The Mech Touch

"Miaow~"

Clixie laid comfortably on both Ves and Gloriana's laps. Two different hands tweaked her ears and rubbed her belly at once. Her lovely fur felt soft and smooth to the touch.

Lucky was nowhere to be soon. The mechanical pet was spending most of his time with Calabast in order to inspect every single system aboard the Blinding Banshee. The Black Cats with the help of a different cat were making brisk progress in verifying that the ship could be trusted to function as advertised, but she was still a capital ship for a reason. Five kilometers was still a long stretch even if the volume of the ship was actually not that large.

Fortunately, the Black Cats didn't need to scour the vessel from stern to bow in order to get her to move. The Blinding Banshee's power reactors, sub-light propulsion systems, FTL drives, life support systems and so on had all passed the required inspections and were ready to bear the stresses of regular space travel.

The other new capital ships were in a similar condition. As civilian-grade vessels, they were designed with lower standards in mind. Their performance might not be stellar, but that also meant it wasn't as difficult to work with them. The expeditionary fleet would probably be ready to depart within a week.

"I'm glad nothing has happened during our stay here." Ves remarked as he tickled Clixie's paws. "The last time we stopped at a star system, we got caught in one of the stupidest civil wars that has ever broken out in the star cluster. The Life Research Association is still paying the price for their shortsightedness."

"Miaow!"

Gloriana leaned comfortably against her husband's side. Her mind was not on the LRA at the moment.

"I love all of the work you have done on the crystal rifle. I had hoped that you would be able to come up with a surprise, but I never expected you to go all the way and utilize luminar crystals as the principal material for the weapon. I kind of want to see it in action already."

Ves took a deep breath, causing his nose to sample a liberal dose of her pleasant fruity scent.

"I feel the same way, but we have to be patient. We can't expose too much to the public."

Compared to his wife, he placed greater importance on maintaining the confidentiality of the combat capabilities of his clan. Their perspectives were different so the way they treated powerful tech was also different.

To her, all of the tech she dealt with were mainly tools to be used to make her mech designs stronger. As a purer mech designer, she cared less about the consequences of her decisions as long as they didn't get in the way of designing a better mech.

To him, tech was associated with advantages. Powerful new applications held most of their value if the enemies of the Larkinson Clan didn't know about them yet. The Larkinson Clan managed to defeat many enemies by unleashing surprising new tricks that their foes had no way to predict beforehand!

Now that the Battle of Reckoning had exposed the existence of prime mechs, the Transcendent Punisher and the power of battle networks, Ves was sorely in need of a new batch of trump cards.

This way, anyone who specifically targeted the Larkinson Clan and already accounted for the existence of the former would definitely see their plans go astray!

Though Gloriana wasn't happy with this answer, she let it go. The wait wasn't so long anyway.

Still, now that the topic of the luminar crystal rifle had come up, she wanted to talk about another expert mech that could take advantage of this new development.

"Ves?"

"Yes, honey?"

"Once we have completed the Sentry Project and fully verified that your new weapon system can deliver on its promises, let's work on adding it to the Star Dancer Mark II as well! I suddenly find the dual-type laser and positron rifle that we initially planned for this machine to be tasteless."

Ves frowned. "The Larkinson Clan's expert mechs come first, Gloriana. Also, even if we are working on the same project, this is my work. The strongest versions of my luminar crystal rifles can't be made without my personal involvement."

"Don't be so stiff about it, Ves." Gloriana leaned closer and planted a kiss on his smooth-shaven cheek. "Brutus is family now that we're married. Will you deny your brother-in-law a powerful new weapon that can not only increase his own survival chances, but also help with defending our clan? Don't forget that my Glory Seekers are on your side. Helping them is helping us. There is no reason to deny this powerful new rifle to my brother."

As Gloriana continued to plant kisses on his cheek, he softened his stance. "I.. suppose you're right. The Golden Skull Alliance doesn't have that many expert ranged mechs to begin with, so boosting the performance of one more will go a long way in overpowering our future foes."

He decided it made good strategic sense to equip a luminar crystal rifle to Venerable Brutus' upcoming expert mech. The logic was simply too strong. Even Aristotle would agree to her impeccable arguments.

He definitely did not allow Gloriana to get her way because she melted his resolve by bombarding him with kisses.

"I'll have to design a different rifle model for the Star Dancer Mark II." He said as he began to envision the weapon. "The current luminar crystal rifle model that I have developed is completely configured towards high-powered precision fire. It's a sniper rifle that is not meant to be employed in medium-range run-and-gun firefights that your brother excels at. At the very least, I have to find a way to crank up the firing rate, which will probably come at the expense of single-shot firepower."

