The Mech Touch

The matter of compensation was a thorny issue. The LMC had to pay something in order to preserve as much reputation as possible, but paying the equivalent of half the price of a second-class capital ship sounded far too much!

Ves glowered as he dismissed Gavin with an angry wave.

"Don't make any decisions. Let me think about it. Prepare more data for me. I want to know exactly how many people are affected badly enough that they can raise a stink in court or in public."

"We should try and buy them out of possible." Gavin suggested. "Most of the seriously-affected complainers consists of regular mercenary corps who just happened to have deployed the Doom Guard in battle at the time of the incident. The numbers are fairly small, so we can easily deal with them in many ways before they can exert influence. In fact, one of the reasons why the total cost of handling this situation is so high is because we need to step in before our competitors have the bright idea of doing so instead."

"What?"

"We'll be in trouble if the Friday Coalition buys out or obtains control over the damaged parties. There's no way to compromise with them then as they drag their case all the way to the MTA."

This was indeed something his enemies would do. "Move quickly, then. You have my permission to do whatever it is necessary to prevent the situation from going worse. As for the large group of customers who haven't suffered as much, I have something different in mind. I'll get back in touch with you after I flesh out my plan."

Ves issued some instructions to Gavin. He knew that time was of the essence and that they couldn't let the press report on the scandal without any input from the LMC.

"Before you go, is there anything you would like to add about the Hexers who have come?"

"Uhm, they're remarkably well-behaved, boss."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, when the first waves of Hexers arrived in Cinach, they looked down on us Larkinsons. They didn't stir up any trouble or anything, but they did little to conceal their contempt. That started to change once the Blessed Squire delivered them victory after victory. Now that we have all just heard about how you managed to smash a powerful fleet of pirates, the Wodins are actually starting to treat us with grudging respect. Of course, they're a lot friendlier towards our women."

Ves did not find this change of heart surprising. In any case, he was about to marry Gloriana soon, and that meant that his gains would partially become the Wodin Dynasty's gains as well. Mutual interest alone ensured that the Wodins would definitely support him as long as he continued to show promise.

"Has Gloriana been up to anything special?"

Gavin shook his head. "No. These days, she spends most of her time in the design lab. She is pushing her Erudites hard in order to make up for the absence of you and your Braves. She used to pay a lot of attention to the wedding planning before her mother arrived."

"Madame Constance Wodin has arrived as well?"

"Yes.." Gavin hesitantly replied. "She is.. quite a forceful individual. I can barely raise my head in her presence."

Anyone who could raise a daughter like Gloriana was bound to be strict. Ves had already heard enough to know that Madame Constance was not a woman to be trifled with. She may not be a matriarch, but she was pretty much the next best thing!

Seeing that his assistant was reluctant to talk about Madame Constance behind her back, Ves did not push any further. In any case, he would be meeting her in person in a month.

"What does the wedding venue look like?"

"It's big, and the Wodins recently decided to make it even grander. They're shipping sculptors and hiring a lot of local artists and craftsmen to enhance the visual impact of the giant space platform. They say it's needed to reflect your greater stature."

"I hope it doesn't look too Hexer-ish."

"Don't worry. Madame Constance may have her own ideas, but she isn't entirely inconsiderate towards us. The wedding shouldn't be a complete Hexer spectacle. If there is anything about the wedding that suggests that the groom is in any way inferior or subordinate to the bride, I'll bring it up to you. We all know how much you care about that. None of us want to become Hexers."

One of the points that Ves heavily emphasized to Gloriana was that he was in no way marrying into the Wodin Dynasty. She was instead marrying into the Larkinson Clan. Otherwise, he would hear no end of her trying to introduce more Hexer customs into their married life.

Hopefully, the wedding would be the first and last time he came in touch with so many Hexers. Once he left the Komodo Star Sector, he only had to deal with his newly-wedded wife and her Glory Seekers.

Though Ves felt slightly disgusted about the latter, they did bring 2000 powerful second-class mechs to the table. Perhaps these numbers might not mean much ten years from now, but in this early stage, he could use all the help he could get. The Battle against the Abyss had already taught him that his clan's foundation was still too weak.

Some time passed as Ves continued to think over his various issues. The Living Sentinels, the expert pilots, the Doom Guard scandal and his upcoming wedding continued to weigh on his shoulders.

Despite all of these troubles, Ves did not feel too encumbered. After confronting immensely powerful warships and dark gods, he didn't feel that any of his current challenges were too much for him to cope.

"Really. These problems are nothing compared to what I've faced on the battlefield."

He even felt as if his life was becoming more hollow now that he was about to return to a semblance of normality.

This was strange. During and after the Battle against the Abyss, he had clearly reached his limit. He wanted nothing more than to get out of the Nyxian Gap and escape all of the danger associated with this cursed region.

Yet now that he began to tackle the mundane problems of his regular life, some part of him wanted to stay.

