The Mech Touch

After a quiet journey through the Majestic Teal Star Sector, the expeditionary fleet had become engulfed in another incident!

This time, the cause and effect weren't immediately clear. The Golden Skull Alliance fleet had not done anything special at the time that six of its starships blew up without any chance of recovery.

Suffice to say, the Larkinsons, Glory Seekers and Crossers had become incredibly alarmed! They had all raised the alert level to red and sortied every single mech that they could bring into space.

Thousands of mechs belonging to many different mech forces joined the patrols that had already become a lot more vigilant for possible attacks.

In the end, a total of roughly 9,000 mechs of the Golden Skull Alliance had entered full battle readiness, which was several thousand more than Ves expected. While the amount of available mechs his clan could deploy at this time was still limited, his two allies had been working quite hard to raise their effective strength.

What gave him a sense of comfort was the Infinity Guards putting their own mechs into the field. The thousands of spaceborn mechs that emerged from their combat carriers might not be up to military standard, but the deterrent they possessed was far greater than their actual battle strength.

No one sane in the star cluster wanted to mess with the Star Strider Security Group. This should especially be the case now that the expeditionary fleet had entered Winged Serenade. The headquarters and several powerful fleets of the powerful mercenary organization were based in this star sector!

Yet the chunks of debris spreading out in all directions were not illusions. Six starships blew up without warning. Not just logistical ships, but also a combat carrier became swept by explosions from within!

This was an incredibly frightening attack for multiple reasons. The Glory Seekers and the Cross Clan weren't known for their sloppiness. Both of them abided by military standards of the states they came from and did not slack off in their security measures. It should have been impossible for saboteurs to plant enormous bombs within the hulls of several starships!

From an engineering standpoint, a typical bomb could ruin a few compartments at most. Anything that was more powerful than that should have been large and noticeable enough to be detected ahead of time. This was particularly the case for the bombs that rent the combat carrier apart. It took extreme force to shatter a combat carrier's entire hull!

Yet for some reason, these extremely powerful bombs remained undetected until someone finally detonated them at once.

"If they can blow up six of our vessels, they can blow up twelve of our vessels!"

When Ves raced to the bridge, Nitaa quickly retrieved a case mounted on the back of her heavy armor and threw it on the deck.

The case unfolded and turned into an open suit of combat armor behind Ves' back. Within seconds, the armor engulfed his body and covered him completely except for his head.

Though he was still conscious of the possibility that there might be assassins or infiltrators about the Spirit of Bentheim, he felt that the odds of this possibility coming true was too low.

Even if he misjudged, he had nothing to worry about. The bridge of the capital ship was one of the most secure compartments in the fleet. His honor guard were on full alert and kept very watchful eyes on every crew member sitting behind their consoles and workstations.

Minutes later, the blast doors to the bridge opened just enough to allow Calabast and her pet to squeeze inside.

The spymaster hadn't bothered to don any battle gear. She quickly strode to the Larkinson patriarch's side and began to give him a short briefing just as she was receiving lots of new information from her Black Cats.

"Tell me what is going on." Ves asked.

Sabotage and infiltration was Calabast's specialty, so it was better to get a situation report from her rather than General Verle.

The general was probably too busy directing the mech forces to spare much time to entertain Ves anyway. Now that they had entered a dangerous period, the professionals should be allowed to do their jobs without getting pestered with too many questions.

Even Calabast was busy commanding her own force of spies and security personnel. She was just a lot better at multitasking with the help of her advanced implant and impeccable training.

"It doesn't look good for the Glory Seekers and the Cross Clan." She began with a troubled voice. "While I am still in the dark about the party who attacked us, the simultaneous detonations make it very clear we are dealing with one organization with hostile intentions towards our entire fleet. What concerns me is that this hidden group has managed to infiltrate our alliance to such a deep extent that its agents managed to plant powerful bombs while circumventing every security measure designed to stop these kinds of plots from going through."

Ves had a phobia for enemies in the dark. As long as he could anticipate a threat, he could form targeted contingency plans in order to manage his risks.

It was a different story when the enemy was too good at hiding! Ves could only form some general plans and hoped they fit the situation. He could not make any more specific preparations or warn his guards and soldiers to watch out for specific attack methods.

A few concerning fears went through his mind.

"Freeze all ongoing production operations aboard the Spirit of Bentheim!" Ves commanded. "Keep this ship locked down even if the alert level is lifted. We need to sweep our entire flagship for signs of sabotage. I don't care if we'll delay our journey a bit. Please pay special attention to all recent shipments of minerals and other goods!"

"On it, sir! The production halls have already stopped production, but we will lock it down to the greatest degree."

Calabast nodded in approval. "This is a good precaution. The reason why those Glory Seeker and Crosser ships exploded without warning is because there were multiple chains of failure aboard those vessels. A traitor is behind each and every chain. The Glory Seekers and the Cross Clan both carry tens of thousands of personnel aboard their starships, so it is impossible to ensure that each of them are honest. Yet it is not so easy for our hidden enemies to plant so many infiltrators in a single ship."

The fact that this had likely taken place meant that there had to be some high-ranked traitors within both organizations. Otherwise, how could that unknown person concentrate a sufficient amount of saboteurs on specific vessels?

While Ves generally didn't bother to think about the internal affairs of his allies, right now he had grown quite annoyed at their lapses!

