The Mech Touch

By the time that Ves completed his short but visually visceral biology lesson, his children all learned far more about the puelmer race than they ever asked for! Their excellent memories became a burden rather than a boon under these circumstances.

No matter how hard they tried to scrub the memories of dismembered, flayed and butcher puelmer bodies out of their tender litle minds, they could not wash them away!

As Ves set aside multiple puelmer hides that he had just skinned, his wife remained disgusted throughout the entire ordeal.

Even so, she hadn't done much to stop her husband from traumatizing their three lovely kids.

That was surprising because Ves expected more opposition from her. What he was doing did not exactly fit in the highly refined and sophisticated lesson plans she had drafted for her offspring!

"As much as I want our daughters and sons to grow up in a comfortable and luxurious environment, I would be doing a disservice to them if I shelter them too much." Gloriana quietly said to Ves as she crossed her arms. "Now that we are about to enroll them all into first-class virtual schools, they need an edge in order to compete against their future classmates. In a dangerous and turbulent environment like the Red Ocean, all of our children will need to be stronger, more ruthless and more desensitized towards violence. While I do not want to raise them into savages, I am realistic enough to know that it is better to prepare them for future challenges ahead of time."

Ves nodded. That was exactly one of the reasons why he butchered several puelmer bodies in front of his children.

Ordinarily, he would never expose the three of them to such a horrible spectacle, but they weren't ordinary children to begin with. Their cognitive development significantly surpassed that of their peers, and even little Marvaine had become too clever for their own good.

This was normally good news, but their overdevelopment had already caused them to notice how much better they were than every other kid their age.

Aurelia and Andraste already exhibited arrogant and stuck-up tendencies, and that triggered lots of alarms in their father's mind!

He needed to shake them out of their comfort zone and teach them that there were still better people and aliens beyond the bubble of the Larkinson Clan.

Once they were finally ready to attend their respective first-class virtual schools and interact with peers from all kinds of amazing backgrounds, they only had a single chance to start off at the right foot.

Ves would rather have his children maintain a humble and respective demeanor than an arrogant and dismissive attitude!

His wife wasn't stupid. She recognized the necessity of adjusting their children as well. She just didn't have it in her to resort to shock treatment.

"Come now, my little babies. You probably have enough of looking at ugly puelmers. Why don't we go and move over to the adjacent cell? There are plenty of fluffy nunsers piled up over there! I promise that they are a lot more fun to explore!"

The family moved over to the aforementioned cell. The moods of the children quickly recovered now that there were no more puelmers in sight.

"Wow… so big."

"They're so heavy."

"Look! Look! Is this really fur?"

Though the nunsers possessed a strong and ferocious reputation in the Red Ocean, they looked a lot more 'PR-friendly' compared to the puelmers.

This was because if someone squinted really hard, they could mistake nunsers for cows that just happened to be dyed in blue or green.

In fact, this resemblance sparked the first question asked by the children.

"Why do they look like cows, papa?" Marvaine asked.

"That is due to a phenomenon known as convergent evolution." Ves replied in his biology teacher guide. "In short, when two different species are subjected to similar environmental pressures, they tend to evolve in the same direction. The reason for that should be clear. Nature often follows the path of least resistance. The more efficient and lower cost solutions are more likely to be chosen by nature."

All three of his children stared at their father with blank expressions.

"Nunsers are basically colorful space cows. Are you happy now?!"

None of his children were in the mood to listen to another elaborate biology lesson. They would much rather approach the cute space cows and poke at their bodies.

Due to their oddly colored fur, the nunsers unintentionally looked like giant toys. That made them remarkably more attractive to children so long as the brain dead aliens did not exhibit their original behavior.

Ves peeled off the space suit from a low-ranking nunser. This allowed his children to poke, prod and pull at the dull green fur as many times as they wished.

Andraste playfully tugged at a floppy ear. "Can we put these nunsers into farms and milk them like real cows? What would it be like if we ate nunser steak?"

"Nunsers are sentient alien beings!" Gloriana responded in a heated tone. "They are not cows! There is a difference between the two. We are humans. We are a civilized race. One of the common norms that both humans and many aliens collectively abide by is to never treat another sentient alien race as cattle. Not all alien races are willing to abide by this common rule, but the rest have good reasons to abide by the restrictions. Other species such as nunsers and puelmers are our competitors. Even if we are able to overpower them, we should still respect their intelligence, their accomplishments and their history. There is no reason to inflict needless suffering on them. This will only corrupt our civilization and turn humans into degenerates."

Aurelia looked confused. "If it is not okay to eat them, why is it acceptable to turn their skins into handbags? Isn't that the same?"

