The Mech Touch novel Chapter 3828

Chapter 3828 Small Universe

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!"

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!