The Mech Touch novel Chapter 4584

The expeditionary fleet approached one of the few Langrange points in this nearly empty star system transitioned into FTL travel without any surprises.

The Tower of Babel never responded and maintained a stable position inside the brown dwarf star.

Perhaps the aliens who operated the battleship never detected the human fleet from the beginning.

Perhaps they did notice the presence of the expeditionary fleet, but thought that it was better to lay low rather than confront the new arrivals.

Whatever the case, Ves and many other people relaxed. It was highly unlikely that the Tower of Babel possessed the capability to intercept ships in FTL travel. That was one of the core secrets of the Big Two and a major reason why they could keep most of humanity in check.

In any case, the Golden Skull Alliance had made its move. Now it had to wait for the results.

If all went well, the Tower of Babel and the vulture fleet would both take their respective bait and confront each other in battle.

If that didn't happen, then Ves would be put in an awkward position.

"Oh well. At least I tried."

He was confident that it would work out somehow. Ves was confident in his ability to anticipate the responses of different parties. While neither of the human and alien forces he was dealing with were simple, they should still be susceptible to irresistible temptations.

A part of him enjoyed this game. It felt fun to pull people's strings and make them move the way he wanted.

He was no puppeteer by any means, but it was quite convenient to make his enemies move according to his design. There was no need for him to defeat every opponent on the battlefield. As long as he was able to remove an obstacle with minimal investment, he would be a fool to deny this option!

"Cenatus Prospecting should have entered the Ramage Repulsor System at this time." Calabast informed Ves over the comm. "Our closest observation devices have already detected the light of their entry. The amount of ships that have emerged on the edge of the star system match our expectations. Their arrival coordinates are not where we thought they should appear, but they should still be in the same neighborhood."

"Hmm." Ves nodded in understanding. "That is odd. We know the coordinates of the vulture fleet when it transitioned into FTL in the last star system. You can roughly draw a straight line from that location to the Ramage Repulsor System to determine the emergence location with a decent degree of accuracy. Why is there such a deviation?"

"There are several tricks to deviate the place of arrival if you know what you are doing." Calabast replied. "You should talk to a drive engineer about this. I have heard that only a few highly experienced engineers are qualified to conduct these operations. This is because they have to induce deliberate irregularities in their operation. The FTL drives can easily blow up or malfunction if they are handled incorrectly."

That was a scary thought. Ves possessed a basic understanding of how FTL drives worked, but this was clearly only reserved for the more advanced engineers who possessed a deep understanding of a specific model of FTL drives!

Just knowing the theory wasn't enough. The operators of an FTL drive had to know its exact properties as well as its unique quirks that varied from product to product. Only then would they be able to induce deliberate deviations that were slightly removed from the most optimal solutions.

Though Ves did not exactly know how to pull it off himself, he still understood just enough about FTL drives that it was as dangerous as walking on a tightrope!

"Cenatus Prospecting must have excellent drive engineers in its employ." Ves remarked. "Otrus Magrin must have deliberately hired and trained so many of them so that he can increase the variance of the arrival coordinates of his fleet."

"It is a good way to avoid an ambush upon arrival." Gloriana affirmed.

There were too many ways to screw up a fleet once its coordinates and its trajectory in FTL travel became known. From planting space mines to preparing more inhumane traps, it was hard to survive such nasty surprises when the ships didn't even have any chance to evade these welcome gifts!

Ves made a guess. "Otrus Magrin must have been bitten by this in the past. He has deliberately trained better drive engineers so that his fleet would never fall for such a trap again."

Space was enormous, so any deviations were bound to be massive. Even if the Larkinson Clan wanted to surprise the Cenatus Prospecting fleet, there was no way to plant enough space mines to cover billions of cubic meters worth of space!

"Can our ships do it, Ves?"

"No. Maybe a handful of our ships can do it, but none of our engineers have conducted any special training in this area. Even if we train all of them, not every starship and FTL drive will have the same tolerance for deviations. We also need the Glory Seekers and the Cross Clan to play along if we want to keep our current fleet whole and united."

The expeditionary fleet was too messy and inconsistent to support this operation. It was best to play it safe and avoid mistakes as best as possible.

They continued to talk about what the observation devices had detected so far. The Black Cats had planted enough hidden equipment in the star system to track both the incoming Cenatus Prospecting fleet as well as the alien battleship that was quietly hiding inside the brown dwarf star.

Right now, neither of them had many special moves, but Ves expected that to change in the near term. He did not want to spook either of them, so he held off on dangling his bait in their proximity.

Seeing that the Cenatus Prospecting fleet hadn't done anything special up until now, Ves grew and closed the feed.

"Keep monitoring the situation inside the star system and inform me of any developments."

"Will do, Ves. I'm curious to see whether your ploy will bear fruit."

Since Ves could do little at this time, he decided to spend time with his family. He played with a bunch of dolls with Aurelia. He brought Andraste to the hangar bay to show off a few cool mechs. He even taught and guided Marvaine on how to improve the design of his latest Mekanos.

Even as the Cenatus Prospecting fleet started to move closer to the inner system, Ves did not dare to keep his hopes up. There was still a possibility that the vulture fleet might smell a trap and choose to leave the star system despite the apparent lack of threats.

As Ves thought about manipulating one of the bait he had cast to ensure that it became more compelling, he suddenly received an important notification.

"Sorry, Marvaine, but I've got to take care of business now. Lucky, can you watch over my kid?"

"Meow." The gem cat yawned as he lazily lounged on the couch.

Ves would have to make do with that. "If there is anything you need, just call Lucky."

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