The Mech Touch novel Chapter 523

Interception happened fairly frequently in chases. A force with a superior number of ships would cast a net over a range of star systems and observe every ship transitioning in and out of FTL. If they spotted a fleet heading into a specific direction, as long as the sensors captured enough details, it was possible to trace a line between the starting point and the end point.

Naturally, the line only served as a rough guide. FTL travel followed curves instead of straight lines, and a more turbulent gravitic environment distorted the actual route even further.

Therefore, intercepting a ship in FTL by laying down gravitic disturbances at the midpoint was plainly unrealistic. It would be like casting a man-sized net into an enormous river.

In addition, the current level of FTL technology at the Komodo Star Sector’s disposal didn’t allow ships to stop midway. Ships could only set their destination on some sort of gravitic anchor such as star systems, black holes or rogue planets.

Thus, setting a possible ambush at a possible midpoint was moot, because the ambushing force wouldn’t be able to reach that area of space in the first place.

The best solution would be to ambush a fleet at or near the end destination. The closer a ship reached her destination, the more it funneled closer along the line that ran through the starting point and the destination point.

This made it possible to lay down a minefield and sprinkle it with gravitic mines to act as FTL disturbances.

Even then, the odds of catching a fleet was minimal due to unreliable intelligence and the randomness involved with FTL travel. In truth, the star system laid down several different minefields spread out over other possible approach angles.

This increased the odds of catching their prey.

In truth, the Verle Task Force was bound to be caught in a net of gravitic mines once they decided to jump to this system. The trapping force had cast too many nets at the mouth of the river.

"Identify those mines!"

"I got it!" Ves said as he finished matching the parameters of the mines to the ones in the database. "It’s the MEX-LIGHT 25-E, from the same manufacturer as the XX-REX missiles! They’re military-grade light mines fabricated from Imodris!"

Imodris had finally caught up to them!

"Tell me more!"

Ves quickly read through the traits of these mines. "The MEX-LIGHT mines are meant to be employed as traps. They’re stealthy, light, networked, cheap and are built to be fast! They aren’t very evasive but due to their speed it becomes possible to spread them very wide, covering the highest volume possible. Their only weakness is that they don’t have much of a payload, but because they’re employed in an enormous volume that isn’t too much of a problem!"

"We are getting stung by a hive of bees." Major Verle concluded.

This succinctly described their current predicament. Bees couldn’t deal much damage to a human, but once they gathered in a swarm, they gained the ability to deal fatal damage.

Because the minefield encompassed a huge volume, it took a lot of time for the mines to boost towards the ships in their midst.

Every space mine possessed powerful but short-ranged thrusters that allowed them to mimic missiles in some sense. Though they lacked some of the capabilities of true missiles, it nonetheless allowed them to approach their targets instead of passively waiting for their targets to bump into them at point-blank range.

Every second, more mines converged onto the task force. Fortunately, the Vandals had been prepared for every eventuality so they deployed remarkably quickly. The ranged mechs took out mines from afar while the Akkara heavy mechs that hid behind the bunkers built along the hulls of the combat carrier acted as the last resort.

Mine impacts began to decrease, but they never ceased!

The Flagrant Vandals never employed enough ranged mechs. Their bias towards melee mechs came to bite them back with vengeance. It would be suicide for melee mechs to destroy the mines up close, as they possessed just enough power to take out a mech in a single blast.

Still, while the Vandals didn’t have much experience in dealing with minefields, they encountered this kind of situation a number of times.

"Arm the useless melee mechs with any spare rifles we can give them!" Major Verle ordered.

"Sir, that would put us at risk of a mech ambush!"

"No enemy force would want to mingle in this minefield! The odds of friendly fire is too great! Still, leave twenty percent as guards but arm the rest!"

The Vandals fielded an overwhelming amount of humanoid mechs, and this provided them with a lot of flexibility. Swordsman mechs and spearman mechs holstered their primary weapons for bog-standard laser rifles. The melee mechs wielded the rifles awkwardly, as their limbs lacked the delicate precision that was necessary to handle them with accuracy.

Nonetheless, the melee mechs didn’t need to be too accurate. As long as they kept shooting, they were bound to hit one of the mines, especially since the mines single-mindedly approached the fleet at the cost of evasion. _{freёwebnovel.com}

The situation came under control as the task force intercepted most of the mines on approach.

"Damage report!"

"Light to moderate damage to armor cover throughout the fleet! The Antecedent sustained the heaviest damage!"

"Good!" Major Verle grinned.

The Antecedent was one of their fatter combat carriers. Though she lost her original compressed armor coverage, the bulk of her cheaper armor made her more resilient than the Shield of Hispania. During this ambush, the Antecedent released the strongest signals, acting as a beacon for ordnance to home in on.

Ves concluded that unless they retained a genius hacker, the Flagrant Vandals wouldn’t be able to do a thing about the mines. Other than shooting them, they would continue to obey the programming of the hidden Imodris stealth ship lurking just outside the minefield.

Even destroying the stealth ship wouldn’t change anything as the mines would continue to follow their last instructions. Even without any human holding their hands, mines could persist for decades trying to follow the same order.

"How long until we escape this minefield?!"

"At least six hours, depending on their fuel reserves!"

"Too long!"

The mines obviously switched to some sort of fuel-efficient mode. This allowed them to move around for an extended period of time. That the controllers opted to switch to this mode meant they felt confident that their reinforcements would arrive in less than six hours.

As the command center’s officers attempted various solutions, often without result, Ves continued to scour the database for possible solutions.

He couldn’t find any viable solution. The military-grade space mines left no loopholes for them to exploit. Ves also lacked the expertise to attempt to hack the mines himself or interfere with their programming.

He wanted to pull out a solution so badly, but with no mechs in sight, most of his expertise couldn’t be brought to bear.

Right now, the mech officers kept it all together. Their mechs had been split up into three shifts. Each of them took turns to shoot down the relentless mines. Once a shift ran low of energy or ammunition, they swapped with the next shift and replenished their supplies. This happened on and on for hours because they couldn’t think of anything better.

All the while, a hidden doomsday clock ticked above their heads. At the predestined time, their end would come in the form of a massive Imodris punitive fleet.

"Iris. Is there no way the rebels can lend us a hand?"

She shook her head. "I’m sorry but all of their assets have been chased away from this star system. Besides, they won’t be of much help even if we do enlist their aid. They aren’t particularly well-equipped."

This highlighted their helplessness in the face of an enemy trap. No matter what, for their FTL trajectory to be predicted accurately to this extent meant that they had some traitors among the Vandals. At the very least, an insider leaked valuable navigation data to the enemy.

The traitor might even be transmitting their telemetry to the enemy right now!

Ves looked up and activated a rare command. He wanted to speak to Major Verle in private.