The Mech Touch novel Chapter 3295

Chapter 3295: Opportunistic Salvaging

With temperatures cooling, the post-battle activities proceeded smoothly.

Neither side let down their guard, but neither of them had a reason to continue hostilities either.

The dwarves were not entirely unwilling to die for their cause, but they didn't want to throw away their lives for abstract gains when the alternative was much more attractive!

Even the strongest believers in the dwarven god suddenly learned that keeping hold of their precious existences in the face of all-out warfare was a far higher priority than proving their zeal!

Ves continued to stay on the bridge as he observed the search and rescue operation unfolding before his eyes. A lot of Larkinsons had already died, but there were more who were trapped or injured who could still be saved. All kinds of mechs and shuttles were strung out across the debris field which stretched for quite a distance. Several combat carriers even had to travel all the way towards the other end in order to facilitate the retrieval of personnel in a timely manner.

The Larkinsons also did more than picking up lost clansmen. Ves paid special attention to the salvaging operation. Though his fleet had lost a lot of ships and therefore a lot of cargo capacity, he did not let off picking up high-value debris.

"Make sure you pick up every scrap of Unending alloy or pieces of our expert mechs as possible!" Ves transmitted his command directly to the salvaging parties for the seventh time. "Our strongest scanners have tracked each and every fragment of Unending alloy that has broken loose. Don't return until you have swept them all up to the last dust particle!"

This was a highly inefficient command, but Ves didn't care. There were only so many mechs, shuttles and other vehicles that could be allocated to salvaging missions but even a single finger's worth of Unending alloy was far more valuable than picking up a hundred Bright Warrior wrecks in his eyes!

One of the many lessons he learned from this battle was that he and his clan developed an overreliance on Unending alloy. This strange material that originated from the Nyxian Gap possessed both top-notch defenses and enabled an extra form of resonance. The combination of these features resulted in such a huge amplification of performance for his expert mechs that the expeditionary fleet simply couldn't have won this battle without its existence!

He only needed to compare the performance of the Dark Zephyr, the Riot and the First Sword to the expert mechs fielded by the Cross Clan or the Ferril Provincial Army.

"The performance gap is too wide."

Though the three Unending alloy expert mechs were designed with mid-tier performance levels in mind, each of them had actually approached the level of a high-tier expert mech in real battle circumstances!

"This is quite impressive."

There were two caveats, though. First, the performance parameters were too uneven. Second, their pilots were still inexperienced and underdeveloped compared to most of their peers.

When Ves tried to imagine a matchup between his current expert mechs and genuine high-tier machines such as the Bolvar Rage or the Gatecrasher, he would have to put his bets on the latter two. Perhaps their defense might not be so exaggerated, but their performance was almost uniformly high, which effectively translated into no exploitable weaknesses.

The fact that the duel between Patriarch Reginald and Venerable Orthox lasted so long with neither of their expert mechs incurring critical damage was a testament of their battle prowess!

"Well, even if my expert mechs can't beat the likes of the Gatecrasher, at least they're better than the average. That counts for something." He muttered.

The Larkinson Clan didn't have enough expert mechs relative to its total size. The best way to strengthen the champions of the Larkinson Army was to strengthen their expert mechs as much as possible, and Unending alloy was an excellent means in that regard!

Ves wasn't worried about the performance of his Unending alloy expert mechs at the moment, but that might change over the years as they got into more scraps.

This battle had already showed that Unending alloy was not invincible. While it was too difficult for regular mechs to crack this material, the same did not apply to expert mechs. Their ability to empower their attacks with true resonance caused them to acquire reality-defying properties. This was the most effective way to break the unbreakable!

"Expert mechs and expert pilots are too unreasonable!"

Therefore, each battle in which an Unending alloy mech incurred battle damage was another instance where their armor coverage diminished.

The Riot lost three limbs and incurred a lot of other battle damage. It was likely impossible for the salvaging parties to pick up all of the scraps of Unending alloy that got loose.

The Valkyrie Prime was also in an awful condition. Considering that an expert axeman mech hacked it apart, there were bound to be a lot of shards that had flung loose! If they blended with other wrecks or battle debris, then there was a significant chance that the Larkinson fleet's sensors lost track of them. It was too troublesome to scour the entire debris field just to search these missing scraps! This was especially the case when they only had a limited amount of time!

Ves glanced at the timer and saw that the expeditionary fleet didn't have nearly enough time to complete all of the post-battle operations that should be done.

The Larkinsons had to concentrate on their greatest priorities and leave many other goals behind.

For example, there was no way his clan could pick up all of the broken Larkinson mechs. There simply wasn't enough time to salvage them and hull space to store them in. None of the Larkinsons forgot that they were still operating on hostile turf and that they were not welcome in these parts!

In contrast, the Vulcanites owned the entire space and could dispatch large salvaging fleets to sweep up all of the valuable salvage at their leisure. This was also why the Ferrils did not bother to perform too many salvaging operations. Their fleet largely comprised combat vessels and they had neglected to bring their logistical ships.

As the two sides continued to retrieve the people and goods that they prized the most, a slight moment of tension arose when numerous Larkinson salvaging parties attempted to pick up the remains of dwarven expert mechs.

Ves specifically had to instruct General Verle to claim the valuable dwarven expert mechs.

"Are you sure you want us to do this, sir?" Verle frowned.

"Sir, the Ferrils are lodging a complaint! They are protesting our theft of their expert mechs!" _{freёwebnovel.com}

Verify captcha to read the contentVerify