The Mech Touch

The party commenced.

Shuttles and other craft ferried boarding party after boarding party to the many disabled but reasonably intact alien warships across the battlefield.

Some of the large but irresponsible alien hulls had to be towed in order to stop them from drifting away and getting crushed by nearby asteroids.

The attempts to secure the interior of all of the vessels did not always proceed smoothly. Different pirate groups tended to adopt all manner of defenses to protect their greatest assets.

Some of the alien races and individuals were also much better armed and armored. Combined with the fact that certain species were much stronger infantry combatants than humans also produced a lot of human casualties.

Yet no matter how many troopers got injured or died, the morale among the soldiers never dipped.

Each of them were grateful for putting their long hours of training to good use. For once, the mechs no longer stole the entire show.

As the boarding parties steadily cleared the alien warships, more teams arrived.

The combat engineers and other specialists began to tackle every hazard before they harmed the ships even further. The specialists also cataloged every valuable resource or piece of alien technology for future retrieval.

Some of the teams dispatched by other pioneering groups didn't even wait for retrieval parties to pick up the loot. They already started to claim their trophies and grab anything that looked shiny and valuable enough.

It didn't matter if they refrained from surrounding their shiny loot to their respective organizations.

There was so much plunder that no one was able to swallow it all! Their fleets simply didn't offer enough cargo space to raid everything of value!

This was why everyone prioritized the smallest and most portable valuables!

Crates filled with high tech gear and exotic alloys continued to fill the holds of various transports.

Some of the pioneering groups even tried to secure as many alien prisoners as possible.

This wasn't always easy as there were plenty of hostile alien pirates that fought to the end rather than surrender themselves to the mercy of the humans.

The Lehrer Foundation happened to be especially enthusiastic about capturing live alien specimens!

The greater the variety of species, the better!

In the meantime, the assault on the Palace of Shame also attracted a lot of attention.

The only complication was that much of the large asteroid had been sundered in order to attack the unclean whale that had been buried in the middle of its structure.

Many halls and chambers either collapsed or had been wiped out entirely due to incurring a lot of damage.

Kilometer-sized pieces had also broken loose and floated away from the larger hole.

Whatever was left of the asteroid was largely broken and riddled with holes.

Even then, there were still a lot of intact sections left that harbored plenty of valuable goods.

Many troops began to enter the more intact but still fairly hazardous remains of the Palace of Shame. They neutralized every surviving alien force in their way and began to loot anything that looked valuable enough.

The human troopers encountered plenty of dangers throughout their search, but many of the intrusions yielded a lot of profit as shuttles became filled with precious exotics, powerful alien gear and most importantly phasewater.

Of course, the greatest prize of all was the alien creature that was at the heart of it all. The enormous carcass of the unclean whale was a precious treasure in itself, and much of it held great value to the pioneering groups!

Pretty much everyone was interested in the abundant amounts of phasewater spread throughout the body. They were largely concentrated in specialized organs that were responsible for generating different phasewater abilities, but there were also trace amounts of phasewater concentrated in the massive creature's blood!

If not for the fact that the concentration was awfully low, everyone would have scrambled to bleed and cut up the carcass in order to squeeze out every single drop.

In any case, disputes immediately broke out about how to divide the loot. Though the pioneering groups had all signed an agreement that outlined the loot distribution beforehand, it was not so easy to determine everyone's exact contributions to the battle.

The Gemini Family for all of its perceived faults still deserved a double share for organizing Operation Lighthouse in the first place. None of the others would have been in a position to vanquish one of the rare cannibals of the phase whale race if not for the solicitation from the Geminis.

That said, none of their temporary allies had any desire to hand additional loot to them. The Embodiment of Love and the Embodiment of Sacrifice may have shown great strength in battle, but neither of them played a crucial role in overcoming the challenges they faced.

The Santana Group and the Golden Skull Alliance had played substantially greater roles over the course of the battles. Without their help, the temporary coalition might have lost the battle!

Although none of the pioneers denied this truth, there was still a lot of room to determine how much their contributions were worth.

After a tense and heated round of negotiations, the pioneering groups came to a consensus on how to split the overall loot.

The Gemini Family earned 2 shares, just as previously agreed.

The Santana Group earned 1.25 shares on account of the Thunderer Mark II's incredibly high damage contribution. Their ace heavy artillery mech had been the most suitable war machine to fight against the natives of the Red Ocean.

The Golden Skull Alliance was entitled to receive 1.5 shares due to its powerful interventions that either wiped out a lot of enemies at once or created crucial openings that led to the defeat of powerful opponents.

The Adelaide Mercenary Company, the Lehrer Foundation and the Boojay Family all had to make do with 1 share each.

