The Mech Touch novel Chapter 2691

Chapter 2691: The Pursuit of Glory

The Eager Condemnation followed her sister ships to the grave, but not before someone made it out before the final moment!

Just as instructed, the Transcendent Punishers targeted a specific section of the hull that encompassed one of the fleet carrier's hangar bays.

After blasting through the hull plating and creating a large breach, a cockpit of all vehicles flung out of the gap!

It turned out that Aisling had secretly holed herself up in the spare cockpit of the Charlemagne!

"Someone is escaping! Stop the traitor!"

Predictably, the rest of the Eager Condemnation's crew weren't happy about that. The surviving ranged mechs quickly began to fire at the escaping cockpit, but its shell was built to take a punishment.

The cockpit survived long enough for the Larkinson to suppress or destroy the Fridaymen mechs that stuck their necks out to kill the defector!

The most forward Larkinson mechs soon reached the escaping cockpit and carefully escorted it back to the Spirit of Bentheim.

The crew of the Eager Condemnation knew that they had failed. General Pierce shook his head and gave the command.

"Let us end this farce before more of us try to escape. Ladies and gentlemen, it is an honor to serve by your side!"

"For the Friday Coalition!"

The last escaping deep strike fleet carrier exploded violently! The space around the vessel became filled with debris as an uncountable amount of pieces fling in every direction.

While this was going on, the pursuit against the ships and mechs of the Praetors and Planats proceeded a lot less smoothly.

Unlike the Fridaymen, the traitor clans still retained around a thousand functional mechs when their commanding officers ordered a retreat.

The Cross Clan was determined to prevent their escape! The bad blood between the three clans was too great for either side to give up their vendetta against each other.

However, the remnants of the enemy mechs were heavily outnumbered. Just as Ves and the others discussed, there was no need to get too close.

The artillery mechs of the Golden Skull Alliance calmly maintained their distance while bombarding their enemies from afar. By concentrating their firepower on hostile ranged mechs first, they first neutralized the enemy's ability to retaliate.

Once they completed this step, the artillery mechs began to fire at the remainder of the enemy mechs with impunity. They also fired at the propulsion systems of the fleeing enemy carriers.

Just like the Fridaymen, the traitor clans opted to split up their ships and flee in separate directions.

This tactic was a lot more effective this time!

While the Praetor Clan and Planat Clan only brought three capital ships, they also brought over 50 combat carriers. While a number of those vessels had already fallen in battle, plenty of them were left to carry their surviving crews back to safety!

"It's useless." A tired Ylvainan mech pilot said as he mechanically pointed the guns of his overstressed Transcendent Punisher at another fleeing combat carrier. "Even if we miss 90 percent of our shots at this distance, it's still useless. Space is empty. There is no escape from our guns."

It would have been a different story if the battle took place in the orbit of a planet or in the middle of an asteroid belt. There would have been plenty of natural terrain for the fleeing opponents to shelter behind.

It just so happened that the enemy strike force ambushed the expeditionary fleet when the latter was on its way to another destination.

There were no satellites or asteroids worth nothing in the vicinity. If that was the case, it would have been impossible for the expeditionary fleet to transition out of FTL in this area.

It wasn't as if the Praetors and Planats were unaware of this truth. They were all experienced and professionally-trained soldiers. They could read the outcome of the situation as well as their enemies.

Venerable Damira Planat and Venerable Albert Praetor held the final word in their respective detachments.

Even though they had safely ejected from their broken expert mechs and returned to their flagships, neither of them were in a good mood.

In the Vicious Mountain Star Sector, every mech pilot knew that pursuing glory and victory in battle was a dangerous road. Those who fought for fame, honor or territory did so with the full knowledge that the losers often met an unfortunate end. _{freēwebnovel.com}

In truth, conflicts in the Garlen Empire rarely ended in death. That would just weaken the powerful second-rate state excessively.

Most conflicts amounted to limited territorial border conflicts where one tribe or clan tried to nibble a couple of star systems from their neighboring rivals.

These campaigns were so minor that the Garleners didn't even regard them as proper wars.

No matter who won or lost, the losing soldiers were usually ransomed back. For those that couldn't, the winning side usually absorbed the losers in their ranks.

In many cases, this wasn't a big deal. Mech pilots and other soldiers switching their allegiances to a winner was not an objectionable act as long as it was an 'honorable' defection.

How the Garleners determined that was rather opaque. In general, as long as the treachery wasn't ugly, it was tolerable.

The reason why the natives of the Vicious Mountain Star Sector easily accepted this reality was due to two reasons.

First, they all shared a common identity as citizens of the Garlen identity. This effectively meant that every internal conflict amounted to a factional struggle. Defecting to a different state was much more egregious than switching over to another faction.

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