The Mech Touch

"What are those rifles!?"

Many observers who weren't informed about the new luminar crystal rifles looked astonished at their battle performance.

For example, at Master Willix's office inside the Halcyon Citadel, Master Olson could immediately judge that the firepower and effectiveness of those crystal rifles were beyond the norm!

"Effective against expert mechs."

"True." Willix coyly smiled.

"Mass production."

"Conditional."

"Propagation."

"Restricted."

"Reason."

"Alien tech."

"Ah."

Master Olson momentarily thought that she needed to warn the Friday Coalition to face this deadly new weapon system that the Larkinsons apparently developed recently. Although the Larkinson mechs weren't putting this new tech to the best use, the glimpses they showed already showed the incredible potential of the new luminar crystal rifles.

She was perceptive enough to notice that the rifles wielded by the Battle Crier mechs were a more down-scaled version of the Amaranto's exquisite masterwork rifle. The fact that the Larkinsons managed to make so many of these lesser rifles suggested that the clan had managed to develop a feasible way to mass-produce them in a timely and economic manner.

The implications were obvious. As long as the Larkinsons handed over this tech and the rights to use it to the Hexadric Hegemony, the Komodo War would immediately take a drastic turn as the Hexers would begin to deploy much more effective anti-expert mech units!

Fortunately, the mention of alien tech quickly assuaged Master Olson's concerns. As she thought about the implications of this weapons technology further, she quickly deduced that even if the Larkinsons managed to deconstruct the alien tech so that it fully conformed to human technological standards, the MTA would still prohibit its use on a wider scale.

Any weapon system that specifically targeted or countered expert mechs was not conducive to the Mech Trade Association's wider goals. As a Master Mech Designer, Carmin Olson had been inducted into enough secrets of humanity and the wider state of human space to know that high-ranking mech pilots played a crucial role to the Association and humanity's future.

In general, the only anti-expert mech weapons that were allowed to be put into general use were those that required expert mechs to begin with in order to employ. That was why expert mechs were able to utilize specialized resonating materials that dealt increased damage against their own kind.

The overall intention was to ensure that fielding expert mechs remained a high priority for every serious power in human power!

States needed to put more effort into cultivating high-ranking mech pilots. Any state that did so would gain the appreciation of the MTA. This was why states like the Garlen Empire was of considerable interest to the mechers. Even though its culture was distorted, it succeeded in producing more expert pilots and ace pilots than the norm!

In fact, Master Olson didn't need to tease any information out of Master Willix that the MTA was rooting for the Friday Coalition to win. Not only was its culture much more palatable than that of the Hexers, but the main reason why the Fridaymen had gained the upper hand was that it relied on fielding more expert mechs than their opponents!

As long as one side decisively won the Komodo War by making more use of expert pilots and expert mechs than the opposition, the winner would show to the rest of the star cluster that following the MTA's policies and recommendations was the best way to become stronger.

The Friday Coalition and the Mech Trade Association would both win as a result. As for the Hexers? Nobody cared about these female supremacists. Their mere existence stained the star sector with their illogical biases and unreasonable justifications to propagate their unequal policies. An enlightened organization such as the MTA never favored ignorance!

"Ves?" Master Olson asked as she continued to observe the live footage of the ongoing battle.

"Incentivized."

"Tech?"

"In reserve."

"Understood."

While Master Olson and Master Willix continued to discuss the wider implications of luminar crystal technology, another person was a lot more shocked.

"How is it possible?!" Jovy Armalon said as he tossed his half-empty bucket of snacks aside.

Before the bucket could drop to the deck and spill all of the food to the floor, a hidden module went to work and dematerialized the thrown objects before they could litter the interior of the stealthed courier vessel.

Jovy utilized his implant to call up detailed sensor readings and also referenced the MTA's expansive tech database. He quickly found out that Master Willix had already registered the advancements that the Larkinson Clan had made on luminar crystal technology.

"So it's alien tech…" He frowned.

The database entry on this tech stated that Ves Larkinson had actually contributed new and original research on luminar crystal technology. The Association officially acknowledged him as a contributor of restricted technology, which was an important recognition that granted the person in question the right to make use of his own inventions, within reason of course.

Jovy's interest in the new weapon system dropped a bit but never went away. Even if it was based on alien technology, the luminar crystal weapon system still presented humanity with another powerful solution to fight against certain kinds of foes.

"As long as the Larkinsons keep making the same kinds of advancements, these crystal weapons might become a lot more ubiquitous one day!"

He didn't have much hope for that, though. Humanity stole or salvaged a lot of alien technology over the years. All of the low-hanging fruit had all been plucked, leaving only the more difficult and obscure alien tech that was almost indecipherable.

If even the best MTA scientists couldn't make heads and tails of obscure alien advancements, then the odds that some random space peasant managed to unlock their secrets was minimal.

