The Mech Touch

Jovy Armalon eventually stuck around for several hours while the Larkinson fleet continued to undergo inspections.

The most time-consuming process was the individual interviews and examinations of every single person. Even though this process was heavily automated in order to speed up the checks on 200,000 clansmen, the MTA's procedures were extremely extensive in order to catch even the slightest clues that someone might be a Crown terrorist.

Fortunately, the MTA inspectors never held back anyone from the Golden Skull Alliance on account of suspicious signs.

The fact that not a single member of the three alliance partners raised any suspicious flags was suspicious in itself!

The Larkinson Clan didn't have to worry for long, though. The inspectors did not pursue their suspicions any further after Master Bouderon exerted his influence. Ves discovered once again the value of having friends in high places.

Ves did not expect to obtain so many gains from Jovy's willingness to spend time with him. The MTA mech designer casually offered valuable information that outsiders could never easily obtain.

Although Jovy never exposed anything truly sensitive or shocking, what he had already passed on made it clear that Ves owed the young mecher a small favor.

Ves definitely had to reciprocate if he had the chance. He even thought about fabricating a small totem on the spot before he rejected this foolish notion.

He only had access to second-class materials and production equipment, so anything he could build would probably look too shabby. Jovy was someone who was accustomed to working with the best tech and materials of humanity, so his standards were insanely high.

It was not without reason why Jovy preferred to wait until Ves became proficient in first-class mech design before he was willing to talk more seriously about collaboration.

"Well, time is up now." Jovy said as he received a silent notification. "Your fleet is on a strict schedule and it's best not to deviate from it. Good luck with your journey and try your best to expand your network. You will need a lot of help if you want to make the best out of your stay in the Red Ocean. The good news is that our Survivalist Faction is quite friendly with many other factions. Take advantage of that if you can. We can't protect humanity by ourselves."

With that, Jovy teleported straight out of the Spirit of Bentheim.

The ease in which the MTA managed to enter and exit reminded Ves to hurry up with acquiring teleportation countermeasures. The security risks were too great the longer his flagship and his other capital ships remained vulnerable to direct infiltration!

After receiving a green light, the expeditionary fleet carefully followed a route that waited in line until it received its turn to stop at one of the star system's Lagrange points and transition into FTL.

Only a day passed by until the Golden Skull Alliance finally reached its initial target.

"How rich!"

"Opalis is a lot more developed than Centerpoint!"

The Opalis System used to be little different from the Centerpoint System. Both were located in the center of their respective star sectors and housed the sector headquarters of the regional MTA branch.

Recently, the two diverged. While Centerpoint had always remained the same, the Gate Consortium chose Opalis to host one of its much-coveted lesser beyonder gates!

Although the expeditionary fleet was too distant from the inner system to get a good optical reading of the mythical gate, every single Larkinson, Glory Seeker and Crosser had become extremely excited!

They were just a single step away from making their first long-distance jump!

"We'll be passing through two gates before we can reach the Red Ocean." General Verle's projection confirmed to Ves. "The beyonder gate here in Opalis will bring us directly to the famous Maryun Ultima System in the galactic heartland, the site that hosts the Milky Way's only greater beyonder gate."

"At least that we know of." Ves remarked.

"It matters little to us, sir. Maryun Ultima is the only public gateway that directly connects the Milky Way to the Red Ocean."

At this time, gate travel followed the hub-and-spoke model. Instead of setting multiple hugely expensive greater beyonder gates across the Milky Way, the Gate Consortium only built a single channel to the Red Ocean.

Anyone who didn't live close to Maryun Ultima needed to pass through the galactic gate network first. The lesser beyonder gates were smaller and did not possess as much range, but they were much more economical to operate in greater numbers.

"It's strange that the Big Two chose to set up a greater beyonder gate in the galactic heartland." Ves muttered. "Why not closer to the center of human power?"

"I can think of multiple reasons. There are too many powerful threats in the galactic center. It's much easier to guard against them in a calmer region. Maryun Ultima also happens to be situated close to the exact center of human space in our current galaxy. That means that even the furthest lesser beyonder gates don't have to reach too far to connect to this central location."

These were good reasons. Ves found it a pity that he wouldn't be able to enter the glorious galactic center so soon in his life, but it didn't really matter. The expeditionary fleet wouldn't have any opportunity to hang around in Maryun Ultima. The authorities were extremely strict about what people were allowed to do while they resided in this highly strategic location.

Fortunately, the Opalis System was a bit looser in that regard. Everyone who had received permission to enter this star system was already vetted to an extent. As a public MTA stronghold of Tarnished Crown, a lot of trade and industrial activities still took place even after Opalis turned into a gate system.

The Larkinson Clan keenly took advantage of this by acquiring a batch of premium goods for the last time.

As the expeditionary fleet slowly advanced further into the Opalis System, Ves also performed the last acts of house cleaning while he still could.

One heavy matter necessitated a personal meeting with the captain of the Spirit of Bentheim.

Ves called over Calabast to his ship in order to facilitate his heavy conversation.

"Patriarch Ves." Grand Captain Daria-Maria greeted as she entered his office. She briefly paused when she noticed the presence of another woman. "Director Calabast."

