The Mech Touch

Ves stood in the center of the shrine hall as he viewed a recording of Ketis' battle against the Grand Protector and the Grey Watcher.

In order to vividly observe the battle and capture the most details, he overlaid the actual terrain with projections taken from every surviving footage of the hectic battle.

Ketis had already taken the time to rip every scrap of data from broken armor pieces. Even when Grand Protector Roshaw ripped apart the combat armor of every paralyzed victim, some of them still possessed intact sensors that faithfully recorded what they observed and stored them in backup data ch.i.p.s.

The fidelity and quality of the footage varied wildly, especially due to the large amount of interference thrown up by the dark fog. Ketis only managed to obtain decent results by combining many sources of footage.

Tentacles piercing through bodies. Helpless victims laying paralyzed on the ground. The Grand Protector sacrificing their bodies while ranting about life of all topics. The huge idol of a dark god falling over.

Unfortunately, what happened next got cut off when the fallen statue of the tentacled whale suddenly spewed out all of the darkness without restraint!

The interference thrown from such a huge movement of energy at close ranges overwhelmed many sensors.

That was a pity. Ketis described a vivid, desperate struggle while she was eating lunch.

"Lucky and I never expected the Grey Watcher to survive having a statue fall on him. The way he managed to absorb some of the dark fog is quite abnormal." She spoke while eating the contents of a freshly-produced nutrient pack.

"So this fellow turned into a quadruped flesh monster as big as an elephant, but failed to land an attack on you even after several minutes of high-intensity fighting?" Ves raised his eyebrow as he watched the intact footage for the third time while he chewed.

He held a spoon with one hand and an opened nutrient pack with his other hand. He already added some hot water in the opened packet to hydrate and heat up the contents. He scooped up another spoonful of nutrient slurry and shoveled it into his mouth. A spicy, subtle taste spread through his tongue.

"I already told you, Ves. I'm a Swordmaiden. Just because I'm not a mech pilot doesn't mean I'm any less deadly up close. To be honest, the Grey Watcher would have been better off shooting me with a gun than transforming into a giant mutant. The Grand Protector wrecked my armor. If that Xarnus fellow just bided his time and shot me with a pistol without my notice, he would have been able to take me down."

"Cultists. They never make the most logical decisions. What can you expect?" Ves shrugged while he swallowed his latest mouthful. "I hope you don't follow in that stupid guy's footsteps. I know you prefer to fight with swords, but I gave you that compact laser pistol for a reason."

"That gun is quite useful, if a bit on the small size. It overheated during the battle, though."

The two continued to chat about her battles while they quickly finished the contents of their nutrient packs. They couldn't help it. While the flavor wasn't the best, Ves never tasted anything so spicy, savory and with some unique notes that he had never experienced before.

Due to his altered physique and metabolism, his taste buds were quite dulled. It took a lot of flavor for him to taste something enjoyable. The products of the nutrient processing plant just happened to exceed a certain threshold that made him feel as if he was eating something meaty.

"This is surprisingly good." Ves looked appreciatively at the empty wrapper. "Are all the nutrient packs from this plant as packed with flavor?"

Ketis shook her head. "Not exactly. The output is rather.. variable. Quality control here isn't too strict, especially when it comes to the selection of ingredients. The input changes day by day, which means that each nutrient pack comes out just a bit differently every time. That's one of the appeals of pirate-produced food. For many local Nyxian residents, nutrient packs are all they will ever eat in their lives. Tasting different flavors from the same brand helps keep their meals more varied."

That made sense to Ves. In a barren region like the Nyxian Gap, it wasn't as if there were large, fertile planets and landmasses lit by suns. Cultivating natural foodstuffs required a lot of space, so cultivating plants or cattle in indoor farms was fairly trouble.

While the Larkinsons already encountered a fair amount of sophisticated vertical farms at Ulimo, the energy, resources and manpower put into them was fairly onerous. In the skewed economy of the Nyxian Gap, regular people could never afford to eat organic food on a daily basis.

For this reason, most people simply grew up eating nutrient packs instead. All it took to produce them was to process and mix a large amount of organic matter together. This could be anything from sewage, compost or even industrially-synthesized compounds.

There was nothing wrong with eating such food. It was simply a way to produce food that was nutritious enough for humans to live on at the highest possible efficiency and the least amount of waste.

In the most ideal circ.u.mstances, food produced and consumed in an isolated settlement or space station could be maintained in a closed loop.

The meals that the local residents ate were eventually discharged into sewage. That sewage flowed back to a treatment plant which broke it all down. The resulting output would then be brought to a nutrient processing plant much like this one and be made into freshly-produced nutrient packs.

This was simply a human method to shorten the natural cycle of consumption. A more natural cycle involved tedious, wasteful and time-consuming steps such as cultivating crops, feeding some of them to cattle, butchering them for meat and so on. With space and resources in places like the Nyxian Gap at a premium, how could the pirates ever have the patience to go through all of that trouble?

Even so, pirates could be quite creative when it came to varying the flavor profiles of their nutrient packs. Since they depended so much on them for sustenance in their daily lives, Ves discovered that they had become quite skilled at providing them with interesting flavors!

