The Mech Touch

Though the ambitious and novel Valkyrie Redeemer design occupied most of his attention at the moment, Ves did not wish to spend all of his time on a single project.

This wasn't the past anymore where the LMC's Design Department only possessed enough design capacity to handle two major projects at most.

With the addition of fifty fresh and eager assistant mech designers, Ves believed he could adopt an entirely new structure.

He shared his thoughts with Gloriana many times. Both of them harbored different opinions about how many projects their expanded Design Department was able to work on simultaneously.

Though Ves exhibited a lot of confidence and thought they could potentially assign a mech design project to every design team, Gloriana vehemently disagreed.

Her only other experience with design teams outside of the LMC was when she contributed to other Hexer mech design projects. The established Seniors and Masters she worked for had all been in the business for at least many decades, and they commanded an army of hundreds, if not thousands of assistants!

This skewed her perspective a bit. Perhaps in time, it was possible to reach this level, but for now the LMC was still a middle player in terms of the overall spectrum of mech companies.

Once they came to a consensus, both of them decided to announce their decisions in their first full conference meeting.

Twenty-five assistant mech designers along with Ketis filed into the conference room. They all took their seats at the long, oval table.

The newcomers only occupied half of the table. Ves already stood head on one side. Lucky didn't show any interest in the upcoming meeting at all and instead spent his time teasing Goldie, who resided in the Larkinson Mandate placed on the surface of the table.

The Larkinson Clan's ancestral heirloom and its warm glow calmed every assistant present. Even though they were excited at the thought of finally escaping the drills and starting on some projects, they all made sure to behave themselves.

The occasional glares thrown by Ketis suppressed any excessive behavior. Even the hotheads such as Rina Orion-Larkinson and Catherine Evenson-Larkinson had to bow their heads against the most barbaric mech designer in the LMC!

Soon enough, a chime sounded in the conference room. The Scarlet Rose established a remote connection to Cinach VI. The other side of the oval table suddenly shimmered as the projection of the other assistant mech designers appeared in place.

The erudite mech designers had arrived, and each of them stared curiously at the somewhat bedraggled but excited states of the brave mech designers.

Gloriana herself stood proudly at the opposite side of the table with Miles sitting closely by. Seeing the latter made Ves a bit regretful that he couldn't bring the former Tovar family member with his mission.

Unlike Ketis who was born in the frontier, Miles had been born with a silver spoon. Even if he faced a lot of internal competition within the Tovar Family, he was still part of the Bright Republic's ruling elite.

It wasn't suitable to drag such a figure to the Nyxian Gap. His various skills and inclinations turned him into a much more useful asset if he stayed by Gloriana's side and managed the erudite mech designers on her behalf.

Ves thumped the table with his fist. "Alright, everyone is here, so lets start. First, to everyone who has joined us in the last month, you might have been wondering whether you will get to design a mech at all during your time in the Larkinson Clan. Well, wonder no more, because today you will all be assigned to work on a mech design project!"

A lot of jubilation appeared on the faces of the assistants, especially the ones from his own camp!

The endless drills, the lack of sleep and the absence of any mech design had grated on all of their nerves. Even if they knew that it was necessary for them to learn how to cope with various shipboard emergencies, they still possessed the arrogance of an accomplished mech designer.

No other employer would dare to mistreat talents as if they were recruits who just joined bootcamp! If they wanted to live a regimented life, then they would have joined the military!

Gloriana, who stood on the other end of the table, took over from there. "My partner and I have deliberated on how many active projects we can sustain and how to allocate your work. In the end, we have decided to stick to a simple rule. We will work on one major design project for every Journeyman Mech Designer within our Design Department. That currently means we can tackle two major projects at most at this time."

Someone raised a hand. "What is a major project?"

"Those are mech design projects which cannot be completed without the involvement of one of our principal mech designers, which is currently my partner and I." Ves answered.

His fiance nodded. "Perhaps it is better to explain what minor projects are as well. These are the projects that are relatively lower in priority and difficulty to the LMC. We plan to hand over most of the responsibility of completing these projects to you, our assistants."

This was what many of the assistant mech designers had been waiting to hear! Each of them longed to design a mech. What was even better was the prospect of making meaningful design choices. They all wanted their own contributions to be reflected in the end product!

Ves knew what they wanted, and he did not disappoint. "Gloriana and I plan to adopt a relatively hands-off approach towards these minor projects. While we will still be setting the framework of the projects and supervise your progress along the way, you will largely work autonomously within the limits we have set. Basically, your supervisors will be responsible for the broad strokes, while you take care of the details."

