The Mech Touch

Ves still remembered the Glowing Planet campaign. A single rogue planet that likely emerged from the galactic heartland or galactic center randomly streaked through the galaxy like it was on a pleasure cruise.

For countless years, no one ever discovered the Glowing Planet coursing through interstellar space. It was actually quite hard to detect planets traveling through the void as they hardly ever leaked any signals.

The Glowing Planet's discovery within the borders of the Bright Republic was a complete coincidence, but the unimaginable amount of wealth contained sent the entire Komodo Star Sector into a frenzy.

The Bright Republic and the Vesia Kingdom, the two nearest states, only scratched the surface of the unimaginable wealth contained on the planet. Once the Hexadric Hegemony and the Friday Coalition barged in, they claimed over ninety-five percent of all the wealth locked inside the planet.

As of now, all that remained of the Glowing Planet only consisted of loose rubble floating through interstellar space.

Even if the two dominant second-rate states obtained the lion's share of the Glowing Planet's unimaginably valuable minerals and exotics, the Brighters and Vesians at least recovered some scraps.

Rorach's Bone was a genuine high-value exotic material with the consistency of bone. Its regeneration properties made them essential materials in any high-value mech. Even though it cost a lot of energy for them to regenerate battle damage, they naturally drew ambient energy from the air, allowing them to repair delicate components laced with Rorach's Bone as long as some time had passed.

This made them the ideal exotic to use in mechs intended for long deployments in difficult terrain.

However, it would be an enormous waste to employ them in guerilla mechs or the like. Their high value and exceedingly wondrous properties made them far more suitable to be incorporated in expert mechs. Let alone expert mechs, even ace mechs didn't shy away from taking advantage of this great material!

This was because not only would Rorach's Bone be able to grant a mech regenerative properties, it also enormously enhanced its resonant abilities. When alloyed with non-resonant materials and exotics, a small addition of Rorach's Bone allowed them to undergo a huge transformation, granting them resonant properties!

For an expert mech, the higher the proportion of resonating materials, the easier it was for the expert pilot to exhibit stronger resonating abilities.

However, any expert mech would have already gained a decent boost if only 0.1 percent of its material composition consisted of Rorach's Bone. To use up one or two percent would be a generous gift, but elevating the use of Rorach's Bone as the main material for the armor plating, internal frame and all of its core components was extravagant to the extreme!

Ves wanted to puke out blood at the sight of this expert mech from the Hostland Warriors. He didn't believe a single battle mech regiment could afford the consumption of practically half the Rorach's Bone available to an entire duchy. With the same amount of Rorach's Bone, the Hafner Duchy could have outfitted two or three companies of extremely resilient elite mechs.

Such a great number of elite mechs designed for frontline combat would have been a much more versatile use of Rorach's Bone.

That was because if the extravagant expert mech ever got defeated, the Hafner Duchy would suffer an unimaginable amount of losses! Such a devastating injury might even force the current Duke of Hafner to step down!

Yet Lady Amalia somehow managed to convince the Hostland Warriors to bring this extremely expensive mech in her extremely risky jaunt into the deep frontier!

The amount of political capital the lady or her backer expended must have been extremely considerable.

Yet Ves had no doubt that the Vesians considered the price to be worth it, because this expert mech was nearly undefeatable against mundane mechs. Even many expert mechs wouldn't be able to leave a scratch on this mech, including Venerable Xie.

Without sufficient penetration power that could take out the cockpit in a single hit, anyone could forget about defeating this mech! The only other strategy one might be able to deploy was to exhaust its energy cells, but would this expert mech be kind to let its energy reserves be drained?

The more the Vandals heard what Ves had to say about this ridiculously expensive mech, the more they despaired.

"Even if we were still able to field the Pale Dancer, it can't do anything against this mech." Ves decisively declared. "There's no way its upgraded laser rifle can penetrate its self-regenerating armor plating. While Rorach's Bone isn't the toughest material, a laser rifle excels at pouring out a steady amount of damage over time. That's exactly what Rorach's Bone is meant to counter. If we had someone like Venerable O'Callahan piloting a landbound lancer mech, the story would be entirely different."

This also signified that the expert mech that showed wasn't undefeatable despite its profligate use of exotics. Some mech archetypes naturally constrained other types. An expert mech based on Rorach's Bone may seem extremely resilient, but as long as a lancer mech or something charged straight at it with incredible force, it wasn't out of the question for an empowered lance to pierce through all of the Rorach Bone-empowered armor plating and demolish a core component.

Ves looked at some of the sensor readouts and saw that the expert mech openly broadcasted its transponder without any encryption.

The name of the expert mech sounded deceptively simple.

Belisarius.

Such an act practically dared the Vandals to bombard it with laser beams. Yet no one moved at this time. Even the mechs fighting in the flanks separated from each other. Every mech pilot worshipped expert pilots, and the entry of one of their kind compelled everyone to halt.

Not even the Flagrant Swordmaidens dared to disrespect an expert pilot. This was a common fault of all mech pilots and one that extraordinarily frustrated Ves right now.

A mere announcement from the expert mech halted all the momentum the Vandal and Swordmaiden mechs accumulated through blood and sacrifice!

After a long pause, allowing the Vandals and Swordmaidens to drink in the Belisarius, the expert pilot spoke once again. Her voice thundered through the battlefield.

"Flagrant Vandals. We meet again. You have no idea how much I looked forward to our reunion. Do you remember bullying me at Nova Migolatus I?"

