The Mech Touch

Ves had a lot on his mind as of late.

He and his fellow Journeymen were contemplating a lot of possible commercial mech design projects.

Dr. Perris had made a lot of progress in her biotech projects and would soon begin cultivating the promised living coin trees and the so-called meat suit.

The Flagrant Vandal combat carrier sent to explore Auralis, otherwise known as Garimel I, had almost reached the orbit of the heavy gravity planet.

The mechs and shuttles sent to survey the various moons of Lemigo Distat, otherwise known as Garimel II, had begun to discover considerably more lucrative mineral deposits.

Gloriana and Ketis were finally undergoing the implantation procedure that would make them pregnant.

Of course, nothing concerned him more than the prospect of getting his hands on actual prime material which he could use to augment the Mars Project and possibly other high-value mechs!

He had occupied himself with all of these matters and more in the following days. He had become so stressed and concerned about these preoccupations that he decided that he needed a break.

Hence, he decided to board a shuttle to go on an improvised field trip to Iron Crusher, the largest moon orbiting Lemogo Distat.

Unlike the wilder and more active Gatecrasher, Iron Crusher was a fairly tranquil moon. While it was subject to a few tidal forces and the like, the moon remained stable and quiet for much of its lifetime due to several factors.

The Larkinsons didn't have to worry about volcanoes bursting out of the ground or the entire moonscape cracking into pieces because of frequent tectonic activity.

Even though Gatecrasher exposed a lot more valuable mineral deposits on the surface, the environmental hazards made it difficult to take advantage of them. Numerous mining mechs incurred major damage after they became affected by the violent terrain.

The Larkinsons eventually learned the hard way that mining deposits on Iron Crusher was a lot less difficult.

Sure, the work required a lot of digging and prospecting, but at least the tunnels weren't about to collapse anytime soon.

Ves had decided to visit the largest concentration of valuable exotics that the survey parties had found so far. When his shuttle and its escort of mechs arrived at a place that his fellow Larkinsons had named the Violet Ridge Mountain Range.

"Welcome to Violet Ridge, patriarch." A mining director assigned to the Andrenidae transmitted to Ves. "Please follow me to the main camp. We are eager to show you a glimpse of our mining operations."

The mining director, Ves and his honor guard all opted to float above the surface and fly towards the mining camp settled at the foot of the notable mountain range.

He could already observe a large amount of vehicles and mining mechs moving in and out of the camp.

Large amounts of raw ore poured in from the various mines that the Larkinsons had opened up after discovering the abundance of this mountain range.

A lot of this ore consisted of silicates and regular materials that were basically worthless on the market. Taking them in only wasted a lot of cargo space so the mining camp had to process them first in order to cut them down to size.

While the processing machines set up by the Larkinsons were not capable of refining the ores completely, the Larkinsons were already happy with doing a quick pass.

They could complete the final refining stages at the Graveyard or ship them back to Davute and dump this problem on another company's lap.

No sound propagated throughout the airless moon. If it did, then Ves would probably hear the sounds of industry as a lot of vehicles and machines were being put to use.

He paid special attention to the special mining mechs assigned to the Andrenidae.

Each of them looked distinctly different from the combat mechs of the Larkinson Clan. They were essentially bestial mechs as they were designed in the shape of bees.

The Andrenidae used to be a Hexer mining ship that the Larkinsons had managed to acquire on the second-hand ship market.

While the Hexers had done a good job in designing and constructing this capital ship, the downside to buying their former products was that Ves got stuck with their idiosyncrasies!

Her origin meant that she was shaped-like a hexagonal hive and featured a distinctive honeycomb internal structure.

In order to complement the 'beehive' theme that the Hexers had applied to the Andrenidae, they designed and equipped their mining ship with the 5R Worker Bee Mech Model.

"How has this mining mech model worked out for you guys?" Ves curiously asked.

"Our crew were initially skeptical about the Worker Bees, but we learned to appreciate them once we used them in various situations. They are more than just mining mechs. Their six limbs, each of which can be used to perform different types of precision actions, makes them useful in tasks outside of digging ore. We have used them to assist with harvesting salvage, performing repairs on starships and transporting materials from one location to another. The only limit to their versatility is the training of the mech pilot. The Worker Bees are a bit more challenging to learn than other mining mechs and the pilots require specialized knowledge in order to become qualified to perform repairs and other tasks."

In other words, the Worker Bees could also function as general purpose worker mechs. They were useful in any fleet and could easily provide a lot of help in completing different tasks as long as the pilots possessed the right work training.

This made the Worker Bee model useful in situations where there were no mining operations taking at all. Whenever the expeditionary fleet was traveling around or parked in a restrictive star system such as Davute, the Andrenidae and her many Worker Bees would not have to sit around and do nothing all the time.

