The Mech Touch

Several hours went by after the Dark Zephyr set off on its scouting mission.

The light mech had flown far out of sight and possibly out of contact as it fearly flew past hordes of fish-whales.

Even if the feral fishes were alarmed, they only chased for a certain amount of time before they stopped their pursuit.

The fish-whales simply couldn't catch up with the light and fast expert mech! As long as the Dark Zephyr moved out of sight, the aliens simply lost track of the machine and returned to their docile routines.

Venerable Tusa grinned with excitement as he surveyed the distant terrain.

The space inside this phase whale enclave was quite odd. As his Dark Zephyr flew up and left the surface, he could see that the gate was essentially built on a large asteroid.

Much of it was barren but the Dark Zephyr detected various diverse terrain features in the distance.

His goal was not to scout the areas that were fairly close. It would be a waste to send a mech as powerful as the Dark Zephyr on a short excursion. The other scout mechs of the expeditionary forces could take care of that chore.

What Tusa really aimed to explore was the other 'asteroids' floating in every direction!

As the Dark Zephyr gained a greater overview of the expansive pocket space, its sensors detected more than twenty different floating land masses of varying shapes and sizes!

How many of them were populated by fish-whales?

How many of them were occupied by other races?

What kind of resources could be found in those places?

What did the original creator of this phase whale enclave leave behind on these landmases?

All of these questions and more needed to be answered to give the expeditionary forces a good idea on what they should do next!

Above all else, Venerable Tusa had to answer a crucial question.

"Where is the phasewater?"

As the Dark Zephyr left the original landmass and flew towards another floating 'asteroid', the people back in the initial beachhead formulated other plans.

Additional resources and workers arrived from the portal. Their presence strengthened the stronghold that slowly became known as Fort Fishblood.

"Why Fishblood?" Commander Casella Ingvar asked.

"Because the soil here is stained with the blood of thousands of fish-whales, commander. If this place had air, our noses and air filters would have been flooded by the stench."

Dealing with all of the carcasses was a troublesome affair. The Larkinsons and their allies did not want to leave them whole. The fish-whale race apparently had no taboos about cannibalism and would probably get drawn by the availability of so many free meals.

The Larkinsons took out the bodies of the elite fish-whales but did their best to get rid of the remainder.

Though burning them was the most complete solution, it was too costly to waste all of the propellant on burning them all down.

In the end, a hundred Worker Bees picked up their mining tools and dug several deep mass graves so that they could dump all of the dead and blood-soaked bodies.

It was a gruesome job, but the removal of all of the ugly corpses was worth it. The environment no longer resembled a charnel house.

As the expeditionary forces learned more and more about the environment they had entered, Commander Casella wanted to discuss their goals for this haphazard invasion.

"Before we started this day, we did not set out to invade a large and unfamiliar pocket space." She began. "We were forced to enter this pocket space without making any specific preparations. While we have managed to beat back the fish-whales and secure this location, we need to agree on a set of goals. I have already corresponded with Patriarch Ves and General Verle about this. They both agree we need to focus on profiting as much from this accidental find as possible."

"And what does your patriarch have in mind?" Mech Commander Serena Valeis of the Glory Seekers inquired. "As you have said, we do not know much about this pocket space, only that it is related to the phase whales and possibly the monstrous skeleton that we have initially found. If this pocket space turns out to be the playground of that dead tyrant whale, the horrors we might find in this forgotten place might exceed our imagination!"

The Glory Seekers were clearly reluctant to muck around in this place for too long. They had the least amount of mechs at their disposal so the losses they suffered so far were not light.

Patriarch Reginald scoffed. "If you women want to take a backseat, then by all means go ahead. Though I am not an adventurous sort, I can recognize an opportunity when I see it. These fish-whales have numbers on their side but not the brains to leverage their strength. They aren't even smart enough to take advantage of their home ground or they would have built a kill zone around this portal site. If the remaining enemies in this pocket space are as feral as the ones we've encountered, then the treasures of this pocket space are for taking!"

Commander Casella and the others listening in clearly understood the Cross Patriarch's uncommonly high motivation for this risky venture.

The first reason was that the expert pilot was seeking new challenges. The tougher and more overwhelming his opponents, the more he stimulated his own growth. This was a well-known process among expert pilots and Reginald definitely did not want to miss this opportunity to increase his chances to advance to ace pilot.

The fish-whales that they fought so far happened to be extremely suitable opponents for him. They were numerous, tricky and fairly threatening. Their huge numbers meant that Reginald definitely did not lack targets for him to exercise his strength.