How could they not? All of the Vandal mech pilots present on the battlefield participated in the 'simple' mission for the Vesian rebels. Who knew that an expert candidate could be so man eating? Captain Relia Foster not only put up a hellish fight, she also advanced to expert pilot and immediately exhibited forced resonance that forcefully elevated her bog-standard mech into a psuedo-expert mech!

A lot of Vandal mech pilots lost their lives in order to subdue this newly-risen expert pilot. Who knew she bore such a hatred of the Flagrant Vandals that she'd be willing to go all the way to the deep frontier to satisfy her vengeful urges?

Anyone could tell she held an unimaginable amount of animosity towards the Flagrant Vandals. The acidic pressure emanating out of the Belisarius suppressed all of the Vandal and Swordmaidens mech pilots no matter how much armor plating stood in the way.

This was an expert pilot! A demigod capable of performing the impossible!

And this time she wasn't piloting some standard training mech like last time, but a custom designed expert mech utilizing the most expensive materials and exotics the Hafner Duchy had on hand. No amount of expense had been spared to design this extremely formidable expert mech!

The strength of an expert pilot always rose in proportion with the quality of their expert mech. Even if she only advanced to expert pilot for a short time, her low resonance strength didn't hinder the fact that her mech was massively powerful even if she didn't pull off any fancy tricks!

This was literally throwing money at Venerable Foster to forcibly elevate her effective combat power to the upper ranks of expert pilots!

Every Vandal underestimated the amount of importance the Hafner Duchy placed on this young expert pilot! Some even thought they should have demanded double the ransom to return Venerable Foster. At least that way the Hafner Duchy wouldn't have so much resources to spare on developing this obscenely expensive expert mech.

Captain Byrd's rifleman mech calmly stepped out from the reserve ranks. The standard quality of her looted Vesian rifleman mech stood in stark contrast of the Belisarius. The Vandals were always forced to scrape by, and they obtained much of their mechs by raiding Vesian shipping convoys and mech factories.

Almost every Vandal who compared the two mechs lamented at the unfairness of this face-off. Captain Byrd could have exhausted all the batteries of her laser rifle and still not be able to scratch the armor plating of the Belisarius!

Yet Captain Byrd strode out anyway, because her duty compelled her to resist an enemy expert pilot's prestige. The amount of courage it took to confront an expert pilot as a regular pilot must have been considerable, yet she faced the pressure head-on with hardly any visible hesitation.

"Venerable Foster." The Vandal mech officer responded in the open. "What happened in the past is just business. Is there truly a need to show up here when you despicable Vesians assassinated our expert pilot against MTA conventions in the eve of battle?"

Venerable Foster snorted. "What expert pilot? Stop talking fantasy! I see no experts here, not that you cowards ever deserve any. While I'm disappointed at how few Vandals are present here, putting you all to death will be a fine appetizer for what I have in store for the rest of your mech regiment! I will not rest until every pirate and Vandal that crosses my path are dead! On this, I swear!"

The Hostland Warriors echoed her declaration. "Death to pirates! Death to pirates! Death to pirates!"

As a Hafner mech regiment, the Hostland Warriors always detested pirates to the core. The Reinald Republic frequently stirred trouble by disguising highly trained mech pilots as 'pirates' and sending them out on destructive raids across the border.

Therefore, in the eyes of every Hafner mech pilot, the Flagrant Vandals were no different from the Reinald Republic's despicate pretend pirates!

Ves recognized the conviction in Venerable Foster's word. This hatred transcended opinion and became an ironclad belief of hers! When it came to expert pilots, Ves knew more than anyone here how their beliefs and convictions formed the basis of their willpower.

An expert pilot almost never changed their minds when it came to their core convictions! Venerable Foster truly meant what she said when she wanted to annihilate the Flagrant Vandals down to the roots!

As if recognizing that the Flagrant Swordmaidens stood no chance at defeating the Vesians anymore with Venerable Foster's entry, Captain Byrd pleaded for mercy.

"Can you at least promise us to spare the non-combatants after the battle?"

"No." Venerable Foster ruthlessly declared. "Pirates deserve no reprieve. According to all the relevant legal conventions, pirates all deserve to be executed. You can forget about "

This caused all of the Vandals in the command center to adopt ugly faces. They pretty much expected they wouldn't be let off due to the sensitive nature of this mission, but to hear the truth spoken so crassly by a respected expert pilot caused their morale to plummet.

Nonetheless, the rifleman mech piloted by Captain Byrd boldly raised its laser rifle and pointed the muzzle straight at the Belisarius.

"Then only one course of action is left. Even if you claim our lives, we will bleed you Vesians every step of the way. Vandals, fight!"

Commander Lydia's customized Silver Valencia stepped forward as well and pointed its greatsword at the Belisarius. "Swordmaidens, let us fight as well! Show this naive young woman what pirates are really made of!"

Many Vandals let loose an unconscious worry in their hearts. Ves and some of the more suspicious Vandals feared the Swordmaidens would give up or even turn their swords against the Vandals. After all, a shrewd pirate leader such as Commander Lydia wouldn't be resigned to fight a losing battle.

However, the Swordmaidens on the ground faced a dead end in every direction. Venerable Foster's ironclad beliefs left no leeway for pirates at all. Even if the Swordmaidens stabbed the Vandals in the back and knelt down in front of Venerable Foster and begged for mercy, the only outcome would be death!