The Mech Touch

As Ves sat back down, he felt that he had changed the course of the Larkinson Clan forever.

The decision to build a major compound and manufacturing complex in Davute locked the Larkinsons into a course that undoubtedly led to collisions against other people in the future.

Ves did not look forward to getting dragged in different fights. However, he was cognizant enough to recognize that most of those fights revolved around profit and power.

The more the Larkinson Clan fought against others, the more it profited from defeating others!

Of course, the premise to succeeding in all of this was that the Larkinsons became strong enough to get ahead in every conflict.

Ves along with many Larkinsons did not believe that their clan was weak. The last expedition only lasted for a couple of months, but it had successfully bonded the Larkinsons together while boosting their esteem!

In short, expanding the clan's presence in Davute was not a suicidal choice. The Larkinsons possessed sufficient wealth and business potential to find a place in the booming port system.

His other clansmen evidently agreed. After Ves announced his final decision, none of them voiced any strong objections. It appeared that those who preferred to settle in a more quiet star system were not adamantly opposed to the other choice.

This made it easier for Ves to feel as if he made the right decision.

The topics that followed after this issue were not as impactful or exciting. The conference room quickly calmed down as the leaders of the clan argued about other matters.

Once they settled the last few points on the agenda, the outline of the Larkinson Clan's course became clear.

Ves picked up the Larkinson Mandate and held it close to his body as he stood up once again.

After many hours of debate, the leaders and administrators of the Larkinson Clan had all grown tired.

"Fellow clansmen. Today, we have set our targets and clarified our future. We have chosen to take a bolder course, one that puts us right in the middle of the Davute System. Since we are about to establish a substantial presence in a port system, it is inevitable that our interests will be anchored in its rise and fall. With our choices, we have chosen to become active participants of the trends sweeping through Krakatoa and beyond. We shall either be able to rise faster than anyone else or get driven out just as quickly!"

"If we do get booted out, then good riddance! We don't need them anyway!" Venerable Vincent claimed!

That provoked laughter from other clansmen.

"It's better to try and fail than to not make the attempt at all! We didn't travel to the Red Ocean just to bury our heads in the sand!"

The mood among the Larkinson leaders was good. No one showed any regret for the course that their clan had charted.

Ves raised his hand. The noise quickly subsided as everyone directed their attention back to the patriarch of their clan.

"Since the founding of our clan, we have experienced many changes. Our growth can be described as rapid and meteoric. An entire generation hasn't even passed and we have already beat up several alien forces, stolen several tons of phasewater and earned the respect of the MTA! We don't need to match the same pace as now. As long as we continue to remain proactive, we will surely surpass our previous results!"

A strong wave of confidence and optimism sprung from the minds of all of the Larkinsons. They had all become inspired by his words and the earlier discussions.

While it remained to be seen whether the Larkinsons could back up their confidence with actual results, Ves was happy to see that his subordinates showed plenty of fighting spirit.

Having a bunch of eager and motivated minions at his beck and call was much more preferable to leading a bunch of timid cowards!

The only problem was that he feared that they were being way too optimistic about the future. There were many undercurrents in the Red Ocean and the clan could easily get affected by events beyond their control.

Once Ves wrapped up his speech, the first planning session had finally come to an end. Many Larkinsons left the conference room in order to get back to their own offices and work out all of the changes they needed to make.

Ves and his fellow mech designers were no exception. They all moved down to the design labs before entering a smaller meeting room in order to hold a more intimate discussion.

When everyone took their seats, Ves glanced at everyone's expressions.

"You have all heard what we have decided. Our clan will get involved in numerous different affairs in the future, so we must make sure that we are capable of helping our fellow Larkinsons succeed. Designing stronger mechs and offering more value to our customers are both necessary. The easiest way we can boost our mechs is to master at least one form of phasewater technology."

"You're asking a lot from us, Ves." Gloriana spoke up. "I don't think you have made the wrong decision, but you placed a great burden on Sara and Juliet's shoulders. Both of them are competent mech designers, but they are still a generation too young to effectively develop new phasewater-enhanced armor systems or minidrives."

He sighed. "You may be right, but I don't want us to remain helpless whenever we obtain a batch of phasewater. We need to get started on this sooner or later. I would rather start too soon than too late."

"What about the difficulty of learning all of this high technology? If we bite more than we can chew, then we will delay our progress! That is not acceptable. We all improved quickly with each passing design round. It is vital that we continue to grow our competences, but that will be much harder to achieve if we are forced to study tech that exceeds our level!"

Ves waved his hand. "Calm down, Gloriana. Your worries are valid, but it is still worthwhile to make this attempt. Sara, Juliet, tell me what you think. Are you confident you can master the use of phasewater in the next few years?"