Many assistant mech designers understood his approach. It was a lot more generous than what other employers allowed, but it did not provide them with the power to decide everything. They had to work within the specifications and design choices that Ves and Gloriana already prepared.

This approach towards project management served to make the most out of Ves and Gloriana's design expertise with the least amount of time investment.

Certainly, the pair would definitely be able to do a much better job than any of the assistants. The problem was that their time was limited. Both of them believed that the two of them could only devote their full attention to two major projects at most.

This was why they decided to set up a structure where they only needed to spend a couple of minutes a day at minimum to make sure the minor design projects proceeded on schedule.

In many cases, the problems that emerged in these projects might take a long time to solve, but neither Ves nor Gloriana planned to do the heavy lifting. As long as they diagnosed the problem and explained how to solve it, they could leave the tedious crunch work to their assistants.

Ves did not need to explain this rationale, as many of the assistants already understood the point of this structure. This was one of the many benefits of employing young but successful assistants.

"I'm sure you have already guessed it, but our minor projects will mostly revolve around third-class mech designs." Gloriana said. "The two major projects that Ves and I are working on will predominantly be based on second-class mech designs. At this moment, none of you are qualified to work on something so advanced. Keep studying the books in our library and work your way towards mastering the knowledge that is necessary to reach this level. Second-class mech designs will soon become the main focus of the LMC."

A fire lit in everyone's eyes. Every assistant that Ves and Gloriana had hired were ambitious in their own way. All of them were third-class mech designers, and all of them had long yearned to enter a higher circle of mech design!

"We have twelve design teams at the moment, with six assistants in each team." Ves stated. "After some deliberation, Gloriana and I have decided to allocate three design teams to each minor design project. This means that our pipeline is wide enough to accommodate four minor design projects at the same time!"

The implications were obvious. The assistants not only needed to develop a close partnership with the mech designers in their own team, they also had to learn to get along with their rivals in the other teams.

Ves planned to shuffle the design teams assigned to minor projects on a regular basis in order to make sure that every assistant did not get overly familiar with the same faces.

"Now that these organizational announcements are out of the way, let's get to the fun part. I'm sure you are all eager to hear what projects we will all be working on for the next couple of months."

He waved his hand, causing an empty list to appear over the table.

The list was split up in six sections. Only one of them contained any information.

"My partner and I have already begun work on the Valkyrie Redeemer Project. This is a major project which we cannot reveal any details due to its classified nature. You will have to satisfy your curiosity later."

Every assistant had already gone through some lectures about confidentiality. In fact, they should have already been familiar with the rules during their student days, but it didn't hurt to remind them of the seriousness of leaking information.

Ves absolutely could not tolerate betrayal, and he wanted to make sure that every new hire knew the consequences of crossing him. Forget about being black-listed, Ves had even hinted that he would take care of them in a more permanent fashion if they stabbed him in the back!

None of the assistants showed any further curiosity towards the Valkyrie Redeemer Project despite their burning curiosity.

Gloriana raised a finger, causing the slot of the second major design project to reveal some information.

"Our second major design project isn't as confidential, so we do not mind sharing what we will be working on. The project is codenamed Cat's Paw, and it is centered around designing a heavy artillery mech exclusive to the Larkinson Clan!"

That caused a fair amount of assistants to be shocked!

Usually, only the military fielded heavy mechs. They were large, expensive, cost-inefficient and unwieldy, which meant that they never sold very well on the market.

However, they did offer some advantages to wealthy customers and states. Aside from their abysmal mobility, their firepower and defensive parameters were often several times greater than that of a medium mech. Though these boosts came at a very high price, the space these mechs took up was not that much more!

This meant that while heavy mechs were very inefficient in terms of cost, they took up comparatively less space on a carrier than a bunch more medium mechs.

This was the main rationale for employing heavy mechs. If someone wanted to transfer a certain amount of firepower to a destination, they could dispatch a single carrier loaded with heavy mechs rather than two carriers loaded with medium mechs!

Ves explained why the Larkinson Clan was finally ready to field heavy mechs. "While I cannot explain our full circumstances to you yet, our clan is in the process of acquiring a lot of lovely new ships. Many of them are built for war and feature many bunkers on their hulls. It would be a shame to fill these bunkers with regular mechs, hence why we have decided to design our own heavy mech to add some teeth to our new vessels!"

The Cat's Paw Project was just as important as the Valkyrie Redeemer Project! Ves wanted to design a mech that was vastly superior to the Bright Warrior in its rifleman mech configuration in terms of offensive power.

The new heavy artillery mechs would not only be stationed on his upcoming second-class factory ship, but also lend their firepower to his second-class combat carriers.

This was a very major project that would have a very major influence on the defensive power of his future expeditionary fleet!