The Mech Touch

The battle that took place in the Viola Magnifica System had far-reaching consequences to many people.

The fall of the star system meant that the Torald Middle Zone had almost completely fallen into the hands of the native aliens.

There was only one defensive band left. Once the final line of fortified star systems got breached, many people who lived in the much more populated planets in the Krakatoa Middle Zone would become vulnerable to an unceasing stream of alien raids.

This was devastating to a lot of people and companies! Many of them had planted their roots in a star system that was as close to the center of the dwarf galaxy as they could manage.

Each of them had entered the Red Ocean with the belief that the locations close to the galactic rim would hold the least amount of value due to being so far removed from zones with a higher star density.

Now, these colonists and entrepreneurs found themselves more vulnerable to alien incursions than others. Many of them invested their life savings to afford new homes and businesses. If they were forced to evacuate from their planets, they would lose much of the wealth they had sunk into their investments.

It was consequences like these that Ves had always been reluctant to invest too much in landbound facilities. Recent events made him feel vindicated. It had been a good idea to not settle down his roots over in Davute.

If the Torald Middle Zone fell, the Colonial Federation of Davute would definitely turn into a warzone!

"Well, it’s not my problem. Mostly. It sucks for the Davute Branch of our clan, but who told them to construct and operate so many factories and other facilities?"

The aliens didn’t care about all of that. They only thought about looting everything that they could repurpose for their own uses while bombarding the rest. Every settled planet had to be cleansed from the human menace!

Although the Larkinson Clan was bound to suffer considerable losses in property and wealth once the native aliens began to raid the Krakatoa Middle Zone, Ves did not care too much.

Property could be rebuilt. Planets taken over by the aliens could be taken back.

What truly mattered was that the Larkinsons would be able to evacuate in time and resume their lives elsewhere.

Ves cared more about the impact on the latest battle on the mech pilots who participated in the fighting.

The casualties were heavier than he liked, but the survivors had grown considerably in every way.

Rookies became blooded. More experienced mech pilots turned into veterans. New heroes had emerged.

As far as Ves was concerned, the quantity of Larkinson soldiers had dropped, but the quality of those who survived the gauntlet had definitely increased in quality!

This was a worthwhile trade in his opinion. This was especially the case considering that his clan obtained not just one, but two additional ace pilots!

Not many people were in the mood to party after completing a phased withdrawal from the Viola Magnifica System, so the Larkinsons kept their celebrations small and subdued.

The clansmen already gained enough comfort in knowing that Saint Davia Stark and Saint General Ark Larkinson had entered the big leagues.

Naturally, the breakthroughs of these two individuals brought forth a lot of changes. People regarded them a lot differently than before. Their performance on the battlefield had been so convincing that they both received their fair share of admirers.

One of the biggest issues that Ves had to deal with was how to fit the new upgrade projects in the schedule.

"You know, I am actually glad that Joshua did not break through during this battle." Ves commented as he picked up a dozing Clixie and began to pet her luxuriously soft and fluffy fur. "I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to tell him he needs to wait 2 years to receive his upgraded Everchanger." ꞦáΝÔʙÊṥ

"Miaow~" The Rubarthan Sentinel Cat purred in his arms.

Gloriana turned her gaze away from her projected screen. "I am not as slow as before. Systematic cultivation has not only improved my utilization of my recently upgraded cranial implant suite, but it has also made all of our contributing and assisting mech designers more productive. First-class ace mech designs are not simple, but as long as we outsource more technical work to our in-house R&D institutions, we can complete a modest upgrade in as little as 3 months, and complete a major upgrade in 6 months."

Upgrading a more recent and future-proofed mech like the Amaranto Mark III to the standard of a first-class ace mech did not take much effort.

This happened to be the most extreme example as Gloriana only needed to replace a small set of components and reconfigure the software settings to enable the Amaranto Mark III to fully keep up with Saint Stark’s recent explosion in strength.

Upgrading an old and much more outdated mech like the Everchanger to a first-class ace mech was much more onerous work.

At this point, the differences between the two had become so great that Ves and Gloriana pretty much had to start from scratch in order to design the Everchanger Mark III!

Just the conversion from a classical mech to an archemech entailed a complete overhaul and redesign of the internal architecture!

This was why Ves and Gloriana actually dreaded the moment that a pilot with an old machine would break through. It would add a lot of time pressure on the pair.

This was why the two actually felt pleased that Venerable Joshua failed to break through this time.

As far as the Design Department was concerned, Joshua was more than welcome to take his time!

