[1-200] THE MECH TOUCH

Chapter 51: Test Pilot I

Captain Caruthers sat in the dark and silent cockpit. The entire enclosed space was isolated from any outside noise. Only the rhythmic tapping of his fingers against the only red shade in the space bounced off the metal walls.

Bounty hunting was a tough business for any upstanding mech pilot to pursue. It went beyond the basic jobs like guarding outposts or patrolling conflict zones. In many cases, pilots simply had to wait long hours standing by and only occasionally get into the cockpit to deter a couple of opportunistic raiders.

The amount of incidents happening in the outskirts of the Bright Republic was fairly low. Most people thought the nearby systems and asteroid fields were barren of high-value resources. Only a couple of the more common exotics could be found, and small mining concerns eked out a small profit from exploiting them at a low cost.

"Even a barren hinterland like the Bright Republic can be squeezed of resources if you make it worthwhile enough."

The pirates that were shabby enough to operate in this space sector came in three flavors.

Local criminals made up the most of the numbers. Hooligans who went down the wrong path, these delinquents mostly piloted whatever mech they could get a hand on and generally didn't last very long due to a lack of support structure or any kind of long-term strategy. They generally made a big splash at the start but got hunted down quickly enough.

Caruthers considered these amateurs his bread and butter. Hunting them down offered very little risk but only paid enough to make ends meet.

The second type of pirates blended semi-legal identities with occasional illegal forays. Most people considered them organized crime, though the actual workings of these groups was a lot blurrier than that. Often it meant companies that dipped into the dirtier side of competition or mercenary companies that decided to turn against their employers. Naturally you also had the classic organized crime groups, often centered around the planets they based.

As a captain of a small bounty hunting group, Caruthers generally stayed away from messing with these so-called pirates. Many groups often relied on deeper backing. Defeat the son, provoke the father. Defeat the father, provoke the grandfather. And on it went until you ran into a solid wall.

The last type of pirates represented trouble. Foreigners used to operating in more developed space sometimes fled to galactic backwaters to shake off pursuit and lie low. If you were lucky, these losers only carried a basic mech and whatever else they haul off on short notice. If not, then they came fully prepared, with large spaceships, ample supply and advanced mechs an entire generation ahead of what the Republic's Mech Corps used.

These giant wrecking balls basically showed no regard to the local balance of forces. With a technological edge and a mobile base that allowed them to skulk the outskirts, these snobby exiles often acted as if they were in charge.

Often times the Mech Corps took them down a peg. Just because the Bright Republic used the least advanced mechs among all the human states, didn't mean that anyone could push them over. In fact, it was quite the opposite. The pilots of the Mech Corps worked hard to get in their position and fought many small skirmishes in their active service. The local space sector was a hotbed for low-level troublemakers.

Consider the the latest major sortie of the Mech Corps. The Red Feet, A top mercenary group of some second-rate state, lost their occupation rights to a lucrative mining planet due to collusion by their vassals. These smaller groups normally acted like rats, but one of them had the bright idea of banding together and rebel against their masters.

Evidently, they succeeded, because the Red Feet fled like sailors abandoning a sinking ship. One of their splinters managed to cross through six star sectors before finally arriving at the borders of the Bright Republic.