The Mech Touch

Barely one human fleet left the brown dwarf star system before another one arrived!

Emerging at roughly the same orientation as the first fleet, the second collection of starships immediately began to deploy mechs to secure the surroundings and respond to any possible ambushes.

Fortunately for the latest arrivals, they encountered no imminent threats, even though they half-expected their latest enemies to prepare another welcome surprise.

It wouldn't have worked. With the help of enough skilled drive engineers that Cenatus Prospecting had painstakingly trained, the entire fleet arrived considerably far away from any predicted ambush site!

That did not mean that the men working for Cenatus Prospecting could relax.

"Where is the Golden Skull Alliance?!" An aged but muscular man demanded from the throne installed in the middle of the bridge of his flagship.

His wild black hair and his forest-like beard made him look a lot more ferocious than the other men of his age.

While most people above the age of 200 years tended to polish their image so that they could come across as elder statesmen, Otrus Magrin eschewed all of this refinement in favor of making himself look formidable to his men and his enemies.

He understood all too well that an intimidating appearance would complement his powerful image. Weakness had to be avoided at all costs.

This was one of the reasons why he urged his fleet to enter this small and unusual star system.

After getting hit by a foul and sudden attack, Otrus Magrin had become livid!

The powerful leader turned to his subordinates. "Tell me your current findings."

"We are still in the process of mapping out SDDD-4343X-AER-232666410, my lord." An officer replied. "Most of our sensors and scanners have primarily focused on inspecting our immediate surroundings, but our long-ranged modules have yet to detect the presence of any starships or artificial traces, human or alien."

"Keep searching!" Otrus shouted at his men! "The fleet of the Golden Skull Alliance came here for a reason! Send a scouting unit to the planet. If those cretins have already left this star system, then I want to know what they have managed to dig up and in which direction they have left."

"Acknowledged, my lord."

As time passed by, most sensors detected nothing that looked out of place in a brown dwarf star system like this. Ordinary asteroids and space dust were not worth their attention.

It wasn't until one of the vessels sent in the direction of the brown dwarf star managed to pick up traces of refined alloys in the vicinity of the planet.

"My lord! We have a notable quantity of refined alloys on the surface of the planet!"

"Investigate! Tell our scouting vessels to hurry up! We need to gather clues as fast as possible!"

Though Otrus Magrin and many of his men found it rather suspicious that they had yet to find anything solid aside from what appeared to be debris from a starship, their desire to repay the Golden Skullers for their unprovoked attack drove them to take a closer look.

"Send the rest of our fleet closer to the planet." The leader commanded. "If we are to find anything that can help us figure out what the Golden Skull Alliance is doing, we have a better chance of succeeding if we don't stay in an empty region of space."

"My lord?" One of his deputies looked hesitant. "The Golden Skullers have already tricked us once. We are safer here where we can transition back into FTL travel as soon as we encounter a dangerous trap or ambush."

Magrin dismissed the man's concern with a snort. "Our sensors have yet to detect anything aside from chunks of debris in the distance. The Golden Skullers also aren't strong enough to ambush a second time now that we are better prepared. What we need the most is speed. We need to react quickly to whatever we manage to uncover from that planet."

"Understood. We will pass on the new orders right away."

Time passed by as Magrin's fleet moved towards the inner system. This did not take as much time as usual because of the comparatively tiny size of the star system.

No one took the brown dwarf star seriously. It was just a boring, weak little gas giant that just happens to be large and heavy enough to pretend it was a star.

Only a small team of astrophysicists studied the properties of the star out of habit. Some stars generated precious exotics or held clues that pointed towards ancient ruins left behind by fallen alien races.

Most scientists and specialists paid much closer attention to the asteroids clouds, the small moon-like planet and the strange debris that continued to capture their imagination.

"My lord? We have a new report. Our fastest scouting vessel has come close enough to determine the mineral composition of the debris found on the far side of the planet. We can almost rule out the possibility that it comes from a human-built starship or mech. We only have to get within touching range to confirm this theory. We can also conduct further studies to determine how long ago the debris has gotten loose."

Otrus Magrin looked thoughtful. "Is the debris composed of remnants of an entire alien ship?"

"There isn't enough to suggest that this is the case. We believe the Golden Skull Alliance or another alien force may have only managed to damage a part of an alien ship."

"Then get closer so that we can see for ourselves!"

Once his fleet finally neared the planet, his men were finally able to conduct a proper investigation.

Numerous specialized mechs and shuttles were already scouring the planet for any notable traces.

So far, the relatively tiny planet presented nothing interesting aside from showing signs that another mech force had already investigated the surface before.

There were no signs of mining, tunneling or retrieval actions outside of the debris that looked oddly out of place. This suggested that the alien ship did not emerge from the planet or that it emerged from a different space.

Otrus Magrin became disappointed by the lack of results from the surveys, so he set his sights on the alien debris that his fleet had managed to secure.

