The Mech Touch novel Chapter 679

As soon as the Flagrant Swordmaidens transitioned into FTL, a preplanned series of actions took place.

First, every ship except for the Jaded Sword and the Shield of Hispania effectively trashed their quantum entanglement nodes. They decisively trashed a score of the expensive, fragile devices worth at least 100 million bright credits for the cheapest versions.

Ves had to wince at the thought. Trashing so much quantum entanglement nodes meant that both forces needed to spend billions in bright credits to replace the modules after they returned from the frontier.

"It’s a good thing we raided the Castle Breakers. Selling their surviving ships and mechs should earn us more than enough to compensate for the cost of replacing the nodes."

Because each ship traveled through FTL, they had no way of communicating with each other outside of exiting FTL. A new set of protocols came into force. Something like martial law came into effect where servicemen needed to be more careful of what they blathered out of their mouths and where the officers began to enforce discipline more strictly.

They were truly alone in the stars, at least when the ship plunged into the higher dimensions of FTL travel. Strange things happened when ships became isolated for long stretches of time. Even if the vast majority of the rank and file were never allowed access to the galactic net, the thought that their higher ups still let the rest of the galaxy know they were alive served as a comfort to the Vandals.

Losing this safety blanket made the Vandals nervous and restless. How would you think if you were stuck on a boat that was flung across many lightyears away from the nearest human-occupied star system?

Isolation bred madness. Everybody knew that. Sure, the Vandals could cope by socializing with each other, but their nerves and their anxieties might grow to an uncontrollable level. Illusions and hallucinations might start to settle in among their worst. The darkness of space might creep up to them, surrounding them in a miasma of terror and the endless black night.

Darkness. Empty. Alone.

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is the fear of the unknown."

A common superstition among spacers and the spaceborn was that terrors lurked in the dimensions that most physicists thought was empty or filled with formless energy. The dominant form of FTL travel that their race stole from the aliens worked by breaching beyond the four material dimensions.

Though many smart people claimed to know what happens in these higher dimensions, nobody truly knew. It wasn’t as if they could take a recording from the observation deck, because what was visible from inside the ship simply couldn’t be perceived by human or electronic eyes.

It might be that every vessel that plunged into FTL was blissfully swimming in a dimensional sea surrounded by enormous planet-sized alien horrors, each possessing enough power that a single sneeze was enough to snuff the life of a star!

Though these figments of imagination sounded silly to a sober person, long isolation in space tended to lead spacers into darker train of thoughts.

These space horrors didn’t exist, did they?

...did they?

A shudder ran through his back. Just because they couldn’t prove the existence of these gigantic alien space tyrants, didn’t mean they never existed. Maybe human means and technology simply hadn’t developed yet to the point where they could force these sleeping terrors into view.

The act of waking them up from their endless slumber may in fact announce the end of the existence of the human race.

The insatiable curiosity of humanity for the unknown would ensure such an event came to pass.

Death. Lifeless. Nonexistent.

"That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die."

BONK!

"Ouch! What was that for, Ketis?!"

Ves turned around his spinny chair to face the naughty little Swordmaiden, who guiltily withdrew her offending fist that had playfully bumped against his skull.

"You were daydreaming or something, teach. There was a funny look on your face and all, and you started muttering about death and crap like that. That’s not funny at all."

He sighed. "Don’t call me a teacher if you don’t intend to treat me like one. Haven’t you learned how to respect your teachers?"

She shrugged. "Hey, when I’m feeling energetic, I sometimes hit up Mayra for a spar or two. She doesn’t look like it, but she’s a nasty kicker with her legs."

Ves palmed his face. This time, it was safe, since they both shed their extravagant suits of armor and returned to their normal uniforms. Ves in his dark green mech designer uniform, and Ketis with her vacsuit and exobeast pelt combo.

"I’ll have to add some extra lessons to your schedule, then. I know it’s a faint hope, but I hope you can get around to living like a mech designer from civilized space."

A snort escaped from her nose. Her sneer made it abundantly clear what she thought about the soft and weak nerds who spend every waking moment of their lives in some stuffy design studio drafting endless sketches or performing complex mathematical calculations for their next simulations.

Such an image hardly appealed to her at all. Ves knew that he had a long way to go before he could drag her kicking and screaming towards the light.

He looked down on his comm, which faintly displayed a clock. It is almost time for the general meeting. They’re finally going to tell us what this operation is all about. I’ve been told that you’re not allowed to attend, so you’re going to have to fend for yourself for now.