The Mech Touch

"We've arrived in the Corellix System, sir."

"Understood." Ves responded as he sat on his command throne in the middle of the bridge of his flagship. "Be vigilant about the possible presence of more archeships than the one that the Phobos has coincidentally discovered. There is no guarantee that these tricky aliens only sent one of their special vessels to this star system."

The unexpected discovery of an archeship came as an unpleasant surprise to the Golden Skull Alliance.

Though it was difficult to believe to the others that these rare and elusive aliens had laid in wait for the arrival of the expeditionary fleet, Ves possessed enough credibility among his clan and allies that he did not need to provide proof in order for the others to accept his claims.

Perhaps plenty of leaders had already thought that the situation in this warzone had been going a little too smoothly as of late.

The aliens might be able to mobilize a lot of cannon fodder among the minor races of the Red Ocean, but that did not mean they were wasteful enough to throw them into the grinder without obtaining any significant benefits in return!

The discovery of an archeship lurking in the Corellix System jolted Ves and many others out of their complacency and caused them to pay much closer attention to their perimeter defenses.

Thousands of mechs deployed from their respective carriers and began to sweep the surroundings at every angle.

The Flagrant Vandals took up the main responsibility for scouting the surrounding areas of space.

Their combat carriers and scout mechs such as the Light Hunters were generally faster and equipped with much more extensive sensor systems than usual.

The Light Hunter was extraordinarily effective at its job. While its effective range was rather short, with the support and empowerment of the Illustrious One, its Samasei Orb Directional Scanning Module was able to penetrate damn near anything that tried to remain hidden.

Even the Phobos might not be able to pass through unnoticed if he strayed too close to an active Light Hunter!

Aside from all of the scout mechs, the Blinding Blanshee also pitched in by deploying her formidable sensor and scanning arrays to regularly sweep the center of the expeditionary fleet for any approaching stealth craft.

Although the tech level of her extensive detection systems had fallen behind the times, the sheer amount of power of the narrow espionage-oriented capital ship made them quite effective so long as they remained active!

The only downside was that channeling a lot of energy through the Blinding Banshee's scanning systems wore them out a lot faster, but the Larkinson Clan did not particularly care about this. The damaged and worn out components could easily be fixed after the immediate danger had passed.

It was much more preferable to replace the damaged and burnt out scanning modules than to suffer a loss of multiple starships and thousands of mechs due to negligence!

On top of all of these security measures, an ace mech patrolled around the main fleet at all times.

The ace pilots considered a possible ambush attack from the mysterious arche race to be serious enough to agree to patrol the perimeter in person!

They had agreed to stick to a rotation that ensured at least one of them was deployed in the field at all times.

Their exceptional intuitions and their incredibly useful Saint Kingdoms served as a final guarantee against covert intrusions!

Not even the largest and most technologically advanced archeships should be able to sneak past the ace mechs without setting off alarms.

In fact, the much greater threat posed by more powerful adversaries would trip the danger instincts of ace pilots even more.

Saints were just that amazing!

As the expeditionary fleet cautiously moved forward with great vigilance, Ves studied the revised planning for the upcoming operation.

The Golden Skull Alliance had to maintain a healthy reserve to guard the main fleet during the planned attack. It was vital to keep this reserve of mechs on hand to respond to any unexpected developments.

Ves vaguely suspected that the alien movements in the Corellix System was not a haphazard matter.

If there was an alien mastermind behind the scenes that intended to lead the human forces into a trap, then the risks of proceeding with the operation were much higher!

Ves thought many times about shutting everything down and turning away, but he did not want to run without earning any measurable rewards.

He not only wanted to earn a huge batch of MTA merits by defeating an alien raiding fleet before it could ruin another colony, he also wanted to get his hands on an intact archeship!

The research potential of such a magnificent and exotic alien ship was endless!

Even if Lucky ate a lot of holes throughout her hull, a damaged archeship could still provide him with a lot of invaluable inspiration and research data.

Capturing amazing alien tech was one of the main reasons why he embarked on the Trailblazer Expedition to begin with. Ves did not intend to back down unless the warning signs had grown too severe.

As Ves swept his gaze across the projected information panels, his mind was not fully present inside the bridge.

He had split his concentration into multiple threads.

His cyborg leg and Veronica were both spending their time on designing the Supremo Project and the Transcendent Punisher Mark III respectively.

Ves had discovered that if he worked on multiple similar projects at the same time, it became a lot easier for him to come up with good ideas and apply the same solutions onto other designs.

However, his mind was not on the two heavy artillery mech design projects at this time.

He was mostly focused on maintaining his active connection to the Phobos.

After draining Nosferatu of life energy, the Phobos threw out the undead fiend into space in the hopes of infiltrating the nearest puelmer heavy cruiser.

The challenges were immense. Not only did Venerable Zimro have to push a fiend that had become incredibly weak into an enemy ship, he also had to make sure his Phobos remained undetected.

