The Mech Touch

Ves wasn't entirely proud of the Cross of Rebirth.

The newly-fabricated heirloom along with the Cross Warlord that inhabited it were both failed projects in his eyes.

Though he tried his best to process or make use of the willpower fragment of Saint Hemmington, the darned remnant was too combative.

The impression that Ves got from the proud and hostile fragment was that it would rather die than to be converted into a tool for someone else's use!

Even when Ves attempted to communicate that the fragment would be able to help the Cross Clan become more powerful, it simply stuffed its metaphorical ears and refused any other entreaties.

Ves did not dare to do anything further to it. He was even afraid of shattering it and using it as a key ingredient to make the Cross Warlord because Saint Hemmington's willpower was too strong and exclusionary!

In the end, he decided to put the P-stone containing this hard-headed fragment aside. He decided to create a more generic and whiteboard ancestral spirit to serve the needs of the Cross Clan.

The only special decision he made was to create the Cross Warlord within the sphere of influence of the willpower fragment. Ves hoped that his resulting creation would start off with a high affinity for the Cross Clan in his way.

In order to make sure the Cross Warlord became acceptable to the Crossers, he blended in ingredients that aligned with their martial values.

Both the Solemn Guardian and the Zeigra served as the key ingredients. While the two design spirits were rather boring and one-dimensional, they both complemented the professionalism and the pursuit of glory of the Cross Clan.

Of course, Ves had tweaked the proportions so that there was much more of the Solemn Guardian and a bit less of Zeigra in the Cross Warlord. He did not want the ancestral spirit to push the Crossers into becoming more aggressive!

If Ves had a choice, he wouldn't have included a fragment of the former Crown Cat at all, but that would likely make the Cross Warlord too tame for the tastes of the Crossers.

He did not add any additional ingredients. In fact, he did not even contribute any universal life energy either. The Cross Warlord may be weak at the moment, but with several powerful expert pilots in the clan that it was about to watch over, it would have no problem receiving the high-quality spiritual feedback it needed to jumpstart its own natural growth process!

In any case, unlike the Superior Mother, the Cross Warlord was purely a product meant for sale, nothing more. Ves had no emotional connection to it and he had no reason to commit his most valuable and non-replenishable resources to an ancestral spirit that benefited someone else than his own people.

As Reginald Cross began to admire the masculine-looking cross in his hand, he became more accepting of what he received. He shouldn't be asking for more as long as Ves was able to deliver what he originally promised. The immediate priorities of his clan took precedence over his desire to get a portion of his father back.

Once Ves made sure that the products he delivered to his customers met their needs, the three moved on to the next step.

"You need to be careful about the implementation of your kinship networks." Ves warned his fellow leaders. "There are not only crown terrorists in your midst, but also other spies and people who are not actually friendly. Some of them pose a deadly threat to you and your group while others are simply bastards. The latter will probably keep complaining when the kinship network has marked them out, but the former…"

"Terrorists are terrorists. They won't surrender peacefully." Patriarch Reginald ominously determined.

"Just so." Ves nodded in agreement. "You will need to prepare extensively before inducting your people in your new kinship network in one go. The less time and preparation you give them, the lower the likelihood that they will be able to harm too many people. It's actually best to round everyone up and detain them so that they can be inducted into the Cross Clan under controlled circumstances. The key is to immediately suppress those who have been found out, either because the network rejected them or because they try their best to weasel their way out of this necessary step."

No one in the conference room dared to underestimate the crown terrorists. They had already shown their means by affecting the highest levels of the first-rate superstates!

They discussed this issue for an entire hour. Ves freely gave them plenty of advice on how they could leverage the kinship network to best secure the internal situation of respective groups.

A few days passed by as the expeditionary fleet continued to make its way deeper into Winged Serenade. The highly-developed star sector should have been a pleasant place to be in due to its high economic and cultural development.

Yet due to the constant incidents incited by the crown terrorists, the busy star sector had turned into a dangerous region of space where any random person on land or in space might turn out to be a threat!

Different fleets and individual ships kept a much further distance from each other than before. Anyone who intruded in another vessel's personal space was immediately considered suspect.

Plenty of fights had already sparked across the galaxy due to ships mistakenly straying too close to other ships!

The Golden Skull Alliance became vigilant towards strangers who might attempt to get uncomfortably close.

Even if the expeditionary fleet entered a star system that was devoid of other ships, the alliance members didn't slack off and diligently deployed their mechs and manned their stations in the event of an attack.

Yet as everyone directed their focus outwards, many Glory Seekers and Crossers were suddenly ordered to assemble in a central area!

Once they gathered in the hangar bay or some other large assembly area, armored soldiers along with their accompanying officers all compelled everyone who arrived to undergo a 'special' ritual.

