The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

"The Fey Fianna is the next evolution of living mechs!"

The next evolution of living mechs!

As the sharp lighting of Phoca Arena lit up the contours and part of the surface of the newly unveiled Fey Fiannas, the attendees developed high expectations for this new product.

If Ves failed to meet those exaggerated expectations, then he was bound to suffer a serious blow to his reputation.

This could not be allowed to happen!

Ves believed so much in his new product that he was willing to put his credibility at stake!

The new Fey Fiannas did not remain motionless. They moved their limbs and took a few steps forward to demonstrate their fluidity and ease of movement.

The sharp lights caused the new mechs to alternate in shadow and light. Nobody with normal eyes were able to gain a clear view of the new machines, but that made them look all the more impressive!

The contours of the Fey Fianna appeared to be fairly rounded and soft.

This was a small deviation of Ves1 visual design language.

Normally, he preferred to blend rounded surfaces with a modicum of sharper angles. The blend between geometric angles and organic human-like shapes elegantly symbolized the merger between life and mechs.

Ves chose to lean more towards an organic visual design this time. The Fey Fianna were more alive than any other mech he had designed up to this point.

It was not only the most advanced implementation of a living mech, but its very name and theme also evoked the image of the mythical fey prancing in a forest.

The 9 Fey Fiannas were all coated in mottled green. Each of the three distinct variants on display possessed different accents and markings to distinguish them from each other.

The Standard Edition of the Fey Fianna possessed the fewest bells and whistles. Its exterior held the least amount of markings, making it seem as if it could blend into any arboreal environment.

What was regrettable was that the fey did not resemble their namesakes. They were shaped more like traditional egg-shaped constructs. While they were far more rounded than the angular Sparrows of the Sparrow Storm, as Ves had clearly chosen function over style in this case.

The Elite Edition obviously looked to be a step up from the Standard Edition. Its superior materials and tech led to many subtle changes to the quasi-first-class mech design. Its exterior bore more silver accents in order to differentiate this particular variant better. Even the formula of its coating had been upgraded to a much more superior one that was much more resistant to damage!

The Larkinson Edition looked like a reskinned version of the Elite Edition. On the surface, the mech utilized nearly identical high-quality parts as the previous variant, but there were subtle indications that it was even more powerful than the other variants as its phasewater content was significantly higher.

As far as appearances went, the Larkinson Edition not only bore the golden emblem of the Larkinson Clan, but also came with red accents that added a touch of aggression to the design!

Ves did not have to present the Larkinson Edition to the public. The mech possessed additional advantages that were only exclusive to the strongest variant of the new mech line.

However, Ves kept the possibility of challenges into account.

If other mech companies chose to stand up and issued their challenges, then he wanted to make sure that he would still have his best and most combat capable Fey Fiannas on hand!

Of course, it would be better if Ves did not have to reveal their special traits in this public event. The aliens were clearly keeping an eye on human civilization, so it became more difficult to preserve the element of surprise.

After the Fey Fiannas left an unforgettable impression in people's minds, Ves began to explain their basic properties.

"The Fey Fianna is a new line of living mechs that is currently split up into three variants, of which two of them are available for sale or on commission. The Standard Edition is a premium hyper drone mech that is fairly light and mobile without its fey. The armor system of this edition is made out of a cost-efficient combination of alloys that incorporates water-attributed hypers for additional sturdiness and protection."

Tables filled with basic technical data came into view. Laymen had no clue of what the numbers meant, but the mech designers among the viewers all understood the essence of the defenses of the mechs at a glance.

Ves put Beatrice Hendrix in charge of designing the defenses of the Fey Fianna. Her design philosophy centered around Adaptive Modular Armor Systems, so the physical protection of the mech could be rearranged on the fly.

The Fey Fianna was not an ideal mech for recently recruited Journeyman Mech Designer. Beatrice was able to do much more with modular armor systems if there was a lot more mass and armor plates at her disposal.

When she was assigned to a mech design that only had room for relatively light and thin armor, she had little choice but to make the best out of a bad situation.

In order to limit the cost of the Fey Fianna, the mech did not feature a battle skirt like the Maiden of Adversity.

The drone mech featured very little redundant modular armor plates, so if any of them broke, the mech's internals became exposed.

There were several reasons why this wasn't as bad as it looked.

Ves flew closer to a Standard Fey Fianna and put his hand onto one of the small armor plates.

The modular nature of the machine was hardly obvious on the surface as Beatrice Hendrix did a good job at hiding the seams.

