The Mech Touch

A week went by as the Golden Skull Alliance neared its destination.

Only a few days were left until they reached the Garimel Sytem where the Larkinson Clan intended to perform its mining mission.

Garimel was an odd star system in the Krakatoa Middle Zone. It centered around a blue supergiant star that was incredibly large and burned hotter than many other stars.

Just like how flames turned from orange to blue if they became hotter, stars behaved in a similar fashion. The light energy emitted from blue stars contained more energy and were therefore compressed in smaller waves.

White stars were even hotter than blue stars!

Ves did not dare to bring his fleet into a star system centered around a white dwarf star. Even the blue supergiant that sat in the center of the Garimel system posed a lot of danger due to how much heat and radiation it emitted.

Blue supergiants were usually seen as the more violent and self-destructing cousins in the star family.

They tended to burn bright but short and went out with a bang when they reached the end of their lifespans.

The big stars could potentially go supernova and flood any neighboring star systems with a destructive wave of energy and star matter!

After that, whatever was left in the middle would converge into an increasingly more dense point until all of the compressed matter created a new black hole!

Suffice to say, it was not enjoyable to live inside a blue supergiant star system. Fortunately, they were fairly rare because they only lived around a couple of dozen million years on average before they could no longer sustain their forms.

While there weren't many humans or aliens that liked to live so close to a blue supergiant, they had interesting properties that made them a lot more worthy of consideration!

Blue supergiants were known as the heavy metal factories of the cosmos. More heavy metals formed through the compression of matter than in many other stars!

Not only that, the extreme heat and other energies generated by these hot stars also affected the formation of these metals, giving birth to large quantities of exotics that possessed additional properties that weren't fully understood!

Although it was extremely unlikely that any of these heavy metals would become available before a blue supergiant went supernova, the more violent and unstables ones tended to 'fart' a few of the heavy metals out every once in a while.

The stellar winds produced by blue supergiants such as Garimel were one of the most popular sources of harvesting a semi-continuous stream of new exotics.

Right now, the MTA only had a vague idea on how much heavy metals Garimel ejected from its body in the form of stellar winds.

The MTA was also unclear about the exact metals and exotic variations the blue supergiant produced.

Long-ranged sensors that could infer the properties of star systems from many light-years away didn't work correctly for the Garimel System due to interfering factors. Not only was it located in a fairly dense nebula, it also released a lot of radiation that crowded out other signals.

The only way to understand what was going on in the star system was for a ship to visit it in person.

Although the MTA possessed a lot of survey ships that could learn everything it wanted to know about the Garimel System, the mechers didn't have the hulls to spare at the moment.

The vast majority of survey ships fielded by the Big Two were tasked with scouting territories claimed by intact alien star nations!

Discovering strategic enemy infrastructure and scouting the way ahead of a future offensive were much more crucial missions than surveying humanity's new backyard.

The Big Two simply didn't bother with surveying the massive amount of star systems inside the territories taken from their former alien owners.

It was better to leave this thankless job to pioneers who were often willing to do anything for MTA merits.

Now, Ves and his fleet had accepted a number missions that essentially amounted to surveying the star system and mining a lot of heavy metal exotics to figure out what was available in Garimel.

In fact, Ves didn't think it was strictly necessary to bother with all of that work because the Simile Halifax could do this job at least ten times better!

"Jovy shouldn't be petty enough to take away my merits." He hoped.

From what he had read in the mission briefing, the reason why the MTA wanted to send pioneers to the Garimel System was because its long-ranged sensors captured anomalous signals from this location.

The mechers weren't forthcoming about what they meant by 'anomalous signals', but they did not assign a high danger factor to the missions centered around the Garimel System, so it was probably fine.

Before the expeditionary fleet was ready to explore the novelties that this blue supergiant system had to offer, Ves and his fellow Journeymen were finally ready to embrace the fruits of their labor and evaluate the final batch of mechs designs of the current design project!

Ves eagerly stepped inside Gloriana's workshop where a row of brand-new mechs were standing in a column.

Each of the mechs were based on recently-completed designs!

From the much-awaited Monster Slayer to the more utilitarian Sliver Project, the new mechs were all characterized by their living qualities and their diverse roles.

The other mech designers had already arrived beforehand.

Gloriana talked with the rest of the old gang about the work that they had completed. Both Juliet and Ketis were inordinately proud for delivering a number of solo designs to the Larkinson Clan.

Sara and Dulo Voiken stood before a lancer mech designed by the latter. The machine in question was substantially different from anything else the male spearman mech specialized had designed in his life!

Janassa Pellier and Tifi Coslone were maintaining a lower profile as they stood in front of a new axeman mech.

