The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1920

Chapter 1920 Incompetence

Several days went by as Rion Aaden followed a very boring routine.

Desala X was a mining planet. Nothing more. Hardly any amenities existed in any of the poor and bedraggled outposts that served as the hubs of all of the mining operations on the planet.

Though accurate information was hard to get, Ves managed to pin down a rough estimate of how far he traveled back into the past.

From the mining equipment, the gear worn by the tall folk, the simulator pod and other clues, he estimated that he travelled at least seventy years in the past.

This was a fairly short time disparity. Was the System growing lazy or something?

Just like Axelar, an opportunity existed for Ves to reunite with Rion when he returned to the present time. Assuming that Rion still resided in the Smiling Samuel Star Sector, it was very much possible for Ves to be able to be able to meet his Mastery host within their lifetimes!

Of course, Ves had no intentions to meet with any of his former hosts, especially an inept mech pilot like Rion!

Over the course of several practice sessions, Ves witnessed failure and incompetence to a degree that he had never seen from any of his mech pilots!

"He's not a qualified mech pilot at all! He's too ignorant!"

To be fair, it wasn't Rion's fault that the rebel movement foolishly tried to train the potentate they discovered among the planet's dwarf population without knowing anything about mechs.

It was clear to Ves that the Desala Resistance Movement was not comparable to the more formidable rebel organizations he knew of. The Bentheim Liberation Movement and the Vesian Revolutionary Front were at least a thousand times stronger!

The main reason why Ves looked down on the DRM was because it consisted entirely of the indigenous population of dwarves.

Without the support of a single outsider or tall folk who actually knew a thing about how mechs actually worked and how they fought against other mechs, the DRM stood no chance against the guard forces keeping the dwarves in line!

If there was one detail that tilted the odds in the DRM's favor, it was that House Kantis invested very little in their operations on Desala X.

The decadent nobles could have easily run a proper mining planet that was fully compliant with all of the standards of human space if they were willing to treat the dwarves like regular salaried humans.

But no, House Kantis insisted on saving as much money as possible, and this included treating the main workforce like slaves!

The lack of willingness to invest in their operations on the mining planet extended to other aspects. Most of the mining gear was several decades old and extremely worn-out. Their frequent malfunctions and breakdowns probably cost the House more than replacing with cheap but brand-new equipment!

The guards consisted entirely of thugs and former mercenaries that didn't even properly meet the standard of household troops. They were nothing more than prison guards in all but name.

Their equipment was fairly light and was oriented more towards detecting contraband and illicit goods than resisting a properly-armed and properly-trained raiding force.

"House Kantis is too cheap." Ves mentally shook his head. "Admittedly, there is no need to invest any further to keep the dwarves in line."

Against the captive dwarves who could employ nothing more than mining equipment to threaten the guards, this was enough!

Of course, all of the mining equipment and mining vehicles were under the complete control of the overseers. Even the dwarves knew how futile it was to rely on this gear as each of them incorporated many safeguards that forestalled any possible abuse!

As for mechs, he had seen a couple in the distance through Rion's eyes.

Ves surmised that House Kantis only stationed the mechs at the outposts as a form of deterrence rather than a precaution.

The chance that any of the dwarves could override all of the safeguards built into the formidable mining vehicles was low. Yet if that ever happened, the handful of mechs patrolling the outposts could easily wipe the civilian vehicles out with just a few attacks!

The handful of mechs he had seen so far at Outpost 35 didn't impress him at all. House Kantis tried to be as cheap as possible, which wasn't easy as mechs were considerably more expensive to operate on heavy gravity planets.

Most of the mechs consisted of frontline mechs. Due to the heavy disadvantages that ballistic weapons enjoyed in heavy gravity environments, the cheap and simple mechs were solely armed with laser weapons.

Ves begrudgingly approved of the frontline mech models that House Kantis chose. Weak and low performance they might be, they fared quite decently under heavy gravity and wouldn't be falling apart anytime soon.

A handful of other mech types made the rounds as well. Each dwarf cowered and scrambled out of the way of the domineering machines as they passed through the outpost.

The mechs deliberately ignored the dwarves in their path. Sometimes, their degenerate mech pilots even entertained themselves by landing their feet just a few breaths away from a miner!

There was no way for the dwarves to outrun a mech. The heavy gravity slowed everyone down, and dwarves didn't exactly boast the longest legs.

Fortunately, the mech pilots only restricted themselves to terrorizing the local population of miners. Killing them off cost money to their bosses, so the sadistic mech pilots had to abide by the regulations that ensured the workforce remained as productive as possible.

Though Ves hadn't been able to observe the patrolling mechs long enough to judge the overall skill level of their mech pilots, he guessed it didn't amount to much.

"Hardly any incident has happened on this planet that requires the intervention of mechs." He mentally surmised. "There is no glory or honor to be found here. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Only the dregs of the piloting profession can be found here. All of those guards could easily fit in with pirates and other scum."

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