"You can't blame them for slipping up." Calabast said. She obviously sympathized with her counterparts in the other two organizations. "The Glory Seekers and Crossers don't have our.. advantages. Aside from very rare exceptions like the one that has beset you on Prosperous Hill VI, it is too difficult for any of our clansmen to develop nefarious thoughts and get away with it. Combined with the fact that there are no non-Larkinsons aboard our starships, the only feasible way to sabotage them is to insert infiltrators into them, but a movement as big as blowing up an entire ship at once can't be done in this fashion."

The best way to ruin a ship was to have a traitor or two take advantage of their high-level permissions. Since it was practically impossible for the Larkinson Clan to have any traitors in their midst, this means had become completely invalid!

Ves relaxed a bit as he accepted this logic. The fact that no Larkinson vessel had blown up with the other ones was a clear indicator that this was likely the case.

That didn't mean that he completely let down his guard. His clansmen needed to stay sharp and guard against any follow-up attacks.

Yet as the minutes continued to pass, no enemy approached their fleet. The relatively quiet star system visited by the expeditionary fleet was just an ordinary low industrial planet. It didn't possess a lot of developed industries and there weren't many fleets within the star system at the moment.

Even after performing extensive scans in every direction, the fleet failed to detect any mech or ship within at least a light-hour around its current coordinates!

The alert level slowly lowered to yellow. Many mechs cautiously flew back to their motherships but half of the available mechs were still assigned to complete their hours-long guard missions.

Calabast had gathered a lot of information by now. She also performed extensive analyses and formed many guesses.

While she worked, Arnold comfortably laid on the deck before her feet. From time to time, the spymaster pushed her boot forward, causing its tip to push Arnold's over.

"Squeak squeak!"

The eight-legged exobeast didn't seem to mind getting pushed around. His chubby body eagerly crawled back forward so that he could lick Calabast's boots or rub his nose onto its glossy surface.

"Meow."

Lucky arrogantly turned his head away from the shameless sight. Arnold was a disgrace of a pet in his eyes. The exobeast was so weak that it couldn't even put up a decent fight against any cat.

Even Ves questioned why Calabast took a fancy for a weak and defenseless pet that only knew how to submit or run away.

"This attack doesn't make sense."

"Huh?" Ves turned to Calabast. "What makes you say that?"

"The planning and preparation for this wave of sabotage is quite extensive." She noted. "It is already difficult to plant bombs and keep them hidden on a single ship. The fact that it happened on six ships of two different forces is a sign of deliberate and strategic planning. If those ships blew up during a sensitive time, then the enemy who arranged it all could have inflicted considerable damage to us after triggering other attacks."

"Those follow-up attacks don't seem to be coming, at least for the moment."

"The best moment has already passed, Ves. It has become increasingly unlikely that whoever detonated the bombs had anything else in mind. That is also what makes this initial attack so perplexing. What goal does it achieve? What kind of benefit is worth losing the opportunity to inflict greater damage to our fleet at an inopportune time?"

These were good questions. Now that Ves started to think about this incident from the perspective of benefits and losses, it truly appeared that the masterminds hadn't advanced their interests with this sudden act.

The expeditionary fleet still retained virtually all of its strength. Though its journey was delayed by a bit, the delays generated from turbulent FTL travel were greater.

In fact, this isolated terrorist attack should be considered a loss for the attackers because the advantage of surprise had been wasted to achieve marginal results.

A sensible enemy who was powerful and competent enough to set this all in motion shouldn't have gone through all of that trouble just to inflict the equivalent of a bee sting to the expeditionary fleet.

Calabast widened her eyes a few minutes later. She had just received some explosive news that might explain what had happened to their fleet!

"You should see this, Ves."

Instead of explaining any further, she activated a news broadcast.

She tuned in on the main broadcast of Galaxy News One.

The news presenters projected in front of Ves and Calabast were reporting on a huge incident that had just broken out without warning!

[...We are receiving ongoing reports of sudden terrorist attacks of varying scales breaking out across human space. Every star cluster and star sector is beset by both small-scale attacks launched by isolated people and larger attacks orchestrated by larger organizations. The damage is incalculable and the losses are rapidly mounting across the Milky Way as well as the Red Ocean…]

The news networked showed several dramatic clips of footage.

In a wealthy state in the New Rubarth Empire, a noble descendant of the current emperor had lost his mind and used all of his potent arsenal to kill his own mother before beheading his sister!

In an average state in the galactic heartland, an entire mercenary corps that was relaxing on a resort planet had gone mad. All of its mechs violently slaughtered the tourists and locals who were working and having fun. Though the local Planetary Guard and some helpers quickly put down the murderous mercenaries, over 500,000 people had died!

In a simple town situated in the galactic rim, the core members of a small religious church turned into bloodthirsty madmen. They left their church and used all of the guns in their hands to kill every person they came across! If not for the fact that a retired veteran still had access to a cheap mech, these crazed fanatics could have slaughtered the entire population!

It seemed that many people across the galaxy and beyond had suddenly transformed into monsters who only cared about inflicting as much death and destruction as possible!

Many of the clips happened to catch a disturbingly common phrase uttered by all of the people that had gone mad.

[RETURN OUR STOLEN CROWN!]

[RETURN OUR STOLEN CROWN!]

[RETURN OUR STOLEN CROWN!]

Both Ves and Calabast looked flabbergasted at this civilization-wide development. Neither of them could imagine what had happened to cause so many people to utter the same phrase across so many locations.

Calabast slowly narrowed her eyes and gazed at Ves. "Did you happen to come into possession of a crown lately?"

"It wasn't me!" Ves innocently raised his hands. "I swear I did nothing this time! I'm truly innocent!"

"Meow!"

Lucky, who was still nesting atop Ves, also raised his paws in innocence!