"What about their mining performance?" Ves asked the key question. "While it is nice that the Worker Bees are flexible worker machines, their main purpose is to mine stuff. How well do they do their jobs?"

The hazard suited mining director looked at all of the Worker Bees in sight.

"The model is… decent, I would say. When utilized for mining purposes, we have found that they excel in calmer conditions. They the Worker Bees are fairly flexible, move fast when unloaded, can take in a moderate volume of ore and can mine delicate or volatile minerals with care."

"What are the downsides?"

"We have found that the Worker Bees are not that durable. They get damaged fairly easily and they do not have a high fault tolerance. They require regular maintenance and they cannot handle hazardous environments well. They also move a lot slower when they are filled with ore. Overall, we have found that the mining mech model is efficient when used in calmer sites like Violet Ridge and not that ideal when used in more active environments such as Gatecrasher."

That was what Ves figured as well. A moon where volcanoes and earthquakes ravaged the crust on a regular basis was not a nice place for a mining mech model that could easily get crushed if rocks fell onto its bee-shaped body!

Ves approached one of the Worker Bees that was being serviced. He paid close attention to the wear-and-tear of the mech frame.

"These mining mechs are too light and hollow to work under difficult conditions." Ves concluded with a skeptical eye. "While the Worker Bee model has its advantages, I don't think they will remain a good fit in our fleet going forward. We need to replace them with a more heavy duty mining mech model that can perform its primary mission in many more environments."

The mining director turned to Ves. "We would love it if you could design a living mining mech for us! The Andrenidae would truly come alive if our crew can work with the same sort of machines that grace the Larkinson Army."

"I will consider it at a later date." Ves stated after he thought about it. "The Worker Bee's performance is not up to par, but it is hardly an incompetent mining mech model. From what I can see, it is doing the job it is supposed to do. I'm not in a hurry to replace them if that is the case. I will get around to starting a new design project because I think we can do much better than these fragile bee mechs, but for now try your best to make the most of your existing machines."

The mining director was not enthused about the answer, but it was the best that he could get. Ves could clearly see that the workers assigned to the Andrenidae would become a lot more motivated if they received his personal attention, but he had so many priorities on his list that he didn't really find it important to cater to these people's desires.

Perhaps he could treat this job as a minor design project and leave most of the development work to a design team.

That was a course of action that he would consider in the future. For now, he wanted to know more about the valuable exotics found in this mountain range.

"I've seen enough here. Take me to where Lucky is stationed. I want to see what my cat is doing these days."

"Certainly, sir. Let me call a vehicle that can take you to the mine."

They boarded another shuttle that slowly brought them to the largest and most active mining site. It was basically a giant hole in a mountainside that branched out as they followed different veins.

A lot of work was needed to dig out and stabilize the tunnels, but fortunately the relatively low gravity of the moon made it easy to handle all of the heavy matter.

As the shuttle slowly flew deeper into one of the tunnels, Ves and the rest eventually flew out into a dark tunnel where a couple of mining mechs were carefully inspecting the surrounding walls.

Lucky happened to be located close to the bottom. A handler was keeping in touch with the gem cat.

"What's going on here?" Ves asked.

"We have found small quantities of a high-quality resonating exotic called Hulivaster. It is a metallic substance that can be used to increase the effectiveness of certain forms of active stealth measures."

Ves became a lot more interested in that. If the Venerable Tusa happened to be compatible with Hulivaster, there might be a way to integrate it into the Dark Zephyr.

However, this was only a faint hope. The Dark Zephyr was already stuffed with enough resonating exotics and it also wasn't a true stealth mech.

If nothing else, the Larkinsons would probably bring back any Hulivaster retrieved from this site and dispose of it in Davute where they could be put to use in other expert mechs.

"Meow!?"

When Lucky phased through the tunnel wall, the cat was surprised that Ves had decided to show up in this dark and unpleasant mining tunnel.

A piece of raw Hulivaster ore rested between the cat's teeth. Lucky's apparent surprise did not stop him from chewing his prize and swallowing it in his belly!

Ves directed a critical look at his cat. "Will you be able to turn invisible now that you've eaten a batch of Hulivaster?"

"Meow meow."

"What?! Then why the hell are you eating this valuable resonating exotic in the first place? Leave it all to us so that we can sell them for lots of MTA credits!"

"Meow meow meow!"

His cat adamantly refused to stop. This was his reward for sniffing out all of these yummy exotics! He didn't want to go back to munching on the same exotics as before!

Ves sighed in exasperation before he turned back to the mining director.

"How many valuable types of exotics have you found so far in Violet Ridge?"

"We have come across 49 different types of exotics, of which half of them are resonating exotics." The man replied. "We found many of the resonating exotics inside this exact mountain!"