The Mech Touch

Just as Yenames Clive finished consulting with his speechwriters who hastily drafted together a speech that amplified the themes of his earlier words, another alert soon pulled him out of his deliberations.

"What is the matter, Yorick!"

"Our guests… a third of the VIPs that we have invited have been abducted under our noses."

"Are you jesting?!"

Yenames Clive quickly called up the relevant feeds. Of the 24 surviving seating blocks that remained intact, 8 of them that happened to retreat towards the south or west direction had lost all of their occupants!

Both the invited guests as well as the guards had disappeared from all of the sensors!

"Where did they go?! Who took them away?!"

"Our men are still searching for answers, but the evidence so far suggests that they have been teleported to an unknown location with the use of exotic alien technology."

When President Yenames Clive rewatched the log recordings, he couldn't figure out how the individuals disappeared so easily. It was as if they simultaneously entered a doorway that led into darkness!

The reason why it became possible for a third party to disappear so many VIPs at once was because the spatial interdiction field generators still hadn't been brought back online.

"Secure the remaining VIPs! And restore the interdiction fields!"

"Our engineers are working on it. The team working on the power supply report that they are able to reactivate a generator in less than a single minute."

"That is already far too late!"

If the unleashing of rogue and maddened warbeasts into the Government District could still be salvaged, then the disappearance of over a third of the most influential and strategically important elites of Davute was a catastrophe!

This latest turn of events not only drained President Yenames Clive of all hope, but also caused his strongest bodyguard to get shocked into silence.

Saint Yorvick actually experienced much greater turmoil than he should have! All of the plans he had considered alongside a small group of informed individuals never mentioned anything about making so many crucial figures disappear at once!

It was one thing to kill off the occupants of just 3 out of the 26 seating blocks. The fact that one of them inadvertently got saved by the Shotgun Shogun's favorable positioning did not materially affect the consequences of this event.

The story was different if a lot more people than that disappeared at once!

The plan to shake Davute awake and unite all of its citizens against Karlach never accounted for that many losses!

If the sudden displacement of thousands of executives, mech designers and senior military officers could not be resolved in a short amount of time, then all hell would break loose!

The government authorities weren't the only ones who had noticed the strange and unannounced disappearance of so many important VIPs.

Several mechs hailing from various family organizations and mercenary outfits flew towards the center plaza.

Now that the last of the rampaging warbeasts had just been subdued, it was no longer necessary for the mechs to remain on guard, at least according to these organizations.

They were much more concerned with the disappearance of their leaders!

"Where are they, president?!"

"You failed to protect our elders, Davute!"

"Why has your ace knight mech been doing nothing all of this time?! Your Saint could have stopped the attackers from kidnapping our leaders!"

The mechs brazenly broadcasted the furious complaints and recriminations from the representatives of the groups that suffered enormously from the disappearances.

The amount of mechs that joined the crowd rose quickly as the news spread like wildfire.

Even in the midst of all of the deaths and tragedies that took place in the crown jewel of the new colonial state, the various groups were solely concerned about their own losses!

"We deserve an answer, president!"

"Why aren't your Saints trying to track down our missing relatives already?!"

"DO SOMETHING!"

As the voices grew louder, the government officials had to act exceedingly carefully.

Saint Yorvick Clive could have shut all of these blathering mouths up at once by pressing onto them with his Saint Kingdom.

The powerful ace pilot did not do so, though. He knew quite well that a softer and more delicate touch was needed.

President Yenames Clive was not in a hurry to address the crowd either. He instead consulted with Reina Kernsk and his team in a frantic effort to gather more information and prepare a more satisfying response to the important stakeholders of the Davute Project.

In the meantime, the mechs hailing from one of the most notable and best-performing groups had arrived.

A lot of people settled down as the Larkinson mechs appeared. From the Nullifiers to its various masterwork expert mechs, the clan had definitely exhibited the strength that allowed it to defeat numerous alien warships and other alien monstrosities during its expeditions!

The people but especially the mech pilots that immigrated to the Red Ocean developed a much greater respect towards superior combat strength than in the past.

As far as combat power went, the parade mechs that the Larkinson Clan had brought to the Government District today vastly outperformed that of many other groups!

As such, the various parties who did not wish to hold back their tongues against the government authorities readily gave way to the Larkinsons!

It was not just because the complainers felt that the Larkinsons had done much more to protect them all than all of the government forces put together.

The real reason why they fell silent and allowed the Larkinsons to take the initiative was because these brave fighters also fell victim to the latest turn of events!

Ves Larkinson, the patriarch of the Larkinson Clan, was missing!

Also missing was his wife, his children, the chief ministers, the lower ministers, General Verle along with a fair number of members of the Larkinson Assembly!

If not for the fact that Director Calabast Arnlend of the Black Cats had wisely chosen to return to the Blinding Banshee that was orbiting in space, pretty much the entire upper echelon of the clan would have been emptied in its entirety!

It was partially because of Calabast's urging that the Larkinsons sought to obtain answers from the Davutans.

The Amaranto was still maintaining overwatch while the Everchanger utilized his flexible glows as crowd control.

This left the Minerva as the only expert mech that dared to approach the Indormeon.

The two mechs were far apart from each other.

