The Mech Touch novel Chapter 292

Walter, Fadah and the rest of the most experienced Whalers approached the landing site with haste.

From the sensor readings and their own observations, they knew that the pirate ship sustained a lot of damage and had been forced to descend in a controlled crash.

Different from an uncontrolled crash, the carrier and her occupants survived the impact. However, that didn’t mean they regained their senses immediately.

Walter might not be a genius in administrative matters, but he had a good sense for combat. He wanted to seize the initiative and take out the pirates before they could muster a proper defense.

Due to the haste involved in this decision, Walter had to let the faster mechs go ahead, leaving his Urman to catch up from the rear. Fadah’s modified Blackbeak showed its new strength in this moment. The slimmed-down medium mech caught up with the jogging light mechs without issue.

"The landing site is five kilometers away. We should spread out and cover the flanks."

The light mechs split apart without any further acknowledgement. Everyone understood each other due to the camaraderie they forged over a span of decades.

While the light mechs covered the flanks, the mainstay medium mechs took the lead and approached the dormant carrier from her rear. The ship dug a deep furrow into the craggy ground, leading to a messy stop at the foot of an obsidian cliff.

"The carrier is radiating a lot of heat. My sensors are going haywire from all of the junk. We don’t know what’s inside."

That prompted the mechs to approach the carrier with a little caution. Fadah and the others waited until Walter’s Urman emerged from behind. He took one good look at the downed ship before issuing a command.

"What are you afraid of? It’s a sitting duck right now! Shoot at it?"

"But boss, don’t you want to salvage the ship? That’s a medium-sized carrier!"

"Who cares about a half-wrecked ship! A couple of containers worth of junk exotics is a lot more valuable than this carrier. Shoot!"

The Whalers brought a handful of rifleman mechs and a single cannoneer. All of them unleashed their firepower on the static vessel.

The rifles only dealt shallow damage to the hull, but the ballistic cannon tore through the hull armor like a dog chewing through bone.

The alarming damage from the cannon prompted the pirates inside to action. Despite the hard landing, their mech pilots had all been safely ensconced in their landbound mechs. When they blasted open the hatch, they showed very little signs of losing their wits. They poured out of the carrier and fired back at the Whalers.

"They set a trap for us!"

"Calm down! They’re out in the open and they don’t outnumber us!"

The Whalers had spread out in a half-moon around the crash site. Furthermore, their mechs all took cover behind some sturdy rocks and hills, preventing the pirates from dealing any effective damage.

The pirates obviously realized that and shifted directions. If they charged down the middle, they’d be surrounded on all sides. Thus, they chose to charged towards the extreme left of the formation.

"Cycle clockwise!"

The Whalers dynamically adjusted their formation in return. They spun the moon so that the pirates would be forced to cash against Walter’s Urman in a frontal clash.

By then, it was too late for the pirate commander to change his mind. The pirates committed to the charge, shooting at the Urman with their ranged weapons while brandishing their melee weapons to finish the bulky mech up close.

The Urman stoically withstood the impacts, having crossed its arms to let its thick armored gauntlets take the brunt of the blows.

On the pirate side, two swordsman mechs and one knight led the charge. As for the Whalers, they continued to maneuver from the sides in order to envelop the pirates. For this to succeed, Walter had to blunt the charge of the pirates by himself. He grinned inside his cockpit.

"COME!" He roared as he urged his Urman to lumber forward, building up momentum for the double fists it prepared to unleash.

The knight in front sheathed its sword and held its shield with both arms. The Urman looked like it could pack a mean punch, and the pirate mech didn’t think it could withstand a lunging strike with a single arm.

"TOO FLIMSY!"

The Urman outright shattered the shield, pushing the knight back and taking it out of the action for a few seconds. The swordsman mechs that came right after slashed forth with their swords, only to be caught by the Urman’s heavy gauntlets.

One pirate had been smart enough to let go of his sword, but the other pilot stubbornly clung to his only weapon. Walter grinned and pulled the sword forward, which forced the mech that held an iron grip on the handle to stumble closer.

That was a fatal mistake.

The Urman let go of the words and wrapped the vulnerable knight in a clapping bear hug that squished its outer frame. Its heavy gauntlets dug into the thinner rear armor until they pried open the armor plating. After ripping open the rear armor, the Urman dug into it with its clumsy fingers and demolished the critical internals underneath.

The mech lost power, prompting the Urman to drop its first kill.

"Who’s next?!"

Both the knight and the swordsman mech recovered somewhat, although they hadn’t made it in time to rescue their unfortunate fellow pirate. Both of them flanked the Urman and started to prod at the brawler mech with their swords.

While Walter occupied the two mechs, the rest of the Whalers dealt with the riff raff. Fadah’s Blackbeak shone at this moment by weaving through the disarrayed pirates like a shuttle racer through an asteroid field.

Each time Fadah passed by a mech, he opportunistically thrust or slashed the Blackbeak’s sword. Any retaliation sent in the modified knight’s way would either be dodged or absorbed by its shield.

Fadah started to grow fond of this extra defensive option. "This shield is a cheat!"

Despite the shabby quality of most Whaler mechs, they had the edge over the pirates. The pirate mech pilots suffered from various amounts of disorientation while their mechs suffered minor impact damage from the rough landing.