The Mech Touch

The completion of the Unending Regalia and the Unending Dragon almost marked the end of his personal crafting spree.

While Ketis happily departed the Scarlet Rose with her Unending Dragon in tow, Ves stayed in the mech workshop long enough to fabricate a new Misfortune Harness for Lucky.

After all, his cat helped him out quite a bit in processing so much Unending alloy. Ves figured that his cat deserved an extra reward.

The Mark II version of the Misfortune Harness did not differ very much from the first version. Ves did away with most of the Breyer alloy, only using it to keep the structure together.

Just like before, the inner layer consisted of a thin layer of B-stone. While Ves wasn't sure whether this protection helped his cat in any way in the previous battle, that was mainly because the Misfortune Harness Mark I sustained too much damage against conventional attacks.

In the end, the thin layer of Breyer alloy couldn't withstand so much firepower. Getting caught in the middle of a trap where explosions triggered all around Lucky resulted in numerous breaches that exposed the fragile B-stone layer.

Such an outcome shouldn't happen again. The Unending alloy exterior was capable of withstanding explosions that were at least ten times more powerful. In fact, the true defensive capabilities of the Misfortune Harness Mark II was likely higher than that, but Ves did not want to overhype his work too much.

In order to retain Lucky's phasing ability, both layers of materials had to be thin. The B-stone layer protected Lucky against some spiritual attacks, but not if they exceed a certain level of strength.

The same went for the Unending alloy layer. Not only was it very thin, its coverage was also a bit inconsistent. Ves tried to overlap the plates as much as possible in order to avoid exposing any gaps in coverage, but the irregular shapes still introduced several vulnerabilities.

"Well, it's as good as I can make it with the tools I have on hand." Ves sighed.

He fitted it onto Lucky to make sure that his cat enjoyed adequate protection while wearing it. Due to the naturally obsidian look of Unending alloy, Ves didn't need to coat it. In fact, the irregular exterior panels caused Lucky to gain a very savage look!

"C'mon, buddy. Roar for me. Roar like a panther!"

"Meow."

Though his cat looked somewhat curious about his new gear, he was still a bit lethargic from having to digest the B-stone in his stomach.

Ves reached out to rub Lucky's covered head, only for a thick paw to smack his hand away.

"Oh, don't be so sullen. You've done our entire clan a huge favor. With all of the products I've made with the Unending alloy that you've processed, our chances of surviving and winning the upcoming battle is substantially greater!"

His cat did not look appreciative of his praise. Despite his dashing appearance with his new Misfortune Harness, Lucky looked like he was more willing to sleep through the upcoming battle!

"Meow.."

"Okay, okay, I'll take it off for you. Don't think you can take a break, though. As soon as the Allidus Alliance comes within sight, I'm putting it on you whether you're sick or not. Understood?"

Lucky flipped his tail at Ves.

With that done with, Ves exited the mech workshop and took a long break.

The next day, he intended to spend the remainder of his time supervising the final preparations before battle commenced.

He first summoned both Major Verle and Calabast to his stateroom for a private meeting. The former Brighter and Hexer both arrived promptly and began to fill Ves in on the battle readiness of their fleet.

"Task Force Predator is as strong as it can be at this time, sir." Major Verle reported first. "Certainly, there is still much we can build, but we have used up much of our available resources and supplies. What's left is relatively low-valuable bulk materials and unusable exotics that can't be converted into anything useful. As for our mech pilots, they can always use more training, but the increase in battle power from this point is marginal. The only exception is if any of them randomly advance to expert candidate, but the odds of that happening is painfully small, especially when we aren't fighting any major battles."

That last point may not be as unlikely as Major Verle thought. Ves had made at least some progress in his research towards accelerating the breakthroughs of expert candidates. At the very least, he possessed a lot of confidence that his spiritually-enhanced custom mechs should definitely be able to trigger the breakthroughs of all of his current expert candidates at the right time.

Of course, much of that was possible due to the prior accumulation of the Larkinson Clan's best mech pilots. Aside from Joshua, each of them became expert candidates several years ago. During that time, they fought through several major conflicts such as the Bright-Vesia War, the Sand War and now the Nyxian Gap Campaign.

It was not a mistake to claim that all of his expert candidates had been forged through the fires of war! The amount of times they put their lives on the line in battle was enough to put all of them, including Joshua, at the threshold of expert pilot!

What applied to his expert candidates also applied to the regular mech pilots in his fleet. Many of their compatriots had died, but those who survived up until now had evolved into the bloodied, battle-hardened elites that Ves always yearned.

If only he could bring them out of the Gap unscathed! None of his brave mech pilots needed any further trials to prove their courage, valor and competence in battle.

In truth, the pressure heaped on the shoulders of those with spiritual potential was so great that Ves hoped that some of them would have advanced to expert candidate by now. It was too bad that talented mech pilots such as Imon and Casella Ingvar didn't find their turning points.

He briefly thought back on his enlightening conversation with James. His spiritual advisor told him that he shouldn't be focusing solely on the spirituality of his mech pilots.

