The Mech Touch novel Chapter 7410

Chapter 7410: Native Alien Superdrives

Ves actually knew that the Terrans secretly thought about solving the physicality problem of Woodsap mech pilots by turning to an unconventional source of help.

However, the Terrans strangely kept this initiative out of their reports.

He found that very peculiar. He felt tempted to address this matter, but he refrained from doing so at this time.

Ves knew that the Terrans always put great care in their actions. If they kept out an important initiative from their reports, then they had good reasons to do so. They likely did not want to mention any of it over an unsecure communication channel.

Perhaps the Terrans may decide to enlighten him when he arrived at his destination.

As the Bluejay Fleet continued to traverse across the territories of the Terran Alliance, it frequently came across scenes of both prosperity and panic.

The colonists and clans who originated from the Greater Terran United Confederation had been wealthy beyond reason.

When they chose to pack up their bags and emigrate to the new frontier, they often brought more than they strictly needed to start up a new life. Many of them understood that they could make much better use of the boundless new opportunities if they possessed an abundant amount of capital and assets.

Though it was true that the Great Severing had bankrupted many pioneers and organizations that had relied too heavily on support from the old galaxy, those that had truly committed to the Red Ocean mostly managed to find their footing in the new age.

Now, many of them had become entrepreneurs and industrialists who rode the wave of militarism throughout human-occupied space.

Civilian industries suffered a steep decline as the needs of the military outweighed ordinary comforts.

A large amount of regional trade and shipping had been established around strategic port systems and industrial systems throughout the various zones.

Of course, the closer to the frontlines, the greater the prevalence of armed convoys.

The native aliens keenly understood how much their human foes depended on logistics to sustain their warmaking potential.

Much of the resistance at the frontlines could be attributed to how well the humans could supply their flagging defenders with fresh troops and supplies!

In fact, when the Bluejay Fleet exited FTL travel in a star system that was situated close to the frontlines, many long-ranged sensor systems immediately picked up the presence of alien raiders, most of which consisted of relatively common modest-sized nunser homeships.

It was a relatively modest force comprising about a dozen sub-capital ships and a few companies of phasefighters.

The Bluejay Fleet could easily crush this hostile force, but the problem was that they were separated by a distance of over 5 light-hours.

"Can we catch up to them?" Ves asked from the moment he arrived at the command center of the Tarrasque.

Admiral Gori Tensen maintained a tense expression. "It depends. The native aliens of today are not the same as the ones we fought at the start of the Red War. We know from prior intelligence that the Cosmopolitan Movement has leaked the designs of our superdrives to the major alien races of the Red Ocean years ago. The native aliens have been relatively slow to adopt our tech, mostly because they are unfamiliar with Milky Way-style FTL drives. However, they are too enamored by their speeds to hold themselves back for long. They have already begun to install them onto their core fleets as well as many of their commerce raiding flotillas."

Depending on their ratings and other factors, FTL drives and by extension superdrives did not necessarily have to be expensive to produce. So long as the native aliens understood their technological principles, it should be easy enough to adapt the new drives to their existing homeships.

However, most of the major alien races had a huge amount of vessels. They did not have the production capacity to upgrade all of their hulls throughout the entire dwarf galaxy. The enemy leaders could only set priorities and focus on upgrading the ships of greater importance and most in need.

This was why most alien raiding fleets still relied on old and outdated warp drives.

The various alien civilizations did not bother to upgrade these aging hulls with modern superdrives because they were bound to get destroyed shortly after assaulting human-occupied space!

This actually gave many people the impression that the native aliens were terribly slow at adopting new technologies.

While there was a kernel of truth in this assumption, it did not apply equally to every alien group.

The raiding fleets surprisingly received priority on this particular upgrade.

This was the only way for them to become effective at their jobs.

Not only could they easily catch up to slow and bulky transportation vessels, they could also outrun most human retaliation forces!

Given that this particular alien raiding force had penetrated relatively further into Terran space than was typical, there was a great chance that its vessels were all equipped with superdrives.

Granted, the quality and performance of those superdrives were probably mediocre at best. The native aliens still treated their raiding ships as disposable, after all. The ships only had to inflict enough damage and disruption to human shipping before they inevitably got cornered and shot to pieces.

The question now was whether the Bluejay Fleet should intervene.

"It is not worth the effort for us to pursue this enemy force." Admiral Tensen ultimately judged. "We can easily clean them up by sending a handful of giants aboard a squadron of fast ships, but the pursuit will last for days if not weeks. I have no doubt that our fastest vessels will be able to catch up by virtue of their superior superdrives and technologies, but we will miss their presence when we have already started our incursion into hostile territory."

Ves thought about it. Leaving this raiding flotilla alone might end up causing damage to nearby Terran convoys. Not all of them were large enough to be able to fend off a hostile force of this size.

Nonetheless, the Bluejay Fleet had its own mission. It was not responsible for defending Terran space per se. The Terran Alliance was responsible for its own internal security.

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