When the ship captain approached his desk, Ves immediately got to the point.

"We're all smart people, so I think you know why you are here, captain. I value your service and the service of your fellow Hexer trainers. I've spoken to a number of the trainees who have learned much under their tutelage. Enough time has passed for them to graduate and take on their actual responsibilities."

"Your trainees aren't ready, sir." Grand Captain Daria-Maria straightforwardly replied. "Capital ships are never easy to operate, and it can take at least a decade before any spacer can be trusted to control essential systems."

"It doesn't matter, captain. We never intended to rely solely on our trainees to crew the Spirit of Bentheim. We have eight more capital ships in our possession. Each of them are crewed by tens of thousands of decent spacers that we have managed to recruit over the years. Ever since we entered the Antilla Star Cluster, we have managed to expand our manpower pool with plenty of trained and experienced naval personnel that are not any worse than you and your trainers."

"They aren't familiar with Hexer ship systems like us. These foreigners won't be able to get the most out of the Spirit of Bentheim."

"I can live with that. While I value efficiency, I can live with a performance drop of 5 or 10 percent as long as I can replace temporary hires such as your Hexers with loyal Larkinson spacers. I've already made my choice, Captain Vraken."

Calabast smirked as she leaned against Ves' chair. "What the patriarch means is that you should take your fellow Hexers and get off our fleet. We don't want you anymore."

The grand captain looked disappointed. Though Ves hated to boot the Hexer trainers off his ship after they performed so well in battle and trained a lot of inexperienced Larkinson crewmembers, he no longer had to tolerate the presence of so many Hexers on his flagship.

"You don't need to play the pity act in order to appeal to Ves' sense of loyalty." Calabast ruthlessly said.

"Very well. I see that you have all made up your minds. I shall miss captaining the Spirit of Bentheim. She is a fantastic ship and will serve your clan well." Daria-Maria schooled her expression.

"Thank you. Our clan has already readied numerous passenger transports in the hangar bay. You have one hour before you are scheduled to depart."

Both Ves and Calabast waited until Captain Daria-Maria Vraken left the office.

"Well, that's over with." Ves sighed. "She didn't put up as much of a fight than I thought."

"She could read the writing on the wall. There are just too many replacements in this star cluster, and even if this wasn't the case, we could have brought in some of our senior ship officers that are currently serving aboard our other capital ships. These Hexer instructors had become dispensable a year ago. We no longer need to maintain good relations with the Hexadric Hegemony in order to survive."

"That's true."

"I'm pretty sure that Captain Daria-Maria Vraken is a DIVA agent. She hides it well and knows how to keep herself in check, but I still have a strong hunch that she's one of my former colleagues."

"Should I be concerned?"

"No." Calabast shook her head. "The Hexers aren't our enemies and they know that my Black Cats are monitoring the Spirit of Bentheim too closely to get away with anything improper. They were just here to keep an eye on us and to report on our clan's internal matters. Those are relatively harmless activities, but that doesn't mean we should tolerate them any longer."

The abrupt departure of Grand Captain Daria-Maria Vraken and a significant chunk of core personnel did not lead to a lot of disruption.

The Larkinsons had already made preparations in advance. A select number of existing crew members received immediate promotions while the remaining holes were filled by replacements.

The clan currently suffered from an abundance of idle spacers due to the disposal of all of the clan's sub-capital ships. There were few issues with getting them back to work!

More time passed by as the expeditionary fleet completed its final preparations.

The only other major step was the addition of four capital ships to the fleet.

The four capital ships didn't belong to the Golden Skull Alliance. They were just standalone vessels that belonged to different transportation companies that wanted to get an easy ride to the Red Ocean.

It was prohibitive for these companies to pay a huge amount of MTA merits for every attempt to travel to the Red Ocean. What they did instead was to offer money to various pioneering fleets that still had vacant slots in their lineup.

Though Ves initially thought about filling up the four remaining ship slots of the Golden Skull Alliance with sub-capital ships, he eventually deemed it a waste.

It was a lot better to accept a huge bag of money from opportunistic businessmen who turned gate travel into a lucrative new business venture!

Once the fleet encompassed 20 capital ships, the lesser beyonder gate loomed closer than ever.

The massive metal ring was thick and well-protected. An entire MTA warfleet hovered all around this precious gate, imposing maximum deterrence to anyone that approached this marvel of high technology.

With a diameter of 9 kilometers, multiple capital ships could pass through at once, particularly if the vessels adhered to standard human ship design conventions.

Soon enough, the massive open space within the circle shimmered before a dazzling amount of energy formed into an active, ocean blue portal!

The fluctuating portal did not present an image of the other side, but Ves knew that it only took a short step forward in order to traverse a distance of tens of thousands of light-years in an instant!

"This is it. Galactic heartland, here we go." Ves said to himself.

He rigidly sat in his observer's seat on the bridge as the new replacement captain instructed the Spirit of Bentheim to proceed forward in pace with the rest of the expeditionary fleet.

Every single capital ship of the Golden Skull Alliance smoothly passed through the active lesser beyonder gate, marking their definite departure from the Antilla Star Cluster and the galactic rim!

A new future beckoned to the pioneers!