The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

After several days of travel, the expeditionary fleet finally reached a quiet star system at the edge of the territory controlled by the Empire of the Lost.

Since this region was situated close to the border that led straight into dwarf territory, the Lost refrained from settling in the nearby star systems.

After all, who wanted to live right next door to a bunch of hateful dwarves? Even if the property prices were rock bottom, the Lost would have to be coerced in order to get them to live so close to a threat that still haunted their nightmares to this day!

As a result, there were lots of barren and even abandoned star systems which only hosted a large amount of automated listening posts and platforms.

When the fleet settled down after transitioning out of FTL travel, the Blinding Banshee immediately went to work and began to employ her formidable sensor arrays to sweep the surrounding spaces.

"What did you find?" Ves asked Calabast's projection as he sat on the bridge of the Spirit of Bentheim.

"Well, we managed to detect a large amount of passive and active listening devices, all of them automated." The spymaster responded. "None of them are within several light-seconds close to us so it is unlikely that the Lost have anything that can break our interference methods. We expected the Lost to deploy a lot of warning devices in this buffer territory, but the quantity of them surprises us. We have already detected over a hundred-thousand of them so far and it is highly likely that the true quantity is at least a hundred times more."

That did sound excessive. Space might be empty for the most part, but it was a considerably hostile environment. Any device floating in space or embedded into asteroids for long periods of time tended to get bombarded by all manner of space hazards. Radiation, solar winds, dust grains and other space junk could easily knock these sensors out at any time.

Each of them needed to be repaired or replaced on a regular basis. While the wealthier states usually set up an automated repair system where bots constantly addressed any problems on an ongoing basis, even that came with its issues.

Of course, none of this was particularly relevant to Ves and the Larkinson Clan. They only needed to be aware that the Empire of the Lost cared a lot about what went on in their buffer region.

"Will this be a problem?"

Calabast shook her head. "No. We'll just have to deploy more interference bots and take a few more precautions, that's all. Distant sensors won't pose any threat to our information security. It's only when they get close that things can get tricky, but we're currently in the outer system of a barren star system. It's too uneconomical for the Empire of the Lost to saturate so much volume of space with short-range listening devices."

"Will it be safe for us to try out our new expert mechs?"

She nodded. "Just make sure the expert pilots don't go overboard. The long-range sensors can still pick up huge spikes of energy."

"I'll be sure to take that into account."

The initial deployments were still allowed to proceed. The expert pilots had already grown impatient and Ves deemed it important for them to familiarize themselves with their new war machines.

The Larkinson Army deployed its mechs and bots in large numbers yet again to ready the field.

This time, the Avatars of Myth and several other mech legions took a backseat.

A noticeable number of Vandals, Swordmaidens and Heavensworders deployed this time in order to witness and support their favorite heroes. The enthusiasm among their personnel was palpable as they entered formation or started their patrols.

Nothing could be allowed to interrupt the inaugural deployments of their greatest mech pilots!

One of the more noteworthy mech pilots that deployed in space this time was Commander Casella Ingvar of the Living Sentinels.

The Quint appeared a little more remarkable when piloted by the female expert candidate. Though the highest leaders such as General Verle and Patriarch Ves no longer paid much attention to the masterwork Bright Warrior these days, it was still an exquisite masterwork mech in its own right!

"Do you feel it, Quint?" She asked as she closed her eyes.

After a short wait, the expert mechs began to show up in force.

The Dark Zephyr launched into space first. The dark, lithe expert mech was hardly noticeable as it silently flew out with minimal disturbance. Though the expert light skirmisher had long been overshadowed by the newer and flashier expert mechs, Venerable Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson did not particularly seek the limelight in the first place.

"I hope I won't get beaten by the other two though." He whispered to himself. "I can probably run circles around Venerable Orfan's lumbering mech, but that new expert swordsman mech is a lot trickier…"

The Amaranto showed up next. Its red frame along with its shining crystalline rifle caused it to draw way more attention than desirable. Usually, rifleman mechs weren't supposed to draw too much attention to themselves.

Unfortunately, it was not possible to make the sniper-oriented expert mech more discreet when its principal design spirit was the Illustrious One. This turned the Amaranto into a rather eccentric machine that eschewed silent threats for more overt pressure.

Any mech pilot who took a good glance at this expert mech would immediately conclude that they did not want to be targeted by the business end of its rifle! The luminar crystal rifle looked so powerful and luminous that people began to feel blinded if they stared at it for too long!

Back in a control room aboard the Spirit of Bentheim, Ves took a look at his own work and silently compared it to Ketis' work.

He sighed. "I guess I'm not suited to take luminar crystal technology to the next level."

He had already chosen his specialty. It was not for nothing that his previous masterwork mechs were all machined that were characterized by their living qualities. This was the aspect that excited him the most.

Though luminar crystals were spiritually reactive to a degree, they did not appear to be alive in the same way as Ves preferred. He also lacked passion in essential fields such as optics, crystallography, energy weapon systems and many other subjects.

