The Mech Touch novel Chapter 817

The Vandals tried to come up with some other plan besides the latest harebrained scheme that came out of Ves. Now that he suggested something like overloading the power generators to unleash an explosion so furious that the camp would definitely be affected by the shockwave and other emissions despite the distance, a dam had broken.

Several engineers and other people who ordinarily never said anything came up with several crazy ideas.

An exobiologist suggested they pool the contents of five-thousand nutrient bars and lace it with a liberal amount of toxic metals and substances sure to fatally poison even the deadliest exobeast! They’d serve the giant beast candy and hope to hell that one of them would be curious enough to eat it especially after the exobiologists incorporated juicy meaty smells to the adulterated food.

"It’s worth a try. Do it." Captain Byrd waved her hand dismissively.

Though it didn’t sound like the idea would work, it was better than resorting to the potentially catastrophic solution of sending all of their melee mechs into action. Sacred gods with widespread terrain manipulation powers like the great Pairixan could potentially bury them all under the ground in an instant! That was why the Flagrant Swordmaidens were so adamant about keeping their distance!

In fact, they had long begun the process of evacuating everyone and everything that could easily be moved. However, numerous supplies and large amounts of heavy equipment that took too much time and effort to dismantle couldn’t be brought away so soon, and they still had a large amount of damaged mechs that couldn’t be moved at all.

The reason why they made their stand was because those damaged mechs were vitally important, because they directly translated to strength when they faced their real enemies.

The natives and the sacred gods weren’t their real enemies!

The orbital bombardment by the late fleet of the Caged and the Red Tongs reminded the Flagrant Swordmaidens that their actual enemies still awaited. They must have certainly landed their landbound mech forces somewhere on this massive planet.

There was no need to seek them out, because all their paths led to the same destination. The Starlight Megalodon. The battleship that everyone thought was dormant but proved them all wrong.

The fact that the unscrupulous orbital bombardment provoked a reaction from the Starlight Megalodon hinted that those running the ship still took the CFA’s mission seriously. Widespread use of weapons of mass destruction at Seven to the point of devastating an entire region might cause them to launch another antimatter torpedo at the offenders!

This was also why the Vandals felt uneasy about the suggestion of overloading a power generator. Technically, doing so deliberately in order to cause mass destruction definitely went against the rules upheld by the CFA.

Ves could only shrug at their hesitation and opposition. "I think the reason why the Starlight Megalodon moved into action was because the orbital bombardment threatened to depopulate an entire region of life. If Seven is an experimental ground as some of us have speculated, then those who are running the experiments don’t want them to be ruined by an outsider. What we are doing will only devastate a small area at most and kill a bunch of sacred gods. Samar still has Pailanon and the rest of the Western Samar Pantheon to take charge."

Speaking of Pailanon, the older brother exited the western gate with two subordinate sacred gods a while ago.

"What is the status of Pailanon? Is he approaching our direction?"

"Pailanon’s group has halted, ma’am." Someone who kept an eye on Pailanon through spy drones and scout mechs reported. "They are maintaining their distance."

No one knew why Pailanon exited the city and stalked in the direction of Pairixan and the Flagrant Swordmaidens.

One thing was for sure. The Flagrant Swordmaidens likely wouldn’t be able to handle both the older and younger brothers at the same time!

"I think he’s waiting. If Pairixan wins easily, Pailanon won’t go in or even help him clean us up. If Pairixan is facing more opposition than expected, then Pailanon may help us do his younger brother in! He’s being opportunistic!"

"Is there a way to draw Pailanon on our side?"

No one could come up with an answer to that besides letting a scout mech approach the volatile sacred god. However, according to past behavior and all the stories they heard so far, the metal controller might very well take control over the mech and treat it as his toy!

By now, the fast transport carrying the dwarves and ’diplomatic envoy’ dropped off the dwarves somewhere close to the sacred gods before beating away as fast as its legs could carry!

Though it appeared that Pairixan wanted to stop the big shiny transport, several changes happened that caused him to pause.

The Flagrant Swordmaidens also stopped their shelling and laser discharges all of a sudden. This sudden change threw the besieged sacred gods and beast riders off-guard.

What was happening? Why did the attacks stop hammering their defenses?

Despite the temporary respite, Qilanxo studiously maintained her barrier up despite the continued drain on her energy reserves. She remained vigilant against sneak attacks like the initial opening salvo of the artillery cannons. Their opponents didn’t play by the rules as their species had fought for generations!

"What are the sacred gods doing?"

"I think they’re befuddled by the dwarves because they came out of one of our fast transports. They can’t equate the dwarves having any relations with functional machines."

"Do you mean they think that they are mistaking us as the cursed people?"

"Who knows."

It certainly sounded weird. When the Flagrant Swordmaidens initially tried to open dialogue with the sacred gods of Samar, they only showed up in giant mechs. The outsiders never showed their human forms inside their mechs!

Ves tried to imagine what it would be like if the dwarves took the place of the Vandals and the Swordmaidens. They might be able to gain control over the mechs if they adopt the right thinking pattern, though succeeding in interfacing with a mech didn’t gain them any mastery in the fundamental skills required to pilot a mech.

Any ten-year old tested for genetic aptitude possessed the ability to interface with any mech. In theory.

However, any who did so immediately caused their mechs to trip or perform some other calamitous maneuver. It would be like a random person gaining complete control over the helm of a starship.

If the dummy mode hadn’t been engaged, the ship might overload her reactor or collide into a space station because the person at the helm didn’t have any clue what to do!

It took ten to fifteen years of training for most mech pilots to qualify to pilot something as complex as a mech. The dwarves, for all of their inborn abilities to interface with both mechs and exobeasts, could never make up for at least a decade of dedicated training.

The dwarves wouldn’t be able to fulfill any of the support services as well. Never mind operating the machines or maintaining the mechs, they wouldn’t even know how to operate the kitchen!

The absurd thought distracted Ves from the initial interaction between the dwarf captives and the sacred gods.

Even a five-minute delay helped them out a lot. Chief Dakkon and the engineers rushed to unmoor the power generators while keeping them running with all of the safeties disengaged. This was exceptionally hard to do in a short amount of time because the power generators were designed to shut down as safely as possible if anything went wrong. _{freewёbn૦νeɭ.com}