The Mech Touch

The Larkinson Clan achieved a lot of progress after the expeditionary fleet departed from the Pelsa Ryndover System.

Not only were the Larkinsons making their way out of the Vilsam York Star Sector, they quickly internalized all of the new additions they gained from their last stop.

The new clansmen were quickly being integrated into the fold. They were not only immersed in the unique and developing culture of the Larkinson Clan, but also became accustomed to their new jobs.

There were opportunities everywhere in the fleet. The more ambitious clansmen all knew that they could climb to unimaginable heights as long as they worked hard enough and kept improving their skills.

This was because the Larkinson Clan was still young!

The clan grew so quickly that new positions associated with greater responsibilities constantly opened up. While the clan often tried to plug these gaps by hiring outsiders, most Larkinsons preferred to bring someone up within their own ranks instead.

This contrasted sharply with older and more mature companies where their hierarchies no longer expanded and where upward mobility slowed to a crawl. After all, it was not enough to rely on normal attrition where older employees retired or people occasionally quit their jobs to find other opportunities. Many talents would inevitably remain buried if they stayed in such a rigid structure.

The rich opportunities that the Larkinson Clan presented to its workforce motivated everyone to work harder.

However, they had no choice but to do so anyway as there were many difficult problems that only a younger organization suffered from. The downside to joining a newer organization was that many areas were still underdeveloped.

Fortunately, the expeditionary fleet didn't encounter any disturbances throughout its journey. It blended in with the immense stream of traffic that was running through every star sector.

Even if the Larkinson fleet encountered any dangerous elements in a given star system, the range was either too great or the threat simply wasn't strong enough.

The Larkinson Clan had a lot of teeth, and it wasn't even alone. When the Larkinson Clan combined forces with the Glory Seekers and the Cross Clan, nothing less than a fully-equipped military mech division had a realistic chance of defeating the Golden Skull Alliance!

Even then, the chances of that happening was poor because the mech forces of the alliance were anything but conventional. Their parameters on a data pad did not fully reflect their effective combat power.

Not even crooked military patrol fleets dared to get close to such an intimidating fleet in order to collect a 'protection fee'.

At best, the corrupt officials would win a pyrrhic victory where they lost most of their forces and had to account for such a disaster to their states.

At worst, they would get defeated outright and most definitely lose their lives!

This was why no one bothered the powerful fleet. The Golden Skull Alliance was clearly passing through and didn't show any intentions of meddling in any of the local regions. Their battle record and their high combat preparedness put them in the same category as the fleets operated by major trans-galactic organizations.

Touching them would lead to certain death!

Ves was quite happy about that. After living through one crisis after another, he already experienced more than enough excitement for him to suppress his restlessness. Right now, his current and upcoming projects had the potential to massively strengthen his clan. He preferred to finish all of them first before he was ready to take some risks again.

"I need to wrap the most essential projects up before we reach the Red Ocean." He muttered. "Once we pass through, we'll be beset by dangers."

He was not satisfied with the current strength of his clan. While his mech forces may have grown to the point where even the strongest second-rate states didn't want to suffer so many losses to take down the Larkinsons, this didn't apply in the Red Ocean.

Not only was it filled with powerful fleets that were built to the standards of the galactic heartland and the galactic center, but the incentives of preying on others was much greater!

The combination of these two factors caused Ves and many other far-sighted Larkinsons to feel an increasing sense of urgency. The lesser beyonder gate was getting closer and closer. Time was running out. If they didn't take advantage of the current circumstances to strengthen their forces in ways that were still doable in the Milky Way, they might never have the opportunity to do the same in the Red Ocean!

The search for a crucial capital ship that could carry a lot of mechs was still ongoing. Though the chances were slim that the Larkinsons would ever be able to pick up a fleet carrier or a mass conveyor without suffering devastating consequences, they still had to try as the addition of even one of those ships would make them a lot less likely to get attacked in the Red Ocean!

The responsibility for finding a way to purchase or obtain one of these crucial capital ships not only rested on Shederin Purnesse, but also on Calabast.

It was a pity that the Black Cats were more preoccupied with bringing their new capital ship online. Just making this long and thin capital ship space worthy was not enough. The intelligence arm of the Larkinson Clan invested a lot of time and effort into disassembling, inspecting, modifying and reassembling all of the advanced systems of the new espionage vessel.

Though the Black Cats still had a long way to go before they were able to utilize the full capabilities of their new capital ship, they already managed to activate the most essential systems.

Calabast sat on a wide, black seat while surrounded by hundreds of projections. Each of them displayed different sensor feeds, galactic net articles, written reports and other relevant data.

She wasn't actually paying attention to all of them at the same time. Even her implants and improved genetics couldn't turn her into a supercomputer. She was just enjoying the ambiance of having a lot more data at her disposal.

