The Mech Touch

The line that Ves drew from the placement of powerful exotics in the mining site was not that precise.

The deposits weren't aligned in a perfect line. Ves figured that even if a mysterious object had crashed through the surface of Iron Crusher and penetrated deeper into the crust, millions of years must have passed since this probable event.

That was more than enough time for tectonic activity and other events to disturb the placement of the soil.

Fortunately, Iron Crusher happened to be a relatively stable moon that was spared from too many disturbances. The deposits of high-value exotics hadn't shifted all over the place, causing this obvious clue to disappear entirely due to the passage of time.

From the moment Ves had discovered the remarkable pattern, he smelled he had stumbled upon a remarkable occurrence.

While his judgment could be wrong, he would rather err on the side of caution and make additional preparations before he was willing to pursue this matter further.

For this reason, he ordered all of the personnel working in this mining tunnel to halt their current duties and make different arrangements.

"Stand by and wait for orders! Bring in additional mining machines! Wait for the arrival of additional reinforcements!"

After consulting with General Verle through his comm, Ves decided to call in Commander Casella Ingvar and a batch of her Living Sentinels.

Other mech units were also being readied, but not all of them could fit in the mining tunnel at a time. They remained on reserve in case anything happened that the Sentinels couldn't handle.

Personally, Ves didn't think the additional help would be needed. The Living Sentinels may not be the Larkinson Clan's premier mech legion, but it happened to excel in defense.

The newly fabricated Rigid Walls and Rigid Spines were suitable mechs to be deployed in this situation. There were just enough of them to form a shield wall that could plug the tunnel and prevent anything waking up from running out and causing chaos.

"They're solid machines that can take a hit and keep going."

They were also melee mechs that could control their actions quite well. As long as they maintained their shield wall formation, they were unlikely to produce an excessive amount of collateral damage that might collapse the tunnel or destroy whatever was buried on the other end!

Soon enough, the reinforcements arrived. Over a dozen mechs awkwardly flew through the tunnel that had not been designed to accommodate combat mechs.

The silver-and-green coated mechs unquestionably announced their allegiance to the Living Sentinels. Their thick and armored frames reflected their focus on static, defensive combat.

While they were far from the best mechs to deploy in a typical open environment like a space battle, the current circumstances were vastly different.

In a confined environment like the interior of a mining tunnel, the mobility of faster and more maneuverable mechs such as the Ferocious Piranha and the Valkyrie Redeemer hardly played a useful role.

Defense and resilience were much more relevant in this setting. Few mechs were better suited to hold the line and block any ancient horrors from spilling out into the open than the Rigid Walls model.

Designed by Sara Voiken, the Rigid Wall was her opening gift to the Larkinson Clan. It was not a flashy mech, but it didn't need to be. The difficulty of piloting it was low, making it easy for any decent mech pilot to perform effectively.

The mech essentially functioned like a moving wall. Though it was merely a medium space knight as opposed to a heavy one, it possessed enough armor and defensive systems to withstand a large amount of punishment.

Paired with both a physical tower shield and a fairly potent energy shield generator, the mech enjoyed multiple layers of protection, especially against attacks coming from the front.

Sara's touch was evident in how well the Rigid Wall model was rated to resist physical attacks.

The brown coating that decorated the lower legs of the space knights was her signature look. They symbolized the solid nature of the mechs and revealed a hint of her ambitions.

As long as the potential hostiles buried underneath this moon only relied on their bodies and other physical means to do damage, the Rigid Wall mechs should be able to hold the line even if they were floating in vacuum!

In case a threat did emerge, then it was up to the Rigid Spines to smash the threats. Their long spears were especially designed to poke through the gaps in the shield wall and impale anything that was attempting to get through.

The red coating that adorned the speartips was Dulo Voiken's signature look. They represented the considerable threat of his mechs once they stabbed their weapons forward.

The combination of both mechs provided a lot of reassurance to Ves. Aside from their superior defensive traits, they also possessed living traits that Ves had especially added to their designs.

The glows of both Qilanxo and the Solemn Guardian flooded the mining tunnel. This caused a lot of Larkinsons in the vicinity to feel both safe and determined to complete their mission.

"I will stab whatever spooky alien crap is out there with my new spear."

"Hah! Don't discount the power of my Rigid Wall! My sword is not for show!"

"Shh! Our commander is coming!"

Soon enough, the newest expert mech of the Larkinson Clan arrived.

Everyone could feel the invisible presence that the Minerva exuded. A small part of Commander Casella's willpower spread throughout the surroundings and seemed to keep track of everything around the masterwork expert mech.

Inside an armored shuttle that was being used as a small observation and command post, Ves grinned at the Sentinel Commander's arrival.

"Commander Casella, it's good to see you here again. I'm sure you've been told why you are here. We have stumbled across a clue that suggests a relic of the past might be buried further underneath the soil. We have no idea what we will find if we keep digging, but in case anything dangerous is ahead, it is best to receive advance warning. What is the current range of your Command Field?"

