The Mech Touch

"What are resonating exotics?"

Many people had asked this question, mech designers most of all. They all relied on these materials to transform ordinary mechs into unique war machines that achieved their greatest strength in the hands of the expert pilots they were designed for. The mech piloting profession would have never become as glorious as today if not for the expert mechs, ace mechs and god mechs inspiring entire generations of humans to become involved with mechs!

Although most ordinary people never got in touch with expert mechs and expert pilots in their lives, the significance of their existence could not be understated. The way they worked and fought was completely different from any other combat approach that humanity had traditionally employed in the past.

The CFA was the most straightforward evolution of how humanity fought. Just like the many alien races that populated the Milky Way Galaxy and beyond, immense starfaring vessels armed with the biggest guns and missiles that could be fitted onto them was a tried and true formula for galactic domination!

The rise of mechs and more specifically high-ranking mechs had yet to topple warships as humanity's most powerful weapon platform, but that was because they were too new and underdeveloped.

While warship technology never ceased to advance, the rise of mechs in the span of almost half a millennium was stupendous!

The earliest generations of mechs were all rough and ungainly machines that moved and fought like giant metal bricks.

The current generation of mechs has far surpassed this primitive level. They were faster, more powerful, more efficient and immensely versatile.

Yet no matter how fast mech technology advanced, scale remained a persistent problem. Mechs were many times smaller than typical warships. They simply couldn't fit any weapon systems that were powerful enough to threaten the biggest warships.

With such a heavy handicap, mechs didn't deserve to be the protagonists of this age if not for the existence of a phenomenon as weird and unfathomable as high-ranking mechs.

They were practically a completely different species. These reality-bending mechs were capable of amplifying the extraordinary characteristics of exceptional pilots to a degree where they could alter the entire battlefield!

A lot of people questioned how these powerful mechs could accomplish feats that could not completely be explained by contemporary science, and now Ves was asking the same question.

His flew over a bucket where the mining teams had filled up a crate with resonating exotics that Lucky had sniffed.

His cat happened to play a key role in this mining operation.

In order to prevent the Worker Bee mechs from unnecessarily crushing and destroying the potency of all of the high-value exotics found in this mining tunnel, the Larkinsons had no choice but to adopt a more delicate approach.

Many Worker Bee mechs had left this tunnel in order to control the situation better. The ones that remained were largely occupied with taking samples and performing close-ranged scans.

The presence of scores of different types of exotics that each produced their own form of interference completely mucked up any attempt to map out the placement and identification of all of the exotics buried underneath the Violet Ridge Mountain Range!

Lucky became a useful asset in this situation as he was able to phase through solid rockets and investigate what lay beyond without producing any disturbances.

What was even better was that his innate smell for valuable minerals always led him in the right direction!

This was how he managed to discover 49 different types of exotics in this mining site, each of which were distributed in their own little pockets.

The Worker Bees had carefully extracted a lot of the identified minerals. They had deposited all of their harvests in reinforced containers that were placed apart from each other in order to minimize any unstable or dangerous interactions.

Fortunately for Ves, the miners had also left out a few samples which they placed in a series of floating crates.

Different rocks glinted in the light as his Unending Regalia's suit light shone over their surfaces. Some were black. Others were gray. A few even reflected rainbow colors.

The variety of exotic types dazzled Ves. Although it was not unusual for a well-endowed planet or moon to offer over a hundred different valuable exotics, he did not think it was normal to find 49 separate varieties of them, each of which possessed vastly different properties!

None of them were related to each other as far as he knew!

As Ves inspected the other crates filled with various different ores, he noted from the labels that his men had already discerned that half of them contained resonating exotics!

He turned to the mining director accompanying him on this visit. "How do you know that they are resonating exotics? Do you have a way of determining whether these minerals possess this rare quality?"

The figure garbed in a hazard suit shook his head. "No, sir. We merely put our scanning data into our internal network and wait until the processors have found a match. Half of these resonating exotics you see before you are not unique. Other humans have already encountered them elsewhere in the Red Ocean or even the Milky Way, so their details have long been added to the MTA's database."

Ves began to think through the implications of what he heard.

"Wait a minute…" He turned towards the boxes that held the unidentified exotics. None of them were labeled. "Are you implying that these unknown minerals might be resonating exotics as well?"

The mining director swept his arm towards all of the containers filled with known and unknown materials.

