The Mech Touch novel Chapter 4918

After several hours of hasty repairs and preparation, the Iron Hedgehog boarded yet another transport.

Venerable Irene Mox was glad that she and her expert mech weren't forced to ride a dinky civilian cargo transport this time.

The Quillims in control of Dershin still retained a sufficient number of military transport vehicles that could quickly relocate slow and heavy mechs such as an expert heavy artillery mech.

In fact, the large heavy-duty transport also carried three other heavy artillery mechs. Their imposing weight certainly induced a lot of strain on the large vehicle's engines.

Many more transports flew in the air at a fairly low altitude. Each of them carried mechs, supplies and other goods necessary to put up a good fight. Hundreds of Quillim aerial mechs patrolled the entire perimeter and ensured that the Bontues would not be able to intercept the transport train.

There was no way to hide such a major movement from their Bontue adversaries. They originally reigned over the Korinna System in the first place, and every city and location on the planet still had ways of tracking movements and covertly transmitting the data to other locations.

It was good that the Quillims did not intend to hide their movements in the first place. The plan formulated by Colonel Harvey Dost and his staff counted on this. The entire mech force needed to serve as bait in order to occupy the attention of the Bontues.

Irene still recalled her shock when the colonel pulled her to a shielded chamber and personally briefed her on the full details of Operation Black Dawn.

"The purpose of deploying our forces to New Kreon is not just to block the Bontue vanguard troops that are trying to make their way to Dershin." The elderly man spoke to the expert pilot.

That caused the woman to frown. "You mean we aren't making a serious attempt to advance on one of the cities held by the Bontues in an attempt to hijack one of their FTL-capable starships?"

"It will never work." Colonel Dost admitted. "The Bontues have a million different ways to sabotage their own starships. At worst, they will blow up all of the combat carriers that remain grounded and cannot be taken away. While it may look as if we have become so desperate for an escape route that we are willing to disregard the truth, our actual operation is much more viable than this half-baked plan."

The commanding officer activated a projection that displayed Korinna V as a globe. Soon enough, lots of tiny points of light started to appear around the planet. One of those points of light was marked in red.

"When the Bontues sabotaged all of our starships by hacking their navigation systems and deliberately inducing them to crash onto the cities that we have captured, not all of the vessels fell out of orbit. Many of our vessels remained in high orbit, so the Bontues sabotaged them in different ways. From destroying their FTL drives to deliberately inducing them to collide against each other, the fleet in orbit have all turned into broken wrecks."

Irene frowned. "It is hard to believe that our old enemies managed to infiltrate and sabotage our fleet to this extent. It can't be done without the help of traitors who are deeply embedded in our mech army."

"We are already in the process of rooting out the turncoats embedded in our ranks. Now that we know what to look for, they should not be able to destroy our layout."

"What is this layout, sir?"

The colonel gestured at the red point of light. The projection zoomed in to display one of the most prominent starships of the original Quillim fleet in orbit.

"The Peyton Phoenix." Irene gasped.

The flagship of the fleet was once a proud and modern 3.2 kilometer-long fleet carrier. She was capable of carrying lots of mechs and supplies and possessed enough hull plating to enter into contested areas.

Now, the Peyton Phoenix looked as if she had been snapped in half. Her entire front half had been sheared off due to a combination of internal explosions and external collisions.

The rear half looked ragged as her entire hull suffered a lot of internal explosions as well. Her thrusters looked wrecked and her engineering bay was exposed to open space.

"This is our ticket out of the Korinna System." Colonel Dost declared.

"...Are you certain about this, sir?" Venerable Irene quietly asked. She wondered whether the colonel had completely lost his sanity after suffering a huge setback. "The Peyton Phoenix is dead. She can't fly anymore."

"It may look that way to you and the Bontues, but the damage does not look as bad as you think. My best engineers and technical staff believe she can still be restored to working condition." Dost claimed. "Capital ships of her class are designed and built with many backups and redundancies in mind. We have survivors who have confirmed the location of at least one spare FTL drive and power reactor that can quickly be hooked up and restore basic functionality to the capital ship."

"Colonel…"

"Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, this vessel shall fly among the stars once again, if only to take us back to the nearest base occupied by our fellow Quillims."

That sounded like a crazy plan!

It wasn't just Irene who looked shocked! Even Ves was astonished by the measures the Quillims planned to take in order to escape the trap set by the Bontues.

Irene continued to frown. She couldn't believe that this broken fleet carrier could be repaired quickly enough.

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