That last part was an incredibly difficult ordeal by itself as the alien warships had engaged in active scanning and more in order to expose any invisible mechs or vehicles.

Just like the Golden Skull Alliance, the yurzen raiding fleet had grown a lot more frightened about the possibility of suffering a strike without any way to prevent it from happening.

The puelmers were just as formidable with technology as everyone claimed. Their scanning modules were small, but could overpower the stealth systems of any hidden elements at close range!

Though Venerable Zimro Belson could count on the more extraordinary capabilities of the Phobos to reduce the chance of detection, he did not want to take any chances.

The Phobos constantly circled around the puelmer heavy cruiser in order to escape the most intensive zones being scanned.

It was a dangerous and risky game for the expert stealth mech.

Not only did the expert mech have to stay close enough to maintain a solid and stable connection to Nosferatu regardless of the constant repositioning, Venerable Zimro also had to predict the actions of the powerful puelmer vessel in advance!

Zimro did not always manage to get it right, but the resonance-empowered Seferath transphasic active stealth system held up long enough for the Phobos to move to a safer and less intensively scrutinized quadrant of space.

Ves did not know how long the expert mech could keep up this risky dance. The longer the Phobos lingered so close to an active alien vessel, the greater the chance of getting discovered.

Nosferatu needed to produce results quickly in order to succeed!

Just as the fiend was about to close in on a transphasic energy shield, the Golden Cat suddenly materialized in front of his face. "Nyaaaa! Nyaa nyaaa nyaa!" The spiritual cat voiced in alarm.

"Huh? Lucky got captured? How?!"

"Nyaa nyaa nyaaaaa!"

Ves immediately felt distressed. He knew it had been a little risky to dump Lucky onto an alien warship without proper preparation. They knew too little about the capabilities of the arche.

Their worst fears had come true this time. The aliens were a lot more competent than normal, and somehow managed to outplay the gem cat!

Ves immediately thought about what he could do to pull Lucky out of his sticky situation.

The expeditionary fleet had just arrived in the Corellix System and needed way too much time to reach the ambush site.

The only asset in the vicinity that could bail Lucky out was the Phobos.

As long as Ves was willing to give up on this important opportunity to sabotage at least one of the puelmer homeships, the Phobos could still make it back before the aliens committed an abominable act against their captured prey.

"I need more intelligence, Goldie. Since you're connected to Lucky, can you give me a visual on his current situation?"

"Nya!"

The Golden Cat channeled a small part of her energies to form a golden projection that displayed a highly secure chamber deep inside the archeship.

Lucky was currently being held in a cage made out of multiple layers of strong transphasic shields. His Misfortune Harness was nowhere to be seen, which meant that the aliens had almost certainly destroyed it or stripped it away.

Despite his dire state, Lucky did not stop trying to get out of the cage. His paws regularly struck the closest energy shield in an attempt to test its strength.

Though the cat could inflict substantial damage against the energy shield, he could not exhaust the energy reserves of an entire starship by himself!

Several members of the arche race were standing behind the dense array of energy shields. They all appeared to be examining Lucky as if he was an alien test subject.

What was important to Ves was that he did not sense any immediate urgency of intent to harm from these arche.

This caused Ves to relax to an extent.

"Do you think the aliens are in a hurry to disassemble Lucky and poke into his internals?"

"Nyaa...? Nyaaa..."

"Yeah, I don't think so either." Ves settled back into his imposing throne. "We will see what we can do once the Phobos has completed his main objectives."

Goldie did not like the sudden lack of concern expressed by Ves. Why wasn't he ordering Venerable Zimro to turn his expert stealth mech around right away?

"Nyaa nyaa nyaa!"

"I have known him for many years. Lucky will be fine. He's more resourceful than he looks. Don't be fooled by his sorry and distressed appearance."

"Nyaaa..."

The Golden Cat still felt a lot of concern about what the aliens might do to Lucky, but Ves already figured out the arche to an extent.

The aliens succeeded in capturing the infiltrator. They probably became impressed by the tricks that Lucky pulled off during his sabotage spree.

There was not much point in destroying Lucky right away. The best way to learn the principles behind his mechanisms was to preserve him as best as possible and find the least destructive manner to dismantle his exterior, all without triggering any possible self-destruct safeguards!

Such operations required a lot of planning and preparation. The archeship might not have the proper facilities to conduct such a difficult examination.

The aliens were in no hurry now that they had regained control. Now that the destructive cat was completely contained, the arche were probably not in a hurry to finish off Lucky, not when he was much more valuable to them intact.

It was always risky for humans to predict alien behavior, but Ves was willing to bet that the arche followed proper logic as well.

So long as these aliens did not make any irrational decisions, it was not too late to save Lucky's life.

"It will be okay, Goldie." Ves tried to console the ancestral spirit. "Lucky has remained complacent for too long. He needs a setback like this in order to regain his focus. Let's just hope the arche won't be able to repair their broken warp drives quickly. It will be a lot more difficult to get him back if the archeship manages to get away!"