The second reason was that Reginald heavily valued any opportunity to obtain powerful resources that could strengthen his Mars Project.

He had become much more sensitive towards the conditions of the design project for his future expert mechs. Strong materials was one of the easiest and most straightforward methods to strengthen a mech, and Reginald wanted to close the gap between his upcoming Mars Project and an authentic ace mech as much as possible!

Though there were no guarantees that this mysterious space whale enclave contained any high-grade materials, the Cross Patriarch was willing to take a risk in order to satisfy his needs!

As far as the Larkinsons went, their goals were similar. They were keen to plunder whatever phasewater and other valuable materials that they could find, but after a brief talk with the leaders of the clan, Commander Casella had to prioritize another goal!

Her Minerva turned and pointed to the strange biometal gate that was constantly shimmering while maintaining an active portal.

"This gate structure is a crucial piece of alien biotechnology that is valuable in itself. Our clan has already dispatched many different scientists and specialists to study its mechanisms and understand its functioning. If we can take control over it, we might be able to take it over or connect to other gates. At the very least, we cannot allow the gate to function outside of our control. It can shut off and cut us off from our main reality at any time."

Many people connected to the communication channel grew grim at the thought. None of them wanted to remain trapped in this alien space without any way to get home.

"You Larkinsons are welcome to study the gate as long as you share the research." Commander Valeis spoke. "It looks too advanced, though. This is ancient phase whale technology."

"We can always try."

None of them knew much about the alien gate structure, which was exactly why they needed to examine it in detail. Once the Larkinsons had made that clear, the discussion moved on to the nature of the space they had entered.

Commander Casella began to share what she learned. "Our initial scouting attempts along with the preliminary conclusions from our scientist teams have given us a basic idea on where we are. We are certain that we have entered a phase whale enclave that is situated in the Garimel System. The interesting part is that this pocket of space is not anchored underneath Iron Crusher. A phase whale has likely separated it from our main reality at an orbit that is much closer to the blue supergiant star than the so-called Royal Tomb."

"Wait a minute, commander. Doesn't that mean that we should be cooking right now? As far as the sensors of my mechs can register, it is only slightly warmer in this place."

"Our scientists tell us that this pocket space is closer to the sun, but that the creator of this place has established strong filters that block out most of the heat and radiation generated by the blue supergiant. For what reason, we cannot say, but it is important to state that we are no longer on Iron Crusher!"

This was quite a revelation to the rest. What Casella meant was that they had probably teleported at least several light-hours away from the moon orbiting the second planet in the Garimel System! This was a substantial leap, especially when they were able to cross over instantly.

Everyone began to look around. Though the ground level was boring, the sight above their heads was more spectacular.

Although the background largely consisted of grayish fog that made it seem as if they were stuck in a strange dimension, the asteroids floating above their heads made it clear that there was more to this place than they could see from their limited perspectives!

"We need to name this strange, isolated vacuum environment. I propose to call it Purgatory. Any objections?"

No one objected. The place did look dreary enough to be called this way. There were no plants, no wildlife, no guideposts and few signs of civilization.

"How big is Purgatory, exactly?"

"We cannot say for certain as the gray fog in the distance makes it difficult for us to define the borders of this pocket space." Casella answered. "However, we can state that at least half of Iron Crusher can fit in this space."

"That's quite a lot of volume, especially when little of it is actually occupied by soil."

In other words, much of Purgatory consisted of emptiness. There were planetoids or asteroids taking up the majority of the available space.

This made it easier to scout and explore the different locations. There were only a limited number of asteroids where they could find what they sought.

"This pocket space is like a small universe." Commander Casella continued. "Although it is dependent on siphoning the heat and energy radiated by the blue supergiant star to prevent this location from becoming a cold and lifeless place, Purgatory is large enough to maintain a somewhat complete ecosystem or society. Before we understand these details, we should act cautiously and stay on this asteroid. For now, we have identified several possible targets that we might consider attacking in order to gain access to greater resources."

She transmitted an image to the others that displayed a rudimentary map of the environment.

According to the map, there was a distant concentration of life, heat and other emissions. A lot more fish-whales had gathered at this location. This meant that this place was of considerable interest or importance to the species.

"Are you suggesting that we should attack this 'city'?"

"No." Casella shook her head. "The number of fish-whales is still more than we can handle if we provoke them at the same time. That doesn't mean we can make other moves. Whether we attack it or not, we must gather more intelligence and explore the barren terrain between Fort Fishblood and this possible alien city."

Right now, this was the greatest threat the expeditionary forces were facing. The distance was not too great, so the swarm of fish-whales in the distance could always decide to go on the attack at any time!