The Mech Touch novel Chapter 566

"Reporting, sir, Venerable Relia Foster has been captured alive!"

"Good! Make sure to keep her sedated, and don’t give her the opportunity to commit suicide!"

Everyone on the command center cheered or sighed in relief. Ves was one of the latter, since this entire ordeal had far surpassed everyone’s limits!

"Sir, the garrison troops that landed at the other edge of the oval scar is diverting away from the beachhead! They are moving to intercept our pursuit group!"

"They are moving to rescue Venerable Foster! Don’t let them intercept our pursuit force!"

The plot depicting the positions of the mechs on the ground shifted in response. Dots representing Vandal mechs moved away from the beach head in order to cut off the approach of the Hafner garrison mechs.

This caused the Hafner mechs to adjust their course, which led to another shift from the Vandal mechs. This dance went on and on, with neither side willing to get close enough to fight it out.

The only reason why the Vandals didn’t allocate more mechs to take care of the garrison force was because they needed to fend off another wave of monsters. Now that they slaughtered hundreds of beasts, the Vandals gained a great understanding of their weaknesses. They didn’t need as much mechs to ward them off in the next attacks. It was sufficient to leave behind a single line of melee mechs while entrusting the duty of slaughtering most of the monsters to the Akkaras.

"It’s getting more chaotic here! Prepare for extraction! Make sure to chase the garrison troops away from our beachhead!"

Now that the Vandals managed to capture their prize, they had no reason to linger on the Kamwin continent. The sooner they departed they departed this star system, the better!

Ves glanced towards another plot that showed the state of the Nova Migolatus System. Two seperate fleets of combat carriers had crossed into the star system and would take less than twelve hours to reach the Vandals!

They were running out of time!

Both fleets represented entire mech regiments. One of them was a spaceborn regiment called the 3rd Silent Starpiercers. Their mech composition was made up almost entirely of cavalry mechs, more specifically lancer mechs. One or two lancer mechs might not seem so scary, but when they numbered more than eighteen-hundred mechs, a single charge could easily demolish the Flagrant Vandals even if they hadn’t split up the main fleet!

Of particular alarm to the Vandals was that the intelligence on the 3rd Silent Starpiercers mentioned that they had an expert pilot among their ranks! Venerable Cordoba Hunt piloted the same kind of lancer mech as Venerable O’Callahan, but unlike the latter Hunt was in the prime of his life.

In a contest between the two, the best result the Vandals could expect was mutual self-destruction.

"And that’s not all."

The other fleet that headed towards Nova Migolatus was made up entirely of the 7th Hostland Warriors! This was Venerable Foster’s mech regiment, and fielded both landbound and spaceborn mechs. Though their strength was nothing special, the fact that Venerable Foster hailed among their ranks meant that the Warriors wouldn’t hold anything back!

The bonds between mech pilots of the same mech regiment could rival the bonds between siblings. Everyone treated each other like family and would never hesitate to rise up and rescue a beleaguered comrade. As the villains of this story, the Flagrant Vandals would not enjoy a good end at their hands!

In short, the Vandals on the ground needed to wrap up this operation quickly to escape the calamity heading in their direction. Once the Silent Starpiercers or the Hostland Warriors caught up with the Vandal fleet in orbit, they would never be able to escape this star system!

"Come on, hurry up!"

Fortunately, in the time it took for the pursuit to return to the beachhead, the garrison troops failed to sum up the courage to attack. This allowed the pursuit force to smoothly enter the temporary base. A handful of doctors escorted by lots of armed security officers placed the unconscious expert pilot on a floating stretcher and transferred her to the heaviest transport the Vandals had on site.

"Drive the Hafner garrison mechs away from the oval scar! Don’t let them take potshots at our transports!"

Support personnel already began to dismantle the base. The pursuit force that succeeded in capturing Venerable Foster quickly paused to replenish their supplies. Every mech technician worked hard to replace their energy cells and supplement their ammunition with rapid tempo. Time was short and each mech technician needed to pull their weight.

When Ves patched into the observation systems, he watched on as his mech designers each took up responsibility over important tasks.

Vedette had the unenviable task of supervising the replenishment process. A lot of mechs from the pursuit force had sustained some damage. The impact marks from the native beasts often dented the armor of the lighter mechs. This caused certain functions to cease functioning, such as opening up the rear of the mech to allow the mech technicians to replace the energy cells.

All of this required a quick resolution. Ves saw that Vedette utilized his recent gains in his studies on mechanics to propose expedient solutions. Though they weren’t always the best, at least the man had the sense to prioritize speed over minimizing damage. Right now, they couldn’t care too much if they sent out a mech with half of its rear armor plating missing!

"He’s the most capable mech designer, but he’s the most grounded of the bunch."

Trozin on the other hand liaised with the mech pilots. Ever since the start of the Vandal ground operation, she acted as a mediator between the mech pilots and the mech technicians. Ves faintly thought she was slacking off a little too much because she didn’t do anything else besides talking.

"She hasn’t showcased her technical skills all that much, but she’s great when it comes to communicating with mech pilots."

Ves remembered that Trozin was related to a mech captain of the Vandals. Ves already looked up the connection before and found out she was the uncle of Captain Branser, who was stationed aboard the Wolf Mother.

"Right now, the Wolf Mother is part of the other fleet commanded by Colonel Lowenfield, so Trozin can’t stir up too much trouble at the moment."