The Mech Touch

"So what do you think?"

"It's… pretty empty."

"That's the point." Gavin said as he waved his arm at the empty and hilly landscape. "This is a remote plot of land that is located in one of Davute VII's more remote continents. While that makes it harder to reach Kotor City quickly, we will also avoid much of the hustle and bustle that goes on in the planet's capital city. I think a location like this makes for a good compromise between accessibility and remoteness."

As Ves considered his assistant's words, their daughter was having the time of her life.

Having spent much of her first year inside a starship, the vast, green and open environment of a planet completely fascinated her. Everything on Davute was a new wonder to her and she eagerly insisted on exploring all of the strange new things that she had never come across before.

Right now, she used her little legs to run towards a small collection of trees.

"Hihihihi!"

"Miaow miaow!"

As always, Clixie always accompanied Aurelia in order to prevent the little girl from hurting herself. The Rubarthan Sentinel Cat had been busy these last few days as the energetic baby simply couldn't sit still!

As Ves studied the environment, he could see several signs that the local nature was not as authentic as it appeared.

How could the planet possibly be so friendly towards human life when people only settled on it a few years ago? This was way too little time to turn a barren, alien planet into a lush environment that was highly compatible with earth-based life forms!

The answer turned out to be rapid terraforming. This was the brute force version of terraforming when colonists lacked the patience to go through the more traditional process!

The normal mode of terraforming was to selectively manipulate the planetary environment to alter its parameters to be more friendly to human life step by step.

Terraforming entire planets was expensive business, and many colonists had already invested in so many different assets that they could not afford to spend a huge fortune on transforming their new homes.

This was why traditional terraforming plans sought to take advantage of modest changes to the natural cycles of a planet. Letting 'nature' do most of the heavy lifting was a huge money saver, though the process might take decades to complete as a result.

The initial wave of ambitious pioneers couldn't wait that long. Many of them wanted to develop their colonies and found their states as soon as possible in order to get ahead of the competition.

If any colonists tried to take it slow, it was inevitable for them to lose the initiative in the competition to found new states!

The powers that invested in a rich port system like Davute did not wish to get bogged down from the beginning.

In order to speed up the transformation of a planet, they contracted a company to conduct rapid terraforming.

This was a quick but extremely expensive process that started with removing whatever alien life or other disruptive factors. No matter what unique environmental features the untamed planet possessed before, all of it had to go as long as it posed a hindrance to the goal of making the environment more livable for humans!

Once the terraformers cleaned up the planet's surface, they rapidly transplanted the factors that were essential to regulating the temperature or providing breathable air.

Some of the steps involved transplanting huge tracts of forests and grasslands to dumping millions of animals in specially-designed regions.

The terraforming company had to make a huge amount of calculations in order to figure out the fastest and most direct measures they needed to make in order to complete the commission.

Ves happened to know all of this because he had read a few articles about the Aduc Family recently.

Since the Transhumanists really wanted the Larkinsons to get along with the Aducs, Ves felt it was prudent to learn more about the latter's business activities.

He became quite impressed by what he learned. Terraforming planets and making sure that every continent and region was able to develop sustainable ecosystems were massive engineering projects.

Their scope far exceeded that of mechs and starships!

The work involved with turning Davute VII into a planet that was already close to offering a perfect living environment to humans in a matter of years was probably worthy of a prize!

It also scared Ves away from allowing his clan to colonize a planet. The costs of doing so were so great that it was not unusual for colonists to get saddled with so much debt that it could take centuries to pay off their obligations!

While the potential payoffs were also huge, it was never his intention to build his own little kingdom.

Compared to all of the risks and expenses involved with colonizing a planet, Ves vastly preferred to stick to his fleet as his primary power base.

However, that did not stop him from forming numerous different outposts on different planets.

Right now, Ves was seriously considering whether he should allow his clan to build a large compound at this particular site.

"There aren't many other groups and companies around here, so it's a lot easier for us to guard our territory." Ves determined.

"If you want, we could also buy the surrounding plots of land while they are still available." Gavin noted. "The land prices of this planet are still fairly expensive due to its importance as a future commerce and industrial hub, but this continent is so remote and underdeveloped that the rates are relatively mild."

The cost of buying land in this place was incomparable to the thousands of MTA credits that the Larkinson Clan had spent on building the headquarters of the Open Consortium in one of Kotor City's most expensive districts.

However, the prices for this remote area were still relatively high because the sellers took Davute VII's future development into account.

Ves couldn't imagine how many MTA credits the founders were earning from selling so much land!

