The Mech Touch

Commander Casella Ingvar might not know it, but Ves had kept his finger close to the killswitch during the initial activation sequence.

The Minerva was a great mech and Ves had little doubt that Casella could get along with the living mech.

The real danger lay in its design spirit. The Titania was an unusual spiritual entity that was derived from an ancient space creature. Even if she had lost much of herself, what remained of her mature personality and her huge collection of memories turned her into a formidable spirit that might respond completely differently from others of its kind!

However, after spending months in the company of Goldie, Qilanxo and the Superior Mother, the Titania had integrated into the Larkinson Clan to a degree. She might not be the feral alien monstrosity that Ves had feared.

"How are you doing, Casella?" Ves asked from the observation room.

He paid careful attention to the piloting telemetry. He did not want to take chances this time. Any sign of excessive stress or strain and he would flip the killswitch without any hesitation.

They could repeat a field test anytime, but it was hard to reverse any damage done to people's lives.

There was a reason for his heightened caution. The Titania was a brand-new design spirit that had not been utilized before. This test run was not just about the Minerva but also about the former controlling consciousness of an astral beast!

"I… am in an excellent state." The Sentinel Commander answered. "The Minerva is better than I have ever hoped. The expert mech fits me so well that it makes me feel complete. I have already begun to resonate with it without even trying, and if I push for more, my expert mech easily keeps up with effort. We are nowhere close to reaching our limits."

"That sounds good, commander. What about… the Titania?"

"We made contact." Casella stated. "The Titania is being cooperative. We have already agreed to back each other up. I have not sensed any ill intent from her. Even if she changes her mind, I am certain I can block her influence."

Ves grew reassured. The initial feedback sounded positive and he did not get the sense that Casella was concerned about herself.

"What of your cooperation? Can you sense whether the Titania can help you out in any way?"

"I don't know. We're too unfamiliar with each other. The Titania's presence is already helping me hone my mind to a degree."

After answering a few more questions, Commander Casella finally received permission to proceed with the initial round of tests.

She was already familiar with all of the movements her expert mech needed to make. The Minerva moved its limbs and cautiously tested out its flight system and boosters.

Once it became clear the expert mech wouldn't fall apart or explode if it made the wrong moves, Casella gradually increased the intensity of the Minerva's maneuvers.

The expert mech accelerated faster and faster until it exceeded the parameters of a standard mech and continued to speed up to a prodigious degree!

"What a fast mech!"

"It has to be in order to outrun pursuing expert melee mechs."

"The Minerva doesn't look agile. Its turning radius is high!"

Despite this shortcoming, the Minerva's straight-line acceleration was considerably higher than almost every expert mech in the Larkinson Army!

"The Minerva's flight system remains stable while operating at maximum thrust." Juliet Stameros reported. "All systems related to flight and maneuvering are still working without issue. The Minerva can keep this up for a decent interval of time, though I recommend that it should not maintain maximum thrust unless it is necessary."

"Alright, let's end the mobility test and start with a more exciting examination."

Ves wanted to see how the Minerva's defenses would fare against typical attacks.

Although the mech needed to endure different kinds of attacks, he was not too worried about its state. Even if the Minerva did not incorporate any Unending alloy, the defenses that Sara Voiken had designed for the expert mech were not light!

"Let us start with testing your energy shield generator. Please activate your Minerva's energy shield without arousing your resonance shield. We need to gain a preliminary assessment of how much damage that both of them can take in isolation."

The next few tests were much more interesting. A numerous Living Sentinel mechs flew forward and shot at the stationary Minerva with a combination of luminar crystal rifles and gauss rifles.

Naturally, the energy shield held strong and only started to reach its limits after a long time.

"The shield generator is operating according to expectations." Sara Voiken reported. "As expected, the Minerva's energy shield is considerably more efficient at resisting energy damage than physical damage. However, its total damage capacity is not impressive due to the smaller size of the shield generator. The Minerva should only activate its energy shield under serious circumstances."

"Understood."

Commander Casella switched off the shield generator and aroused another form of defense that came standard with expert mechs.

Resonating with the Minerva was incredibly easy for her, especially since the living mech actively cooperated with her. The golden corona around the expert mech soon grew stronger and more solid.

"Alright, fire away!"

Attacks poured onto the Minerva when it was in its most defensible state. Compared to technological energy shields, the more mysterious resonance shields did not entirely work according to common sense!

The resonance shield resisted a lot more damage as a consequence. Although its defensive capacity was ultimately limited by Commander Casella's limited resonance strength, the Minerva remained absolutely impervious even when an entire mech company kept bombarding it with attacks!

As long as Casella and Minerva were able to keep up their resonance shield, they did not have to worry about getting blasted to pieces by a multitude of regular mechs anytime soon!

Only two major threats could effectively overcome the resonance shield.

Resonance-empowered attacks launched by other expert mechs posed a significant threat to any powerful machine. The Minerva was in an even dangerous position due to its strategic importance to the Larkinson Army.

