The Mech Touch novel Chapter 51

Captain Caruthers sat in the dark and silent cockpit. The entire enclosed space was isolated from any outside noise. Only the rhythmic tapping of his fingers against the only red shade in the space bounced off the metal walls.

Bounty hunting was a tough business for any upstanding mech pilot to pursue. It went beyond the basic jobs like guarding outposts or patrolling conflict zones. In many cases, pilots simply had to wait long hours standing by and only occasionally get into the cockpit to deter a couple of opportunistic raiders.

The amount of incidents happening in the outskirts of the Bright Republic was fairly low. Most people thought the nearby systems and asteroid fields were barren of high-value resources. Only a couple of the more common exotics could be found, and small mining concerns eked out a small profit from exploiting them at a low cost.

"Even a barren hinterland like the Bright Republic can be squeezed of resources if you make it worthwhile enough."

The pirates that were shabby enough to operate in this space sector came in three flavors.

Local criminals made up the most of the numbers. Hooligans who went down the wrong path, these delinquents mostly piloted whatever mech they could get a hand on and generally didn’t last very long due to a lack of support structure or any kind of long-term strategy. They generally made a big splash at the start but got hunted down quickly enough.

Caruthers considered these amateurs his bread and butter. Hunting them down offered very little risk but only paid enough to make ends meet.

The second type of pirates blended semi-legal identities with occasional illegal forays. Most people considered them organized crime, though the actual workings of these groups was a lot blurrier than that. Often it meant companies that dipped into the dirtier side of competition or mercenary companies that decided to turn against their employers. Naturally you also had the classic organized crime groups, often centered around the planets they based.

As a captain of a small bounty hunting group, Caruthers generally stayed away from messing with these so-called pirates. Many groups often relied on deeper backing. Defeat the son, provoke the father. Defeat the father, provoke the grandfather. And on it went until you ran into a solid wall.

The last type of pirates represented trouble. Foreigners used to operating in more developed space sometimes fled to galactic backwaters to shake off pursuit and lie low. If you were lucky, these losers only carried a basic mech and whatever else they haul off on short notice. If not, then they came fully prepared, with large spaceships, ample supply and advanced mechs an entire generation ahead of what the Republic’s Mech Corps used.

These giant wrecking balls basically showed no regard to the local balance of forces. With a technological edge and a mobile base that allowed them to skulk the outskirts, these snobby exiles often acted as if they were in charge.

Often times the Mech Corps took them down a peg. Just because the Bright Republic used the least advanced mechs among all the human states, didn’t mean that anyone could push them over. In fact, it was quite the opposite. The pilots of the Mech Corps worked hard to get in their position and fought many small skirmishes in their active service. The local space sector was a hotbed for low-level troublemakers.

Consider the the latest major sortie of the Mech Corps. The Red Feet, A top mercenary group of some second-rate state, lost their occupation rights to a lucrative mining planet due to collusion by their vassals. These smaller groups normally acted like rats, but one of them had the bright idea of banding together and rebel against their masters.

Evidently, they succeeded, because the Red Feet fled like sailors abandoning a sinking ship. One of their splinters managed to cross through six star sectors before finally arriving at the borders of the Bright Republic.

They quickly made themselves home by violently displacing the local interests group of a nearby planet. As their advanced mechs and other equipment was expensive to maintain, they did as many other outsiders had done and demanded excessive ’taxes’ from the local populace. A few riots and bloodshed later, the Mech Corps finally smashed their remaining ship and much of their mechs apart.

Naturally, that wasn’t the end of the story. A couple of individual mechs aboard private shuttles managed to escape to FTL range and transitioned to other star systems. It didn’t matter which one, they only cared if it had no presence. If the Mech Corps had to split up and hunt them all down, they had to waste a massive amount of time.

Better to employ bounty hunters like Caruthers to do the dirty work for them. Though the risk of facing a superior mech was substantial, Caruthers trusted his team to beat this foreigner the same way the Mech Corps smashed their whole group. With teamwork and superior numbers.

The cockpit rumbled a little. Sounds from the outside made it clear the shuttle Caruthers boarded with his mech had finished landing.

"Let’s get this show on the road."

