The Mech Touch

The statue looked like a piece of rounded abstract art.

Otrus Magrin had lived long enough to gain a good understanding and appreciation of fine art, but the sheer variety of alien tastes and aesthetics made it impossible for him to make any solid conclusions at this moment.

Since he wasn't able to rely on his subjective judgment, he focused on objective data instead.

The odd and confusing alien artwork may be able to make him feel as if he was in the presence of an enormous beast, but the physical aspects of the object itself was not that complicated to study.

The scientists who specialized in the study of alien artifacts did not require much time to decipher the age, mass, density, dimensions, material composition and other useful data.

It soon became apparent that the alien artwork was as old as the warship where this wreckage came from. It was rooted to the deck and below and it had always received excellent care from the tikkirs who operated the vessel.

The only reason why it looked scratched and damaged was because of the same incident that produced the debris.

While it was unusual that Cenatus Prospecting had found few traces of debris of the same alien warship on the planet, most of the investigators assumed that the Golden Skull Alliance left this piece of debris behind because it didn't contain anything important or valuable.

Although the scientists managed to provide increasingly more details about the physical construction of a suspected alien religious idol, they failed to provide as much clarification as Otrus Magrin expected.

He had a mystery on his hands.

Otrus hated mysteries.

"My son. Tell me more about the alien life that you have managed to sense from this… relic."

The ace pilot whose mech was standing right outside the wreckage had to figure out how he could best describe his impressions.

"It is difficult to put into words. I feel… as if I have gained a distant glimpse of a powerful alien beast god."

"Is it a phase whale?" Otrus asked as his heart started to beat a little faster.

"No." Saint Neville replied. "I have never met a phase whale in person, but I am convinced that this is not related to such an alien. I am getting the impression that I have made tentative contact with an old, bestial mind, one that is smart and powerful enough to reject my Saint Kingdom. I can try to learn more by pressing harder, but that will cause my willpower to override whatever invisible mark the alien beast has left on this relic."

Otrus Magrin began to circle around the alien artwork. No matter what angle he looked at it, there was little to no apparent meaning whatsoever. The jumble of shapes that had been mashed together looked completely random and devoid of any patterns.

What did this have to do with an alien beast?

"Are you sure this artifact is related to a god?"

"I… cannot say." Neville admitted. "I have never encountered this before. What I can tell you is that the mental effect it exerts on nearby people reminds me of the descriptions of the glows that are iconic to the mechs produced by our latest enemies."

Otrus immediately made the obvious conclusion. "So the two are related somehow. Ancient alien relics that are tied to strange alien gods may be the secret ingredient that allows the Larkinson Clan to empower all of its 'living mechs'. If that is the case, then that may be the true reason why the Golden Skull Alliance has traveled to this star system and sought out this tikkir warship!"

This possible theory had a couple of holes. If the Golden Skullers sought out treasures like this strange alien artwork, they wouldn't have left it behind.

Perhaps the Golden Skullers or more specifically the Larkinsons didn't find it worthwhile to pick up something so weak. The trace of the unknown alien god was noticeable but not that strong in Otrus Magrin's opinion.

"Can you tell me more about this supposed god, my son?"

"It may be a female alien beast god or goddess." Saint Neville said as the domain field extending from his ace mech continued to examine the alien artifact. "I feel hints of emotions that remind me of motherhood, children and hopes. Nothing is coherent as this alien is much closer to a beast than a sentient and intelligent race, but I have the impression that this alien beast is… angry."

"Angry?" Magrin was quite familiar with that emotion. "Angry towards what?"

It took more than a dozen seconds before his son spoke again.

"Father."

"Yes, my son?"

"I want you to try something. Can you project an image of the fleet of the Golden Skull Alliance in front of the relic? I think that might evoke a response from this alien beast goddess."

Otrus had studied the Golden Skull Alliance for a long time. He easily called up one of the snapshots of the enemy fleet that his flagship had taken back in the previous star system.

As soon as the shapes of ships such as the Spirit of Bentheim, the Dragon's Den, the Wild Torch, the Hemmington Cross and the Indigo Tremor became visible, even Otrus could feel a spike of rage and fury from the alien religious idol!

"It worked!"

"Yes, father! I can make much more sense of the emotions produced by the alien goddess! I… I have never experienced these emotions from any human other than those who have either been mortally injured or lost a very close relative."

"What do you think, my son?"

"I think… this alien beast goddess wouldn't get angry because the Golden Skullers managed to kill her offspring." Saint Neville said. "She is too old and ancient to care that much about her children. I am guessing that this is much more personal to her. She either died or sustained severe losses after a fight against the fleet of the Golden Skull Alliance."

"Hm, that may explain it, but let us not get ahead of ourselves. There are still too many mysteries here. Can you figure out whether the alien beast goddess truly hates the Golden Skull Alliance? What if she is pretending?"