"You're wrong! That is completely different!"

It took a while for Gloriana to convince her children that it was completely acceptable to skin intelligent alien beings, while still insisting that partaking in their flesh was wrong.

Ves found that to be a difficult but not an impossible stance to defend.

"What determines whether it is okay or not is how useful it is for us. Puelmer leather is useful because it offers a type of natural and authentic leather that possesses a desirable combination of properties. Compared to the alternatives, puelmer leather is flexible, bouncy, soft, resistant to scratches and so on. There is no natural substitute of this leather type. As for eating puelmer meat, it is largely pointless. Humanity has already domesticated so many terrestrial and alien creatures that we have already developed countless sources of natural meat products."

Aurelia narrowed her eyes. "That is faulty logic, papa. You could apply the same argument towards eating puelmer meat to using puelmer leather. Both activities are non-essential to the survival and betterment of the human race."

Ves threw up his arms! "I give up!"

Regardless, the children all had their fun. Once they familiarized themselves with the physiology of the nunser race, Ves brought them to a few more cells which held the bodies of other alien species.

Some of these aliens were new to Ves as well. He felt just as curious and excited as his children as he examined the variety of aliens that served aboard the alien battleship.

Once they were done with looking at different alien bodies, the little family continued to tour a few other compartments.

They explored a damaged command center, an inoperable warp drive and a nature-filled compartment that was heavily frequented by nunsers.

Each of them expanded their horizons as they became exposed and enchanted by alien architecture, alien artwork, alien design principles and alien ideologies.

Hardly any humans received the opportunity to tour an actual alien battleship. This was a rare opportunity for each of them. The experience was rewarding to all of them as they came away with lots of different gains, even if much of them were not very tangible.

Ves and Gloriana eventually accompanied their tired but satisfied children back to the Spirit of Bentheim.

After enjoying a hearty dinner before putting their kids to bed, the two mech designers sat together in the living area like usual.

"Miaow~" Clixie purred as Blinky had come out of Ves' head to give the other cat a bath.

The Rubarthan Sentinel Cat missed Lucky, but the gem cat was still preoccupied with phasing through the alien battleship to ingest the most palatable first-class exotics.

Lucky had so much choice on the alien battleship that he needed to be picky in order to gain the most out of this trip!

Ves looked forward to what sort of gem his first cat would produce next. The quality of the materials that Lucky was able to partake in this time was so much better that he had to produce another batch of powerful gems in the near future!

"What are you thinking about this time, Ves?" Gloriana asked.

"Oh, uhm, I was thinking on how I should handle my upcoming meeting with Master Goldstein and the MTA. There is no doubt that the mechers are going to claim the remnants of the alien battleship."

Gloriana understood his frustrations. "Don't think too much about what you are losing. It is already an inevitability for us to lose possession of the alien vessel. What you should be thinking about instead is what we are able to obtain in return. The mechers will try to get away with offering less remuneration that the vessel is strictly worth, but even if they discount the value of the Tower of Babel by 75 percent, that still represents an enormous absolute value."

"You…. you're right." Ves perked up a bit. "It is absolutely exceptional for a small group of second-class pioneers to challenge and defeat a first-class alien battleship. The value of all of the first-class exotics and phasewater put into her construction is so high that you can build a couple of armed cruisers or dozens of first-class mech regiments out of the materials alone!"

The Golden Skull Alliance would be missing out on an incredible amount of resources that were worth more than the entire expeditionary fleet put together!

The MTA may have the strength to appropriate all of these valuables for themselves, but if they did not pay acceptable compensation in return, then no pioneer would be willing to work earnestly for the mechers anymore!

Ves already started to salivate at the thought of the ludicrous amount of MTA merits the Mech Trade Association would be willing to fork over.

"It won't take long before the MTA arrives in the star system." He said as he checked the time.

"Mmhmm. Go to sleep. You will need to be at your peak by the time you meet with Master Goldstein. Do not fixate too much on MTA merits. The contributions that we have made this time are so great that we deserve greater access to what is truly taking place above our heads."

Ves shrugged. "It may be helpful to know a little more about the ongoing struggles at the upper layers of our society, but we are still too small to participate in those dangerous games. I would rather keep our heads down and continue to develop quietly. I am more interested in converting all of our tangible and intangible gains into strength. With all of the battles and operations I have been preoccupied with lately, I have spent less time on my actual work than I wish. Right now, I just want to set aside every distraction and devote several uninterrupted months to my design projects so that I can finally complete them in a timely manner."

"That is a good idea. I know how important the Dullahan Project is to you. I am eager to complete my own research and design projects as well without spending needless time worrying about your latest antics."