"The custom-developed modular armor system of the Fey Fianna is designed with a focus on efficiency and maximization of limited assets." He explained. "The rapid and precise redeployment of modular armor plating can effectively increase the damage tolerance of this mech without burdening it with excess mass that can slow it down. While the Fey Fianna is largely designed to rely on its superior mobility to avoid getting hit in the first place, light to moderate attacks will not easily be able to damage the internals so long as the modular armor system is given enough time to respond."

Ves slapped the surface of the mech, causing it to demonstrate this capacity on the spot.

A projected rifleman mech came into view. It raised its gauss rifle and fired a single powerful round at the Fey Fianna!

Bang!

The simulated attack struck the midsection of the Fey Fianna. The modular plates located over there fell out of the mech as if they truly shattered into pieces.

Before the rifleman mech could fire a second gauss round, the same quantity of modular armor plates detached from the rear of the Fey Fianna and quickly filled up the sensitive gap at the front!

Bang!

The same spectacle repeated again.

Bang!

And again.

Bang!

And again.

The repeated redeployments of the modular armor plating showed how fast and reliable they responded to a dangerous situation.

So far, the demonstration certainly highlighted the ability for the Fey Fianna to cover up its weak points, but many mechs equipped with modular armor systems could do the same.

This was why additional simulated enemy mechs came into existence. They all fired their weapons at the singled-out Fey Fianna, causing the mech to lose a lot more modular armor plates than before.

Yet no matter how its defenses got stressed, the adaptive modular armor plating all removed themselves from the limbs or from the rear that wasn't being threatened at the moment.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Modular armor plating fell down like drops of rain, yet more of them flew in order to close all of the newly formed gaps.

Of course, the Fey Fianna could not keep this up forever. Its nonessential limbs and rear section soon lost all of the modular armor plating that they could spare.

Once the drone mech received more hits at this junction, it could only reposition the modular plates at the front, which would just expose other critical weak points to the opposing mechs!

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Yet just as the armor coverage at the front of the torso became stripped, additional modular armor plates flew from other directions!

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

No matter how many times the enemy rifleman mechs fired their weapons, the Fey Fianna benefited from a seemingly limitless of spare modular armor plates, enabling it to weather attacks that was far in excess of what an ordinary mech was able to withstand in this situation!

Another rifleman mech appeared in view. This one was clearly more dangerous as it was armed with a much more dangerous transphasic energy rifle!

Just as it took aim and prepared to fire its much deadlier firearm, the vulnerable Fey Fianna adopted a much more different defensive arrangement.

A much greater quantity of plates appeared and stacked on top of each other, thereby creating a temporary multi-layered chest plate that happened to cover all of the essential internal components!

If that wasn't enough, the Fey Fianna also began to channel more water energy.

Since each modular armor plate contained a modest amount of water hyper materials, the ensemble gained a strange form of empowerment that gave off the illusion of a body of water.

BANG!

The simulated transphasic gauss round 'tore' through multiple modular armor plates in an instant, but lost more energy and penetration power as it went deeper.

The round finally stalled as the final layer of armor successfully bled the projectile of all of its forward momentum!

This was a more impressive display to the audience. The speed, precision and most importantly the prediction of the incoming trajectory of the Fey Fianna in response to such a dangerous threat could save actual lives on the battlefield!

Many mech pilots who only had the option of piloting mechs with traditional armor systems all grew jealous at the Fey Fianna.

For those who piloted machines with lighter armor, the ability to dynamically plug weak points could be a lifesaver in the right situations!

"This is but a brief demonstration of the dynamic defensives of the Fey Fianna." Ves remarked with a smile before gesturing at the surrounding mechs and fey. "As you can see, a mech under fire does not have to rely on the modular armor plates attached to its own frame for additional protection. When necessary, it can draw from the exact same type of armor plates from its own fey, thereby choosing to give up on protecting them in favor of saving what is truly important."

Ves gestured to the neighboring Fey Fiannas that had lost a portion of their modular armor plating.

"Although we do not recommend it, different Fey Fiannas can dynamically transfer modular armor plates to each other at short ranges. Secure protocols that require the permissions and active participation of both the mech pilots and the living mechs will ensure that this will not cause Fey Fiannas to get stripped of their protection for no reason. If you cannot trust the reliability of this sharing system, then you can deactivate this function on a hardware level. No one will be able to hijack your modular armor plates in that case."

This was not enough to reassure those who were paranoid about this sort of stuff. One of the reasons why modular armor systems weren't ubiquitous was because there was always the chance that they could get hacked or jammed to the point where they became useless.

Modular armor systems were also costlier and more fragile, but Ves had chosen to pair them with the Fey Fiannas anyway because the fit was too good.

With the ability to draw out modular armor plating from both the main body and the accompanying fey, the survivability of this new mech model should be considerably higher than the norm!