He pressed the red gem in the middle of his console and made his mech come to light. Bright red colors unfolded in his projectors like a flower coming to bloom. The entire cockpit lighted up as Caruthers breathed deeply and let his brain sink into the neural interface.

The warm, familiar presence of his personal mech embraced his return. Despite owning the Phoenix Cry for a few weeks, Caruthers already considered it to be his home.

"You’re also likely to be my last mech." Caruthers endearingly spoke to his mech as he caressed the console’s surface. "I’m too old to go out and hunt the scum of the galaxy. Let’s have a blast and make it to the end."

The Marc Antony model progressed through its startup with rapid efficiency. As Caruthers finished booting up his mech, he connected to the audio channel where his six teammates were already present.

"Miley, how’s your big one?"

"I’m still hearing creaking from my left knee. I swear the grease monkeys have been slacking off again!"

The other pilots in the channel exchanged their own usual banter. Caruthers paid little attention to them as he reviewed the information his sources had gathered once again. "Pipe down, boys and girls. Let’s go over the job. We’ve got a tip that there’s a Red Feet squirreling away in an abandoned mine in whatever fucked up place this is called."

"Don’t you think you should call him a Red Foot?"

"Ah, whatever." Caruthers waved his hand. "Despite being cornered, the Red ’Foot’ that’s in the mine has enough knowledge to use the abandoned gear inside to build himself a makeshift fortress. Any attempts by the local militia to oust this Foot came back with a bloody nose and millions worth of damage. Don’t be too complacent. This guy’s a tough cookie."

"What’s his loadout?"

"That’s the troubling thing. This guy’s mech is all set for extended engagements. His machine is a medium rifleman with a souped up laser rifle. And before you hope he’s run low, he took away the husks of the mechs he downed and scavenged all their energy cells. And that’s not taking into account whatever energy he could scrounge up from all of the mining equipment available."

All-in-all, it sounded like a bad situation. With a powerful laser rifle pointed in the only entry point of the mine, no casual group of mercenaries could take on such an opponent and come out ahead.

Too bad Caruthers encountered plenty of bastards in his career, many of whom pulled much worse out of their horrid bag of tricks. Holing up in an abandoned mine in the middle of nowhere was nothing special.

"Miley, how’s your digger?"

"It’s all set. You know I’m always harping out replacing this dinky old model, right?"

"Hey, if it works, it works. I’ll think about replacing it once the one we got breaks down completely. It’s not as if it’s the end of the universe if our digger hits the dust."

"Yeah yeah, whatever you say boss." Miley rolled her eyes as she guided the wheeled drill-like machine out to a low hill. "The topography doesn’t quite match the data we got. I can already tell you there’s been a few shifts or landslides."

"It doesn’t matter. The mine is largely the same so our entry point should still work."

Miley fudged a bit with her placement before choosing a random spot that looked somewhat promising. She set the digger machine at a shallow angle. It was just enough to allow mechs to walk without tipping over while still be able to dig downwards to hit the underground tunnels.

When she finished setting the machine, everyone took up their positions with some looking out in each direction. Others gathered at the entrance of the tunnel.

Though none of the intel gathered so far suggested that the rogue pilot had a partner, nothing was certain.

Caruthers took up the front position with his mech facing the digger. He readied his mech and did some last-minute checks. "Everyone ready?"

The digger engaged once the team finished all their checks. The cylindrical digger machine rotated its screw blades and dug right into the soil. With the speed and noise it emanated, the everyone in the area could guess what was going on from the rumbling alone. This was never about stealth. It was all about shock and awe.

"Seven minutes until we hit the tunnels!"

"Keep an eye on the entrance, report if you see anything suspicious, and I do mean anything!"

The foreigner must have known what was going on, but he prudently stayed in the depths. If he unwisely chose to expose himself, he’d be easily mobbed by Caruthers and his crew.

"Five minutes remaining. No response detected so far."

"Three minutes left on the clock. Hardly a peep."

The digger machine eventually breached the mining tunnels with a thump. The team went into action. One shield-bearing mech kept close to the entrance of the mine to keep an eye on it while Caruthers led the way into the newly excavated tunnel.

The digger dug a tunnel barely wider than the top of their mechs, so the team that went in only consisted of two shieldbearers. Caruthers led the way, with Miley close behind.