The Mech Touch

"The local news organizations keep requesting to interview you or any other member of our clan." Gavin dutifully reported during the daily briefing session. "They still want to know how our mechs are able to unleash giant energy attacks and why our expert mechs are much more difficult to kill than normal."

Ves leaned back on his desk chair and casually waved his hand.

"My answer to that hasn't changed, Benny. We're not talking and we're not answering any questions. They'll have to make do with the public footage of our battle."

His assistant looked concerned. "I highly advise you to reconsider, boss. By not saying anything, we are letting other parties define the narrative of the battle. Ugly rumors about breaking taboos, consorting with crown terrorists and other ridiculous stories keep spreading over the galactic net. Plenty of parties who harbor ulterior motives have taken action."

"It's all talk. No one will do anything to us, not with six mercenary fleets protecting us at the same time. I really don't care if we piss people off. We're only passing through the Fermi Star Cluster so we don't have to please anyone."

A lot of people wanted the power displayed by the Larkinson Clan, but Ves already thought about it. He worked with Shederin to come up with a plan that relied on two measures.

First, as long as the Larkinsons kept saying nothing, the stories would slowly die down. Once the expeditionary fleet definitively left the star cluster, it was likely that the repercussions of the Battle of Fordilla Zentra would be buried in the archives.

Human space was too big and technology offered endless possibilities. This was not the first time that someone came up with a trump card that was able to deal massive area damage.

The biggest difficulty in obtaining this power was to master the requisite high technology or alien technology. To that, Ves proposed a simple solution.

The Larkinson Clan simply published a statement that its expert mechs were designed in partnership with Master Moira Willix of the Mech Trade Association.

That pretty much shut any direct demands to sell, trade or share his battle formations.

Even though Master Willix had no involvement with battle formations, others didn't know that. By truthfully stating that Master Willix collaborated with Larkinson mech designers on developing expert mechs for private use, the clan essentially insinuated that Willix or the MTA was on its side!

The truth was a bit more complex, but as long as Master Willix didn't go out of her way to clarify her complex relationship with the Larkinson Patriarch, the public's imagination would surely go wild!

Though Ves felt rather mixed with the decision to use the MTA's reputation as a shield, he was willing to perpetuate any fiction as long as it worked!

"The emissaries from the Empire of the Lost also insist on meeting you in person. They wish to discuss ways to cooperate with each other."

"My answer to that is also the same." Ves frowned. "We don't cooperate with states and we have no intention of committing to anything in the Fermi Star Sector. We are simple travellers who only wish to complete our peaceful journey to the Red Ocean. If they really want to talk to someone, then they should get in line until they get their turn with Minister Shederin Purnesse. He's our only authorized spokesperson and they can answer all of their questions!"

Gavin twitched his mouth. "Minister Shederin… has been doing everything but answering questions lately. He's gained a reputation for being vague and intractable as of late."

"Good!" Ves grinned. "That means he's doing his job! He's not supposed to clarify anything. He's only there to buy time and stall all of those petty bureaucrats and representatives until we are ready to depart from this messy star cluster."

He would have become a lot more troubled by this issue in the past, but all of that had changed now that he had hired a slick and competent diplomat.

Minister Shederin could wear different coats as needed.

If the Larkinson Clan needed to forge a new partnership, then he could come across as friendly, sincere and persuasive.

If the Larkinson Clan needed to rebuff other people and organizations without offending them, then he could smile and keep saying empty words.

Whatever Ves wanted, Shederin or his capable and well-organized staff took care of it without needing the clan patriarch to take action in person.

Ves couldn't be more thankful for himself that he took the risk of bringing the Purnesse Family onboard.

"Do you have something that is actually new and interesting to report?" He impatiently asked.

"Well, there is one more issue." His personal assistant said. "Have you decided…"

"No."

"Uhm, okay."

Once Ves was done with dealing with these routine matters, he left his office and headed over to the personal workshop, moving much more freely than before now that he had gone back to wearing his uniform.

The alertness level within the Larkinson fleet had relaxed now that the clan had safely returned to the Amswick System. With almost a mech division's worth of mercenary mechs on guard, no one should entertain any ideas of messing with the Larkinsons.

The mood on the Spirit of Bentheim had also recovered. Though the vessel along with every capital ship had become a lot more crowded than before due to transferring so many people from the sub-capital ships, the clan administration had already done a lot of work in resettling them so they could get on with their lives.

Once he reached his personal workshop, he went through the mandatory security check before entering his personal workspace.

One of the more interesting spoils of war he obtained from the previous battle was the remains of several dwarven expert mechs.

A couple of them had already been transferred over the Graveyard in order to break them down and recycle any usable materials, but some merited further study before they contributed to the strategic material reserves of the Larkinson Clan.

