The Mech Touch

"The second hidden weapon is the so-called Beta Ships." Major Verle spoke up. "The five seemingly-derelict pirate vessels that are parked outside of Xiphard Base are not as innocuous as they look. When we showed the scans of the ships to Fleet Commander Kronon, Commodore Evern and some of our chief engineers, they all reacted with shock."

Ves flipped through the contents of the data pad until he came across the detailed blueprints of all five Beta Ships.

They were roughly similar ships. Their corroded and cheap exterior were actually false coats. Underneath their ugly outer layer, the layers below actually consisted of larger amounts of Kavenit alloys.

What was remarkable about the Beta Ships was how solid they were and how little functionality they contained.

The ships featured very little interior spaces! Instead, many places that should have held compartments were actually filled up with solid Kavenit alloys!

To call them ships was a stretch. They were mostly solid ship-sized objects that possessed a very minimal crew complement. The only meaningful functionality they contained was the oversized sunlight propulsion systems strapped to their rear ends.

"These Beta Ships are essentially ship-sized rockets!" Ves reacted with horror!

He scanned through the performance parameters of the Beta Ships. Though they took some time to accelerate forward, once they got going, their momentum was immense!

Even if hundreds of mechs fired all kinds of weapons at the approaching Beta Ships, the latter incorporated so much solid materials that it was impossible to destroy them in a short amount of time!

While these ship-sized torpedoes were exceptionally resilient, agile vehicles such as mechs could easily dodge out of their way.

The problem was that they contained just enough maneuverability to ram into ships!

As long as the Beta Ships built up a sufficient amount of momentum, not even the second-class combat carriers of the Penitent Sisters could survive a solid collision against a Beta Ship!

Major Verle looked grim. "The Alpha Mines are targeted towards large groups of mechs, while the Beta Ships are meant to take out key starships. The combination is enough to shatter the assault of forces much stronger than ours."

Ves was both horrified and confused at the sheer amount of effort and resources the Crona Lords invested in these countermeasures.

"How the hell can a bunch of pirates build so many destructive weapons?"

"It's very plausible that the Crona Lords are able to construct so many Alpha Mines and Beta Ships. They have been entrenched in this region for over seventy years. That is enough time to build a destructive weapon every couple of years. From Lucky's scans, it's clear that they weren't built at the same time. This is the advantage of an established pirate group. The longer they are able to cling to a territory, the harder it becomes to dislodge them from their fortifications."

The scariest implication of her statement was that Xiphard Base wasn't even the strongest pirate base in Maynard Fields! Frostbite Fortress and several other pirate sites possessed a much higher reputation!

As Ves continued to scroll through the data pad, he froze yet again. "What the hell is this?!"

Major Verle coughed. "The Omega Laser is the latest and most technologically-advanced weapon at their disposal. The main base contains a buried weapon hardpoint that is able to fire incredibly powerful laser beams. It is powered by several dedicated power reactors and is linked up to a large amount of energy cells. The engineers who studied the blueprint of this huge weapon estimate that it is powerful enough to fire twelve cruiser-grade laser beams!"

In other words, the Omega Laser outputted a comparable amount of damage to a single shot from the main weapon of a warship!

While the weapon wasn't as powerful as an actual MTA warship weapon, its power and scale still surpassed that of any weapon wielded by a mech1

"Is this Omega Laser supposed to counter mechs or ships?" Ves asked.

"Both. It can fire in multiple configurations. In its most basic form, it fires an ultra powerful concentrated beam that can bore a hole straight through the hulls of several light carriers. The operators can also switch it to a wide-area mode to wipe out hundreds of mechs at close range or a splitting mode that allows it to take out a large number of mechs at a distance."

The data pad clattered onto the surface of the desk.

Though he knew that pirates were quite creative when it came to cooking up rule-breaking weapons, the Omega Laser vastly exceeded his estimates!

"This cruiser weapon is too advanced! While I can believe that the Crona Lords have trained or captured enough engineers to build the Alpha Mines and Beta Ships, the schematics of this Omega Laser is not just a scaled up laser cannon!"

As a mech designer and someone who recently absorbed a lot of new knowledge on laser weapons, he could tell that the design of this superweapon not only used up a lot of valuable exotics, but also incorporated technological principles that most Journeymen shouldn't even know!

Neither Major Verle nor Calabast had many answers.

"The records of the Crona Lords deliberately avoid as many references to their trump cards as possible, so we don't have the full story behind the Omega Laser. Not a single log written by Supreme Lord Roda mentions the laser despite the fact he occasionally references the Alpha Mines and the Beta Ships. From the indirect clues we have gathered, it's likely the Crona Lords performed a secret transaction with one of the other major pirate groups of the Nyxian Gap."

This meant that there was a very powerful pirate group that secretly supplied other Nyxian pirates with taboo-busting weapons!

Once Ves gained a good grasp of the three secret weapons of the Crona Lords, he sighed and leaned back on his chair. "What is the chance that the Crona Lords are hiding additional surprises?"

