The Mech Touch

Expert pilots were amazing individuals. They possessed strength beyond the reach of average humans, especially when paired with expert mechs!

They were a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield and could single-handedly turn a large battle around by their deterrence factor alone!

Although they were not as effective against the sandmen due to their inability to feel fear, expert pilots still served as the pillar of the military.

Every human worshipped or respected expert pilots. They were some of the foremost groups of modern society. Through the constant efforts of the MTA, expert pilots were deified as demigods! They transcended their mortality and grasped a portion of power that did not belong to normal humans!

Yet for all of their might, will and skill in battle, expert pilots all possessed some shortcomings.

Regular people might not know this, but a Larkinson like Ves who interacted with several different expert pilots long figured out their weaknesses.

The source of their strength was also their greatest weakness. Every expert pilot developed an obsession or pursued an ideal to the extreme. This was a consequence to developing a force of will!

A normal human was a lot more mixed when it came to their thoughts. Every human was a complex individual who possessed numerous different values and principles, many of which contradicted each other.

While this sounded messy and flawed, this was exactly why humanity managed to rise through various difficulties. By acting duplicity and deceptively, they managed to fool many stronger alien empires.

If every human was truthful, they wouldn't be human anymore!

A human society that adopted the same strong principles as expert pilots would be one which wouldn't be able to hide anything and could only fight its opponents honestly!

This was a very bad thing to Ves because humanity only came out on top by playing dirty!

Of course, this was his analysis on the official history of the rise of the human race during the Age of Space and Age of Conquest. Ves was not entirely sure how much of a role the Five Scrolls Compact played in humanity's rise and how much it affected his narrative.

In any case, expert pilots all lost a part of humanity when they broke through the extraordinary threshold.

It kind of made Ves feel relieved that his life did not follow this trajectory. Who knew what kind of simpleton he might become if he became a mech pilot and advanced to expert pilot on account of his strong Spirituality!

As an expert pilot, his mind and Spirituality developed in a completely different direction.

Whereas high-ranking pilots seemed to pursue strength through purity, high-ranking mech designers opted to pursue strength through complexity.

These directions were very suited for their chosen professions. Expert pilots did not need to think too much or develop their intelligence. Instead, they needed to harness their minds and spirits to handle the enormous load of interfacing with their powerful mechs!

In contrast, high-ranking mech designers had no need to go through such a burden. They had to master the sciences and polish their design ability in order to create new mech designs. To give them an edge in this aspect, they focused on developing new innovations that developed as a result of combining knowledge, inspiration, their own traits and some spiritual sauce!

As a result, high-ranking mech designers were much more capable of navigating the commercial sector and upper society than high-ranking mech pilots!

The latter was just too unsuited to play politics!

Right now, Ves engineered a verbal confrontation against Venerable Ghanso. Once Ghanso fell into his trap, he soon managed to turn their semi-public argument into a political contest by letting their audience decide who was right!

Ves refrained from grinning or showing any undue pleasure while he waited for the Larkinsons to issue their votes.

Throughout the entire debate, Ves had continued to do his best to cast himself in the best light. Meanwhile, he threw as much shade as possible at his opponent, not even caring if he lied or exaggerated some of his accusations.

Though Ghanso did a reasonable job at parrying the attacks, his nature as an expert pilot did not exactly make himself look good! He was extremely honest in showing his contempt and disdain, which worsened the impression he made!

While this wouldn't do much damage to expert pilots considering they enjoyed a very high regard, Ghanso hadn't refuted every argument either.

At the very least, the unwitting expert pilot was more concerned about his mission than winning a popularity contest!

In his opinion, as long as Ves was taken away, his influence in the family would eventually collapse, or at least diminish to the point where Ghanso could regain the upper hand.

How could he possibly guess that Ves outright ignored the rule that he could propose drastic changes when the steering committee convened!

Ves did not wait for such a useless, tradition-heavy meeting. He also didn't limit the vote to the elders of the Larkinson Family, and neither did he wait for the Larkinsons on active duty to come back from their deployments!

Instead, he gave each and every available Larkinson a choice to decide their own future. He even offered this choice to the minors of the family!

He made these choices deliberately to maximize his share of the votes.

It was no secret that most of the Larkinsons who sided with Ghanso and valued their duty were serving in the Mech Corps. The old and retired veterans who felt they still needed to offer their services to the Bright Republic due to the outbreak of the Sand War had left as well!

This meant that most of those who remained behind consisted of Larkinsons who were much more inclined to take his side! Each of them would probably agree that the Larkinsons deserved more, and that prioritizing duty to the state above everything else was not worth all of their sacrifice!

While the decision to give the minors a chance to vote was not entirely proper, Ves doubted that anyone cared at the moment.

