The Mech Touch novel Chapter 893

The moment they walked towards the collection of mechs situated closer to the Starlight Megalodon’s hull, Ves and Ketis suddenly tripped and floated in the air.

"What the?!"

"The gravity! It’s normalized!"

The two hadn’t expected to walk into an area affected by an antigrav field. This existing field superimposed with the effects of their active gravitic backpacks, causing them to turn virtually weightless!

Ves quickly calmed down once he realized what had happened. "Gently dial down the power of your gravitic backpack. Don’t do it instantly or you’ll drop like a brick."

Their armored forms slowly descended into the ground as the gravity affecting them gradually increased until it matched the gravity of Old Earth. The little jaunt in the air discomfited them both, but they managed to retain the contents of their stomachs.

It was still unpleasant to be thrown into the air like that when they didn’t expect such a thing. For a moment, Ves believed that Miss Calabast deliberately sent them ahead without a warning as a prank.

"That woman has a sense of humor." He muttered.

"Next time, I’ll smack her face." Ketis shamelessly boasted.

The antigrav field emitted by the Starlight Megalodon reduced one of their worries. It wasn’t a good idea to keep their gravitic backpacks active all the time. Not only did they expend a lot of energy, they also wore them out through continuous active use. It would have been disastrous if the gravitic backpacks malfunctioned all of a sudden.

The two resumed their short journey towards their comrades. They passed through broad corridors of old prefab structures. Ves peeked through the windows and saw nothing but empty, dust-laden rooms.

Ves found it eerie that he couldn’t find any furniture and objects inside that could tell him what kind of people used to live here. It didn’t seem like the previous occupants evacuated this sprawling settlement in haste. It seemed more as if someone calmly cleaned up the place and threw out the trash a few hundred or thousand years ago.

"The people who lived here... what happened to them? How come no one’s left?" Ketis asked the obvious question.

Ves wondered about that as well. "Cities are raised and abandoned all the time in human history. They’re usually forced out of their old homes when faced with a calamity."

A thriving settlement of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people became nothing but abandoned ruins over time. Ves found the emptiness to be a huge shame.

They walked around the corner and finally spotted their comrades. The moment the pair of mech designers walked into view of the members of the exploration and follow-up party huddling in some sort of abandoned park, both sides stopped and stared at each other.

"Mr. Larkinson?" Captain Orfan rose up from the dirt.

"Ketis?" Lieutenant Dise called. "Why are the two of you here?"

While the exploration members all became befuddled at the new presence, Ves and Ketis all stared at what their comrades were doing. The dug-up trenches, the plants placed inside of them and the pulverized contents of nutrient packs sprinkled on top of them made for an unimaginable sight.

"Are you turning this park into a farm?!" Ketis called out.

Lieutenant Dise grimaced. "It’s a long story."

The appearance of the pair of mech designers raised everyone’s spirits, but the news they brought spoiled the reunion.

In the next hour, Ves huddled with the hundred-odd members of the two parties that ventured into the safe zone and filled them in on the disaster that struck the Flagrant Swordmaidens.

He activated his military-issued comm and projected a portion of the footage of the battle against the Meandering Monkeys and the Hostland Warriors. The appearance of the Belisarius and the ease in which it tore apart the Vandal and Swordmaidens mech all led to a round of cursing and sorrow.

The outcome of the battle and the fate in store for those who remained caused many of them to be wracked with grief. Though they were too far from the battle to experience it as it happened, they had no reason to doubt the news. Ves even uploaded the data of the battle to everyone’s comms so they could study the records by themselves.

The more the Vandals and Swordmaidens watched the footage, the more they became angry and despondent. Even if Ves didn’t show them the butchering that surely happened afterwards, they knew the score as well as anyone. If they were in the shoes of the Vesians, they would have done the same.

"So many of sisters are dead now!"

"We’ve lost our way out! There’s no rescue awaiting us outside! We’re stranded!"

Captain Orfan immediately cracked down on such talk. "Pipe down! You don’t know anything! As long as we’re alive, we still have a chance of finding a way out. Didn’t this battleship send out FTL-capable shuttles into space? A battleship easily carries hundreds of shuttles. As long as we manage to get inside and hijack a couple of shuttles, we can still go back to the fleet!"

Her words roused everyone’s hopes, but only slightly. Ves looked at their expressions and saw that they hadn’t been doing well lately. Miss Calabast’s warning that the survivors had gotten stuck rang in his ears.

Why hadn’t they managed to get inside the battleship? Ves stared back at the Starlight Megalodon and saw plenty of minor cracks and rents in the hull. Was there something blocking their way?