In order to see what the Golden Skullers had left behind, Magrin donned a protective suit and moved over to a spare cargo bay where a scorched and broken piece of the exterior of a warship rested under close to zero gravity.

A lot of men had already inspected the debris in advance to confirm that it was safe and free of any threats.

Of course, to ensure that none of them had missed anything superior or advanced enough to escape their notice, Otrus had personally assigned his greatest reliance to the same hangar bay!

As soon as the owner of the fleet approached the hatch leading into the cargo bay, he felt the strong but reassuring Saint Kingdom from his proudest son.

In fact, as far as Otrus was concerned, he only had a single son. All of the other brats he had fathered over the years were merely minions who were a little more useful and reliable than his hired help.

Not only did his kids require less pay to work for him, their loyalty was also assured with all of the measures he took to ensure their obedience.

Many of the core positions in the fleet were occupied by his children and their descendants. It was an enormous pyramid where his bloodline ran from top to bottom, ensuring that his influence was present on any ship, department and work team.

His only regret was that too few descendants had entered his mech force, but the presence of his only real son ensured that everyone who hadn't been born a Magrin would still dance to his tune.

"Father." The permanently open communication channel between father and son became active again. "You have come."

"I have." Otrus said as he temporarily ignored the exotic alien wreckage in favor of admiring the Unrelenting.

The ace mech was a machine that he would have loved to pilot if his genetic aptitude hadn't sabotaged his future.

Otrus had personally imagined Neville's mechs over many decades. Each time his proud son needed to switch to a stronger and newer machine, he pulled out one of his archived mech sketches and commissioned a team of mech designers to convert his idea into a fully fledged mech.

Neville took to them like fish to water. Ever devoted to his father, the talented pilot sincerely worked to adapt to the mechs that allowed him to fight, raid and maintain the initiative no matter the circumstances!

Even if Neville originally wasn't suited to pilot fast and relatively lightly armored hybrid mechs, long years of training and adjusting himself to this classification of mechs had turned him into a master of employing them in battle!

"What are your impressions of this debris?" Otrus said as he stopped fantasizing what it would be like if he was the one sitting in the cockpit of the Unrelenting. "Have you managed to capture anything that our scientists have missed?"

"I did, father. It is difficult to describe. I have never sensed anything like this before. It is hard to explain in words, so I suggest that you experience it in person. Your men have already prepared a route towards the interior of the wreck."

Otrus' curiosity grew.

He lifted off the deck and approached an opening where a pair of armored guards were awaiting his arrival.

As soon as Otrus reached the entrance, the guards moved ahead and led him deeper inside the strange construction.

The heavy damage and traces of dead alien remnants clearly showed that the wreckage had gone through a lot of abuse.

The only reason why it managed to stay in one piece was because the aliens hadn't cut any corners in the construction of their ship.

"Which race built all of this?" Otrus asked with a frown. "I do not recognize this architecture."

"The ship was built by a local race called the tikkirs, my lord." One of the exobiologists assigned to study the wreckage answered. "The tikkirs used to maintain a sizable presence in this star region, but they have been driven out after our race took over all of their territories. It is uncommon but not completely implausible that remnants of this race are still hiding this region."

"How long ago did the aliens build this ship? What is the classification of this vessel? When did this wreckage split off from the whole?"

"Our preliminary dating methods suggest that this ship was built over four standard decades ago. The ship is already fairly old by our standards." An engineer responded. "We are confident that this debris belongs to a warship. While we have not found any weapon batteries from this wreckage, we have detected ship parts that are primarily designed to support their operations. The event that resulted in the separating this wreckage from an alien warship happened fairly recently, though the environmental circumstances has made it difficult to give you a more precise timeframe. There is still a notable quantity of lingering heat from the damage produced by energy weapons."

"Interesting."

Where was the rest of the ship? Where was the Golden Skull Alliance? The absence of both of these parties suggested that his current adversaries had managed to capture the alien ship and get away.

A pursuit was out of the question. Most native warships did not possess human-style FTL drives, so the only way they could escape pursuit was to activate their warp drives.

If that was the case, then the light produced by this chase should have exposed this pursuit.

Nothing of the sort had been detected, which meant that no ships had engaged in medium to long-ranged warp travel in this star system.

All of this meant that Magrin was still short of answers.

"Is this what you wanted to show me, my son?"

"Not quite, father. Please enter the next compartment. I have already verified that it is safe."

When Otrus Magrin's armored form floated through the open hatch, he halted when he sensed something pressing against his mind.

"What is affecting my mind? Why do I feel as if I am being stared at by a giant beast?"

An enthusiastic crowd of scientists were surrounding a strange object that was placed in the center of the alien compartment.

The object was some sort of scratched and ancient alien statue.

Its appearance wasn't important.

What interested Otrus Magrin the most was that he felt... as if it contained the soul of a powerful alien beast!