In order to keep it active, the expert mech needed to hide behind solid cover or travel around with a formidable escort of defensive mechs.

Fortuantely, Sara Voiken recently completed her Rigid Wall model that offered superior defensive properties compared to the Bright Warrior model.

Though the mobility of the Rigid Walls were not up to standard, as long as the Living Sentinels weren't deployed away from the fleet, it was no problem for them to shield the Minerva. p anda

Novel The strength of a resonance shield was determined by both the expert mech and the expert pilot.

The Minerva was a mid-grade expert mech that incorporated resonating materials that were fairly average in terms of generating resonance shields. The defensive enhancement these materials offered might not be the best, but they were easy to work with since they did not produce much interference.

"The resonance shield's performance is fairly standard." Sara Voiken stated. "Commander Casella does not excel in defense so it is normal for it to be able to withstand this amount of damage."

Not every resonance shield was the same. The mech and the resonating materials played a large role, but the qualities of the expert pilot also played a major role!

Someone as hard headed as Venerable Jannzi could easily withstand several times as much damage in the same conditions as Commander Casella by virtue of willpower orientation!

Therefore, the Minerva might look tough when fighting against regular mechs, but its defenses were incomparably weak when measuring up against a genuine defensive expert mech!

"Let's move on to testing its armor system."

This was a more dangerous test as the mechs were about to attack the actual structure of the expert mech.

However, the Sentinel mech pilots that instructed their mechs to attack the Minerva head-on soon discovered that the expert command mech was not as fragile as they thought.

Even if it lacked Unending alloy, Sara Voiken's defensive design was no joke, especially when she made use of resilient alloys.

Ves felt quite grateful for being able to pick up Sara Voiken. Having someone in the Design Department that specialized in the defensive side of mechs finally relieved a burden.

Though Gloriana had tried her best to cover for this aspect, it wasn't her true passion. Having Sara on hand not only solved this shortcoming, but also turned it into one of the Larkinson Clan's new strengths!

Sara smiled as a group of Swordmaiden mechs approached before whacking the surface of the Minerva with their swords.

The melee mechs weren't making much progress!

"I don't recommend using the Minerva as a space knight, but it should be no problem for it to resist a large amount of physical damage. This mech is much tougher than the Amaranto."

This was excellent news. The Amaranto was a fantastic ranged mech, but its defensive properties had always been its Achilles heel. The mech had been designed in a time before the Larkinson Clan had access to better materials and component licenses.

Ves intended to resolve that when it was time to update the Amaranto, but that wouldn't happen until a few years had passed.

The Minerva Project wonderfully showcased how much better a ranged expert mech could withstand damage. The combination of a defensive specialist along with excellent materials easily multiplied Commander Casella's chances of surviving a battle!

Though the Larkinson mechs did not dare to hit the Minerva too hard, Sara collected enough data to build a detailed model of the expert command mech's actual defensive properties.

"I have seen enough. I suggest we move on to the next test."

Ves grinned. "My Irvan rifle will finally see action."

He had painstakingly designed a transformable luminar crystal rifle that was worthy of an expert mech. Even if he had seen it perform many times in simulated environments, he wanted to see how it performed in real circumstances.

"Let's start with the rifle mode. Set targets at various distances."

The Larkinsons released numerous bots and pieces of scrap in space. The Minerva brought up its Irvan rifle and aimed its long and deadly-looking muzzle at the closest target.

A powerful laser beam erupted from its muzzle!

Even when it wasn't enhanced by resonance, the potent power of the Irvan rifle was enough to punch through the armor of a Bright Warrior mech!

The Minerva quickly cycled its attack phase to the other weapon types. The positron beams, light beams and other types of beams unleashed by its rifle were all performing within expectations.

The new masterwork expert mech only truly showed its fangs when Commander Casella resonated with the Irvan rifle!

When it repeated its earlier shots while employing true resonance, the firepower was on another level!

Thick bright beams lit up the surrounding space as the Minerva easily dealt enough damage to demolish a standard mech with a single shot!

"Impressive!" Ves' eyes lit up. "The Minerva is almost exactly as powerful as I expected! Once Casella's resonance strength has doubled, this expert mech will truly become an oppressive presence on the battlefield!"

Casella hardly enjoyed any opportunity to exercise her resonance strength, so she wasn't able to make full use of her Minerva.

"How powerful is the Minerva's damage output compared to the Amaranto?" Sara curiously asked.

"I need to gather more data and perform more calculations to be sure, but I can safely state that the Minerva exceeds the Everchanger in terms of offensive prowess." Ves answered. "It's no Amaranto, but it can definitely function as our second long-ranged expert mech. Stationing the two expert mechs apart from each other will allow us to suppress an enemy from two different angles!"

This was quite a powerful advantage! Enemy units that could only defend from one direction would not feel easy when they were struck from the side!

With two fairly powerful expert ranged mechs, the Larkinson Army's ability to deal serious damage against enemy warships and expert mechs had risen by a noticeable margin.

This was especially the case if Venerable Stark learned how to coordinate Commander Casella!