"Well, I don’t think we have to worry about Joshua breaking through in the short term. His latest discoveries and insights have opened up a brand new way for him to exercise his power. It should take him a considerable amount of time before he has mastered his latest tricks. Right now, there is still a lot of room for improvement, so he is not under as much pressure to acquire the power of an ace pilot as before."

"Mmhmm. That is good news." Gloriana said. "The Minerva Mark III Project is making brisk progress. We can start up the Riot Mark III Project and the Promethea Mark II Project directly afterwards. I think we can focus on designing them concurrently for greater efficiency. The Red Association has already notified me that Saint Isobel Kotin’s recovery is proceeding according to schedule. We should have her ace mech ready by the time she is ready to resume her service."

Ves and Gloriana had previously decided to focus all of their time on one high-end mech design project at a time. This was great for rushing a single machine out of the door as quickly as possible, but it ultimately caused them to take a longer time to complete a bunch of mech design projects due to inefficiencies.

For example, there were certain phases in a mech design project where heavy processing power was needed.

Once it was no longer necessary to perform so many calculations, all of that processing power would go to waste if it wasn’t being used to simulate outcomes for other mech design projects.

This example and more was why Gloriana was eager to resume their previous approach towards project management.

"Since that is the case, we should upgrade the Amaranto Mark III to a first-class ace mech as soon as she is shipped to our location. You will have to allocate a few hours that you originally reserved for the Minerva Mark II Project to this upgrade job, but it shouldn’t be too much of an issue considering that it is already mostly an ace mech anyway."

"Hm, I suppose you are correct. I shall make sure to do that. I know how important it is for our clan to mobilize ace mechs as quickly as possible."

Even Gloriana could not ignore the specter of war looming over everyone’s heads. She knew that if the native aliens ever managed to breach past the fifth defensive band, the Larkinson Clan would have to scramble as many mechs as possible.

During times of crises, the protection offered by those at the top became very scarce.

Many people and groups had no choice but to fend for themselves!

The female mech designer frowned. "What about your uncle Ark? Now that he has become the ’Saint General’, his potential has skyrocketed. He fares best in large battles involving millions of soldiers. He has become a junior ace pilot that red humanity needs the most during this ongoing alien offensive."

Ves thought about it for a moment. The Lionheart was a fairly new fifth generation living mech, but it was not cutting-edge anymore.

It was not an archemech, so Gloriana would have to spend a lot of time to completely overhaul its internals and such in order to bring the machine up to her standards.

The good news was that he saw no need to change the vision and concept of the Lionheart. Translating the expert command mech’s existing design solutions to a mech frame comprised of archemetal should not take much time, especially since Ves and Gloriana had done this several times already.

That did not change the fact that trying to fit the Lionheart Mark II into her already packed schedule was quite a challenge!

"I see no other choice but to put it in the back of the line." She sighed. "I cannot help it. The Amaranto Mark III, the Minerva Mark II, the Riot Mark III and the Promethea Mark III already fill up my time slots for at least an entire standard year. I see no other way to deal with the Lionheart Mark II Project aside from placing it in the back of my queue." Continue your adventure at My Virtual Library Empire

"We could split responsibilities." Ves suggested. "I can upgrade the Amaranto Mark III to a first-class ace mech by myself, and I can also handle the remaining work on the Minerva Mark II once you are done with designing the archemetal mech frame."

"NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! I will not hand over final control of the outcome of those upgrade projects to you! These ace mechs are my babies! If you take over responsibility for them, then I just know that you will spontaneously gain ’inspiration’ and implement a completely new design solution onto our designs that drastically changes our original vision! I will not give you any chance to spoil my perfect designs!"

Ves backed off as Gloriana engaged in another tirade. Even Clixie turned her head away as she grew discomfited by the woman’s shouting.

"Okay, okay! Forget I ever asked! We still need to come up with a good solution to ease the work burden. We can’t go on like this. If you don’t want to split up the projects, then how about bringing in additional core personnel who can speed up their completion? I am already thinking about letting Alexa Streon take over a few high-level mech designs on my behalf. You can do the same with your own protege… if you have one. Have you raised or recruited any talents as of late that can substitute for your work?"

"No one can possibly equal my work." Gloriana corrected Ves. "I do recognize the need to train disciples that can independently design archemechs. They do not have to be as good as myself, but they should at least help me save time when working on lower-priority projects. I am already working on it, but do not expect any expedient results. It is too difficult for most mech designers to understand the essence of archetech. Of the ones that do, there are even less of them that have the same appreciation for quality."

"Well, the sooner you have raised a qualified disciple, the better, because I don’t think our workload for high-ranking mechs will drop anytime soon."

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