Aurelia was present as well, of course. She sat next to her mother while playing with Lucky and Clixie.

"Hihihihi!"

"Meow!"

"Miaow~"

"Papa!"

Aurelia quickly detected her father's presence as he approached. Ves smiled and picked the baby up and kissed her cheek.

"I see you're having fun today. Are you interested in surveying our new mechs with us, Aurelia?"

"Mech…"

"Yes, mechs. These are all examples of the machines that will be used to defend our fleet and our lives one day."

Ves interacted with his daughter for a minute before he set her down again. As much as he would like to teach his little girl more about the wonders of mechs, she was too young to understand most of what he said.

It was also rude to ignore his peers. The other Journeymen of the Design Department had all ceased their prior talks in order to converge in a group.

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to start. First, let me say that I am both proud and happy to see that you have all succeeded in the projects that you have led. Whether you worked on them by yourself or with the contribution of others, I can tell at first glance that each of your works will find a place in the Larkinson Clan."

He directed his words towards the four Journeymen that had only joined the Larkinson Clan a few months ago. They not only integrated well in the Larkinson Clan, but also showed enough competence and initiative to complete their respective design projects without any disruption or complications.

Ves turned directly to the four newcomers.

"Before we started on this project, I told you that our clan is still reserving our judgment on your place in the Design Department. That is no longer the case. We have all tracked your progress and paid attention to both your conduct and your results. We have found nothing that suggests that you have been slacking off or engaged in any improper actions. There is no reason for me to leave you hanging, so I am ready to give my stamp of approval to your entry into our ranks. From now on, you are all officially our lead designers!"

The foursome all reacted positively to this news! Naturally, they did not have a lot of concerns about their job security. Even Dulo Voiken, the most lackluster Journeyman among them, had performed more than adequately during his time in the Design Department.

"This is no reason to take it easy, though." Ves warned them all. "Lead designers occupy a high position in our clan because every member is dependent on what we do. You passed our tests because you are more skilled, talented, knowledgeable and capable than many other Journeymen in your generation. If you slide back in the coming months and years, then I might remove you from your position. I expect each of you to progress your design philosophies so that you can keep up with the growth of the rest of us. We may be Journeymen for now, but in a century I hope that each of us are Masters or at least close to realizing our respective design philosophies. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir!"

This was a bold aspiration! There was hardly anyone among the eight Journeymen who believed that half of them could advance to Master Mech Designer within a century. The difficulty was simply too great for everyone to succeed despite the talents that they had shown at this point!

After he confirmed the newcomers were here to stay, he moved on to the main reason why he gathered everyone in this workshop.

"Our Design Department has completed numerous different mech design projects after our Minerva has debuted. Today, I want their respective designers to introduce the final versions of each of them so that we all know what we have gained. Juliet, let's start with you. There are two mostly solo projects under your name. Which one do you want to introduce first?"

Juliet Stameros did not look fazed when Ves gave her the honor of introducing her recent mech designs first.

She turned around and led the group over the closest mech of her design.

"Let us start with the Sliver Project designed by myself with help from the patriarch. As you can see, it is a reconnaissance-oriented light mech that I have designed for the Flagrant Vandals. Since the mech legion can already count on the Ferocious Piranha and the new Stingripper models to defeat their foes, I focused on designing a scout mech that offers superior sensor and scanning capabilities. It is not explicitly designed as a combat mech and only possesses weak self-defense measures."

Its ability to fight back against a serious combat mech was pathetic. By default, it was equipped with a lightweight combination of knife and pistol.

The virtues of this loadout was that it was light and compact!

While these weapons were enough for the Sliver Project to eliminate shuttles and lightly-fortified infantry positions, there was no way for it exert pressure onto enemy mechs!

Everyone in the workshop was able to recognize this weakness, but none of them said anything about it. The Sliver Project was essentially an auxiliary mech model that existed due to its utility.

As long as it was able to perform its intended role well, who cared about its combat parameters?

"I don't believe I need to elaborate on its low attack and defense properties." Juliet stated. "What is truly interesting about the Sliver Project is its vastly superior straight-line acceleration capabilities and its expansive sensor suite. The former allows the scout mech to get in position quickly and escape enemy pursuit when detected. The latter is essential to feeding us the data that we must know to understand what is up ahead."

Ves smiled. "This mech is completed just in time given the missions that we are about to perform."

Juliet smiled back. "I believe the Sliver Project will play a highly useful role in our upcoming destination. The Garimel System is awash with radiation and interference, so many our sensors will not be able to gather precise data at further distances. Having a dedicated scout mech such as the Sliver Project at hand will allow us to explore the Garimel System Properly."

A good scout mech was always essential to exploring new locations!