The Mech Touch novel Chapter 805

After the inexplicable incident where a primitive dwarf managed to incapacitate one of their mech pilots through the air, the Flagrant Swordmaidens avoided the wildling tribes like a plague.

For the time being, nobody knew whether any other wildling possessed the power to induce pain on the mech pilots. The expedition immediately began to make detours around the wildling tribes, even if they consisted of a few hundred bedraggled dwarves.

None of the mech pilots wanted to bear the humiliation of getting subdued by a primitive dwarf all by itself!

It was one thing to be defeated by mechs or other formidable weapons of war. In fact, Lieutenant Dise of the Swordmaidens enjoyed an even greater level of renown among her sisters despite losing her duel against the sacred god Hokaz.

Mech pilots earned more prestige when they faced increasingly formidable opponents. Whether they won or lost, lived or died, the fact that they put their lives on the line on the battlefield or dueling grounds already proved their valor!

Against an exobeast as powerful and majestic as a five-hundred year old sacred god with the power to call down a wide-area lightning storm, there was no shame in losing against this literal force of nature!

However, it was one thing to lose against the Tyrant of the Wastes. It was another thing entirely to lose against a smelly dwarf who would get instantly squashed the moment a mech stomped its feet over its head!

Ves huffed at the rowdy mech pilots. "Serves them right for bullying the natives. There’s so much crap in their genes that they shouldn’t have underestimated these wildlings."

After receiving an invitation, he went over to the heavy transport that served as one of the workshops for the Swordmaidens. Right now, the workshop took in the Devil Razor that the dwarf chieftain inexplicably affected with his bare hands.

Nobody could explain what had happened!

Perhaps some of the more astute Vandals and Swordmaidens already guessed the cause. It was no secret that the blessed people and the cursed people possessed the ability to connect their minds to the god species.

The big exobeasts even incorporated biological antennas in their brain structure that attuned them to remote connections.

What the Flagrant Swordmaidens never expected was that the wildlings possessed the ability to interfere with another man-machine connection at a distance! This increased their threat level from harmless savages into dangerous savages.

Though only one wildling so far showed off the ability to affect a mech, perhaps this ability was shared among the rest of their race. If that was so, then the wildlings became a fearsome force that absolutely couldn’t be allowed to come close enough to perform their mind voodoo on the mechs!

"Mayra." Ves greeted the Journeyman as he stepped into the workshop. "Tell me what you know."

Mayra sat behind a terminal that projected a raft of telemetry readings. Ketis hadn’t accompanied either mech designers at this time. As far as Ves knew, the young woman had gotten bored at the monotony of travel and started to hang out with the other Swordmaidens.

"Come sit with me, Ves." Mayra patted the seat next to hers. "According to the telemetry of the mech at the time of the incident, the mech experienced conflicting commands. Look at the readings from the neural interface."

When Ves studied the raw data, he couldn’t make heads or tails of it beyond confirming that something extremely abnormal happened. One of the readings normally looked like a flat line that angled upwards and downwards from time to time.

Shortly after the chieftain stretched out his hand, the normally placid line started to go crazy. It jerked up and down at sharp angles as it completely lost stability!

Such examples happened everywhere. The neural interface somehow became flooded with anomalous data, causing it to send out invalid instructions to the Devil Razor. The mech lost control of its limbs because it was essentially fighting against itself!

Though Ves couldn’t read the erratic patterns, they all sprung up from a single cause. "To my judgement, the anomalous input fits with the notion that the dwarf chieftain somehow managed to connect to the man-machine interface. His vulgar mind must have barged in and flooded both the mech and mech pilot with his chaotic thoughts. That caused the mech to spin out of control while causing the mech pilot considerable pain from the feedback."

"The Devil Razors don’t make use of remote neural interfaces." Mayra frowned. "The genetic aptitude of our Swordmaidens aren’t great. They need all the help that they can get, so the only way our Swordmaidens can interface with my mechs is if they physically connect their helmets with the neural interface. This physical connection shouldn’t be affected by remote. It’s simply not possible to do so!"

This was basically like stuffing a cookie into someone else’s mouth in another room.

How could someone possibly place the cookie in the mouth of someone else when a significant distance as well as a solid wall stood in the way?

Teleportation? Phase change? Please!

Still, no matter how absurd it sounded, according to the data something like this had actually happened! They forcefully intruded their minds into a closed system and attempted to take control!

This was extremely scary, because it also signified that these wildlings might be able to interface with an empty from remote with nothing more than their minds!

If that was possible, then these dwarfs possessed the capacity to inflict a huge amount of damage every time the ground forces stopped at the end of a standard day.

The mech pilots couldn’t couldn’t operate their mechs continuously. As humans, they needed to eat, sleep and relax like other humans. For that reason, the Flagrant Swordmaidens interrupted their journey for at least six continuous hours every standard day.

"I’m not sure how, but the dwarf chieftain managed to intrude on the man-machine connection facilitated by a closed neural interface loop that can only be accessed through physical touch. I can’t explain how the dwarf managed to do so, but I can tell what effect this has accomplished. Simply put, it turned a two-way exchange of data into a threeway exchange. However, the neural interface isn’t designed to accommodate a third wheel!" _{ƒreewebηoveℓ.com}