"Fairly low." Calabast instantly replied. "Lucky has scoured all of the major places that can hide anything that can threaten our troops. The biggest risk is that the Crona Lords have seeded more Alpha Mines or comparable traps in the local asteroids, but we have gathered sufficient clues to believe this is not the case. Just to be sure, my Black Cats have specifically configured our sensor arrays to scan for the specific sensor signatures and unique signs of the Alpha Mines. Now that we are aware of their existence and know what they are made of, it's a lot easier to detect them in the asteroid field. We have already double-checked and confirmed the placement of all twenty-seven Alpha Mines."

That sounded good. Ves found that it was quite enjoyable to be surrounded by capable leaders. Everytime Ves was about to bring up a concern, Calabast or Major Verle would quickly reply with an answer that made it clear they were already working on the problem.

Despite the great impact of these hidden weapons, Major Verle actually looked optimistic.

"One of the key rules to warfare is to know your enemy. In my long career in the Mech Corps, I'm used to working with much less information. The intelligence we have gathered is so extensive that we have practically stripped all of the clothes of the Crona Lords and taken scans of their naked bodies! We know almost every significant detail about their defenses and combat troops. Now that we know of their trump cards, we can specifically target them before we initiate our main assault!"

Ves turned to Calabast. "I take it that Lucky is needed to sabotage all of these weapons?"

She nodded. "That, and more. Our analysts have already detected that it is trivially easy to disarm the Alpha Mines as long as Lucky can slip in. He just has to cut a couple of sections to render them inoperable. The biggest challenge here is that Lucky has to do this to all twenty-seven mines, which will take a lot of time."

"How long?"

"Half a day. The Beta Ships are much easier to disable due to their smaller numbers. For all of their might, the five ships aren't deadly if they can't even move. Lucky just has to sabotage a few critical sections of their propulsion systems to turn them into actual floating husks in space."

If Ves could sneak aboard one of these so-called Beta Ships, he could accomplish the same.

"What about the Omega Laser?"

"I'm sure you can tell that it is no different." Calabast replied. "This is a large and powerful weapon, but it relies on a lot of key components to function. Disabling just a handful of them is enough to knock it offline. There are two problems, though. First, the weapon contains a fair amount of redundancies, and the Crona Lords have stocked up a fair amount of spare parts that the weapon crews can swap in a short amount of time. Second, the weapon is constantly checking on the conditions of its systems and subsystems, and to our surprise it's not easy to circumvent these procedures. If the routine checks stumbles upon anything amiss, the Crona Lords will go on full alert."

Ves frowned. The Omega Laser was not comparable to average pirate products. Even its security systems were impossible to compromise in a short amount of time!

"So we leave the sabotage of the Omega Laser for last?"

She nodded. "That's the plan. We will just let Lucky sabotage the outer defenses and the trump cards of Xiphard Base first. If nothing goes wrong, he will slowly work his way inwards. Aside from disabling the trump cards, Lucky will also be tasked with sabotaging various power reactors, defensive installations, ammunition depots, data banks, life support systems, starships, base systems and so on. Along the way, he'll also be on the lookout for any senior pirate officers. If Supreme Lord Roda is close, assassinating him will likely deal a very severe blow to the morale of the Crona Lords."

"That sounds.. quite a lot for a single cat to handle."

"It's not as difficult to accomplish as you think. Lucky will be making several trips to the stealth shuttle in order to load up on gadgets, poison and timed explosives."

The fact that the first infiltration failed to trip any alarms was a hopeful sign that this second operation would proceed smoothly. So far, aside from the ridiculously powerful Omega Laser, the Crona Lords didn't possess anything advanced enough to detect a second-class stealth vehicle.

The more Ves learned about their plan, the more hopeful he grew. The impact he received from learning about all of the rule-breaking weapons in the arsenal of the Crona Lords had faded.

He even began to look forward to the reaction of the Crona Lords when they found out that their attackers had already disabled all of their hidden weapons beforehand!

Such a realization would definitely strike another huge blow to the confidence of the pirates!

Once they finished going over the plan, Ves moved on the last point on the agenda.

"By the way, what kind of plunder can we expect from capturing this base?"

"Well, Xiphard Base has stockpiled a large amount of Kanevit bars." Calabast answered. "Though the wealth isn't impressive to the Larkinson Clan, it's the most widely-accepted currency in the Nyxian Gap, which will definitely be useful in our subsequent operations."

Kavenit was not an exceptionally valuable exotic. Ves did not look enthused. "Skip the bulk materials and get to the good stuff. Have you found any B-stones?"

"Surprisingly, Lucky did stumble across three of them. Your cat found each of them in the bedrooms of Supreme Lord Roda and two other senior officers."

"Three?! Are you sure?!"

"They're smaller than the last rock you obtained, but they are still sizable."

This was fantastic news! The more B-stone he obtained, the greater his defenses against spiritual phenomena. Since Ves was unsure whether he could even obtain B-stones outside of the Komodo Star Sector or in the Red Ocean, gathering them all up was one of his highest priorities!