The Mech Touch novel Chapter 954

Before Davis even applied pressure to the trigger of his hand cannon, the Squalon already unfolded its helmet and encased the wearer’s head.

A powerful round smacked against the visor of the Squalon shortly afterwards. It deflected and pinged off the incredibly resilient surface without leaving behind a single scratch!

To his credit, Davis continued to pull the trigger even after he fired the first round. The powerful hand cannon in his grip didn’t possess a high rate of fire, but the mech technician-turned-traitor fired as fast as his sidearm allowed.

As the Squalon’s helmet continued to ward off the incoming shots without fail, Ves even had the time to admire Davis’ trained shooting posture and accuracy. By far most of the rounds his helmet!

Ves had the impulse of telling the foolish assassin that he would have better luck aiming at the joints of his armor. Even though the back of his elbow and knees likely wouldn’t suffer any damage either, Davis should have known better if he was truly a mech technician.

"DIE DIE DIE! WHY WON’T YOU DIE!" Davis raged with sudden fury as his hand cannon clicked empty. Without much pause, Davis changed its magazine and continued to fire more rounds at the mech designer across the desk. "WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO SURVIVE WHILE MY WIFE DIED A WORTHLESS DEATH ON THE SURFACE!"

Ah. So it was personal. Ves sympathised with fellow all of a sudden. He knew that the Vandals tended to shack up together despite the regulations against fraternization. It was a natural tendency for them to do so after spending years and decades together.

Davis expended four whole magazines worth of ballistic rounds in less than a minute. After firing all of those rounds that could have killed an entire crowd of humans, Ves was no closer to dying and Davis was no closer to venting his grief!

"NO!" The unhinged mech technician despaired as his pistol ran dry. The useless weapon slipped from his grasp. His shaking eyes bore right through the Squalon’s undamaged visor. "What gives you the right to live while my wife and friends are all dead?! All of you Vandals are complicit in their deaths! None of you deserve to live!"

Ves strangely retained his calm at the man’s violent outburst. Perhaps the knowledge that there was nothing that Davis could do to threaten him in his Squalon gave him the leisure to treat this incident with patience.

"Mr. Sollerent, if that is your name? Ah, I just accessed the personnel files. It seems that much is true about you. Please indulge my curiosity for a moment. Why did you think it would be a good idea to shoot me?"

Davis collapsed to his knees and laughed. "Hahahaha! I didn’t think! I didn’t think you’d be so tough to kill! Damnit, if I only I brought a plasma cutter to shear my way through your armor! No. That wouldn’t work. The chiefs would never allow me to bring out a plasma cutter without permission."

Ves pressed his lips into a thin line. At the beginning, he thought that this entire asssassination attempt was part of some grand scheme to sow chaos on the Shield of Hispania. Perhaps a band of traitors and mutineers plotted to destabilize the crew in order to turn them against the brass.

Since the Finmoth Regal mutinied, why wouldn’t the Shield of Hispania be any less vulnerable? The entire combat carrier turned into bomb ever since her personnel rolls tripled or quadrupled with the amount of Vandals they absorbed from other ships now doomed to become sandman fodder.

To find out that his killer was just a grief-stricken widower who felt as if the few survivors of the ground expedition didn’t deserve to live anymore disappointed Ves. Compared to a scheming, hyper-intelligent foe like Sigrund, this emotionally unstable mech technician far didn’t even register in Ves’ danger senses.

"Now that you’ve got all of that out of the system, I hope you can move past your grief. That is, if the Vandals don’t execute you. Have a nice stay in the brig."

The hatch opened up quickly after that to allow a pair of security officers to storm inside. One of them immediately whacked Davis with an electrifier baton which put him out like a light.

The other officer checked the rest of the office for any threats and tried to see if Ves sustained any wounds.

"Mr. Larkinson! Are you injured?!"

"I’m fine, I’m fine." Ves waved away their concerns. "Davis here couldn’t have hurt a single hair on my body."

"It’s not secure here. Please allow us to escort you to the Security Department."

"Very well. Lead the way." Ves sighed and stood up. While he figured the likelihood of a repeat attack was very low, the security officers would rather that he be safe than sorry.

Half an hour later, Ves just finished recounting the assassination attempt and how pathetic it unfolded. Those involved all looked green with envy as Ves boasted about the quality of his Squalon.

That was genuine CFA armor! Despite the fact that it was merely one of their light combat armor models for field engineers, it nonetheless rendered a hefty hand cannon completely ineffective!

"I’m not even mad." He told the interrogators. "Davis is just someone who snapped. I’m more concerned about others like him. While I’m not that easy to kill, the same couldn’t be said about the others like Captain Orfan or Major Verle."

"We will be adjusting their protective detail in light of this event." The security officer nodded as he typed something in his data pad. "Please answer us. Do you think that Davis Sollerent has an accomplice or is working together with a band of like-minded people?"

Ves sighed. "I already answered this question. No, I don’t think he’s working with someone. The monitoring system in my office must have recorded the entire event. You can go watch the footage." _{freewēbnoveℓ.com}

"You know how it goes. I have to keep asking, Mr. Larkinson." The security officer said in a respectful manner.

No matter how much Ves understated himself among the Vandals, he couldn’t help but become one of the most high-profile individuals on the fleet.

As someone who already assisted the Vandals many times and as one of the two survivors to the ill-fated ground expedition, Ves was bound to attract a lot of attention and respect.

It didn’t surprise the crew all that much that a consummate mech officer like Captain Orfan managed to survive the events on the surface. Yet for a noncombatant like Ves to make it out alive when so many others failed to make their way out spoke much about his competence.

Or his cowardice, depending on who you asked.

Nonetheless, a survivor like Ves long left the ranks of average people.