The Mech Touch

While the Hex Army was on the verge of kicking out the Fortune Legion in the Marrakath System, the Nyxian Gap experienced more tension than ever.

The Peacekeepers and the Nyxian pirates confronted each other much more often.

Driven by greed and other reasons, more and more pirate gangs intruded into civilized space in order to raid the border region of the Sentinel Kingdom and other nearby third-rate states.

In response, the Peacekeeper Association heavily encouraged its affiliate outfits to invade the periphery of the Nyxian Gap!

While the Peacekeeper outfits managed to defeat many pirates, most of the sc.u.m they eliminated were decrepit, bottom feeder pirate gangs that rarely possessed any trump cards.

No matter how many incentives they received, the Peacekeepers were very reluctant to move past the outer periphery!

Once they entered a territory like Maynard Fields, the mercenaries in the service of the Sentinel Kingdom risked getting overtaken by the powerful, entrenched pirate factions that long held sway in their respective territories.

Therefore, the heated conflict didn't actually generate much concern among the higher ups of both sides. Yet everyone knew that this was just the calm before the storm. Much greater movements took place in the dark.

Right now, the Mirror Raiders that had been sent to scout out Ulimo Citadel learned a lot of new information.

The Black Cats underestimated the activity at Ulimo. In the past few months, its importance has risen as it stood out as one of the few accessible marketplaces where pirate outfits could acquire reliable superweapons!

The intelligence that Calabast and her analysts compiled from interrogating pirates and decrypting captured data banks weren't wrong. Their conclusions were just outdated.

With so many more pirates desiring to increase their deterrence power and self-protection ability, the demand of taboo weapons had skyrocketed!

Though owning them would make any pirate damned in the eyes of the Big Two, most pirates didn't care at this point. The MTA and CFA never entered the Nyxian Gap these days and whatever helpers they hired barely made an impact.

Sure, the Larkinson Clan razed several pirate bases, but no one on Ulimo believed that they were in danger.

Ulimo was too strong! The Dry Snakes enjoyed such a great reputation that even the latest scourge to have entered Maynard Fields hardly shook the confidence of the locals inside the public area of the pirate stronghold.

After a couple of days, the Mirror Raiders spent a hefty amount of Kavenit. Through a series of deals, Abis managed to arrange repairs for the Bloody Fang, the Cruel Intention and most of their mechs. He had also paid the equivalent of 25 million hex credits in Kavenit to acquire 23 second-hand pirate mechs that looked to be in decent shape.

While Abis could have spent more, such a choice did not make sense for someone in his position.

Ulimo Citadel's mech market was quite small and inadequate. Most of the mechs on sale were targeted towards the smaller pirate gangs that frequented this pirate base. This meant that most local vendors only sold the most affordable mechs!

To put it simply, Abis could choose between buying third-hand mechs, second-hand mechs, or some rare factory new budget mechs that were sold at twice or thrice their actual value!

The Mirror Raiders could only bow their heads and acquire some stopgap machines while they recruited more mech pilots.

So far, the recruitment drive did not proceed very smoothly. While the Mirror Raiders managed to rent a respectable hall, the pirates that strolled in were less than ideal.

A slightly overweight pirate burped and he took a swig of his beer. "Whadda ya mean you can't give me a midrange mech? I'm The Three-Shot Prince, you stinking turd! I shot more mechs than you have ever seen with your beady eyes. I refuse to pilot your trash!"

"A twenty times share is not enough. I deserve to earn a hundred times the share of the plunder! If you don't pay me a K-bar right away, I'll step out and tell my buddies that you are complete cheapskates!"

The ordinary pirates were already bad enough. The mech pilots among the pirates especially tended to push their weight around!

This couldn't be helped. The quality of mech pilots who turned pirates were wildly inconsistent. Just like in civilized space, the better mech pilots were largely monopolized by the big pirate alliances and more established groups such as the Dry Snakes.

A small, independent outfit with no reputation to speak of like the Mirror Raiders only attracted the dregs of the Nyxian Gap. Even then, there weren't that many of them around, as many awful pirate mech pilots tended to enjoy a very short lifespan.

This was why the Mirror Raiders only recruited a handful of pirates so far, and most of them were support personnel.

The new recruits all thought they had a chance to go back to doing some actual pirating. Sadly, the Mirror Raiders only took in these dummies in order to act according to their masks.

Once the Mirror Raiders dropped their disguises, the new 'buddies' they recruited weren't necessary anymore!

After observing the recruitment drive for a time, Lieutenant Sodo Rodan of the Black Cats quietly approached the Flagrant Vandal officer.

"We have a problem."

"How serious."

"It can ruin everything."

"What?! Let's head somewhere private."

They quickly entered an office where Rodan proceeded to sweep the area of bugs before activating a jammer. The intelligence officer faced Abis with a grave expression.

"'Captain Itris and her group of women have bumped into a local gang called the Roid Rats and come to blows. Seven local thugs are dead and more of them are wounded. As far as we know, the gang is calling upon its friends to take revenge!"

The Swordmaidens among the Mirror Raiders were supposed to stay put! Lieutenant Sendra, who played the role of Captain Itris, was supposed to buy a batch of energy cells at this time.

"What is the case of this fight?!" Abis grew angry.