The Paravad was the most valuable and interesting out of the dwarven expert mechs that the Larkinsons managed to salvage. It was a mid-tier expert mech that the Vulcanites expended a lot more time, effort and creativity to design than the more generic low-tier expert mechs.

Even though it was a dream for many mech designers to receive the opportunity to develop an expert mech, there weren't as many opportunities for them to express their creativity when they were limited by cramped budgets and limited availability of resonance materials.

This was why Ves and Gloriana quickly dismissed most of the wrecks such as the Morka Mark II or the two Slug Ranger expert mechs. Compared to the Larkinson expert mechs, the general expert mechs fielded by the Ferril Provincial Army didn't possess much depth!

"What a beautiful mech." Ves sincerely expressed his admiration.

The Paravad was a different expert mech from what he was accustomed to. Not only was it designed by dwarven mech designers who possessed distinctly different ideas on mech design, it was also an avian machine.

Due to his origin and background, Ves hadn't been exposed to many bestial mechs. His clan and many of the enemies it fought against usually employed humanoid mechs without a second thought, and that was not univerally good.

It wasn't a big deal if Ves intended to remain in this region, but he and his clan were about to venture into the Red Ocean. The pioneers over there came from all corners of human space.

There were many star clusters in the galaxy where bestial mechs were much more popular than humanoid mechs. The people who utilized these types of mechs accumulated a lot of know-how and advantages when designing and fielding them. Anyone who was only accustomed to fighting against other humanoid mechs would surely suffer the consequences!

"In the last battle, our forces didn't fare so well against the bestial mechs of the Hivar Roarers." He admitted.

The Larkinsons needed to make up for this inadequacy as soon as possible. Ves wanted understand the properties of bestial mechs like the Paravad in order to satisfy his professional curiosity and to learn how to deal with them in future.

If possible, he didn't object to designing more bestial mechs himself, though the Larkinson Army didn't have any mech legions that were able to make use of them. Without any mech pilots who were trained in the use of bestial mechs, Ves didn't feel the need to branch out at the moment.

"Well, let's just see what further gains I can make."

Every expert mech was alive in some way. Even if other mech designers did a shoddy job and instilled this quality in them, the constant interaction between strong-willed expert pilots and their battle partners naturally generated an X-Factor.

Over time, this hint of life evolved into actual life that Ves was familiar with. The older the expert mech, the more remarkable they became!

"It's just like aging nutrient packs." Ves smiled.

He didn't even have to inspect the aging of the Paravad to know that Venerable Merek Bulfuron already piloted it for several years. According to the intelligence reports, the talented dwarven expert pilot received it as soon as he grew from a low-tier expert pilot to a mid-tier expert pilot.

This was generally considered to be an important watershed in the careers of military expert pilots. Once these talented individuals showed that they still had further growth potential, their superiors were much more willing to invest in their development.

Ves began to float above the deck in order to move closer to the exposed internals of the Paravad. Just as he was about to conduct a study on its novel internal architecture, he suddenly halted in place.

"That… wasn't there previously."

Several components were missing since the last time he inspected the dwarven expert mech. What was even worse was that there were many more parts that had shrunk in size. The small and distinctive bite marks immediately told him that Gloriana wasn't responsible for this unannounced tampering.

Ves narrowed his eyes and immediately noticed something. He moved up to the open cockpit and entered it only to find a familiar cat gnawing on the neural interface system!

"LUCKY!!!!"

"Meow!"

The gem cat jumped in the air but did not forget to finish chewing his bite.

"What is the meaning of this?!"

His cat arrogantly lifted his head and tail at Ves. He did not look guilty at all for using Paravad as his buffet.

"Meow meow meow."

"What do you mean, compensation!?" Ves responded with a disbelieving expression. "This goes way past that! I can look past your actions if you just took a bite here and there, but the Paravad is missing entire parts! You've devoured half the power reactor and pretty much every energy cell! Several tons worth of alloys and exotics have literally disappeared into your stomach!"

"Meow!" Lucky proudly rubbed his belly with one of his paws.

"You bastard!"

Before Ves could make his displeasure known, Lucky cheekily blinked before he quickly phased through the interior of the Paravad!

"Damnit!"

Ves briefly thought about dispatching Blinky to chase after Lucky, but his companion spirit was not a match against the gluttonous cat.

"Forget about it." Ves muttered.

Though the Paravad lost a lot of mass, there were still enough materials left to reinforce the Larkinson expert mechs. Ves and his wife just had to be a little more economical about using up the scarcer and more valuable exotics.

In order to prevent Lucky from enjoying another buffet, Ves decided against examining the Paravad any further and ordered his staff to transfer what was left of the avian expert mech to the Graveyard for processing.

"Maybe I should just hurry up and get on with completing the refits on my expert mechs."

To be honest, he had been taking his time on this matter. The longer it took to restore and upgrade his expert mechs, the more time he gained to make his choice.

"I really don't know what to do…"