"I can guarantee you that this alien isn't faking her resentment." Saint Neville personally vouched. "The hatred and animosity for suffering at the hands of this fleet in battle is very real. You can't fake this kind of raw emotion."

Otrus Magrin relaxed. This was good news. He could make use of this insight.

"Can you try and communicate with this alien beast goddess? If she is as old as you suggest, then she should understand the meaning of the phrase 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'. If not… then we can teach her. The hatred she harbors for the forces based on this fleet is strong."

Saint Neville Magrin had fought many of his father's enemies. Whenever his father pointed out a target to be destroyed, he unflinchingly did as instructed, killing mech pilots as well as ordinary people in order to complete his instructions as thoroughly as possible.

He fought so often throughout his long career that he had witnessed almost every kind of emotional reaction that humans could make.

Feelings of hatred, anger, fear and remorse were most prominent among these reactions. Every ace pilot inevitably became intimately familiar with these emotions.

This was why Saint Neville was confident that he correctly identified the reason why the alien beast goddess expressed this kind of rage. No matter whether he was dealing with a human or an alien, emotions were largely universal among the races.

After he figured this out, Saint Neville cautiously tried to engage into a dialogue with the alien beast goddess.

He never had the need to do this before, so he tried several different methods to initiate contact.

"It isn't working." The ace pilot said. "The alien beast goddess is not… social. She is distant and self-absorbed. If I try to push deeper, she will automatically shove me back."

That was a disappointing outcome, but Otrus Magrin did not blame his son. It was already good of him to supply this much information. He had enough experience to know that it was rarely possible to gain all of the answers to his questions in a single round.

"Keep trying, my son. Alien gods like these might not take humans like us seriously at the start, but we may be able to make a breakthrough if we keep trying."

"I will do so and stay here for as long as I can, father."

Once Otrus Magrin exited the wreckage a short time later, he turned towards the Unrelenting and admired the ace mech for the umpteenth time.

He could never get tired of appreciating this powerful machine. Seeing it constantly stimulated his imagination. He always had the tendency to imagine himself piloting the Unrelenting in the battles of the past.

Instead of his son, it was Otrus who drilled holes into the hulls of starships with the help of the Unrelenting's shoulder-mounted gauss cannons!

It was Otrus who bravely commanded the Unrelenting to charge and impale an enemy ace mech with its lance!

It was Otrus who instructed the Unrelenting to lift up an arm and spout blazing hot sprays of burning propellant that scorched dozens of enemy mechs at a time!

The leader of his own company and pioneering force had to wrench his attention away from the Unrelenting before he could indulge himself any further.

As nice as it was to imagine himself doing all of the fighting himself, what happened in reality was far more important. Otrus would never allow himself to ruin his plans because he indulged in one of his weaknesses.

He shook his head and left the cargo bay. The Unrelenting and its ace pilot silently watched the powerful man disappear.

The Cenatus Prospecting fleet continued to look for further artificial traces in this star system.

It took two more hours before Saint Neville Magrin made an announcement.

"Father! It worked!"

Otrus stopped reading the status report. "It did? What did you manage to do? Is the alien willing to converse?"

"Not exactly." Neville replied. "I only managed to obtain a single actual response from the alien beast goddess. After trying to get it to talk with me by communicating in many different ways, the alien responded to something that I had said by showing me an image."

"An image?" Otrus became confused. "What does it look like?"

"I have tried to interpret the image in my mind as best as I can. I have converted this mental image into a file with the help of my cranial implant. I am transferring it to you right away."

When Otrus called up the image file that he had just received, he looked at what appeared to be a stylized image of a glowing gas giant along with various other markings that appear to be local stellar objects.

What was particularly interesting to Otrus was that the picture also showed another piece of ship debris!

There was something about this piece of wreckage that aroused his interest. His gut feeling told him that there was something valuable and special stowed in this ship section. He became convinced it held something more than a simple alien artifact!

It did not take much thinking to conclude that he was looking at a snapshot of the current star system.

The question was where this specific image was taken.

"Do you know where this is, Neville?"

"No. I don't think the alien beast goddess can point the location on a map."

"I will pass it on to my scientists and let them identify the coordinates of the depicted view. There is enough detail in this image to find a match."

It took a lot of processing time, but eventually the supercomputers finally managed to pin down a small range that corresponded to this view!

Even though a lot of stellar objects had moved and rotated since then, it was still possible to 'rewind' what the star system looked like given all of the available data.

"Where is it?" Otrus Magrin demanded.

"If we have identified this location correctly… it is much closer in orbit to the brown dwarf star than the planet that we are currently parked at." An astronomer explained. "We will have to send a ship on a journey in order to reach this position."

"Then do so." Otrus Magrin said. "No wait. Forget about sending a ship. Let us bring the rest of our available ships as well. We haven't found anything interesting on this planet. Let us move closer to this site so that I can look at this second wreck in person."