"We do not dare to make any premature conclusions, but the evidence that we have gathered so far paints an unusual pattern. Of the 49 resonating exotics that we have uncovered in this mining site, we have managed to identify 26 of them. Each of them all have entries in the MTA database that positively identifies them as resonating exotics. That leaves us with 23 unidentified mineral types. We know that they are exotics because your cat and our scanners have detected the typical signs of exotic activity. We cannot determine whether they are resonating exotics because the MTA database doesn't contain any entry on materials with these specific properties, but…"

"This can't be a coincidence." Ves furrowed his brows.

He began to suspect that there was a lot more to this dig site than was apparent on the surface!

All of the exotics that happened to be known to the MTA were all capable of producing resonance.

Not a single one of the exotics found in and around this tunnel were ordinary.

How could this be? Weren't resonating exotics supposed to be rare?

The rest of the Violet Ridge Mountain Range was rife with more conventional exotic minerals. Each of them possessed numerous different uses, but according to the MTA database, none of the metallic minerals found in those places were known to possess true resonance qualities.

The only exception was the collection of remarkable resources found in this specific place. The known materials were all proving resonating exotics.

As for the unknown ones? Ves became increasingly more certain that they were also part of the same club! Humanity simply hadn't encountered yet and the Larkinson Clan did not possess the necessary hardware and know-how to confirm that these mystery minerals were resonating exotics.

All he could rely upon was circumstantial clues and simple logic. Even though there was no guarantee that the 23 unknown types of exotics also possessed resonating properties, he felt so sure about this theory that he was willing to assume it was the truth unless he had evidence that suggested otherwise.

He turned back to the mining director. "If all 49 exotics possess resonating properties… what does that say about this site? Has there ever been a case like this in humanity's history?"

"There are cases in the past where humanity has found concentrations of many different exotics in a single site." The man answered. "The vast majority of them are related to anomalous or powerful cosmic events. There are no hard rules concerning the generation of exotic materials, but they are more likely to appear in high-energy environments. If I have to make a guess, I would say that an event must have occurred in the distant past that contaminated the surrounding environment and eventually produced the results that we are profiting from today."

All of this sounded too vague for Ves' liking. This was because humanity possessed an incomplete understanding of what exotics actually were and why they were so remarkable.

"I would like to examine these exotics in person."

"Be my guest."

Ves picks up a piece of rock that was similar to the chunk that Lucky had chewed on earlier.

The MTA database stated that it was a resonating exotic called Hulivaster, which were apparently useful in improving the functionality of extremely rare expert stealth mechs.

"I've never seen an expert stealth mech before."

Stealth mechs in general weren't common to begin with. They excelled at sneaking around but performed abysmally when exposed. In order to minimize their emissions and camouflage their surfaces, the stealth machines were much more fragile than standard combat mechs.

It also didn't help that good stealth systems were expensive to build!

When combined with the fact that stealth mech pilots usually weren't upright warriors who fought a lot of pitched battles, the amount of them that advanced to expert pilot was low.

For this reason, the market price of Hulivaster was quite low. Demand was almost non-existent in the new frontier.

"It makes sense. States haven't come into existence yet, so there is no support for a large and organized intelligence agency."

While Ves was certain that many different powers in the Red Ocean had brought over their shady action groups, their numbers shouldn't be too great.

All of that would change in a couple of decades as the first states built up all of their civilian and military institutions. The demand for Hulivaster would probably rise by then, allowing the Larkinsons to earn a handsome profit by selling this substance to different clients.

Ves shook his head. "I'm not going to wait that long to earn a modest amount of MTA credits."

It was not worth it to keep a rare and niche material like Hulivaster in his strategic materials reserve for decades in the hopes of earning a profit through speculation.

He didn't want to sell it either. The market price was just too low. Should he store it all? He was reluctant to do so because he did not wish to take up valuable cargo space on his fleet.

An idea came into mind.

"Maybe… I should build a vault on a planet and store all of my unwanted but potentially useful loot over there."

That would require his clan to select a location and build a stronghold.

Although Ves disliked the thought of stationing more Larkinsons away from his main fleet, he became increasingly cognizant that he couldn't rely on his fleet for everything. The lack of space aboard his ships had become an increasingly more significant constraint to his ambitions!

Therefore, building a large and fortified base on Davute or another planet became an increasingly more compelling option to him. On land, space limitations no longer existed as his clan could build new structures and dig new caverns whenever it wanted!

He could dump a million times more exotic materials than what his clan were excavating from this moon!

While protecting it all from raiders would be a grave concern, the advantages outweighed the costs.

"Maybe I should order the construction of a base when we get back to Davute…"

This was a major endeavor that had massive implications for his clan if he proceeded with this idea.

A part of Ves felt reluctant to increase his dependence on Davute and its power structure.

Perhaps he should build his stronghold on another planet…