The Mech Touch novel Chapter 609

A lot of aircars had landed on the streets, but not enough to satisfy everyone’s needs. The fighting for the remaining aircars became increasingly more intense. Though the combatants rarely risked their lives to obtain a vehicle, deaths became unavoidable, especially since the Planetary Guard made slow progress in pacifying the city.

The Vandals moved their men and supplies to the shipyard situated in the outskirts of the city. They hadn’t manage to secure enough aircars to transport all of them in a single go, so they made several round trips to bring everyone over.

A couple of people on the streets fired potshots at the aircars. Whenever that happened, a number of Vandals opened up the window of their aircars and peppered the location with lasers and projectiles.

That quickly shut up most people looking to find trouble with the Vandals.

When the second fleet of aircars touched down, Ves stepped out of his vehicle and saw that the Vandals hadn’t actually made their way inside the shipyard complex. They landed on a parking field just outside its walls.

"Why aren’t we inside yet?" He frowned.

"Because it’s occupied. Dunno who’s inside, but they’re not yielding the place to us." A waiting Vandal said as he carefully polished his hand cannon. "Captain Orfan wants to storm the place, but the other higher ups don’t want collateral damage to ruin the shipyard."

Ves grimaced at that. "Everything else is expendable, but the shipyard’s 3D printer can’t receive a single scratch! In fact, it’s fairly sensitive to concussive shocks, so even proximity to fighting can damage the more vulnerable components within." _{freeωebnovēl.c૦m}

Having assembled the Dortmund printer by hand, Ves had become very familiar with the internal makeup of this production machine. In one way, they possessed a fair amount of resilience, as they often had to handle multiton components. If the printer malfunctioned each time a heavy component dropped all of a sudden, then no one would buy its model.

However, having witnessed the destruction of half the city, Ves became especially paranoid when it came to collateral damage. Even if the Vandals possessed no mechs as of yet, several thousand of them could easily affect the integrity of the 3D printer.

Ves walked over to the command group where all the officers heatedly discussed options to take over the shipyard.

He ignored the mech and ship officers for now and tried to find his own crowd. The mech designers and mech technicians stood a little off from the rest. Nobody was interested in their input unless their expertise was required.

Everyone wore off-duty summer clothes right now, but he recognized Mercator and Vedette from the Finmoth Regal among the circle of mech designers. From the gathering of chief technicians, he recognized Chief Leo Keys, also from the Finmoth Regal, and Chief Keon Vasar, the most senior chief aboard the Linever Swan.

With this much mech designers and chief technicians, Ves felt very hopeful about what they could accomplish. Though borrowing the facilities of a shipyard to restore broken mechs wasn’t very ideal, as long as they possessed enough enginuity, they could manage.

"Mercator, fill me in." Ves said.

The high-ranking mech designer eyes Ves with a gloomy expression. If Ves hadn’t been present here, then Mercator would have been the mech designer with the most say.

"It’s just a bunch of warmongers arguing the best way to slaughter they way in the shipyard. Right now, the shipyard is occupied by a coalition of gang members and mercenaries. None of them are armed with anything fancier than a pistol or a submachine gun, but they number more than a thousand among them. Combined with their defensive advantage, it won’t be easy for the Vandals to overrun their position."

Ves closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Have there been any attempts at negotiating?"

"Nah. The stupid gang members just shoot at everyone who approaches. They’re irreconcilable low lives, all of them. I don’t think there’s a single person among them who’s in charge, really. You can see how they all group up by outfit."

He looked at the shipyard and did indeed observe different clumps of defenders. The gang members often appeared sloppier and didn’t particularly seem diligent. The mercenaries on the other hand all walked with their back straight and eyed the growing congregation of Vandals with growing vigilance.

Once he understood the situation, Ves patted Mercator’s back. "Keep the rest of our crowd at the rear. Mech designers and mech technicians have no place on the battlefield."

Each of them possessed valuable skills that had to be preserved at all costs, not just today but in the future as well. The scarcity of competent mech technicians and mech designers almost matched the scarcity of trained mech pilots. Losing a huge chunk of both of them couldn’t easily be replenished on a whim.

When Ves approached the arguing officers, he found out that a decision had already been made.

"We’re going to storm the place and get this done with!" Captain Orfan argued. "We’ll concentrate our forces on the weaker members of the coalition and leave the tough customers for last. If they’re smart enough, they’ll take the escape route we’ve left out for them and squirrel away."

Ves became a little alarmed at this haphazard plan. "I don’t think it’s a good idea to make a frontal assault. We only have a small number of armored security officers, and unlike mech armor their combat suits can be overwhelmed. More importantly, if we push the defenders too hard, they might decide to destroy the 3D printer out of spite."

"Tough luck, then." Captain Orfan crossed her arms. "We need to make a move. I don’t want to wait around until the rest of you summon up your courage."

He really didn’t want to leave the safety of the 3D printer to fate. He swiveled his head at the shipyard and tried to come up with an idea that might help.

"What if we can sneak into the shipyard from the water? All of their attention is certainly pointed in our direction. Why not make use of that and try to slip in some men via water? Even if they posted some guards at the waterfront, it shouldn’t be too much."