[1-200] THE MECH TOUCH

Chapter 199: Request

The Kaius and its entourage of defenders chased the pirate mechs for twenty minutes before giving up the chase. Continuing to chase the pirates all the way back to their transports risked falling into an ambush, so the defending mechs wisely broke off well before they overextended themselves.

"Great work!"

Everyone back in base cheered as the scouts reported that the surviving boarded their transports and lifted off. They completely gave up on the assault and cut their losses.

"Too bad we haven't caught that Jaded Serpent. We could have interrogated him about the goal of their senseless attacks."

Certainly, the Dragons of the Void sacrificed a lot of ships and mechs, only to receive nothing in return besides damaging House Kaine. Ves reasoned that stopping House Kaine and ruining their much-vaunted expedition must be one of their primary goals. In that regard, the mysterious pirate group achieved some successes, but not enough to make up for their losses.

Ves eventually scratched his head. "No regular pirate group will throw away so many assets for nothing."

"It's not their assets to begin with." D'Amato replied. "The Dragons of the Void obviously employed patsies to do the heavy lifting for them. Don't forget that each time the battle went south, they always ran away the fastest."

"Even so, borrowed or not, losing so many ships and mechs will hurt overall strength. They'll be much less capable of threatening their opponents after losing so much cannon fodder."

The most frightening aspect about the Dragons of the Void was that they managed to indoctrinate so many pirate outfits. Why haven't they received any backlash over their unscrupulous use of mind-altering drugs?

Ensign D'Amato smiled at him. "Pirates aren't the smartest people in the bunch. Smaller gangs of pirates have a lot of trouble finding safe harbor among the stars. My guess is that the Dragons are secretly controlling several pirate harbors. Whenever they're short on manpower, they'll kidnap some unsuspecting visitors."

Such a scheme highlighted the cutthroat circumstances of those who resorted to piracy. Perhaps some of the pirates had an inkling of what went on, but where else could they service their ships and mechs? These outlaws deserved no mercy for turning their backs on human solidarity.

Hours went by as the survivors picked up the pieces. Ves volunteered to help with the repairs of the Kaius. While it pretended to be invincible in front of the pirate mechs, it actually sustained severe damage to its mechanical components.

Due to a lack of time, the repair team focused on stabilizing its condition so it wouldn't fall apart in the short term. Many other mech technicians crawled over the disabled mechs that had been strewn across the battlefield and assessed whether they could still be fixed.

When Ves looked at the battlefield strewn with so many wrecks, he couldn't help but count how much value lay on the ground. His salvager's eye came up with a figure that topped several billion bright credits.

The pirate mechs generally consisted of cheap mechs made out of cheap materials. The real treasure lay in the machines used by the forces from the Grey Willow Star Sector. These high-quality mechs employed valuable exotics throughout their frame that many manufacturers loved to use.

"Will we be able to recover all of this salvage?"

"Maybe not. It depends on if the incoming fleet is friendly enough. Now that they're getting nearer, we've received more detailed readings. The mass readings are highly alarming, though we've also detected the presence of the Ark Horizon."

For a time, the groundside team feared that their mothership had been captured. It took several suspenseful hours for them to receive a signal from Lord Jeremiah Kane himself. Commander Tregis decided to broadcast the transmission throughout the base.