"That's okay, Ves. I understand the limitations. If one shot isn't enough to do the job, then multiple shots will. The weapon needs to be a little smaller and more compact so that the Star Dancer can handle it with great control even as it performs intensive movements. A heavier weapon will not only slow down its acceleration, but also make it more unwieldy."

"I understand. I've worked on energy weapons before so I am well aware of what pairs well with a mech like the Star Dancer Mark II."

So far, Ves and Gloriana hadn't spent much time on the expert mech design project dedicated to Venerable Brutus. The future Glory Seeker expert mech fell outside the terms of their deal with Master Willix. This was why a couple of Hexer Masters acted as the technical consultants of this design project.

Gloriana handled all of the communication with the Masters, so Ves was spared from the torture of speaking to them in person. If the project progressed substantially, that might change, but neither of the two could spare much time on it when their schedules were already filled with other obligations.

She didn't seem to be in a hurry. She thought that it was better for them to gain valuable experience in designing a succession of expert mechs. Once they completed all of the expert mechs, they would have gained a lot of experience and a lot of new insights that would doubtlessly be very helpful in elevating the quality and the performance of the Star Dancer Mark II.

The only downside was that Venerable Brutus would have to wait a long time before he finally got his turn, but Ves didn't care about that problem.

The couple continued to cuddle against each other while they discussed what to incorporate in the Star Dancer Mark II design. The mech presented an interesting mix between the Dark Zephyr and the Sentry Project.

There was no need to reinvent the wheel when the Design Department already had a couple of existing ones on hand. Reusing the solutions they developed while working on the expert light skirmisher and expert rifleman mech designs would hopefully speed up the timeline of the project and add a powerful new asset to the Golden Skull Alliance as soon as possible.

"It's time." Gloriana suddenly said. "Come. Let's greet our new help."

She stood up while Clixie hopped back onto the deck.

Ves stood up as well and walked alongside her as they exited the lounge and headed over to the design lab.

Once they reached the main lab, they walked to the front where the other two Journeymen were already awaiting their arrival.

"The new brats have just arrived and are waiting in the other lab." Ketis said.

"Well, what are we waiting for? Bring them in. Let's see what these mech designers from Bardo Star Cluster are like."

Around a hundred young and eager mech designers moved into the main lab. They stopped and faced the fifty-or-so existing assistant mech designers before facing their new superiors.

The recruiters had carefully vetted each of these Apprentices before sending their profiles to Ves and his wife for approval. There were actually several hundred applicants that made it this far, but the couple didn't want to go overboard.

This time, it was Gloriana's turn to induct the new hires. She stepped forward and presented them with a charming smile that completely obscured the fact that she possessed a completely different personality when she was under pressure.

"Welcome to the Larkinson Clan and welcome to the Design Department of the Living Mech Corporation. Each of you have made the right choice to join our clan. Unlike most mech companies that are based in the Ivena Federation and the surrounding neighborhood, our clan and company is destined to rise above them in a more exciting and prosperous region of space. Several decades from now, you will fully appreciate the choices that you have made in this period."

The decision to leave everything at home behind and join a clan that was moving far away was a difficult one to make. The mech designers that had passed through the screening all had strong motivations to abandon their old lives. Whether they were successful or not, each of the new recruits were definitely driven by ambition!

As his wife continued to enlighten the hundred new assistant mech designers to their new rights and responsibilities, Ves studied the men and women in several different ways.

First, he took a simple look at them. Just as specified, none of the new mech designers were older than forty. While he did not doubt the competence of older mech designers, Ves preferred to obtain younger personnel so that it became easier for him to get a greater return on investment.

After all, it was pointless to hire a 100 year old mech designer only for the old sod to retire just a decade later!

Since enough enthusiastic locals had applied to join the Larkinson Clan, Ves had the luxury to discriminate by age.

The latest batch of assistants also looked relatively normal and proper. There were no obvious oddballs among them. This was probably due to the selection criteria applied by the recruiters. They were instructed not to consider any crazies.

Though eccentric mech designers tended to have higher peaks, Ves didn't want to deal with the headaches that came with trying to herd unruly cats. This was why he preferred to settle on less exciting talents even if their chances of breaking through was smaller.

"Speaking of that…"

Ves switched to his spiritual senses, which had experienced a substantial improvement after he acquired Blinky. It was no trouble at all for him to sweep across the minds of all hundred mech designers.

To his dismay, only less than 10 of them possessed spiritual potential.

This was the downside to relying on other people to perform the initial selection process. The recruiters were incapable of determining who possessed spiritual potential. They didn't even know what it meant!

Last time was better because Ves had an opportunity to screen a handful of spiritually active mech designers from a larger batch of prospects.

He shrugged. Oh well. At least he had a few more potential Journeyman candidates to keep his eye on. As long as he invested in them a bit, one of them might become the fifth Journeyman of the Design Department one day.