The Mech Touch novel Chapter 523

Interception happened fairly frequently in chases. A force with a superior number of ships would cast a net over a range of star systems and observe every ship transitioning in and out of FTL. If they spotted a fleet heading into a specific direction, as long as the sensors captured enough details, it was possible to trace a line between the starting point and the end point.

Naturally, the line only served as a rough guide. FTL travel followed curves instead of straight lines, and a more turbulent gravitic environment distorted the actual route even further.

Therefore, intercepting a ship in FTL by laying down gravitic disturbances at the midpoint was plainly unrealistic. It would be like casting a man-sized net into an enormous river.

In addition, the current level of FTL technology at the Komodo Star Sector’s disposal didn’t allow ships to stop midway. Ships could only set their destination on some sort of gravitic anchor such as star systems, black holes or rogue planets.

Thus, setting a possible ambush at a possible midpoint was moot, because the ambushing force wouldn’t be able to reach that area of space in the first place.

The best solution would be to ambush a fleet at or near the end destination. The closer a ship reached her destination, the more it funneled closer along the line that ran through the starting point and the destination point.

This made it possible to lay down a minefield and sprinkle it with gravitic mines to act as FTL disturbances.

Even then, the odds of catching a fleet was minimal due to unreliable intelligence and the randomness involved with FTL travel. In truth, the star system laid down several different minefields spread out over other possible approach angles.

This increased the odds of catching their prey.

In truth, the Verle Task Force was bound to be caught in a net of gravitic mines once they decided to jump to this system. The trapping force had cast too many nets at the mouth of the river.

"Identify those mines!"

"I got it!" Ves said as he finished matching the parameters of the mines to the ones in the database. "It’s the MEX-LIGHT 25-E, from the same manufacturer as the XX-REX missiles! They’re military-grade light mines fabricated from Imodris!"

Imodris had finally caught up to them!

"Tell me more!"

Ves quickly read through the traits of these mines. "The MEX-LIGHT mines are meant to be employed as traps. They’re stealthy, light, networked, cheap and are built to be fast! They aren’t very evasive but due to their speed it becomes possible to spread them very wide, covering the highest volume possible. Their only weakness is that they don’t have much of a payload, but because they’re employed in an enormous volume that isn’t too much of a problem!"

"We are getting stung by a hive of bees." Major Verle concluded.

This succinctly described their current predicament. Bees couldn’t deal much damage to a human, but once they gathered in a swarm, they gained the ability to deal fatal damage.

Because the minefield encompassed a huge volume, it took a lot of time for the mines to boost towards the ships in their midst.

Every space mine possessed powerful but short-ranged thrusters that allowed them to mimic missiles in some sense. Though they lacked some of the capabilities of true missiles, it nonetheless allowed them to approach their targets instead of passively waiting for their targets to bump into them at point-blank range.

Every second, more mines converged onto the task force. Fortunately, the Vandals had been prepared for every eventuality so they deployed remarkably quickly. The ranged mechs took out mines from afar while the Akkara heavy mechs that hid behind the bunkers built along the hulls of the combat carrier acted as the last resort.

Mine impacts began to decrease, but they never ceased!

The Flagrant Vandals never employed enough ranged mechs. Their bias towards melee mechs came to bite them back with vengeance. It would be suicide for melee mechs to destroy the mines up close, as they possessed just enough power to take out a mech in a single blast.

Still, while the Vandals didn’t have much experience in dealing with minefields, they encountered this kind of situation a number of times.

"Arm the useless melee mechs with any spare rifles we can give them!" Major Verle ordered.

"Sir, that would put us at risk of a mech ambush!"

"No enemy force would want to mingle in this minefield! The odds of friendly fire is too great! Still, leave twenty percent as guards but arm the rest!"

The Vandals fielded an overwhelming amount of humanoid mechs, and this provided them with a lot of flexibility. Swordsman mechs and spearman mechs holstered their primary weapons for bog-standard laser rifles. The melee mechs wielded the rifles awkwardly, as their limbs lacked the delicate precision that was necessary to handle them with accuracy.

Nonetheless, the melee mechs didn’t need to be too accurate. As long as they kept shooting, they were bound to hit one of the mines, especially since the mines single-mindedly approached the fleet at the cost of evasion. _{freёwebnovel.com}

The situation came under control as the task force intercepted most of the mines on approach.

"Damage report!"

"Light to moderate damage to armor cover throughout the fleet! The Antecedent sustained the heaviest damage!"

"Good!" Major Verle grinned.

The Antecedent was one of their fatter combat carriers. Though she lost her original compressed armor coverage, the bulk of her cheaper armor made her more resilient than the Shield of Hispania. During this ambush, the Antecedent released the strongest signals, acting as a beacon for ordnance to home in on.