The Mech Touch novel Chapter 872

When the Vandals prepared the gear for the exploration party, they put some thought in maintaining contact. The large amount of interference made it impractical to receive wireless signals from more than a few kilometers away, so the only way to remain in contact was to use a physical medium.

Chief Dakkon and a handful of other engineers designed a small spider bot. It was as small as someone’s palm and could traverse over very steep angles, though speed was not its forte. Even though they should be somewhat resilient against the breakdown effect, in truth they were just cheap bots designed to be as small and cheap as possible while still capable of navigating through the rough terrain.

No matter. The Vandals produced thousands of them in short notice and packed them up in crates that held hundreds of them at a time. They took up very little space when folded up, so the fast transports could easily carry them all.

Every hour or so, the exploration party released two of them and programmed them to reach specific drop points a fair distance away from the temporary camp.

Most wouldn’t be able to make the journey. They’d either be crushed underneath the foot of the errant godlings that roamed the sparse lands inside the red zone, be delayed for weeks, get stuck in a pit or difficult terrain or even get picked off by rival forces who detected the spider bots!

However, each spider bot that made it to the drop points provided a valuable status update to the Vandals and Swordmaidens left behind.

"Seems like the survival rate of bots is around thirty percent so far. Not bad. That’s higher than we expected." Chief Dakkon complimented his own work.

"It’s only been a day." Ves noted. "The distance the bots have to traverse isn’t very far. Once they reach the Starlight Megalodon, who knows if we’ll receive any bots at all."

"I have faith in my bots. They’re crafty little buggers."

Right now, Captain Byrd called up a small group of mech officers and chiefs to inform them of what the exploration party encountered so far. Everyone looked forward to see and hear what the fabled red zone had to offer.

A projection came to life. Captain Byrd began to summarize the first reports. "As we’ve expected, the terrain has grown increasingly rougher. This could partially be explained by a large impact happening in the past, such as a battleship the size of a city crash-landing in the region. However, the irregularities in the terrain may also have been affected by strong spikes in spacetime distortion. The worst possibility is that these strong spikes are still ongoing and remain a huge hazard."

Everyone looked serious, including Ves. From the Glowing Planet campaign, he witnessed the horror of spacetime shenanigans. Anyone who became victim of a spacetime wrinkle or whatever might suffer a fate worse than death!

The projection shifted to various alien plants and strange animals being preyed upon by hardy godlings.

Dr. Tillman stepped up this time. "So far, we haven’t spotted the presence of any wildlings or wildling tribes, but there are sparse amounts alien creatures and godlings roaming the red zone. The alien exobeasts appear to be the remnants of the planet’s indigenous wildlife that have survived the terraforming process. The likely reason why they are in the red zone is because the environment is unsuitable for Earth-based life."

Basically, the red zone gave the Flagrant Swordmaidens a taste of how Seven looked like before human intervention.

"Are the alien critters dangerous?"

"We do not believe so, but it’s better if you don’t try your luck. Their flesh is almost certainly inedible to baseline humans and they are remarkably adapted to the heavy gravity. Due to their small stature, they shouldn’t pose too much of a threat to a properly armed and armored individual on foot."

The rest of the meeting devolved into other miscellaneous observations. For example, the Enduring Protectors that Ves designed held up well, as did Mayra’s Asterias. Both mechs marched stably and strongly through the rough terrain and withstood the frequent spacetime distortions with stoic solidity.

In fact, the upgraded fast transports exhibited some malfunctions already, and this was only the first day!

Chief Dakkon’s face grew ugly when he noted this awful performance. Although it might have just been a bad day for his fast transport, it still reflected a potential weakness. Without the transports and the supplies they carried, how far could the exploration party go?

"Have there any been signs of our rivals?"

"None yet so far, but it is only a matter of time."

Due to the increasingly strange circumstances, the exploration party slowed their pace to a crawl. They thought they might have been able to reach the Starlight Megalodon in a single day, but as they got deeper and deeper in the red zone, various hazards started to pop up.

"Is that a weapon crater?"

"A powerful explosion caused this crater. Even now, it is throwing up high amounts of radiation. While the danger isn’t so acute at a distance, the exploration party already stumbled upon dozens of craters like this. More exotic weapon scars dot the lands as well."

Even several hundred years ago, the CFA made use of a large variety of advanced weaponry. As the Age of Conquest amply demonstrated, their warships could inflict a devastating amount of damage on any planet if they held no scruples.

Fortunately, the battle scars showed that the big guns hadn’t been taken out. Even a single antimatter torpedo could have turned the entire red zone into a huge crater!

"From the signs of battle, the survivors of the Starlight Megalodon have likely come to blows with each other." Captain Byrd said. "We don’t know the nature of the conflict or which sides emerged as the victor, but we don’t stand a chance if any of the remnants brings these devastating weapons to bear on us."

They already knew that some portion of the Starlight Megalodon still remained operational after enduring several millennia of accelerated time.

Who knew how they would react when the exploration party finally arrived at their doorstep. Would they allow the visitors to plunder the Starlight Megalodon at will?

Still, even if their chances didn’t look good, the Flagrant Swordmaidens had come too far to go back empty-handed. They at least needed to make an attempt, if only to please their backers.

The meeting ended and everyone returned to their duties. From what the spider bots already relayed, Ves felt as if they only brushed upon the tip of the iceberg.