Their forces had definitely pulled their own weight, but they did not perform greater than expected. They merely did their jobs, and that was enough.

"Only 1.5 shares?" Ves furrowed his brows. "Are those guys crazy? It's because of me that we managed to kill the unclean whale in the first place! None of our vaunted ace mechs had been able to punch through the defenses of that beast in the first place. I employed an incredibly powerful trump card to breach our final opponent's spatial barrier. Aren't we entitled to greater compensation after I expended this strategic resource?"

The projection of Minister Shederin Purnesse looked stoic.

"This is the best we can do, sir. The extra 0.5 share bestowed on us is the extent of the respect and gratitude that the remainder of the coalition is willing to give. It would be too shameless for the pioneers to deny us this much. After that… well, any further unity has to make way for naked self-interest. The greater our share, the less the others are able to claim for themselves. It is not in their interest to reduce their own benefits. This has been a costly battle for everyone involved, and do not forget that we have earned the ire of the Geminis. Their lack of support played a crucial role ruling out any further share increases."

Ves grunted in disappointment. "I get it. I truly wish that we could have secured more rewards, but that big whale was too dangerous to be left alive. Are there any signs that the coalition is falling apart?"

As soon as the immediate crisis had passed, Nitaa and the rest of the honor guard 'insisted' that Ves should pay a visit to the labs of the Dragon's Den in order to check up on his new condition.

He was in no position to refuse.

This was why he had been stripped of his Unending Regalia before being stuffed inside an all-round scanning chamber.

Ves could feel the scanning rays trying to pass through his body so that they could generate useful readings.

Unfortunately for the doctors and biotech researchers employed by the Larkinson Biotech Institute, his new camouflage capabilities probably scrambled every form of intrusive inspections.

This caused him to remain stuck in this chamber for a longer time than normal.

The clansmen at least allowed him to keep in touch with the leaders of his clan.

"Everything is stable… for the time being." Minister Shederin Purnesse reported. "Openly, there is little appetite for breaking off relations. Anyone who dares to assume a confrontational stance will quickly be met with united opposition from the remaining groups. That doesn't mean that plots may be brewing in the dark. You would have to speak with Director Calabast to report her findings on this matter."

Ves had no doubt that such activities were taking place, but that didn't necessarily mean that former allies would come to blows. Everyone had already dealt with more than enough trouble. They had little appetite for more close shaves. No one wanted to suffer greater casualties and loss of materiel just to prevent their rivals from claiming their own shares.

Ves talked a bit more with Shederin. While neither of them was afraid that the other pioneering groups would turn on the Golden Skull Alliance, they were greatly concerned about missing out on valuable pieces of loot.

There were still many ways the other groups could secretly abscond with entire containers filled with phasewater. This was why all of the looting parties increasingly had to be accompanied by observers hailing from the other pioneering groups.

Ves was glad to hear that no one acted outrageously, though the looting spree was still at an early phase.

"What is our progress in carving up the body of the unclean whale?"

"It remains a point of contention, sir." Minister Shederin said. "There are groups in favor of keeping the carcass as whole as possible. The MTA rewards more for intact specimens. The mechers will award significantly less MTA merits for a whale that has been chopped in many different pieces."

Ves frowned. "We have enough MTA merits."

Compared to MTA merits, Ves would much rather get his hands on lots of phase whale biomatter.

Even if he could only obtain the relatively inadequate body parts of a delinquent whale this time, that was still a step up from astral beast and fish-whale biomatter! Ves didn't even need the expertise of a biotech expert to be able to determine the approximate value of the enormous carcass and all of its organs.

"The Geminis, Adelaides, Santanas and Boojays want to keep the carcass whole, but they have reluctantly given us and the Lehrers permission to cut the body parts that will make up our respective shares."

"Hm, sounds reasonable. What do the Lehrers want the most?"

"The Lehrer Foundation is especially keen on claiming the brains and nerves of the whale carcass." Minister Shederin told Ves. "Aside from that, they have selectively tried to claim several whole phasewater organs that are still intact. While they have tried to take samples of as many different organs and other discrete alien tissue as possible, they have fought hard on these two priorities."

Ves furrowed his brows. "That is what I have instructed our clan to secure as well."

"Great minds think alike, it seems."

"It will be annoying to compete against the Lehrers for the same stuff." Ves grumbled.

The only good point was that the unclean whale was enormous. The dead creature contained plenty of organs and other powerful flesh that still remained relatively undamaged. All of them held great value, especially to the parties that knew how to put them to good use in their own research projects!

Ves had great plans for all of that unclean whale flesh. He had made sure to send a somewhat detailed list of specifications on what sort of whale meat he wanted to secure.

If his clan secured enough high-quality materials, he might be able to develop an interesting biomech in the near future…