The Mech Touch

6001 The Galactic Parity Plan

The Galactic Parity Plan was bound to change the political and racial divisions of the Red Ocean forever.

Golden Wing Mihael Pentaq cup with this grand plan because he had grown disillusioned at the Cosmopolitan Movement.

The man had fought for its great and righteous cause for over 3 centuries, only for nothing to happen.

As his long life began to enter its twilight years, the leader of the Fuchsia Cell eventually made the realization that he had never amounted to anything in his life.

So what if he managed to live for so long?

So what if he climbed his way up the ranks and took over the leadership of an entire cell?

The Cosmopolitan Movement still remained as unpopular among the stupid and prejudiced masses as ever!

Public opinion and support towards cosmopolitan ideals had not improved in any significant way.

In fact, recent events had caused the cosmopolitans to lose a substantial amount of sympathy!

The rise of the 'ancestral spirit' known as Caramond particularly proved to be a poisonous influence to red humanity.

From the moment he explosively cto life, the entity that bore the nof the most destructive human in history had single handedly raised the morale of a lot of doubting people!

Before the unexpected transformation of the Dominion of Man, a growing number of humans had turned into pragmatists. They understood that red humanity was far too outnumbered to win the Red War, and secretly formed plans to seek compromise or outright defect to the aliens!

While these defeatists had yet to join the Cosmopolitan Movement, they were prrecruits and could offer a lot of support to all of the cells operating inside human-occupied space.

Yet the rise of Caramond not only caused the pragmatists to abandon their nascent cosmopolitan inclinations, but also turned them into even more fanatical human supremacists!

Caramond's existence posed a huge threat to the Cosmopolitan Movement in the long run. His ideals and his growing influence over human society would make it harder for the various cells to establish contact with sympathizers and infiltrate powerful organizations.

Caramond's rise vindicated the Fuchsia Cell's decision to pursue a radically different strategy than before.

Power mattered.

Golden Wing Mihael Pentaq had becconvinced that the reason why the Cosmopolitan Movement never made any significant progress in its ultimate goal was because every cell constantly pursued cooperation first!

It was rather ironic that the Cosmopolitan Movement had never succeeded because of its relentless adherence towards a diplomatic approach.

It had been difficult for the Golden Wing to accept this painful fact. It had been even more difficult to convince other cosmopolitans that they had been working in the wrong direction all this time.

Fortunately for him, he managed to drum up enough support to enact his Galactic Parity Plan.

As Golden Wing Mihael and Brown Mandible Xiv-Nihar prepared to pass through the lock that led into the holding chamber, the man who received the precious companion spirit fruit eagerly explained the significance of his plan.

"You will be the agent who is tasked with conveying our success as well as our first efforts to expand our power. Once we are able to use this companion spirit fruit to take control of the Devourer Queen, we shall use her authority over the voribugs to overrun every significant star system, regardless of whether they are occupied by intelligent species or not. The voribugs multiply quickly, but their ability to conquer and hold territory has always been stymied by their inability to stop themselves from devouring the starships that they have infiltrated. As long as the Devourer Queen can force her voribugs into hibernation, we can quietly transport them to any destination without fear of losing our starships."

Although the Brown Mandible was not a part of the Fuchsia Cell, his involvement so far already allowed him to understand the gist of the Galactic Parity Plan.

Xiv-Nihar frowned.

"I already know that the conquest of the star systems in this region is an essential step towards building an independent polity under the control of your cell. I am afraid that the excessive killing may be counterproductive to your plan. If the Devourer Queen cannot maintain enough control over her voribugs, the insectile minions will engage in indiscriminate slaughter, causing many tragedies and fostering many new hatreds among the surviving aliens that have managed to escape the voribug tide. How will your new polity be able to invite the intelligent aliens to the negotiating table?"

"Through extortion." The Golden Wing excitedly grinned. "The soft approach will never work for the Red Cabal and the other major alien races. They consider cosmopolitans to be fools who they can freely take advantage of. We need to correct their mistaken impression by voicing our determination to wage a war that the alien community cannot afford to fight. Not all of the rules of diplomacy are invalid. Irrational hatreds can never supersede rational interests. As long as our voribugs continue to overrun a region of space where the aliens have transferred away much of their homeships, we shall ultimately force the Red Cabal to negotiate with us regardless of how much they despise our actions."

"And the unenlightened humans?"

"They require much more convincing before they are amenable to negotiation. I do not expect to be able to open up a dialogue with the Red Two, or the Red Three, in the foreseeable time. We may have to demonstrate our power and the utter helplessness of red humanity's ability to resist a coordinated tide of voribugs. We shall first need to conquer a sufficient amount of alien-held star systems to do so. We are currently located too deep in alien space."

Many cells established their bases far away from human-

occupied territory. That made them much less exposed to the humans that despised the Cosmopolitan Movement, but it also isolated the occupants of all of these secret bases.

