The Mech Touch novel Chapter 3220

Chapter 3220: Commonalities

Venerable Orfan had a lot of egg on her face. Her failure to get along with her new expert mech contrasted sharply with Venerable Dise's smooth integration with her own powerful machine.

Though the former Vandal officer finally managed to acquit herself in subsequent test runs after she recovered, her pride incurred a substantial hit.

"Hahaha! The Vandal expert pilot is just as sloppy as the rest of her hounds!"

"Even the youngest mech cadets haven't fumbled as badly as Orfan in piloting a mech."

"She's the weakest expert pilot of our clan. Why do we need a spearman mech anyway? Venerable Stark can shoot everyone down with her masterwork mech!"

Though Venerable Orfan wanted to bite back, she knew she had to be better than that. She was a tough woman and had endured plenty of adversity.

"You'll regret saying that once we enter battle. There's no one in the Larkinson Clan who can do what I can do." She growled as she sat in the cockpit of her tentative new partner. "We'll definitely show them all, will we Riot?"

The former Vanguard Project and now aptly-named Riot flashed its orange third eye. The ferocious expert mech was eager to show its prowess and prove that it didn't need a masterwork weapon to outdo every other expert mech. _{freewebnovel.cσ๓}

With the addition of the Riot and the First Sword to the mech roster, the Larkinson Clan was now able to field more expert mechs than the Cross Clan and the Glory Seekers put together. This increased the weight of the Larkinsons even further.

This was important as Ves showed no sign of turning away from the border to the Smiling Samuel Star Sector. As several days went by, the combined fleet passed through one of the few stable gravitic corridors and formally exited the Bertrand Obsidian Star Sector.

As soon as the entire fleet emerged in the new star sector, tensions across the fleet had risen.

"We're in dwarf country now."

Everyone had heard about the famed hostility that the dwarven population held against the tall folk. Any apologists for the heavy gravity variant humans that occupied this star sector had little ground to stand on as soon as people pointed out the atrocities committed by the dwarves during their successful revolution.

The vengeful rebels slaughtered billions of people, treated many more as chattel and displaced an untold number of refugees from their homes.

Though many people were abhorred by the cruelty displayed by the Vulcanites, the victorious dwarves were merely getting their payback as far as they were concerned.

The dwarves did not do anything worse than what the humans had already done to their kind. If the tall folk wanted to receive better treatment, then they should have provided better treatment to their dwarven brothers.

This sense of grievance and urge to punish normal humans for the misdeeds of their kind ran deep in the Vulcan Empire's culture. The Vulcanites continued to employ this argument to justify their ongoing repression of their human captives.

When Ves learned about all of this, he felt this was rather messed up. It would have been much more PR friendly if they at least tried to be the better man. A bit of lip service could go very far even if everyone knew that the dwarves were lying through their teeth.

Instead, the Vulcanites still engaged in hateful rhetoric against the tall folk to this day. While this was helpful in whipping up the domestic population, it did not endear the Vulcan Empire to any foreign state or organization.

It was no surprise that everyone in the expeditionary fleet became a lot more vigilant towards threats. The alertness of the Larkinsons was permanently raised and the Larkinson Army no longer provided as much leave to the servicemen anymore.

Everyone treated this trip as an excursion into a hazardous region. It was as if the Smiling Samuel Star Sector was just as dangerous as the Nyxian Gap!

Though Ves sometimes felt that everyone was taking the potential threat way too seriously, he did not object to their prudence. It was better to be overprepared than underprepared.

Despite the perceived risks, the Golden Skull Alliance decided to keep the fleet together.

The various leaders briefly considered the possibility of splitting the fleet in two. Ves only needed to reach a single star system in the Vulcan Empire before he was done with his mission. Given these low demands, it was best for the alliance to split off a lot of combat assets and form a tight and coordinated task force to escort Ves to his mission objective.

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