The Mech Touch novel Chapter 734

Eric Kichiro’s eyes visibly contracted when Ves mentioned the NIN.

A haunted man always became frightened when their ghosts came back to torment them. While Ves didn’t wish to open up old wounds, he needed to hear the whole story from the mech designer.

"The NIN, Mr. Larkinson?"

"Call me Ves."

"You are kind of young, now that I think about it. How come you’re the head designer? Did the other guy lost his head or something?"

"...Something like that." Ves grimaced. "Please answer the question. This isn’t about me right now."

"Ah, my apologies Ves.." Eric looked a little uncertain towards Ves. A head designer should at least be a Journeyman, but the older man sensed the vibe of an Apprentice instead. It confused him a bit. "Well, you’d probably hear this from every Chopran you pick up from the battlefield, but the NIN are extremely unpleasant to be around."

"How so?"

"The NIN.. well.. they fulfill almost every stereotype of a pirate you can imagine. They’re almost universally poorly educated and exhibit bad hygiene, no forethought and a violent disposition. Chopra should have never gone to bed with these ill-kempt brutes and thugs!"

"Then why did you Choprans ally yourself with these pirates in the first place?"

"..I don’t know." Eric shrugged. "The bosses of the corps all announced their decision one day. It’s not like the rank-and-file or someone from support like me have a say in the decision making."

"There must have been rumors. Suspicions. Whispers. Did someone else put the Choprans up to this marriage?"

Eric’s eyes suddenly grew sharper. He kept his mouth shut, as if he was aware that he faced an interrogation.

After Ves stared back for a while, he understood that Eric didn’t wish to snitch on his employers. Ves would leave this line of questioning to professionals, though they likely already pulled the answers from someone else’s mouth.

"Okay, let me ask something different, then. From what I’ve gathered, the NIN is an independent pirate gang. Are you sure they aren’t a part of one of the two major pirate blocs in this region?"

"I don’t think so." Eric shook his head. "I don’t hear a lot of things, but I never heard of the NIN cooperating with anybody. If you see them for yourselves, you’ll know why. I think they’re the cockroaches of among the pirates. They’re numerous but filthy and individually weak."

"Does the Dragon Alliance or the Ravienne Alliance ring a bell to you?"

"No."

"Tell me about the attack itself. How have the NIN been able to jump on your forces?"

"We were careless." Eric let out a deep breath. "When we initially banded together with the NIN, we didn’t get along at all. They’re thugs more than anything. We Choprans pride ourselves on our professionalism, so a lot of the rank-and-file immediately began to protest to the brass. We hated the NIN and didn’t want to do anything with them. I think many of us had their fingers on the triggers."

"And then?" Ves prodded.

"Well, nothing happened. The brass insisted that we give the NIN a chance. We did. The friction hadn’t gone down at all. Fights would break out whenever we gathered in the same place. Their joyriding mech pilots aggressively plunge their mechs close to ours when we are on patrols. All these incidents hammered home the fact that the NIN are a bunch of highly impulsive hooligans. Perhaps the only merit to them is that they know the lay of the land of the frontier really well. We never jumped to any dangerous star systems until we arrived here."

"If you Choprans continued to get along poorly with the NIN, how come you managed to restrain yourselves?"

"The mercenary corps is owned by the bosses." Eric declared. "They tell us what to do and we have no choice but to follow orders. They’re not exactly keen on fostering initiative from the lower ranks. We had all been accustomed to gritting our teeth and following orders we don’t like. Trying to make peace with the NIN is just another bad order to add to the pile."

"Seems like this bad order should have received a lot more scrutiny."

"Oh, many of us did in fact continue to put up our guard against the NIN. We’ve traveled together for months without a major incident blowing up in our faces, and while some of us started to let them their guard, a large minority never really became convinced of their docility."

"If a large part of you Choprans remained suspicious, how come you lost the battle so totally and completely?"

"The NIN outnumber us. It’s as simple as that. None of their mechs and ships are worth a damn. The best of their machines are at least second-hand castoffs, and the worst are third-hand junk scavengers have salvaged, patched up and sold to the NIN for a pittance. The only advantage that they have is that they outnumbered us more than three-to-one. None of us thought that was a huge issue, though. They may have the numbers, but we have the quality. I should know since I inspected each and every mech in our lineup."

Ves requested some of the details on the mechs. According to Eric, the Choprans mostly fielded mechs in the 20 million bright credit range, while the NIN overwhelmingly fielded mechs in the 4 million credit range.

Therefore, the total worth of the Chopra fleet should have surpassed the total worth of the NIN fleet.