The two women looked at each other. Neither of them exuded a lot of confidence.

"If I am being honest, then I don't think I can design or build a miniature warp drive within a decade." Juliet explained. "I might be able to do it after another decade, but we will all be in our fifties at that time."

Ves did not want to wait that long before the Design Department was able to develop its own warp-capable mechs.

Even though these kinds of mechs were extremely rare on the battlefield at the moment, he was convinced that they would become a lot more ubiquitous in the future!

Once phasewater became more abundant and once the mech industry made numerous technical breakthroughs in the development of minidrives, the cost of equipping mechs with minidrives would surely drop, making this addition more accessible over time!

As mech designers, Ves and his fellow peers would lose too much if they missed out on this future trend!

This was why Ves did not intend to change his stance despite the points that Gloriana raised.

"Sara, I'm sure you have already spent a bit of time investigating the use of phasewater in defensive systems. How confident are you in mastering this specific form of high technology?"

"I am sorry to disappoint you, but I do not think I can achieve any results that are game changing enough to empower mechs within 15 years. That is how much time I need to familiarize myself with this tech to a degree where I can design new and alternative phasewater armor systems."

Ves did not look happy even though he already anticipated these responses.

The more people familiarize themselves with phasewater technology, the more they realized their inadequacies.

That said, the disappointing answer was not an excuse for Ves to give up on this initiative!

"Sara, Juliet, if the both of you are struggling in your studies, I am more than willing to give you additional help to master the new tech faster. I already mentioned that I would not hesitate to hire tutors and pay for additional augmentations."

"I already have a cranial implant. It is hard to improve my learning speed further."

"Improving our memory and speeding up our learning speeds still won't solve our fundamental problem that much." Sara Voiken shook her head. "What we need is time. Lots of time. If you can be patient enough to wait for me to complete my studies and combine them with my specialty, I can design a defensive mech that can withstand several times the damage of a normal mech!"

She wasn't confident enough to claim she could match the amplification achieved by the MTA. Even after spending so many years on absorbing all of the new knowledge, she could only hope to double or triple the defensive performance of her mechs.

"Will it be worthwhile for us to invest that much MTA merits and time on these studies?" Gloriana frowned. "Think about it, Ves. Sure, Sara may be able to design much tougher mechs than before, but have you ever considered how many mechs like these we can actually build? I don't know how much phasewater it takes to construct a single strong mech, but I doubt it is less than 100 grams of phasewater!"

His wife was right once again. Ves knew that it took substantial amounts of phasewater to impart remarkable phasing properties to armor. The two originally didn't get along with each other, so it took a lot of precious materials as well as ingenious design solutions in order to produce an effective combination!

"It's not useless to learn this advanced knowledge." Ketis spoke up. "The price of phasewater will always remain too high for us to use it on mass production models, but it is a different story for our elites. We don't have enough Unending alloy to empower our future expert mechs with superior armor, but so what? Once Sara is ready to develop phasewater armor systems, all of our expert mechs and maybe ace mechs will be invincible against their regular counterparts! Even powerful alien threats can't threaten us as much as before! Phasewater armor is not only tougher than normal armor, they are also more resistant against spatial attacks!"

This was the biggest reason why Ves wanted Sara to master this tech. The native alien races learned to harness phasewater in many different ways.

This was why Ves felt it was essential to provide his mechs with effective protection. Native threats such as the phase whales were known to rely heavily on spatial manipulation.

The Larkinsons already got a taste of how damaging they could be, but the fish-whales were practically children in front of their real phase whale ancestors!

Other powerful alien forces also made use of phasewater in other offensive uses. In time, human forces would begin to follow suit as well as their own weapon developers and mech designers made their own advances!

"I agree with Ketis." Ves said as he sided against his wife. "Phasewater armor systems can directly enhance the combat effectiveness of our strongest assets. We have many powerful expert pilots in our ranks. Many of them are fairly young and are bound to grow quickly due to being paired with masterwork expert mechs. We cannot afford to lose any of them, but the piloting profession is never safe. Equipping them with mechs that are a lot more resilient than before will do much to preserve their lives, thereby increasing the chances of obtaining an ace pilot!"

"So you still insist on going through with this." Gloriana flatly said.

"Yes, but not everyone will be tasked with mastering a form of phasewater technology. 60 million MTA merits is only enough to grant us basic access to three different forms of phasewater technology. I have already assigned one of them to Sara and another to Juliet. That covers our defensive and mobility needs. We need one more Journeyman to empower our offensive solutions. Who of you is willing to take on this responsibility?"