Perhaps the Larkinsons were lucky enough to stumble upon a breakthrough. It happened before, especially when there were so many humans in the galaxy to begin with. Yet the same lucky people never managed to make any follow-up discoveries.

In the end, only systematic research and development produced lasting gains. This was the inherent superiority of a huge organization like the Mech Trade Organization. It was large, wealthy and powerful enough to support an immense amount of systematic and organized research on countless different scientific subjects.

It didn't matter if many research teams weren't making quick progress. With so many different teams and projects, the MTA just had to sit back and reap the rewards whenever one of the many teams managed to solve a great problem.

Jovy smiled. "Only together will we be able to advance humanity's tech base."

Meanwhile, the dwarven expert pilot of the Burza Fens had enough of the nonsense that the enemy humans were throwing at him. The new crystal weapons wielded by the human mechs had thrown him off-guard for a while, but after eliminating over eighty of their number through a combination of axe and laser carbine attacks, the Battle Crier mechs no longer appeared so threatening.

Seeing that the incoming attacks had diminished to a more tolerable intensity, the expert pilot shaped his will and began to activate a powerful resonance ability. The powerful axe wielded by the Burza Fens began to glow brighter and brighter as it accumulated more energy.

Many Battle Criers including Captain Dietrich became alarmed at the sight. The spreading will signalled that their opponent was charging up for a powerful attack that somehow made him feel threatened despite the distance.

"The dwarven expert mech is charging for an area attack or something!"

"Stop him! Focus your fire on its flight system or its weapon arm!"

The Battle Criers were doing their best but the Burza Fens kept moving around which made it hard to inflict any targeted damage.

Captain Dietrich sensed that the threat was steadily growing stronger as his opponent apparently intended to go all out this time. An attack of this magnitude was absolutely not simple and he feared that the Battle Criers might lose their chance if the Burza Fens got its way.

"We need backup!"

Neither the expeditionary fleet nor the Ferril punitive fleet ignored what was going on in this corner of the battlefield.

The debut of the mass production version of the luminar crystal rifle was a noteworthy event for both sides!

To the Larkinsons and Glory Seekers, the new model rifles represented their new main weapon system for ranged combat. This was one of the advantages that they would rely upon in the future to gain an edge in the highly competitive Red Ocean.

As for the Ferrils, the luminar crystal rifles abhorred them. Any dwarf who could figure out the wider implications of his new tech regarded it as nothing less than a threat to dwarven heroes!

"I told you guys! The humans have been trying to destroy dwarvenkind step by step, starting with our heroes! If we allowed these murderous tall folk to reach the center of our empire, they would have probably found some way to ship these creations of their evil gods into the hands of the traitor dwarves. The lackeys of the evil gods would have used this new superweapon to kill each and every expert pilot that is on our side!"

"The MTA has to be behind this plot. Only the Big Two is technologically advanced to develop a killer weapon against expert mechs. This has to be a test run or something! Perhaps the Association sent these humans into our sovereign space because they want these nefarious humans to test fire their own weapons on our great dwarven expert mechs. In fact, what if this was a plot from the mechers to begin with?! This is pure evil! The MTA forced us to attack this human fleet just so that it can watch our expert mechs get torn to pieces by one of its new toys."

The dwarves reacted with so much alarm towards the unveiling of the luminar crystal rifles that they directed any artillery mechs they could spare to put the Battle Criers under fire.

Though this made the lives of Captain Dietrich and his brothers difficult, the Eye of Ylvaine wasn't blind. Commander Taon ordered his subordinates to immediately suppress the enemy artillery mechs who had shifted their attention away from the artillery duel.

"You can forget about harming our other Larkinsons while we can still exact punishment!"

A lot of ranged mechs fired on either the Battle Crier mechs or the Burza Fens, but none of the additional assistance resulted in a fundamental difference. The other soldiers all had their own priorities and threats to take care of. Shifting their attention to one enemy would leave another enemy unopposed. The price was too great to leave enemy units alone because they could subsequently reinforce others and trigger a collapse somewhere.

The dwarven expert pilot did not pin much of his hopes to other dwarves anyway. He still maintained enough confidence that he would be able to solve this threatening problem by himself.

After taking a copious amount of time to resonate with his expert mech's powerful axe, the Burza Fens looked and felt ten times more dangerous than before! Just the pressure it exuded from accumulating and compressing all of that will and power was enough to make the surrounding Battle Criers feel as if their hearts were about to stop!

The Battle Criers didn't just stand still and do nothing. Aside from trying to attack the expert mech and its axe with a relentless barrage of slicer beams, they also started to converge together.

This was a contradictory move. Against a probable massive area attack like the one that the Burza Fens was presumably preparing, they should have attempted to spread apart and increase their distance even further.

"What are the tall folk up to?" Some of the dwarven analysts wondered.

Though the actions of the human mechs were odd, that did not dissuade the dwarven expert pilot from continuing with its current course of action. In his belief, only power and his faith in Vulcan was enough to vanquish any human trickery!