The captain and her posse of women barged into a gambling den and stirred up some trouble. It's safe to say that the conflict hadn't ended well for the locals.

"I told that woman not to wander off and pick a fight!"

According to their current plan, they should still be scouting out the local situation. What they had seen and learned only scratched the surface of the sheer amount of activity taking place in Ulimo's public marketplace.

During this time, the last thing that Abis wanted to see was to make enemies out of the locals!

Even if the local gangs didn't possess any mechs or sh.i.p.s, within the confines of Ulimo, heavy weapons were forbidden. As long as the gangs united together, not even the Mirror Raiders might survive!

The troublesome aspect about this was that Abis knew that Lieutenant Sendra strongly disagreed with his cautious and patient approach.

In her opinion, the Mirror Raiders didn't need to be so circ.u.mspect! The Dry Snakes didn't really care what took place within the marketplace area as long as nobody damaged the infrastructure.

In that case, why not attack the local pirates? As long as the Mirror Raiders took over their footholds, they would definitely become more integrated in Ulimo Citadel! Once that happened, the disguised Larkinsons would gain deeper access to the pirate base they intended to destroy.

Though Abis did not disagree with this plan, he wanted to take it step by step. They had barely finished the first couple of steps before the Swordmaidens recklessly sprinted a dozen steps forward!

"That woman is too reckless!"

"Blood has been spilled." Rodan grimly spoke. "Now that it has come to this, we can only take up arms and take the Roid Rats by storm."

The two swapped some quick ideas and formed a hasty plan. When Rodan finally shut down his jammer, their comms suddenly chimed.

Their worries increased further. "Bo and Avery are in trouble!"

At a lobby in one of the many small arenas that provided the most visceral form of entertainment to the locals, 'Bo', 'Avery' and a squadron of armed guards all held out their weapons as they faced ten times their numbers in gang members!

"Big Rat!" Dietrich shouted as he wore his excessively-decorated Sparous Vize Mark II. "Don't go too far! I don't fear your sc.u.mmy gang at all. Compared to true pirates like our Mirror Raiders, you are nothing but jumped-up gutter trash. Just look at your troops! Hardly any of your men wear fully-covered suits of combat armor. And those weapons! The Peacekeepers would laugh if they saw those toy guns of yours!"

"Stop! Don't shoot up the front entrance of my arena!" The arena manager stepped in. "I swear, if you attack someone, don't blame me for activating my turrets!"

Dozens of turrets slid out of the ceiling. Their menacing laser barrels pointed straight at the two opposing groups.

"You're not getting away from me, Bo!" Big Rat shouted. "You Mirror Raiders messed with the wrong gang. Once we call up all of our friends, we'll crush you all to pieces before taking your sh.i.p.s and mechs as our own! The Dry Snakes won't protect you if most of you are dead!"

"Heh. You should finish the job first before you lay claim to our stuff."

The arena manager pulled out a pistol and shot into the ceiling! The weapon discharge instantly stifled the argument.

"Boys! Stop it! If you have any differences, fight it over in the arena if you dare. If not, then get the hell out of my lobby!"

Both Dietrich and the so-called Big Rat eyed each other menacingly. After several seconds of staring, they nodded.

"See you in the arena."

"Say goodby to your men!"

Under the arrangements of the arena operators, Dietrich's escort and mob of Roid Rats both signed a contract to hold a grudge match in the arena grounds.

Soon, word began to spread that a mob of more than a hundred local gang members intended to battle a small number of real pirates to the death!

Though the former brought vastly more people, their gear didn't look as good as that of the latter. No one really had a clue which side would win in an uneven group match, and that made the arena manager excited!

Locals and visitors began to flock to the arena and purchased tickets with their K-bits or K-coins. Even though the price of attending this impromptu arena match was low, the bets these people made quickly filled up the arena's coffers!

In one of the backstage areas, Dietrich faced his chief guard with concern. "Are you sure that we can take all of those enemies, Avery? Quantity has a quality all of its own. I'm not certain whether we underestimated that mob."

"Relax." Ketis replied behind her helmet. "I understand their gear the best. Nothing they have is better than the gear wielded by a typical pirate. While the armor of your guards might not hold if the Roid Rats are smart enough to concentrate their fire, their protection is patchy. Just slaughter them quickly and we won't have a problem anymore."

Soon enough, the arena stands had filled up sufficiently to begin the match. Both sides began to enter the arena grounds. Dietrich held his modified Peaceful Repose tightly in his armored grip.

As for Ketis, she eschewed her Udor in favor of unsheathing her new broad cutlass!

A bloodthirsty glint shone on her medium combat armor. Its size and bulk along with its apparent quality had attracted a lot of wary glances from the gang members.

A few minutes passed as the arena manager hyped up the crowd. With the emergence of a rare grudge match, the battle in the arena wouldn't end until one side was completely wiped out! The amount of bloodshed the spectators would get to see would be enough to keep their tongues wagging for weeks!

Dietrich shook a bit as he attempted to pick out Big Rat from the crowd. He was a mech pilot, not an infantry soldier. Fighting people without a mech was a novelty to him. He felt both weak and excited at the prospect.

"Commence the match!"

The two sides began firing at each other right away!