The Mech Touch novel Chapter 865

The battle against the Caged Tongs and its auxiliaries ended in a decisive victory for the Flagrant Swordmaidens. While it took more than a day of pursuit, none of the routing mechs of the aggressors made it away, mostly because they eventually ran out of energy.

Perhaps the most tiresome aspect about the Caged Tongs was the sheer amount of random dwarf tribesmen they enthralled. The crazed dwarves continued to charge at the mechs of the Flagrant Swordmaidens without any iota of sense or fear.

The mechs didn’t bother to waste their energy on firing their laser rifles or swinging their weapons at the insane dwarves. They merely walked among the dwarves and stomped thousands of them beneath the feet of their mechs.

The Flagrant Swordmaidens casually committed mass dwarficide in order to stop the idiotic dwarves from hammering the legs of their mechs and transports with their bone clubs.

The bonded wild gods also knew no fear. They fought back with incredible ferocity, and each had to be lasered to death from a distance. _{frёewebnoѵēl.com}

The only exception was the teleporting wild god. Qilanxo managed to get the upper hand in the brawl and managed to subdue this special wild god without killing her and her dwarf rider.

Still, the wild god sustained such heavy wounds that the exobiologists weighed the cost of saving her life.

"It’s not worth it." Dr. Tillman said. "We’ll have to expend too much medical supplies in order to save her life."

Hours later, the stench of blood, guts and other unpleasant smells suffused the entire battlefield. After making sure that no existing threat remained, rescue parties started to descend on the wrecks.

They ignored the pitiful cries of the surviving dwarves and instead prioritized the rescue of their own mech pilots first. Only after that did the rescue parties recover the mech pilots of the Caged Tongs trapped in their wrecked mechs or ejected cockpits.

A detachment of Vandal and Swordmaiden mechs also ranged out and found the meager supply train of the Caged Tongs. They easily overwhelmed the token mech escorts and secured the badly-built pirate transports, for all the good it did, because a cursory inspection of their assets revealed they were practically running dry of many essential goods.

The battle hadn’t been worth it in the standpoint of the Flagrant Swordmaidens. Over eighty mechs sustained varying amounts of battle damage, and half of them either got wrecked or sustained such severe damage that the mech technicians needed to rebuild them from the ground up.

Ves already foresaw a massive pile of work awaiting the mech maintenance department.

At this moment, many Vandals and Swordmaidens started interrogating every member of the Caged and the Tongs they managed to capture alive. They particularly screwed the thumbs of the mech pilots who emerged the well-maintained pirate mechs.

In the meantime, a horde of mech technicians and other personnel started scouring the battlefield to recover any repairable wrecks or identify any notable salvage among the remains.

They walked past flattened and heavily-injured dwarves, casually shooting any approaching dwarf who managed to survive the massacre with their laser pistols.

"Ugh. These dwarves are everywhere." A mech technician muttered in the comm channel as he kept his grip on his smoking laser pistol. Right now, the stench of dead dwarves and the fumes released from wrecked mechs forced everyone who stepped on the battlefield to keep their helmets closed. "What do you reckoned is wrong with these stupid dwarves?"

Another mech technician grinned in his closed hazard suit. "I heard from someone who interrogated the first Red Tong captives that they slipped something into their food. Their exobiologists cooked up something devious. It made the dwarves pliable and drove them in a frenzy when commanded to. They even formulated something special for the wild gods."

Teams of mech technicians inspected the mechs belonging to their own force first and marked them out according to their state. Some mechs only needed a couple of replacements to get back into shape, while others required far too much time in the workshop to be worth the effort of restoring them to their former glory.

The Flagrant Vandals mostly avoided incurring major damage to their mechs. Ves was pleased to hear that only a handful of Vandal mechs would be scrapped for parts.

The Swordmaidens on the other hand sustained more severe damage. Many of the mechs that got caught up in the bewildering abilities of the wild gods couldn’t be used anymore and needed to be scrapped as well.

They kind of got what they deserved by deviating from the plan, yet the Swordmaidens didn’t seem to mind it. They already started claiming the bulk of the salvageable wrecks from the Caged Tongs to provide new rides for the ejected Swordmaiden mech pilots.

In general, both the Vandals and Swordmaidens lost relatively few mech pilots as both had been commanded to eject early rather than go down with their mechs.

The Flagrant Swordmaidens valued every mech pilot. As long as they retained their pilots, they could always provide them with new mechs, especially if they retained control of the battlefield after the battle.

Ves currently stood with Mayra as they overlooked the sprawling field of wrecks and flattened dwarves. He had recently concluded a division of salvage. While the Swordmaidens claimed most of the intact mechs, he made sure the Vandals got their fair share as well.

Even if they didn’t plan to restore the pirate mechs, they could still strip the wrecks of their most valuable parts or rare materials.

As the Caged Tongs already demonstrated, a severe lack of maintenance and supplies resulted in dire implications for the effective strength of a deprived mech force!

"I’ve got a question." Ves said. "Why did you Swordmaidens decided to charge all of a sudden? I don’t believe Commander Lydia and your Swordmaiden officers are blind to the strategic implications of deviating from the plan."