The Mech Touch novel Chapter 5040

5040 Minor Losses and Gains

The battle wound down after the three ace mechs of the Golden Skull Alliance disarmed the orven battleship and disabled many of her systems.

By this time, only a handful of wheednar warships retained the ability to resist, but their straining transphasic energy shields were already faltering under the combined attacks of thousands of mechs!

The other alien warships had either been torn apart or drifted lifelessly in space.

The mech pilots had all been ordered to refrain from inflicting excessive damage to the alien warships.

While it was not possible for all of the mechs to show perfect restraint, the amount of relatively intact warships drifting into space was more than satisfactory!

The expeditionary fleet had already begun to accelerate forward by this time.

The main battle was pretty much over at this point. The mechs had already reformed into units and begun to secure the expanding debris field.

The mechs still maintained a respectable distance from the crippled warships. Even if all of their gun batteries had been knocked offline, there was still a decent risk that the desperate and cornered alien crew members would decide to blow up their vessels in a final act of spite!

However, the Golden Skull Alliance had already prepared for this. A few mechs began to throw EMP bombs into any breaches.

These bombs subsequently exploded and knocked out a lot of hardware!

Ranged mechs armed with luminar crystal rifles also fired disruptor beams and other damaging beams at select angles and points in the hulls. These precision attacks struck power generators and critical systems that could give the alien crew a chance to retaliate.

If that was not enough, a large number of Ferocious Piranhas flew close to the hulls of different mechs and made sure to use their glows to reduce the resistance of any alien survivors within range!

General Verle had even instructed the Everchanger to hover close to the disabled orven battleship and activate an amplified tranquility glow to envelop the entire vessel.

The Everchanger looked remarkably holy and pristine at this time. Faint silhouettes of angel wings even started to appear onto his back as Lufa's calming influence descended across the entire warship.

While this did not guarantee that every surviving orven spacer would cease their resistance and stop fighting, they should at least be a lot less fervent about resorting to extreme measures!

By the time the expeditionary fleet had drawn close to the debris field, thousands of shuttles launched from the various starships in order to begin rescue and salvage operations.

Not every mech that had been struck by the aliens collapsed into pieces.

There were still rare cases where the larger gun batteries only managed to inflict glancing blows that only cut off parts of a mech.

The alien starfighters also managed to damage a score of mechs before they all went down.

However, most of the shuttles were not assigned to perform search and rescue, but had instead been assigned to board and secure the crippled but mostly intact hulls!

This was already a familiar process to the older members of the Golden Skull Alliance.

Every boarding action was inherently risky and the resistance inside the vessels was bound to make the human boarding troops bleed.

Nonetheless, this was the only way to preserve the value of the alien warships to the greatest extent possible.

In any case, the lives of ordinary footsoldiers were much more expendable than mech pilots.

The pool of potentates in the Red Ocean was a lot smaller than the total population of humans. It also took years to convert potentates into qualified mech pilots.

It was a lot easier to train entire batches of infantry soldiers as they were not limited by conditions such as genetic aptitude.

It also took a lot less time to train a basic trooper that could adequately take part in dangerous boarding operations.

Ves did not bother to pay too much attention to the progress of the boarding actions. He only spared a brief amount of concern when he checked on the status of one of his closest friends and subordinates.

He groaned. "Damnit, Ketis. Not again."

Ketis was a Journeyman Mech Designer as well as a Swordmaster.

As a woman who held great ambitions, she could not resist the opportunity to put her excellent swordsmanship to good use and board another hostile alien warship!

The only consolation that eased Ves' concerns was that she had chosen to join a bunch of Swordmaidens in boarding a crippled wheednar heavy cruiser.

She probably did not consider the orvens to be worthy prey for her Bloodsinger after they had been tranquilized by her husband's expert mech.

"Well, let her have her fun. Venerable Dise should be able respond quickly enough if any unforeseen threats have appeared."

As the various forces continued to conduct rescue, salvage and capture operations, Ves eventually received a preliminary report from General Verle.

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