The Mech Touch

According to his public profile, Frederico Navarro was a forty-odd years old Journeyman Mech Designer.

To be more precise, he was both a biotech expert and a biomech designer. This reflected the fact that every biomech designer had to know the ins and outs of exobiology, genetics, molecular biology, biomechanics and many other related fields.

How else could they design and 'grow' their biomechs if they didn't know how a living organism worked?

Biomechs may perform identical to classical mechs on the battlefield, but their organic nature meant that the logistics around them were completely different.

Mech companies didn't fabricate biomechs. They grew them. Biomechs literally started as tiny, juvenile masses of tissue. As long as they were kept in special cultivation pools, it usually took a couple of weeks or months for them to grow in size and mass.

This was a very long production time. The weakest biomechs took at least a week to reach maturity while the more powerful models might take years to gestate!

While this sounded incredibly backwards, this growth-based production method had its own advantages.

The most important one was that once a producer set up the infrastructure, they just needed to feed materials, energy and nutrients in the cultivation pools in order to grow a lot of mechs at once.

Hardly any mech technicians or other workers were required to perform any manual processes. Just a few overseers and biotech experts were enough to oversee the production of thousands of biomechs!

Maintaining the biomechs once they were finished was easy as well. The living machines were always capable of regenerating minor battle damage by themselves. If they suffered major damage such as losing an arm, they could still regrow a new one as long as they were fed with lots of materials and tended to by a single biomech technician!

The same method could also be employed to upgrade or modify the biomechs.

Rather than treat them as machines, biomech designers and biomech technicians instead treated them as giant living organisms. Just like how humans could improve their capabilities by augmenting themselves with implants and gene treatments, biomechs could also be augmented in the same fashion!

While biomechs possessed several advantages, they also came with some distinct downsides.

The first major demerit was the higher barrier to entry to design them. Every biomech designer had to be proficient in both biotechnology and traditional engineering. They could not skimp in either direction, or else their biomechs would never be able to compete against classical mechs.

The second significant downside was that biomechs demanded a completely different infrastructure. The traditional mech industry had no clue how to produce, repair, maintain and recycle biomechs.

As biological machines, a large proportion of their makeup had to be made with different materials. Biomech producers competed against both traditional mech companies and other biotech companies when it came to sourcing the necessary materials.

All in all, biomechs were generally very difficult to popularize in a region where classical mechs already reigned supreme. The lack of infrastructure hampered their utility as it demanded producers and consumers to make special accommodations. All of that cost extra money, effort and resources.

When Ves briefly looked at the states bordering the Life Research Association, he quickly found out that none of the neighbors adopted biomechs on a widespread scale.

Aside from a couple of exceptions, the rest of Majestic Teal firmly stuck to using normal metallic mechs!

While this forced the LRA's mech industry to stand alone, the biomech enthusiasts didn't appear to be having difficulties. Biotechnology was far more developed in the state than anywhere else in the local region, so local biomech designers such as Frederico Navarro could easily make a living by depending entirely on the domestic market.

"Why is Dr. Navarro so interested in challenging me to a design duel?" Ves asked.

His assistant shrugged. "We aren't sure, but we think that he is driven by a combination of pride in the LRA's biomechs and a perception that we are challenging the definition of 'living mechs'. I'm not sure how his specialty plays into his motives. According to the MTA, Dr. Navarro excels at designing mechs that can transform mid-battle or in a short amount of time."

His exact specialty was rapid biomechanical transformation. While it was a bit exaggerated to state that Dr. Navarro's products could transform in the middle of an engagement, some of his products were actually capable of doing so depending on the scale of changes.

Regardless whether his biomechs took seconds or hours to change into a different form, Dr. Navarro was not the most successful Journeyman in his home state. His products may be versatile, but they were also significantly more expensive than the industry standard. His biomechs also possessed shorter lifespans. If they lived longer than they were designed to last, then they would rapidly degrade until they died a 'natural' death. Just like prolonging the lives of humans, it was very troublesome to extend the lifespan of a biomech.

However, what did all of this have to do with Ves? While he was intrigued by Dr. Navarro's work, he had no intention of delving further into the intricacies of biomechs. He possessed no foundation in this weird category of mechs. His own production facilities weren't capable of producing biomechs and classical mechs already offered plenty of diversity for him to explore.

"Is it possible that Dr. Navarro did not reach out to us on our own initiative?" Ves guessed. "What if someone else wants to test us through this fellow?"

"That is what Calabast suspects as well when we brought it up to her. She is still looking into this angle, but it is unlikely for us to determine whether that is the case." Gavin replied.

Just like regular mech designers, every biomech designer possessed a range of connections. Their teachers, business partners, friends and colleagues were part of the networks that people like Dr. Navarro relied upon to maintain their footing in a competitive mech industry.

No mech designer was able to stand alone. This was especially the case in a second-rate state.

Personally, Ves suspected that Dr. Navarro might be part of an organization or faction within the LRA. That wasn't necessarily a big deal as Ves would actually be surprised if the biomech designer was all on his lonesome.

Was Dr. Navarro or the mastermind standing behind him trying to pull Ves and the Larkinson Clan into some kind of plot?