"I can currently extend my Command Field to a radius of 8.12 kilometers, sir." Commander Casella answered.

"That… is hardly an improvement compared to before."

"I feel compelled to remind you that maintaining my Command Field at maximum range is extremely strenuous. I cannot maintain this state for long. In addition, I will receive so much input that my sensitivity towards whatever is around me will drop. If this mission drags on for hours or days, I will have to minimize my consumption. It is best to settle for a range of 300 meters."

"That's too short." Ves frowned and fell into thought. "Let's do this. You can keep your Command Field at 300 meters. Every fifteen minutes or so, I would like you to expand its range to 5 kilometers. I only need you to perform a quick sweep in the surroundings in order to check whether you have stumbled upon anything remarkable. Can you do that, Commander?"

"...I cannot say how effective my Command Field is at detecting threats and other unusual presences underneath the ground, but I will do my best, sir."

"Don't worry." Ves replied. "I am not depending completely on your detection capabilities to scout the way ahead. The Worker Bee mining mechs possess relatively decent mineral scanners and I have also called in a bunch of other mechs to produce more observation data."

A few more mechs arrived. Ves had requested the presence of a couple of new Light Hunters in order to lend their excellent sensors to this endeavor.

While their passive sensor systems didn't function as well as Ves wanted in this confined setting, their Samasel Orb was capable of peering through meters of solid matter.

Ves planned for the Light Hunters to be on the lookout in rotation so that they could activate their power-hungry active scanning systems on a periodic basis.

This was not the extend of the extra help that Ves had requested.

The final reinforcement entered the mining site. The entire place suddenly brightened up to a considerable degree as the warm and lively Everchanger inspired a lot of trust and confidence in the Larkinsons!

"Venerable Joshua!"

"You called, sir?"

"Please approach my shuttle. I need to fiddle with your expert mech for a moment."

The Everchanger slowly arrived next to the shuttle.

Ves soon emerged from the hatch and floated to the forehead of the large mech. He already carried a few pieces of equipment on his Unending Regalia and used them to remove the decorative luminar crystal that functioned as the Everchanger's third eye.

After prying this piece out, he carefully installed a high-tech component into the socket.

Joshua was already familiar with this small but powerful module. He found it rather odd as it was surprisingly effective, so much so that Ves treated it like a treasure.

"You should already know how to operate the Odineye. Just in case, be careful about its power consumption. It is an extremely advanced sensor module and its hunger for energy reflects its effectiveness. While your Everchanger possesses a much more potent power reactor compared to your previous mechs, it is a bit too much to set the Odineye at full strength all the time. Keep it at low power most of the time but try to extend its range as far as possible. You should coordinate the timing with Commander Casella's efforts so that you can cover for each other's gaps."

"Understood."

Once all of the mechs had completed their preparations, the digging action commenced.

A small procession of Worker Bee mechs efficiently went to work. They dug in a diagonal direction downwards with their specialized mining tools.

All of the soil and rock they dug up went straight into their bellies. Once the mining mechs were full, they flew outside the mining site in order to dump the excavated materials elsewhere.

The speed and efficiency of the digging action left much to be desired, but Ves prioritized caution. He did not want to use one of the larger tunneling machines that violently dug through the relatively soft soil of this moon.

Who knows whether the phenomenon that produced all of the resonating exotics had become fragile after millions of years.

"Meow."

Ves instructed Lucky to take part in this operation as well.

It was too risky to employ Lucky as a forward scout, but there should be no problem letting him perch on top of a Worker Bee.

With his senses for minerals, Ves hoped that his cat would be able to pick up anything strange that the other scanning methods had missed.

As the hours went by, nothing happened. The Worker Bees had extended the depth of the mining tunnel by several kilometers, but no one found anything unusual.

Despite the best efforts of the Minerva, the Light Hunter, the Everchanger and Lucky, none of them found anything abnormal.

They hadn't even found any additional deposits of resonating exotics.

While they did stumble upon a few more remarkable minerals, none of them showed any signs of being related to the mysterious phenomenon that presumably punched into the moon.

Ves knew he had to be patient at this time. He had no idea how deep he had to dig in order to find a result.

Iron Crusher wasn't that big of a moon, but with the angle of the mysterious phenomenon's passage, the Worker Bees might be required to dig hundreds of kilometers before they stumbled upon anything special!

"It's a good thing that this isn't my first major digging operation." Ves whispered.

He still remembered the good old days when he was a simple mech designer who inadvertently got involved in a competition to mine the most Rorach's Bone from the Glowing Planet.

"Now that I recall, the Glowing Planet was a rogue planet that soared through the Komodo Star Sector. Garimel II also used to be a rogue planet before it got captured by the blue supergiant star. Will we find similar fossils to the one buried underneath the Glowing Planet?"