Of course, collecting data was only one aspect of intelligence work. It was sorting them, interpreting and judging their validity that truly separated good intelligence agencies from bad intelligence agencies.

The large number of processors and specialized data gathering and data analysis systems aboard the Blinding Banshee could not reliably automate these processes. What they could do was to refine raw data to a greater degree and accelerate the work needed to accomplish a task.

Right now, Calabast was largely preoccupied with countersurveillance. More precisely, she sought to detect and neutralize as many bugs and software vulnerabilities in the fleet as possible. There were still far too many ships in the Larkinson fleet that had yet to receive a thorough examination.

It didn't matter too much if the smaller vessels were compromised, but it was crucial for the capital ships to be cleaned of any bugs that could give their enemies an entry point into their systems.

This was a challenging mission to complete, but the Black Cats enjoyed several advantages.

First, they were working in full cooperation of the crews of the respective vessels. The captains and officers readily granted the Black Cats access to the systems they controlled. After all, the people who were living aboard the relevant starships had the greatest interest in making sure their homes wouldn't suddenly lose control!

Second, the Black Cats hired a lot of competent hackers, virtual security specialists and other highly-skilled personnel in the past few months. With the help of the Larkinson Network, the recruiters for the Black Cats did not have to reject as many talented applicants due to an inability to verify their trustworthiness.

Passing the judgement of the Golden Cat was a much more foolproof way of filtering out potential spies and saboteurs!

The Larkinson Clan and its allies had become so good at detecting duplicitous recruits before they could enter the fold that the Golden Skull Alliance even gained a reputation for being impossible to penetrate.

Through hidden circles where only certain people could communicate with each other, more and more stories circulated on how any hidden agents sent to the Larkinsons, Glory Seekers and Crossers simply disappeared without exception.

Of course, the relevant intelligence agencies weren't stupid enough to knock on the doors of the Golden Skull Alliance in order to get their missing people back.

Every game had its own rules. Those who tried to infiltrate an organization had to be ready to pay the price for failure.

In any case, the huge reduction in infiltration attempts made Calabast's life much easier. Even though the Golden Cat was doing a great job, that didn't mean her men could slack off. Goldie's test did not encompass other troublesome elements that could otherwise pose problems to the Larkinson Clan, such as psychological addictions, mental diseases, irrational fanaticism and so on. The case of Dr. Nigel Redmont served as a powerful reminder that no means was foolproof.

This was why most of the Black Cats were currently preoccupied with countering electronic, software and other non-human spying methods.

The third and greatest advantage that Calabast had at her disposal came in a surprisingly small package.

"Are you comfortable, Lucky?"

"Meow…"

The gem cat looked as if he had just performed a lot of exercise. The cat was lying listlessly on Calabast's lap. His tail didn't flicker.

The reason for his tiredness was related to the thick data cable hooked up to one of his paws. A lot of data was running through this connection as one of the main analysis programs of the Blinding Banshee was relying heavily on Lucky's advanced hacking capabilities.

"Squeak.. squeak…"

An eight-legged exobeast was resting next to Calabast's shiny boot as usual. He was much more content these days as Lucky no longer had the energy to bully the arganid clisenta.

In fact, Arnold constantly felt as if he was growing stronger with each passing day. While his body wasn't experiencing much change, his mind grew firmer and more intelligent.

That said, his character remained much the same, and the improvement was only relative to his base state.

"Squeak. Squeak."

Arnold comfortably turned his body in order to hug and lick Calabast's already-shiny boot. The act had become so ingrained to him that he would still be licking a boot in his sleep!

Calabast didn't even pay attention to the pathetic behavior of her pet. She instead paid careful attention to a number of data feeds which displayed how many bugs were included in the Spirit of Bentheim.

As a former DIVA agent, she knew the methods of her former Hexers well. The shipbuilders that constructed the factory ship probably couldn't have imagined that Lucky's hacking capabilities could see through all of their means!

"Interesting." She smirked.

With the help of the high-powered, sophisticated scanners of the Blinding Banshee, her new mobile headquarters could see through any other vessel at close range.

Other than the vault and other highly-shielded compartments, the Spirit of Bentheim had turned into an open book in her eyes.

"Well, the good news is that my former sisters have restrained themselves."

Calabast had already found that out when she and Lucky performed manual inspections, but it was good to know that the rest of the capital ship was relatively unaffected.

What gave her a lot of relief was that she hadn't detected any hidden sabotage that could damage or destroy the ship. While this inspection method wasn't completely foolproof, anything that could significantly impact the performance of a capital ship certainly wouldn't be small. If this powerful suite hadn't detected any major issues, then they probably didn't exist.

Not everything was good, though. The few improprieties that Calabast did manage to detect were incredibly well-hidden and only sporadically transmitted data back to the only Hexer presence that was traveling alongside the Larkinson fleet.

"I knew there was something fishy about the Glory Seekers."