Willpower also mattered.

Was that why his regular mech pilots failed to advance?

If he had more time, Ves would have gladly investigated this angle further, but the pirates were too close to pursue another initiative.

That reminded him of his spiritual enhancement project. Almost a month had gone by since he enhanced the spiritual foundations of almost every LMC mech in the fleet. Their saturation levels ranged from 25 to 100 percent, though the latter was only reserved for those with spiritual potential.

"Has there been any notable increases in performance of this group of mech pilots?" Ves asked during the meeting.

Major Verle nodded. "There have. It ramped up over a couple of weeks but leveled off as more time went by, sir. We can conclude that whatever you did to improve the mech caused their mech pilots to obtain both a short-term and long-term boost."

"Do you have the data?"

"Here you go."

Ves received the files sent by Verle and quickly went over the data. He quickly discovered that the saturation level of the enhanced mechs made a small but substantial difference in the rate of improvement.

Both the immediate boost and the sustained boost in performance went up as the saturation levels went up. Even when Ves controlled for age, piloting skill, experience, mech type and so on, the broad pattern was undeniable.

He smiled. The data provided conclusive proof that higher saturation levels led to greater improvement.

Still, he couldn't use this new technique unscrupulously. The spiritual energy needed to empower the mechs in this fashion did not come for free. Also, the mech pilots themselves needed to be mentally and spiritually strong enough to withstand the burden of piloting a mech with a stronger spiritual consciousness.

Cockpits tended to get messy if this was not the case.

"How is the fleet?"

"Oh, all of our ships look quite good, though that doesn't change the fact that most of our vessels are tin cans, sir. The asteroids floating around us will likely help prevent us from getting pounded too much by the pirate warships, but I'm not hopeful for our light carriers. A couple of well-placed hits can easily cripple the Redfeather. Win or lose, I don't expect most of our ships to survive the engagement."

"They don't need to." Calabast interjected after a long time of remaining quiet. She crossed her sinuous legs as she shifted her position on the couch. "The reinforcements from the Wodin Warriors have made good speed trying to reach us. If not for the pirate armada in our way, we could have linked up with them and safely left the Nyxian Gap. As it is, we don't have to fend for ourselves for long if we ever manage to survive the upcoming battle."

Major Verle reluctantly nodded. "She's right. We can lose ninety percent of our mechs and ships and still succeed in our goal of making it out. We just have to have enough ships left to accommodate all of the Larkinsons who are still alive and retain enough mechs to deter any scavengers and other scum looking to pick up an easy bargain."

"A battle involving this much hardware always attracts vultures and scavengers." Calabast warned. "The Allidus Alliance has done its best to press as many local pirates as possible, but plenty of them are still on the sidelines. If we win but lose our entire battle strength, we can't defend ourselves against the pirates that come after. You can bet for sure they will come in great numbers. The value of the salvage of all of our second-class mechs and ships as well as those from the enemy warships will likely exceed anything the pirates have earned in their entire lives."

Ves pressed his fingers against his forehead. "That sounds great."

"We just need to hold on for two weeks or less. It's not that bad."

"First, we need to win the battle, though, and that is already an enormous challenge in itself." Major Verle said. He waved a hand, activating a projection that depicted every ship in the fleet. "We have one overriding objective. Survive. To accomplish this, we need to preserve both our ships and mechs. While we are unavoidably forced to use them up, the key is to maximize the yield and make the enemy pay dearly for every loss we suffer."

"That's the calculus used in battles of attrition." Ves frowned.

The major nodded. "I know you don't like them, but the strength disparity along with our circumstances leave us with no other choice. If I was in the shoes of Lord Hivex, I could think of several ways to leverage the pirate warships and thousands of mechs to crush us without suffering a great loss. That isn't possible for us. We are unquestionably weaker and we can't run away, so that means we have to adopt a mindset of sacrificing our strength in the hopes our enemies lose even more."

"Is there no way we can lessen this disparity somehow?"

Calabast spoke up. "We've tried. We have contacted many pirate factions through various channels. While they openly rejected our entreaties, a number of them are actually quite supportive of us. As long as we defeat the Allidus Alliance, its rivals will surely take advantage. It's just…"

"None of them are willing to help us in the upcoming battle, right?"

"Correct." She sighed. "The most they are willing to do is to raid the territory of the Allidus Alliance when the battle commences. Since the Gravada Knarlax is confirmed to be in the periphery, the Allidus Allliance's rivals will feel assured that she won't come back to brutalize the raiders. If we succeed in destroying the pirate flagship, then those raids can easily turn into a full-blown invasion."

While it sounded nice that the Nyxian pirates were willing to cannibalize one of their own, none of the news helped him in any way. The rivals of the Allidus Alliance were just taking advantage of the Larkinson Clan!

"Isn't there anyone who is genuinely willing and able to help us? Anyone?" Ves asked with a hint of despair in his voice.

"Well, there is one…"