The Mech Touch novel Chapter 558

"These stripped-down combat carriers are pissing me off!" Major Verle barked with obvious irritation. "They should have been reclassified as light carriers instead!"

A true light carrier was a civilian-grade starship that was built for capacity rather than protection. In that sense, a combat carrier with most of her armor peeled off could justifiably be called a more durable light carrier, as her structure was still stronger than anything available in the private market.

Ships built for speed and acceleration would always be able to outrun a light mech as long as they received a head-start. Since the defenders already saw the Vandals coming, they had been able to time their optimal starting run down to the exact second.

The Vandal spaceborn contingent never stood a chance of catching up. Unless they resorted to a drastic measure such as overloading their mechs, the chase would never bear any fruit.

The tactical officer tried to console his superior. "Sir, the garrison fleet may be able to dance out of our reach, but destroying them is a secondary objective at best. It’s sufficient for us to drive them away from orbit and turn them into a non-factor to the proceedings on the surface."

Basically, both the garrison fleet and the Vandal mechs chasing after them had been put out of play. This wasn’t necessarily a good thing because an outside variable could overturn the situation in space at any moment, yet the odds of something like that happening was low.

The biggest threat they needed to worry about was reinforcements sent by Hafner from the surrounding star systems. Even if they raced towards the Nova Migolatus System at their earliest, they still needed to spend around two days to traverse from the outer edge of the system to Nova Migolatus I’s orbit.

Even if Hafner sent out the biggest armada of mechs and ships, the Vandals would still be able to take action with two days of lead time.

"The situation in space can basically be ignored by us." Ves explained to Iris. Both of them had taken their customary seats in the command center. "Have we detected any hidden turrets or weapon emplacements?"

Iris had kept an eye on the situation on the surface. "None so far, boss. Hafner hasn’t invested too much in fortifying Nova Migolatus I. The only turrets that our sensors picked up so far are located in and around the capital. As for the Kamwin continent, we can’t say anything for certain. We’ve trained out most powerful orbit-to-surface sensors at the suspected coordinates of Training Camp Quistas, but it’s completely covered in the same tree foliage that obscures the entire continent!"

"What does Peace for Hafner has to say? They still have agents on the inside, right?"

"That’s correct, boss, though the rebel group isn’t willing to expose anything to us. All they are willing to tell us is that they have multiple agents in the training camp, and at least one of them is highly placed. If it isn’t absolutely necessary, this agent won’t expose his true colors."

"The value of this spy must be very significant to Peace for Hafner. Ordinarily, organizations wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice their pawns if it meant they could take down the enemy queen."

The value of a young expert candidate couldn’t be measured with money! Weighing her value at one-hundred billion sovvies or something wasn’t possible because the utility of an expert pilot was inestimably profound.

While expert pilots were capable of inflicting a massive amount of damage to an enemy force, their true value lay in using them as a deterrence. The mere existence or presence of an expert pilot would already be able to snuff out most tricks directed against Hafner.

"It’s time for the next step of the plan. Begin bombardment!"

Ves already developed an inkling of why the Beggar’s Bounty and the Linever Swan had been tasked with mass producing a lot of artificial meteorites. Now that they orbited over rural planet, these meteorites would finally meet their purpose.

Mechs began to emerge from the hangar bays of the combat carriers. Each of them teamed up to push forth the heavy artificial meteorites. Slowly, over fifty of the massive chunks of randomly-fused alloys emerged from the bowels of the ships.

"Drop them!"

The artificial meteorites received precise pushes that sent it into a precise trajectory. Miniature boosters embedded in the meteorites corrected their paths and kept them on track as their orbit slowly decayed. Each of the meteorites slowly plunged into the atmosphere of Nova Migolatus I.

The main projector displayed a wireframe model of their expected pathing. All of them had been aimed to land at a precise coordinate in the middle of the Kamwin continent!

It was the leaked location of Training Camp Quistas!

The reason why the Vandals dropped so many meteorites was because they needed to go through a lot of sturdy trees. Once they felled enough trees, the meteorites also needed to pound the ground, because the core of the training camp was at least a hundred meters underground!

The artificial meteorites were huge chunks of alloys that heated up enormously while they descended due to friction. Unless they were as blind as a bat, the Vesians on the ground would definitely be able to pick up the incoming meteorites.

"We’ve dropped more than enough meteorites to collapse tunnels deep underground." Major Verle remarked. "Faced with the threat of being buried underground, the camp commander will immediately choose to evacuate the camp he’s responsible for. Even if they have bunkers deep and strong enough to withstand the successive kinetic impacts of over fifty meteorites, they won’t be stupid enough to hole up in a single exposed location."

Because after the apocalyptic bombardment came to an end, the Vandals would immediately make landfall on the site of the annihilated training camp! If some Vesians chose to hold up in a nearby doomsday shelter, then they would certainly be killed or taken captive by the eager Vandals.