"I made sure to reserve a couple of crates of nutrient packs from this plant that you might find interesting." Ketis smiled knowingly at Ves. "I know you'd love them. They're quite unique."

"Mmmhmm. It's too bad that Lucky isn't doing so well. The local cuisine seems to trouble him quite a bit."

They turned their attention to a mechanical cat that was splayed flat on the floor.

"Meoww…" Lucky weakly meowed.

His cat looked like he had eaten something abominable and suffered the consequences of it. When Ves initially heard about Lucky's digestion problems, he reacted with worry.

However, now that he saw his cat, he felt his cat deserved what he had brought on himself. Who told him it was a good idea to eat portions of an ancient alien statue?

Ves couldn't actually tell whether Lucky would recover from inspecting his mechanical body. Examining his damaged and repairing body was pointless due to the sheer complexity of his construction. Scans couldn't even penetrate into his internals!

The true reason why Ves put down his worries was because he observed that Lucky was fine from a spiritual angle. Sure, it was showing signs of instability due to the great amount of discomfort Lucky experienced. Yet it was also growing stronger, signifying that the gem cat ultimately benefited considerably from what he had eaten!

In other words, the problem wasn't that Lucky had eaten something bad. In fact, the chunks of metal he ingested were both potent but very difficult to digest, thereby forcing him to direct most of his energy towards processing his difficult meal!

"Meow.. meow.."

Ves bent down to pet Lucky's exterior plating. He closely looked at the glowing rents that were growing smaller day by day. Even without his stomach ache, Lucky wasn't in a shape to play commando cat for at least several weeks.

"So the Misfortune Harness broke?"

"Yes." Ketis said. "The Rising Red Dragon suit you upgraded for me broke as well."

"Did you preserve your helmet?"

"I did. Our clansmen already picked up all of the debris and set them aside."

"That's good. I used very special material to line the Misfortune Harness and your helmet. I don't want to waste any of it. I'll build you a new suit of combat armor when I have time."

"You don't have to worry about that. I know you're busy. I can build my own or settle for one of the standard suits." Ketis brushed the issue aside.

Though she had a point, this battle proved that normal protection didn't cut it anymore for someone as important as her. Not every problem could be solved with mechs.

The Batle of Ulimo Citadel revealed the importance of a strong infantry force to him. Right now, they were something of an afterthought to him, though Major Verle and the various officers under his command already covered this necessity.

As a mech designer, Ves often exhibited a blind spot for combat forces that weren't mechs. Back in the Sand War, he adopted a dismissive attitude towards starfighters, even though they contributed significantly in the defense of the Bright Republic and other states.

In many wars, the confrontations between mechs decided the outcome of a campaign. The infantry battles that ensued mostly consisted of cleanup operations.

That said, the Larkinson Clan was different from a state. Infantry played an elevated role to them. Ves increasingly felt the need to invest specifically in a strong and distinct infantry force. He even felt tempted to design some exclusive infantry gear for his clansmen.

The reason for that was due to another shortcoming exposed by the previous battle.

The Larkinson Clan and especially the Penitent Sisters both possessed a lot of strength against material foes. Yet as soon as his enemies resorted to more esoteric methods such as calling down an artificial anomaly, much of the tech couldn't cope with the spiritual attacks that ensued!

The ghosts the dark sphere summoned were definitely manifestations of spirituality, at least partially. It took his own spiritual efforts as well as the help of the transcendent mech pilots of the Larkinson Clan to defeat the Hallowed Abyss Temple's efforts at Ulimo Citadel!

The rather heavy losses suffered by the Penitent Sisters ill.u.s.trated the dangerous result of ignoring threats from this angle.

For this reason, Ves contemplated whether he should set up an additional mech troop dedicated to fighting spiritual threats. With the birth of Lufa, the Angel of Tranquility, Ves had the perfect design spirit to pair with the mechs fielded by this new mech force!

Still, setting up yet another new mech force from scratch wasn't easy. The Larkinson Clan already had its hands full with trying to integrate the Avatars, Sentinels, Battle Criers, Vandals and Swordmaidens.

He also doubted the utility of such a force. Most enemies weren't like the Nyxian pirates, who eagerly consorted with strange cultists who possessed shadowy ties with the Five Scrolls Compact.

Once he returned to civilized space, Ves shouldn't encounter too many weirdos, though he couldn't rule out the possibility entirely.

He decided to set this matter aside and revisit it when he returned to civilized space. Many matters couldn't be done when he was still in the Nyxian Gap.

Ves turned his attention back to the present. After caressing Lucky's tired head one last time, he turned around and approached the fallen statue.

The Larkinsons that came to clean up the site refused to disturb it. The fact that it looked awfully close to the giant alien monster that had almost threatened to wipe everyone out was the biggest reason why no one wanted to touch it. They didn't even have the guts to poke it with a bot!

"Hmm. So this is the source." Ves spoke with an interested expression. "I wonder what it's made of. If it is potent enough to give stomach indigestion, then it's probably valuable!"