The Minerva possessed a relatively smaller and more compact frame. The Indormeon was literally built like a tank as it was quite clearly designed to withstand a lot of punishment.

The former possessed an exquisite frame and her imperious personality was clear even to audiences that knew nothing about living mechs. There was a slight dissonance between the expert command mech and her expert pilot, but rather than being treated as a flaw, the Larkinsons leveraged these differences as a source of strength!

The latter was a much closer reflection of its ace pilot. As a Saint, Yorvick continually baptized the Indormeon with his exceedingly strong willpower, which literally caused the ace knight mech to reshape itself into a form that better complemented its user!

If the differences between the mechs couldn't get even more pronounced, the Mars soon blasted to the air above the central plaza as if it belonged in this gathering!

"Commander Casella, I heard what happened." Reginald spoke in a voice that betrayed his lingering excitement of entering into real combat again. "I regret that I missed what happened to Ves and the Larkinsons who were with him. I was pretty sure I would have been able to intercept any enemies that sought to attack their block, but I was mistaken."

Though Patriarch Reginald Cross did not deliberately tried to impose his will upon others, he was much worse at this than Saint Yorvick Clive.

Dozens of mechs flew backwards in order to get out of the range of Reginald's domineering Saint Kingdom.

Only strong-willed individuals such as Commander Casella and President Yenames Clive could maintain their full clarity while in close proximity to an active Mars.

"We require your assistance." Commander Casella eventually issued the Larkinson Clan's demand towards Davute. "Our missing clansmen must be accounted for. Your armed forces assumed responsibility for the safety of all of them, to the exclusion of other mech troops including ours. We would have been able to bring much more than three expert mechs and 24 standard mechs if we had the chance to do so. Whether that would have made a difference or not, we cast blame for everything that happened today on your feet."

President Yenames Clive maintained an impassive face as he made a show of patiently accepting the Larkinson Clan's grievances.

"You are correct to express frustration at our security arrangements. We can promise you that we will strictly examine and improve our security protocols to prevent a repeat of this tragedy. I can assure you that our best scientists and analysts are studying the data logs for any clues where your people and relatives have been taken. Every technology leaves a trace. Whether they are deceased or not, we will not stop until we find the answers to what has happened."

Yenames knew better than to blame Karlach right away for everything that had happened today. He tried to keep his response as humble as a leader in his position could allow.

He expected that the Larkinsons would express more dissatisfaction in his insufficient response.

Instead, the voice of Commander Casella Ingvar remained a lot calmer than he and everyone else expected!

"We appreciate all of the support you can offer. The sooner you can create a portal or unlock a gate, the better. Perhaps it is better if you enlist the aid of the Mech Trade Association."

Everyone became stumped by what they heard.

"Commander Ingvar, do you have additional information that can clarify what has taken place?"

"We do not have all of the answers." The pilot of the Minerva responded. "We can tell you that Patriarch Ves and the other people assigned to Block L have been moved to a parallel space of sorts. Our patriarch and our own analysts currently suspect that all of the missing people have been forcibly shifted into an old pocket space that is anchored to this planet. It is not the first time our clan has encountered the work of a phase whale."

The revelation of the Larkinson Clan shocked the crowd once again!

"Is our upper management still alive?" The pilot of a mech representing Freewell Medical Services asked.

"Yes." Casella spoke. "For now at least."

"Where did you get that information, ma'am?!"

"We still maintain limited contact with our patriarch and the missing clansmen."

"How do you maintain contact with individuals who have been moved to a different space that is out of phase with our main reality?" President Yenames Clive asked with a frown. "It should be impossible to maintain contact unless there is an active and connected quantum communication node or similar on the other side of the connection, but that should not be the case."

The Minerva shifted a little. "We have our own means. The method of communication is similar to that of the Buzzy Bee model that our mech company has put on sale for a while. The signals that we transmit and receive travel through a metaphysical channel for a lack of a better description. Ordinary barriers such as crossing dimensions are not as much of a hindrance as you think."

The Golden Cat bound the Larkinsons together no matter where they could be found.

While those who found themselves in extremely remote and anomalous spaces were harder to maintain contact with, Goldie always knew whether a Larkinson was dead or alive!

The fact that the ancestral spirit readily reported that Ves and all of the others were still alive. The welcome news had given the other clansmen a lot of relief!

That didn't mean the other side was safe. An unknown party deliberately went out of its way to grab Ves and many other VIPs!

"Can you provide us with a live feed through this connection?" President Yenames Clive asked as he and many other officials developed a much greater interest in examining the performance of the Buzzy Bee model all of a sudden.

"That is… not possible. The method of communication is still new and rudimentary. It is not yet possible to exchange signals at a high enough bandwidth. It should be sufficient to exchange simple messages and the like."

Yenames smiled. "We can work with that. The information that you have provided up to this point already provides us with a great amount of assistance. Let us work together and see whether we can reopen this pocket space."

They exchanged contacts and data for the next half-minute.

In the meantime, Calabast came up with another question that Commander Casella voiced.

"By the way, sir, did you or your government know about the presence of a murky phase whale enclave in this star system?"

"No." President Yenames Clive straightforwardly admitted as if he himself couldn't believe that such a major space had escaped everyone's notice. "We did not know about it. What you have revealed earlier comes as a surprise to us as well."