While the older generation were more set in their ways, the younger generation had adapted to the recent changes in the family the fastest! While many young Larkinsons still dreamt of serving in the Mech Corps, even more were lured by the promises of working for Ves!

Though Ghanso sputtered with outrage, Ves continued to sit while projecting confidence as he waited for the Larkinsons to make their choices known.

After several minutes, most Larkinsons who wanted to make their choices known had issued their votes.

"Alright." Ves spoke. "Every available Larkinson has spoken. Let me announce the results."

Ghanso narrowed his eyes as he couldn't help but be curious how many Larkinsons took his side.

"I will only be mentioning the Larkinsons who took part in this vote today. 39 percent of you have abstained. No one from this group has offered any support to Venerable Ghanso or myself. That's alright. I understand if you don't really have a preference or simply wish to avoid taking sides."

Those who wanted to abstain simply didn't vote at all.

Perhaps if Ves was more scrupulous, he would offer the choice of abstaining as a third voting option.

The reason why he left that out was because he feared the abstainers would amount to 80 percent of the Larkinsons! After all, most Larkinsons probably disliked the infighting in their family.

The Larkinsons had to stick together! This was what they had always been taught! Strong disagreements were never allowed to fester to the point where they produced a schism!

Of course, Ves stomped on this rule like many other rules formed by his family. No one aside from Ghanso were there to rebuke his decisions at the moment, so he was free to trample on tradition whenever he liked!

"46 percent of the family has voted in favor of letting me assume command of the Larkinson Family!" Ves cracked a modest smile this time. "Each of you believe in my vision for our family, and for that I thank you all for your vote of confidence!"

"Hey! This vote is farce! It's not representative of the family at all! Only our wisest, oldest and most honorable Larkinsons should be making these decisions!" Ghanso objected. "Even if I let this go, you should at least include every Larkinson instead of excluding those like Colonel Ark Larkinson who is busy saving us against the sandmen!"

Though Ghanso had a point, Ves outright ignored his protests, thereby diminishing their weight!

"The remaining 15 percent of you have chosen to side with Ghanso, who wishes to perpetuate our current traditions. I think it is clear who has won this vote!"

Instead of shouting at him again, Ghanso suddenly retracted his outrage and looked at Ves with an anticipating grin.

"Do you believe you've won, Ves? This vote of yours has no basis in our family's rules. As far as I am concerned, the Larkinson Family is still the same! Just wait for my arrival to your little headquarters, Ves. I will be arriving soon to escort you to safety. As for our family, we should do everything properly and make a decision by convening the steering committee after the sandman invasion has passed."

Perhaps knowing that Ghanso would not be able to accomplish anything, he cut the connection, leaving Ves to face the Larkinsons alone.

While it appeared that Ves had gained an absolute advantage over Ghanso as a result, he knew that his victory would only be empty as long as Ghanso succeeded in taking him away!

Right now, Ves had to return to his primary goal and convert the gains he made into a way to extricate himself from this crisis!

To do that, he needed to make use of his newly gained authority and appeal to the Larkinsons once again!

"My fellow Larkinsons. You have heard Venerable Ghanso. His dislike towards me is evident. He hates me because I want to change the Larkinson Family for the better! While I do admit that this vote is not fully representative, I have won a majority of your support!"

Whether the Larkinson Family would truly acknowledge his victory remained to be seen. However, it was difficult for other Larkinsons to band together and argue against his decisions at the moment!

This gave Ves the opportunity to make use of the halo he gained from 'winning' the vote!

I hope that those of you who disagreed or abstained will respect the opinions of the majority of our family. As your temporarily-appointed leader, let me begin with a request! Those like Ghanso and the paltry 15 percent of our family do not wish to see me follow through with my promises! They wish to deprive you all of the wealth and fortune that only my mech company and I can provide!"

He clasped his hand and tried to look a little desperate.

"Let us stop Ghanso by showing how much we disapprove of him by standing in his way! To any Larkinson on Cloudy Curtain who is serving with the Avatars or Sentinels, please lend me your support today! I am granting every Larkinson permission to board any mech they like and deploy in front of my headquarters!"

He could sense the shock from his audience! Was he asking for them to fight against a fellow Larkinson and an expert pilot?! This was outrageous!

Ves quickly raised his hand. "I am not asking you to fight! I am not asking you to point your weapons at Ghanso's expert mech or push it back! I am just asking you to form a wall of mechs to make your stances clear! Family should never attack family! Let us stop this rule breaker from pursuing his personal vendetta! Stand with me, Larkinsons, and fight for a brighter future!"

He ended his broadcast at this point. His office descended into silence as he had finally made his gambit.

Were the Larkinsons brave enough to support him by standing in the way of an expert pilot of the family?

After a few minutes had passed, the first mechs piloted by the Larkinsons already started moving out of the bases of the Avatars and Sentinels.

Ves inadvertently smiled as the Larkinsons started to show their support.