting platoon fail to tackle the strongest threat in the region, their extravagant mechs also wasted a large amount of resources.

The mercenaries who waited for their mechs to be repaired grew surlier by the day. These rough and hardened men and women easily resorted to their fists whenever tempers flared. The grounded mech pilots had nothing to do while they waited for their mechs to be patched up. The entire hunting schedule had to be halted.

"You should watch your back." Ramirez warned Ves. "There’s talk of handing you over to Doctor Jutland because he’s loudly demanding your help in repairing the Kaius. He says as long as we hand you over, he’ll stop harassing the mercenaries."

"I know."

The mad doctor aimed to force the expedition to give up on Ves through applying continuous pressure. His strange ability to control the local wildlife gave him a decisive edge in the field. Currently, he made the hunting parties suffer miserably whenever they set off.

"We won’t serve you on a silver platter to Jutland." Ensign D’Amato spoke from the side. He carried a stun baton around these days in order to deter the mercenaries from doing something stupid. "It’s counterproductive to empower the doctor by allowing you to repair the Kaius. He’ll immediately employ his strengthened chimera mech against our base."

The analysts and psychologists who studied Doctor Jutland’s behavior believed that he wanted to wipe out everyone who trespassed his territory. The doctor fully believed that only he possessed the right to enjoy the fruits of his underground kingdom.

Ves huffed under his breath. "Tell that to the mercs."

The tense standoff couldn’t be maintained for long. After calling back the mercenaries in the field, Commander Tregis let slip that he intended to go on the offensive. A strong strike force centered around the hunting platoon and its partially repaired Olympians would go out and confront the Kaius away from the base.

Ves imagined not a lot of people would be willing to sign up for such an arduous mission. Indeed, almost none of the mercenary groups signed up. Only the mercenaries with close ties to House Kaine such as George’s Cavalry and the Stray Phantoms expressed any willingness to join the strike force.

With no other choice, Commander Tregis conscripted a third of the mercenaries who shied away from the job. Through a combination of naked threats and generous rewards, he managed to augment the strike force with fifty mechs of dubious quality.

The strike force gathered at the main entrance of the base. Such a large gathering of mechs posed enough of a threat to topple many smaller planets, but against an anomaly like Doctor Jutland and his steed, they barely qualified as cannon fodder.

Captain Kaine walked over and conferred with Chief Ramirez about the particulars of the hastily patched up Olympians.

"It’s best to employ the Olympian who took a breath weapon in the face as the primary tank. Its armor has largely held up apart from a few critical sections. It’s just the internal components close to the surface that have gone bad."

"What about the other machine?"

Both Ramirez and Ves grimaced. "The leg is rather shoddy. We haven’t been able to replace nearly as many plates as we wanted. While it’s able to bear the Olympian’s full weight, I don’t recommend it use that leg to absorb the impact of a charge. It’s liable to snap in that case."