As much as all of the dangers had pushed him to the brink, he didn't break in the end. Instead, he harvested enormous gains. From developing new methods of empowering his mechs and mech pilots to obtaining a large quantity of irreplaceable Unending alloy, it was clear that the Nyxian Gap still contained a lot of hidden treasures!

"No!"

He furiously shook his head!

He could not let his greed and desire for advancement warp his thinking. While he had gained much, he lost a lot as well. There was no way the survivors of his task force would support any further ventures in the Nyxian Gap!

Thinking about his gains also caused him to think about his losses.

They weren't trivial.

First, his task force had lost a lot of valuable mech pilots. A little over 1300 Larkinson mech pilots entered the Nyxian Gap in high spirits, but only around 530 of them made it to the end.

In other words, 60 percent of his mech pilots perished under his command! These were earnest, loyal and decent clansmen who all entrusted their lives to him. Ves failed his responsibilities, not that he would admit it to anyone.

He could not afford to feel guilty when doing so only disadvantaged him. He still had many ambitions, and he couldn't let a couple of missteps stop him from reaching Master!

"Besides, we can easily replace the slain mech pilots."

It sounded callous, but it was true. While it was still difficult for the Larkinson Clan to hire second-raters, it was not a problem to recruit thousands of third-raters. Unfortunately, it took a lot of time and effort to upgrade them into second-raters.

"Maybe I should just skip them and hire proper second-class citizens instead."

If he wanted to do so, the Larkinson Clan needed to leave the Komodo Star Sector first. There was no way he wanted any Fridaymen or Hexers into his clan. He only made an exception for the Penitent Sisters because of their meritorious service and their willingness to change.

Time passed as he continued to mull over these issues. After taking care of some matters, he finally met with the expert candidates.

Before his clan obtained any expert pilots, Ves cared a lot about expert candidates. Yet when the nine newly-advanced Larkinsons filed into the conference room and took their seats, his heart hardly moved.

He had better toys now. Why should he go back to playing with inferior ones?

"Welcome, everyone." He commenced the meeting while keeping his true feelings in check. "I hope that each of you have recovered from the previous battle. Let me thank you for stepping up in the previous battle. Fifteen of you managed to stall the Inexorable One long enough for help to come. Let us take a moment of silence for the six comrades that are not here with us today."

Ves waved his hand, causing the table projection to display the portraits of the six fallen expert candidates.

Each of the expert candidates looked solemn as they looked at the portraits. Each of them had looked them up already. A bit of guilt, regret and other complex feelings overtook the survivors.

They could have been among the casualties. When the Inexorable One used her innate advantages to torment the expert candidates, she could have picked off any one of them. That was one of the most fearsome moments of their lives. None of them enjoyed the feeling of letting others control their own fate!

Ves studied the expert candidates carefully. He sensed a burning desire to grow stronger from each of them. That was good. No one who advanced to expert candidates lacked ambition!

"Alright. We have paid our respects. Let us proceed." He waved his hand, causing the portraits to disappear. "Please introduce yourselves to each other."

It was all well and good to mourn for the dead, but he didn't want his men to obsess over them every day!

The new expert candidates proceeded to call out their names.

"Commander Casella Ingvar-Larkinson. Avatars of Myth."

"Imon Ingvar-Larkinson. Avatars of Myth."

"Tamarin Larkinson. Avatars of Myth."

"Isobel Kotin-Larkinson. Avatars of Myth."

"Percival Larkinson. Living Sentinels."

"Hector Larkinson. Living Sentinels."

"Trinity Larkinson. Living Sentinels."

"Avi Case-Larkinson. Flagrant Vandals."

"Zimro Belson-Larkinson. Black Cats."

The expert candidates had already gotten in touch with each other for the most part. This was the first time they met each other in person, though. They curiously studied each other and tried to see whether they should spend more time with each other.

Ves studied his new expert candidates as well. He could already see some interesting patterns.

It didn't surprise him that the Avatars boasted the greatest number of expert candidates. In fact, it should have been more, but the Inexorable One frequently targeted the gold-coated mechs in the previous battle.

What surprised him quite a bit was that the Living Sentinels still retained as much as three expert candidates!

This was an astonishing number considering the heavy attrition.

He supposed that the Sentinels who survived up to this point represented the very best. Ves had no doubt that the quality and skill of these Sentinels had already caught up to the Avatars for the most part!

Ves was still a bit wary towards this group, though. None of the Sentinel expert candidates looked at him fondly. Only twenty-four percent of their fellow mech pilots were left.

The last expert pilot was a bit of a surprise to him. According to the records, Zimra Belson-Larkinson used to be a Xona Stalker before the Black Cats absorbed the pirate defectors.

The final observation he made was that four out of nine expert candidates consisted of trueblood Larkinsons. This was a remarkable ratio considering how few of them were left.

It did not surprise Ves in the least that all the Sentinel expert candidates were completely made up of truebloods!