The Mech Touch novel Chapter 771

Major Verle and Ves moved quietly through the corridor. Owing to the mech officer’s rank, all of the Vandals passing through the corridors all acknowledged the major in some manner.

Ves studied the minor rituals from the side. Each Vandal, no matter how crisp or sloppy they behaved, expressed their respect to Major Verle in some manner. The man had earned their genuine respect.

Yet did all of his efforts mean nothing compared to the prestige of an expert pilot?

Neither of them knew quite what to make of the last battle. While they survived against a sandman onslaught at close range with fairly light casualties, Venerable Xie threw his Parallax Star under an unnecessary amount of risk.

Right now, the Flagrant Swordmaidens began to process the aftermath of the battle. Some mechs managed to get eaten by the sandmen, but most managed to survive by staying out of melee range.

The only downside was that arming so many mechs with spare ballistic rifles expended huge amounts of ammunition. Their logistics ships already started churning out more shells and kinetic projectiles to make up for the unexpected shortfall.

If they met the sandmen once, they might very well encounter them again! Ves didn’t think it was a coincidence that the sandmen managed to intercept them in the middle of interplanetary space. The odds of bumping into each other when visibility was down to a hundred kilometers was too miniscule to count.

The sandmen must have possessed some other means of detecting a fleet at longer ranges!

"Mr. Larkinson."

"Yes, sir?"

"What do you think about the sandmen presence in the Aeon Corona System?" The major idly asked. As they walked through the passageways, they obviously couldn’t discuss anything sensitive.

"I’m not an exobiologist or an astrophysicist, sir." Ves immediately responded with a disclaimer. "That said, in my inexpert opinion, we are knee-deep inside the core territory of the sandmen empire. They must have lived beside the Aeon Corona System for decades probably. I think that even if the spacetime storm that surrounds the system manages to block a million attempts at forcing an entry, the sandmen may have succeeded on the millionth-and-first try through sheer luck. I think that’s one of the ways in which they can force an entry without possessing a key."

"If that’s true, the sandmen may have thrown away enough fleets to conquer the Komodo Star Sector and more. That’s not the most efficient allocation of resources."

"That’s why I don’t take much stock in this theory, sir. Perhaps the sandmen have calculated a way to enter the system without being thrown off course. Perhaps they utilize a different means of FTL that doesn’t subject them to the vagaries of gravitic turbulence. I don’t know, though I think we should be prepared to face more sandmen as we get nearer to Aeon Corona VII. Something must have attracted them to this star system, and I think the planet and the Starlight Megalodon may seem attractive to the sandmen as well."

Just the endlessly renewable power reactor should be enough to make the sandmen ruling caste release their race’s equivalent of drool, not to mention the other wondrous technologies the battleship may have utilized.

Verle grunted in a dissatisfied manner. "Our performance against a twelve-escort sandman fleet has been exceptionally poor. In your opinion, is our spaceborn mech roster adequately equipped to defend our fleet?"

Ves didn’t know why the major asked such an open-ended question to him. "Sir, with regards to our mechs, they are more than adequate to repel a sandmen fleet of the same strength. The only reasons why we dropped the ball in the last battle was that despite our drills and contingency plans, no one really expected the sandmen to actually show up out of the blue. In addition, we haven’t fully adjusted our strategy and tactics to cope with the properties of the astral winds. These strenuous environmental conditions massively favor the sandmen."

A twelve-escort sandmen fleet may be an absolute menace to the average pirate gang or mercenary corps, but the Flagrant Vandals could have easily chewed them if they encountered the aliens under normal circumstances.

In regular spaceborn combat, the great distances involved usually gave a force plenty of warning once a sandman fleet moved to intercept them. This enabled the human defenders to make plenty of preparations and bombard the sandmen from a distance, chewing them up before they ever reached close enough to engulf the yummy ships and mechs!

All of this became impossible when their sensors could barely peer through the higher-dimensional particles. Like a mist or smokescreen engulfing a terrestrial battlefield, those who entered such a region devolved into savages.

"You are correct." Verle finally replied. "I have been hesitant in deploying our patrols further away from the main fleet in fear of losing touch of them, but it has become clear that such a cautious approach will only render us vulnerable to a repeat of the last battle. It is not your fault nor the fault of the mechs that we have been pushed to the brink of defeat. The way we employ our gear is more important than their properties."

"Major, if I may ask. Why are you telling me this?" Ves asked. "I’m not a Vandal nor a military officer."

The man smiled sardonically. "It is exactly because you’re an outsider that I feel at ease with my rambles. You aren’t restrained in expressing your opinions. Besides, I feel you are a man of ambition. As a leader in your own right in the civilian world, there is a kinship between you and me. You possess an awareness of matters that is far above the other Vandals. Do you think Captain Orfan is as contemplative and "