The Mech Touch novel Chapter 5686

Chapter 5686 Professor Vector Loban

5686 Professor Vector Loban

The battlefield no longer resembled a quagmire. _{ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm}

It had become a giant, expanding junkyard.

Debris and broken parts littered the surrounding space. Broken mechs, broken combat carriers and broken alien warships spread across space in every direction.

A lot of pieces were bound to get caught by the local planet's gravity well. They might even get pulled in and crash onto the surface, causing a lot of devastation to its recently terraformed ecosystem.

Other hazards also existed as faltering power generators exploded after reaching their limits and previously unexploded ordnance blew up for one reason or another.

Further complicating the state of the debris field was that a lot of survivors from both sides of the conflict managed to survive the battle that had recently come to an end.

Both humans and aliens of two distinct races still clung to life in the more intact pieces of ship wreckage or inside the escape pods flung into space.

One of the trends of the Red War was that the victor always laid complete claim to the spoils.

The loser of a battle had no way of retaining any control over the battlefield. All of the debris, intact goods and survivors in the area completely fell at the mercy of the winners of the battle.

This dynamic enriched many human and alien groups!

Not only did the winners usually receive rich rewards from the Red Two or the Red Cabal for inflicting a serious blow against their foes, but they could also look forward to salvaging a lot of valuable parts and materials, thereby enabling them to make up for their losses and strengthen their forces even further!

Unfortunately for the four surviving mercenary forces, their losses this time were a bit too big.

The Pellicky Praetorians had suffered moderate losses. The mercenary outfit could make up for the loss in mechs and mech pilots easily enough, but starships were a different matter.

Commander Pellicky had made the strategic decision to utilize her combat carriers as decoys and damage sponges.

While the results vindicated her strategy, it did not make the aftermath look any nicer!

Starships represented hard currency in the new frontier!

Each interstellar vessel granted autonomy and strength to their owners. No matter how outdated or how much their condition had deteriorated, they still held a lot of value simply by virtue of being able to move while carrying lots of cargo!

The Pellicky Praetorians had lost two-thirds of their combat carriers. If the loss of mechs hadn't been so exaggerated, they might even have to discard a few mechs in poor condition because they couldn't fit into the remaining hulls anymore!

The losses suffered by the Five Fingers Club, the Rutherford Family and the Desiccators were roughly comparable.

The Rutherfords became especially devastated as their more powerful and expensive assets could not be easily replaced now that they had fallen from grace. They no longer had access to better goods and services as their old allies no longer respected them enough to provide favored treatment.

The patriarch of the Rutherford Family sounded especially morose.

"If we do not manage to obtain enough compensation from the Red Two for foiling this cosmopolitan conspiracy, then we must put an end to this costly venture. We have been blinded by greed, so much so that we have agreed to become footsoldiers in a war that should actually be fought by the mechers and the fleeters."

Perhaps the only party that actually had reason to celebrate this pyrrhic victory were the Desiccators.

Their losses had been great, but their mechs and starships had never been the best to begin with. It may just be possible for them to completely replenish their losses so long as they earned enough war merits from this victory.

However, the real reason why the Desiccators celebrated this victory so much was because they obtained a lot of alien bodies to indulge in their sick fantasies!

No matter whether the aliens were alive or dead, the Desiccators took as many as they could. They engaged in insane rituals where they doused themselves in alien blood while wearing the chopped body parts on their heads or across their bodies.

They even built a massive pile of alien skulls inside one of their starships to serve as a monument for this great victory!

Commander Pellicky did not enjoy the group meetings at all. Each time they met in person or in a virtual setting, she would have to hold in her disgust whenever her eyes laid on the leader of this sick gathering.

The old man's burned with fanatical glee as he wrapped himself up in a coat made out of carved strips of nunser hide. The oversized skull of a nunser commander wrapped around his head, while parts of the hooves had been installed over his arms and legs.

If not for the man's considerable augmentations and powered exoskeleton frame, he wouldn't have been able to bear the weight of all of these heavy nunser body parts!

"Have you analyzed the composition of the blood?"

"We did. We repeated the process more than a dozen times with five different lab machines installed on multiple vessels. They have all returned the same data. The measured samples are a near-exact match of Pilot Yuri Enfame's blood. The only anomaly is that it contains additional traces of hyper materials that we are unable to identify. We do not understand their purpose and we have suspended any further investigation when we concluded that we are not equipped to handle this incident."

The mercenary commander continued to supply a few more observations until they arrived before one of the side entrances of the bunker.

A squad of infantry soldiers permanently guarded the sealed bunker in order to prevent anyone from intruding and gawking at the monstrosity.

Once they passed through the reinforced hatch, they beheld the powerful 'cyborg mech' that had entered into a dormant state at this time.

"Impressive." Professor Vector Loban uttered. "As a biomech designer, I have designed and studied many mechs that combine both metallic and organic parts. Those are all carefully engineered works where there are clear and obvious reasons why the parts must be derived from conventional or organic technology. This... this is pure chaos. I cannot see any order or logic in this partial organic transformation."

"What... what does that mean, professor?"

"It is a strong indicator that there is no direction to its transformation process. It is likely as you have said. This is a purely accidental incident that is not driven by any conscious intent. Alas, that will also complicate our investigation. It will be much more difficult for us to ascertain the true cause behind this course of events. Is this a one-of-a-kind accident, or is it triggered by a major design flaw that the famous designer of this mech model has overlooked?"

The implications were enormous! If it turned out that the Ultimatum could trigger a catastrophic transformation that caused its mech pilot to disappear, then that would spark a huge amount of outrage throughout human space!

The safety of the highly popular Ultimatum line would fall into doubt. The mech community might even begin to harbor doubts about the safety of the LMC's other living mech models!

The outcome of this investigation could potentially ruin the business prospects of one of the most prominent new mech designers of his generation!

Naturally, the mechers needed to treat this matter extremely seriously. It was fortunate that Professor Vector Loban was close enough to respond the fastest to this acute incident.

As a member of the Transhumanist Faction, he was more than willing to help Professor Larkinson by massaging his results.

Of course, the premise of this was that the Ultimatum model was genuinely not dangerous and at fault.

The RA Senior Mech Designer proceeded to study the dormant and healing monster mech carefully. He had a feeling that if he poked too hard, he might not receive a friendly response!