This was one of the best ways for them to recoup a portion of the money spent on rapid terraforming!

If not for the fact that Davute had to compete against other attractive port systems, the prices of different plots of land would have been even more expensive!

"How much do you think it would cost to get all of the land we need?" Ves asked.

"I can't say, boss. It depends on how much you want to buy and how badly you want our neighbors to stay away from our compound. If I have to make a quick estimate, we will probably have to spend thousands of MTA credits, maybe up to 10,000 MTA credits if you truly want to turn this area into your private resort."

In the past, Ves would have felt queasy about spending that much money.

Nowadays, this was just a trifling sum.

It was so tempting for him to wave his hand and tell his assistant to buy this plot of land as well as the surrounding ones. Ves held back though as he reminded himself that he was too impaired to make any rational spending decisions.

He along with many other Larkinsons were still drunk on wealth! Each of them risked spending money in instances where they previously would have felt disgusted by the wasteful acts!

Ves closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. He successfully pushed back his profligate urges and regained his calm.

"Let's keep this option under consideration." He eventually said. "I can see how we can build a large but remote outpost in this place. However, I don't want to go forward unless I am certain that this is the best choice out of all of the alternatives. Our people have been exploring several other sites on other planets, right?"

"Correct, boss. Compared to buying a plot of land here in Davute, we can obtain far more hectares of land at prices that are ten times or even a hundred times cheaper. There are even instances where the colonists are willing to pay us money to settle in their territory."

"Huh?"

Gavin smirked. "It's quite simple, really. As long as we invest hundreds of thousands of MTA credits in building facilities and infrastructure, we can directly and indirectly promote the development of a rural planet. It is quite natural for colonist organizations to offer us cash, subsidies and preferential treatment to pull us over."

All of these incentives made it cheaper for the Larkinson Clan to operate a large manufacturing complex and other facilities on remote planets.

Of course, the clan would also make sacrifices in other areas such as missing out on Davute's urban life or more limited access to other conveniences.

To Ves, the biggest downside to setting up shop in a remote colony was how vulnerable it was to attacks and raids!

This reason alone was enough for Ves to slowly lean away from this potentially disastrous option.

Though Ves did not mind taking a few risks every now and then, a decision like this affected the lives and futures of so many Larkinsons.

Naturally, Gloriana had her own opinion on this matter.

"Just buy it, Ves." She said as her sundress fluttered in the cool and pleasant wind. "Davute isn't that bad of an environment. There are so many powerful forces here that we don't have to worry about attacks from alien fleets. The booming industries allows our manufacturing complex to easily obtain raw materials and also ship our finished mechs to different vendors and distribution channels. We can easily visit and exchange with lots of mech designers and entrepreneurs that have also settled on this planet. Finally, Davute offers by far the best growth environment for Aurelia and our other kids!"

She made a lot of good points, but Ves suspected that her last argument was probably the driving factor of her choice.

Gloriana turned and stretched her arm towards their daughter.

Aurelia made a cute noise as her body floated from the grass and quickly flew back to her mother's embrace!

"Mama!" The little girl complained!

"Oh hush now, baby. What did I tell you about wandering too far away from me? Be a good girl and stay closer, okay?"

Gloriana briefly settled the cute girl before turning back to Ves. "Don't you think it is better for Aurelia here to enjoy a childhood on a warm and sunny planet instead of a cold and lifeless starship?"

"Our factory ship isn't as bad as you've described, honey! She has parks! She has a city on an entire deck! She even has her own schools!"

"None of them are better than the facilities that can serve our children better." His wife shook his head. "Look, I am not trying to discount our clan's schools, but Aurelia here deserves the best. There are private schools and elite academies in Davute where the descendants of Davute's privileged class are being sent. The quality of teaching here is much better than what our clan can offer. More importantly, the networking opportunities are priceless. Don't you think it would be nice for our children to mingle with the region's future movers and shakers?"

Ves had mixed feelings about her arguments. Gloriana wanted to push for what was best for Aurelia, but her assumptions on what constituted the most beneficial choice differed from his own ideas on how to raise their kids.

"I don't think it is essential for our children to mingle with the locals." He responded. "What is wrong with befriending other Larkinsons? We have 200,000 members right now and I plan to increase it five-fold in the coming years."

His wife looked at Ves as if he was being stupid again. "Do you hear that, Aurelia? Dum-dum here is trying to ruin your future. Never listen to what he says when he is contradicting me, okay?"

"Um!"

"Now what do you call your papa when he is wrong?"

"Dum-dum, hihihihi!"