Since it was too troublesome to use the Glory Torch and the Cross of Rebirth to induct tens of thousands of people in a short amount of time, Ves made sure to provide his customers with additional tools that could be used as substitutes.

Every ship hosted a simple but functional statue of the Superior Mother and the Cross Warlord. Though Ves did not spend too much time on each of them, they were more than capable enough to function as an interface for their respective kinship networks.

Ves waited quietly on the bridge of the Spirit of Bentheim while his Larkinsons went on high alert. The Larkinsons had deployed all of the mechs they could put out into space. Even the expert pilots deployed with their prime mechs, though their presence was completely overkill as far as many people were concerned.

Two hours passed by as the Glory Seekers and the Cross Clan both underwent drastic changes. Though Ves did not have access to direct feeds that showed what took place aboard the ships of his allies, he could imagine the confusion among the people and the delight that they experienced once they first formed a connection to a kinship network.

Yet not everything was destined to go smoothly.

"We've detected an energy spike in the rear of the Glory Seeker fleet. An explosion has just detonated inside one of their repair vessels!"

"What is the damage?" Grand Captain Daria-Maria Vraken turned to face the sensor operator.

"It appears a fuel tank has exploded. Though the ship's hull has been breached, the rest of the vessel is still sound. The explosion took place in the lower decks where she only stored her cargo. The damage appears to be purely material."

This was not the first incident that occurred in the combined fleet. Multiple explosions set off. The worst one was caused by a deranged engineer who had somehow sabotaged all of the security measures surrounding a power reactor and rigged it up to blow.

The explosion of this unit not only wrecked the entire engineering bay of the logistical ship, but also killed all of the engineers that had been vetted beforehand!

Ves sighed and closed his eyes. He had enabled all of this to happen. Rooting out traitors from the ranks of the Glory Seekers and the Cross Clan was a necessary process, but that did not mean he liked it. Everyone just had to clench their fists and pull out their aching teeth as quickly and decisively as possible in order to put an end to the pain.

Several more damaging attacks occurred, but none of them were major enough to be of concern. It had become a lot harder to destroy an entire ship after the security forces woke up and performed much more stringent checks.

In the end, seven more ships got damaged. Fortunately, the damage was rather isolated and even the weakest civilian vessel in the allied fleet could take at least some beating.

Meanwhile, the Glory Seekers and Crossers managed to go through all of their members. It may have taken an entire day, but everyone left was either inducted into a kinship network or became exposed!

Ves could vaguely sense the two kinship networks expanding explosively over time. It was quite amazing to see how the networks had to stretch again and again to accommodate all of the newcomers.

When Marshal Ariadne and Patriarch Reginald contacted Ves by remote, all three of them looked tense and tired.

"It's never pleasant to go through this ordeal." Ves softly said to his peers.

"I predicted that it would be bad, but I never expected that we would find over three-hundred suspicious members in our midst!" Marshal Ariadne revealed. "Granted, the majority are not related to the crown terrorists, but the fact that they answer to another Hexer dynasty or foreign organization is already bad enough!"

"What about you, Patriarch Reginald? How is your situation?"

Anger began to well in Reginald's mind. If Ves was meeting him in person, he would probably get flooded by the expert pilot's angry aura!

"This is unforgivable! We have found hundreds of dubious individuals in our clan as well. Their motives and their true allegiances differ, but it is distressing how the Planat Clan, the Praetor Clan, the Billard Tribe, the Chardon Tribe and many old enemies managed to insert their own people in our ranks! I fear what they could have done if they were left unchecked."

Despite Patriarch Reginald's outburst, Ves didn't think it was a big deal. The spies were mostly deep agents planted by other Garleners. They weren't elite saboteurs who were trained to destroy entire ships from within. The caught spies were mostly tasked with keeping an eye on the Crossers and discreetly passing on any important information they came across. The actual damage they could do was very limited and indirect.

Of course, as someone who loathed treachery a lot, Ves would have reacted just as strongly as Patriarch Reginald when he discovered so many problem individuals.

"What will you do with them?" Ves curiously asked.

Patriarch Reginald let out a harsh noise while cutting his palm across his neck. His message was very clear.

Marshal Ariadne was more moderate. "We will perform extensive investigations into the backgrounds of our suspect crew members. We will put each and every one of them through a military tribunal."

"I see. I hope you don't judge them too softly. Regardless of the final verdict, I hope that none of them are able to leave and spread word of what has happened. It is in our best interest to hide the existence of our kinship networks. Our enemies, both current and future ones, can take much more effective measures against us if they know of our advantages."

"..Understood. We will make sure that neither the guilty nor innocent will ever have the opportunity to spread word." Marshal Ariadne vowed.

How she would be able to guarantee this, Ves didn't know. He just lamented that a lot of potential test subjects were about to be discarded! If he could get his hands on them, he could perform some extra experiments!