Only a mech designer dedicated to energy weapons could elevate luminar crystal technology to the next level. This was why he deliberately pushed his student Zanthar in this direction.

"If I want to make more masterworks by myself, I need to focus more on my own specialty." He reminded himself.

This was one of the lessons he learned after witnessing Ketis succeed and quizzing her about it afterwards.

Though there was much that she wasn't able to put into words, Ves still understood that the combination between her passion, commitment, expertise and maybe other factors were crucial to pushing her beyond her usual limitations.

It was hard for mech designers to generate such a strong degree of obsession for designs that didn't fire them up that much.

"Maybe this is the true advantage of narrow specializations."

By giving up on becoming good at designing a large swathe of mech designs, people like Ketis were able to save all of their energy and enthusiasm for the few types of mechs that did strike their fancy.

In fact, the same effect applied to Gloriana to an extent. Every expert mech design project was an opportunity for her to employ her design philosophy to the fullest. If not for the fact that they were working on multiple expert mech design projects at a time, she would have been able to maximize her passion for each of them instead of having to ration it like now.

Ves briefly glanced at his pregnant wife. Once she had gotten over the fact that she rightfully missed out on making a masterwork mech last time, she turned back to normal and exhibited genuine curiosity about the performance of their latest two expert mech designs.

Once the first two expert mechs took up their positions, the moment that everyone had been waiting for had finally arrived.

The third expert mech of the Larkinson Clan finally activated and emerged from the hangar bay of the Spirit of Bentheim accompanied by an explosion of energy and ferocity!

"Whoa!"

The Vanguard Project had come online and flew out into space in a loud fashion. Its shaky blue resonance shield wobbled while the resonance strength meters wobbled intensely.

An alert quickly sounded in the control room. The mech designers and the various analysts immediately tried to figure out what was wrong.

"Venerable Rosa Orfan isn't exerting enough control over her new expert mech!"

"Her life signs are rising! She's enduring a lot of stress and neural strain at the moment!"

"Tusa, Stark, be ready to intercept the Vanguard Project if Orfan isn't able to suppress her own machine." Ves commanded as he grew a little worried.

He feared that this might happen, though he never thought the chances were high. He felt glad that he decided to wait and reach an empty star system as opposed to conducting the first activation inside the Discentibus or Vivacious Wal.

Who knew how much damage those capital ships would incur if an expert mech went berserk inside their hulls!

"Damnit, Ves! What did you do with the Vanguard Project?!" Tusa shouted even as his Dark Zephyr flew closer in order to the straining expert mech.

Ves tried to figure out what was wrong with the Vanguard Project.

Unlike with the other expert mechs, the design spirit didn't play a major role in the Vanguard Project. Though Ves initially thought about employing Zeigra or a combination of him and other design spirits as the expert spearman mech's patrons, he eventually decided against this option.

Zeigra was a hostile design spirit and Ves had never forgotten about that. He had learned his lesson about feeding hidden dangers after dealing with Nyxie.

Though Zeigra received a lot of spiritual tribute these days due to the widespread use of his Doom Guard and Ferocious Piranha models, much of it was low in quality.

If Zeigra started receiving more high-quality spiritual feedback from expert pilots, then it might become one of his more powerful design spirits. That would make it much harder for Ves to keep the former Crown Cat in line!

Ves opted for a more boring selection instead. He picked Qilanxo because of her intimate relationship with Venerable Orfan and because the Vanguard Project possessed substantial defensive capabilities.

Qilanxo also watched over the First Sword for similar reasons, though her influence on the expert swordsman mech was even less.

"It's not the design spirit." He concluded.

He could vaguely tell that Qilanxo wasn't interfering at the moment. This was a struggle between the expert pilot and her expert mech.

"This is strange." Gloriana spoke up. "We briefly detected a similar struggle between Venerable Stark and the Amaranto, but it quickly went away. Why is Venerable Orfan struggling so much? The Vanguard Project is completely tailored for her use! The mech should welcome her company!"

"The Vanguard Project is also weaker than the Amaranto." Ves added. "It's not a masterwork either."

Venerable Tusa managed to control his Dark Zephyr with ease and he expected nothing different in the case of Venerable Orfan and her new expert mech. To see such a difficult struggle playing out in front of everyone's eyes was an unexpected complication that could easily turn into a disaster!

"Damnit, what's the problem?! Qilanxo, tell me what's going on! Do we need to worry?!"

The former sacred god wordlessly conveyed her message to him. His eyes narrowed as he digested what he received.

Gloriana turned to him and guessed what had happened. "What did the proto-god say?"

Ves waved his hand at the projection displaying the convulsing Vanguard Project. "Venerable Orfan is a prideful expert pilot. The Vanguard Project which we have designed with her inclinations in mind has turned into a prideful expert mech. Now… what do you think will happen when you put two prideful individuals together?"

"...Oh."

"Yeah. Maybe we should have thought about that beforehand."