Who knew. Ves just wanted to shop at the LRA. He had no interest in getting pulled into the quagmire of local politics.

"As long as you don't find anything alarming about Dr. Navarro, go ahead and tell him that I accept his challenge." He decided after a moment of thought. "Make sure to remind him of our conditions. We will only be travelling to open, commercial star systems and we will not stay too long in any destination."

"Will do, boss."

Ves put the issue out of his mind and moved on to other matters.

Later in the day, Ves entered the bridge. He looked around and approached Captain Daria-Maria Vraken as she looked closely at a timer.

Once the timer counted down to 0, the ship shuddered for a moment. A brief nauseating sensation swept over Ves before his body quickly stabilized.

The fleet had returned to realspace!

The grand captain spent a few minutes issuing orders in order to make sure the Spirit of Bentheim was still in order.

Hundreds of mechs deployed into space. They immediately patrolled the surrounding space and remained on guard against any unusual signs.

The mech pilots were a bit more jumpy than usual this time. A nervous mood swept across the entire fleet as this seemingly-unordinary star system was actually different from the other stops.

Ves stood still for a moment as he took in the significance of this destination.

While Ves had traveled beyond the Komodo Star Sector a few years ago, this was the first time in his life that he had entered a different star sector!

"Welcome to Vicious Mountain, Patriarch Larkinson." Captain Vraken announced. "While we will only be here for a week, we have entered into a different region from before. Unlike our home star sector, Vicious Mountain is dominated by a single second-rate state. The Garlen Empire imposes its own rules in this star sector. There is no reason to be concerned, though. As long as we stay in the periphery, the Garlen Empire won't bother with us. We are just passing through."

As Ves studied the projection of the local plot, the star system did not look any different from a star system in Komodo.

Doubt crossed his face. "I thought the crossover would be more noticeable. We did pass through a gravitic barrier, right?"

"Do you think that our Hexer FTL drives are inadequate? They are easily capable of bridging this gap. If you actually felt any turbulence along the way, then that is a sign that the FTL drive is malfunctioning."

Every star sector aside from frontier ones was surrounded by barriers that inhibited FTL travel. Whether these were natural formations or created by aliens in the past, humanity had mastered the ability to strengthen these higher-dimensional walls.

According to the Big Two, separating star sectors by erecting these barriers was a form of defense against invaders. Any alien empire that declared war against humanity would be forced to chew through one star sector after another. It was impossible to bypass them and reach the core of human civilization right away!

The fact that these same measures also made it harder for humanity to travel across the galaxy did not seem to bother the MTA and CFA. Ves personally thought that the powers that be actually wanted to keep space peasants in their place.

Those who were capable of crossing into other star sectors should either be galactic citizens or those connected to them. Ves and the Larkinson Clan easily met the qualifications to travel across the galaxy.

In fact, the Larkinson Family also managed to cross over in this star sector. He knew that Uncle Ark and the rest of the old family had somehow managed to enter the Garlen Empire in search of protection and employment.

Though Ves felt a little worried about his relatives, Ark was not a reckless leader. If the Larkinson Family thought it was safe to enter a second-rate state, then they should not be exposed to danger.

It was just a bit difficult for Ves to shake his worries. He did not have a lot of positive experiences interacting with powerful organizations and factions. The Garlen Empire might be a powerful monolithic state on paper, but it was actually divided into many squabbling tribes and clans. The Cross Clan was just one of thousands of organizations that struggled for power.

As Ves slowly got over the wonder of entering into a different star sector, he occupied himself with ship-related matters.

Running the Spirit of Bentheim was a heavy responsibility. So many people and parts were moving around at the same time that he admired Captain Vraken for her ability to stay on top of everything.

As they talked about the lackluster training progress of the Larkinsons who were supposed to replace the Hexer trainers, an alarm suddenly sounded.

"What is the matter?!" Captain Vraken questioned the sensor officer.

"We're reading a massive incoming FTL translation signal! An unknown fleet is arriving within the vicinity of our position!"

Ves briefly paused. An unsettling feeling swept over him. Was it a coincidence, or…?

Another alarm sounded.

Major Verle had immediately raised the alert level to yellow, which meant that the Larkinsons had to be prepared to meet any dangerous situation!

Thousands of mechs preemptively deployed into space In the span of a couple of minutes. The Glory Seekers and the Cross Clan automatically followed suit.

As Ves tried to figure out whether he should be worried or not, the unknown fleet had finally transitioned into the star system!

"Alert! We have identified eight capital ships and an unknown number of sub-capital ships, but no less than fifty!"

The arriving fleet arrived a fair distance away from the expeditionary fleet. It would take at least a couple of hours for the two fleets to enter into engagement range.

"According to our calculations, the unknown fleet can reach us in less than 4 hours, which is less than the maximum time it takes for all of our starships to cycle their FTL drives." Captain Vraken informed Ves. "In my judgement, this is not a coincidence."

As the sensors finally resolved more details from the arriving ships, the sensor officer cried out in fright!

"WE HAVE IDENTIFIED FIVE OF THE EIGHT CAPITAL SHIPS! THEY ARE ALL FRIDAYMAN FLEET CARRIERS!"

Shock immediately swept across the bridge.