"Be careful." The Golden Wing warned. "We are about to approach the Devourer Queen. Do not provoke her or address her directly. Lethandle communications. All of the hours I have spent at her side have allowedto earn a measure of her trust, but this is only relative. Whatever happens, do not panic."

"I am not a Yellow Shell. I have made contact with many people and aliens. Remaining calm and in control are essential qualities to Brown Mandibles." Xiv-Nihar defensively retorted.

The Cosmopolitan Movement had been hunted down for so long that its cells had learned to becas independent as possible.

This was why Brown Mandibles cinto being. They were among the very few individuals that facilitated and promoted inter-cell exchanges and coordination.

They served as the glue that kept the cells in touch with each other. The Brown Mandibles also monitored the cells they got in touch with and mobilized others to destroy any cell that had strayed too far from their collective goal.

Although the Fuchsia Cell had indeed deviated quite a lot from the principles and customs of the Cosmopolitan Movement, Golden Wing Mihael had no concerns about getting foiled by other cells.

His method may be a lot more crooked, but his intentions remained pure!

The fact that so many other cells had given the Fuchsia Cell crucial support meant that more cosmopolitans had becconvinced by his theory that they needed to accrue power first.

The Brown Mandible suddenly slowed down.

"Do you feel her? That is the magnitude of her psionic power or soul. Powerful, is it not? This is a manifestation of her extensive ability to control voribugs across multiple light-

hours. If not for the fact that we have lined this entire chamber with materials that can block and disrupt her attempts to establish control over other voribugs, she would have been able to summon a swarm to free her from captivity."

Xiv-Nihar looked partially impressed. "I have never heard of a beast that can control other organisms over interplanetary distances. How will you be able to make the Devourer Queen coordinate her voribugs across interstellar distances?"

"With the use of genetically modified voribugs." The Golden Wing answered. "We have experimented with adding many alien genes from a large variety of different species. We have finally managed to design an artificial voribug subspecies that can receive the Devourer Queen's psionic signals and amplify them before transmitting her commands over much larger distances."

"Will the Devourer Queen make use of them? From my understanding, voribugs are vehemently hostile towards any member of their species that have been unnaturally altered."

The Golden Wing frowned. "That has been a major obstacle to our plan. We cannot remove this instinct from their species. It is so well embedded into their genes that we have increasingly cto suspect that they are not natural. Our current theory is that they are an engineered biological war weapon that has somehow degenerated into their current state. It explains why their species contain so many protections that make it far too difficult to bring the insectile species under our control. This is why the companion spirit fruit is so crucial to us. It can force the voribugs to keep the relay voribugs and other modified variants of their species alive. The party that originally developed the voribugs must never have imagined that it is possible to circumvent all of those measures in this manner."

They finally cclose enough for the two of them to gain a very clear glimpse of the Devourer Queen.

She… looked utterly monstrous. Even the oldest elder voribugs only grew as large as human heads, which caused them to appear a lot less threatening. The voribugs had always been a species that relied on quantity to overpower their prey.

The Devourer Queen utterly broke that pattern. The Brown Mandible roughly estimated that the heavily mutated voribug 5 times as large as a heavy mech!

#$$&#$&!

The Brown Mandible resisted the urge to cry out in pain!

The massive voribug actually communicated with him! Although Xiv-Nihar failed to understand the alien's words, he could still feel her rampant hostility and hunger!

The Devourer Queen hardly looked as if she was ready to cooperate with the Fuchsia Cell and work towards building a peaceful pan-species galactic community.

"My apologies for that. The Devourer Queen possesses an uncontrollable temper. She has only reluctantly learned to tolerate my presence." Mihael Pentaq spoke as he fearlessly strode forward and placed his open palm against the massive creature's shell.

"This voribug… is a calamity beast, correct? Does that not make it an exobeast that is unremittingly hostile against alien civilizations?"

The cell leader shook his head. "That is only partially correct. If we assthat the voribugs are degenerated biological war weapons, then we believe that they can be uplifted into a proper intelligent alien species. They will still retain many of their swarm instincts, but we should be able to reason with them as long as their queen has becintelligent and rational enough. The fruit that you have delivered shall ensure this result."

"There is a large chance that the fruit will not take effect." The Brown Mandible warned. "According to documentation that I have managed to access, these fruits only take effect on beings that are not psionically powerful. Calamity beasts such as your subject should fall outside this category."

"That is normally true, but not for this particular fruit." The Golden Wing grinned as he raised the object in his arm. "We sought the aid of our second exalted benefactor not just so we can make it compatible with alien species. One of the other reasons why we borrowed the help of such a powerful ally is to imbue this fruit with the raw power to overcthe Devourer Queen's defenses!"

#$&#@$%$!

The Devourer Queen shook against her restraints as the enlightenment fruit began to glow!

The captive calamity beast reacted poorly to a fruit that contained an immense amount of power!