The Mech Touch



Ves became incredibly engrossed in his latest project.

Despite the dire circumstances surrounding him and his fellow clansmen, he had always believed in his heart that he could resolve every problem by engineering the right solution at the right time.

Shooting his way out of problems was not the most ideal way to overcome an obstacle. Rather than heading to the upper levels and risk falling into a trap or a fortified position prepared by the abductors of so many important stakeholders of Davute, he much preferred to use his own advantages to take control of the environment and turn the tables against his current opponents!

He worked with haste as he employed the limited but fairly powerful capabilities of the compact minifab module that he had mounted on his back.

Despite the relative bulk of this highly sophisticated and relatively fragile field production and repair equipment suite, Ves rarely kept it separated from his Unending Regalia, even in a packed form.

He had designed and fabricated several other useful backpack modules over the years. From a powerful flight system that could allow him to soar in the skies like a bird to a large high-capacity battery that was solely designed to power an incredibly powerful shoulder-mounted luminar crystal cannon, he created all kinds of options that could be handy in different situations.

He never really used them, though. Ves mostly appreciated the ability to fabricate or repair anything in a given location as long as it held enough materials for him to engineer a viable solution.

Though he spent a notable amount of years in Davute in total peace and comfort, he had never really let down his guard. Not truly, at least.

His honor guard always made sure to keep his Unending Regalia close at hand, and it always came with the minifab module as the default attachment.

Ves wanted to have the power to create by his side at all times. He wanted to make sure that if he ever got stranded on a nameless planet, he would have the essential tools to build the tools to build the tools and production equipment that could be used to fabricate a shuttle that could get him back to civilized space one way or another.

In any case, even though he hadn't actually made any use of his minifab module over the years, he showed little hesitation or lack of fluency in his operations.

Of course, his minifab's many tools were mainly geared towards working with conventional technology. They did not provide him with the equipment needed to work with crystals.

He was unable to conduct many operations he needed to repair the alien crystal interface properly.

He also lacked the knowledge and expertise to restore the alien systems to a semblance of their former selves.

Fortunately, the crystals themselves hadn't decayed that much despite the lengthy passage of time. Ves knew that the biggest advantage to crystal-based electronic systems was that they were exceptionally hard and resistant to shocks and other damage. They were so solid that laying dormant for over 100,000 years hardly caused them to deteriorate, especially when they were built to last!

Of course, even crystal-based electronics could not escape the ravages of time. It depended on the complexity and other factors. Since the control interface consisted of relatively simple clusters of processing and control-based crystals, the deterioration was not as great as with the energy shield generators a few floors down below.

The fact that the latter remained operational all of this time was also a testament to the advantages of crystal-based electronics.

Not everything was great, though. Crystals were a bit more troublesome to produce and even harder to repair. It was hard to implement proper functioning automatic repair systems into them because they were so solid and rigid.

Right now, Ves had to mend many crystals that had been smashed by a hammer or another blunt object.

Whoever wrecked this a long time ago did not do the courtesy of creating clean breaks.

Instead, numerous crystals got chipped or smashed into dozens of ugly shards.

Ves quickly had to examine and judge whether these crystals were worth saving. He dismissed over half of the crystals this way.

"The amount of available crystals is not that great to begin with." Helena noted. "Is it truly alright to dismiss so many of them? What if you do not have enough to access the control system?"

"It is alright, sister. I do not need to restore the whole control system. This place was originally built to control much if not all of the possible operations that take place in the prison facility. We don't need to gain that much control. From the clues that we have gathered, the Illustrious One and I suspect that this interface is built with modularity and compartmentalization in mind. Every crystal is a self-contained control mechanism that is tied to a specific prison system."

"That… is an odd approach to design computer systems." Helena remarked.

"Aliens always come up with new and inventive ways to tackle different technological problems. "He leaned over and pointed to the empty hexagonal sockets that happened to resemble the honeycombs of beehives. "Look at how these sockets are designed, for example. Anyone can easily put in and pull out as many crystals as they want. Do you know the implications of this? Not all, but many of these crystals simultaneously serve as access keys. They are all designed to be slotted in and out with ease. I can imagine that the prison warden and senior security officers carry the most important crystals on their person while the lower-ranking guards can only control less important systems."

Helena looked impressed. It seemed that calling down the Illustrious One and having him 'possess' David's skull to the point where it was lighting up like a rainbow did serve a materially useful purpose.

Though she felt a little concerned about how the possession would cause the primordial human skull to become 'imprinted' to a new owner, it should be easy enough to wipe it away as long as a design spirit did not permanently inhabit its cozy interior.

As Ves continued his efforts to repair the crystals with the limited tools he had at his disposal, he steadily mended one crystal after another.

The collection of hastily-repaired crystals consisted of different colors, with red, orange and yellow being the most predominant ones while the blue and purple crystals were noticeably scarce.

"If the aliens who created these control systems based their color choices on the spectrum of light, then the red and orange crystals should control the more basic systems of the prison facility." Ves explained to Helena. "The purple ones on the other hand should provide us with top access, though I cannot rule out the possibility of clear crystals or black crystals playing this important role."

Helena nodded in understanding. "The color spectrum of light is a universal phenomenon, so that makes it easier to convey their meaning to many different alien races. It does not appear that the high-level crystals are salvageable, though. You have only worked to mend a single purple crystal up to this point."

"You are right." Ves sighed even as he continued to merge several pieces of a green crystal back together. "The purple ones are not that numerous to begin with, and whoever went to town on them really did not want others to ever gain access to the functions that they controlled."

In the end, Ves quickly fixed up a lot of red and orange crystals. He was fortunate that there were still enough of them that were simple to repair. Although his repair methods were anything but perfect and would most definitely cause the crystals to glitch or perform suboptimally, it would be worthwhile as long as they contributed to the overall restoration of the control room's interface.

It took over 45 minutes for him to handle the crystals in the fastest and sloppiest way possible. Ves could have taken his time and potentially restored more systems, but time was of the essence. He already felt he had wasted enough time on exploring the lower levels and tinkering with all of these crystals.

The strain of supporting the Illustrious One's presence also began to stack up. The strain on his mind might not be as heavy as before, but using his own mind and spirit as a conduit was not a relaxing affair!

This caused him to think about potential solutions on how he could reduce the strain for future attempts.

His first thought was to take David's skull, cut off the upper bone cavity and use it as a key ingredient for a new headpiece.

Ves had good experiences with creating crowns, and right now he imagined he could utilize his recently gained expertise on biotechnology to create a personal crown made out of organic tissue!

Although it would probably look disturbing as hell, he believed that as long as he made it out of brain tissue similar to the one that occupied his cyborg leg, he could turn it into a dedicated 'dummy' brain that could serve as a purpose-built possession vehicle for his design spirits!

"What am I thinking? This is a ridiculous idea!"

He couldn't help but think about creating stuff like this in the few moments that he had completed a repair job and could gather his thoughts.

Ves completely fell in love with utilizing David's remains to assist in his spiritual manipulation efforts. He could get much more work done and augment his products with the unique qualities of a relevant design spirit if he could call upon their help without as many barriers as before.

Unfortunately, there was only one whole primordial human skeleton, and he needed to save it up for his mother.

Perhaps David may not have been the only ancient human that ended up in the Red Ocean. Ves was actually pretty certain that a lot more of them managed to reach this dwarf galaxy, but they were most likely scattered all over the place. The mathematical odds that he could find a pristine skeleton of another one throughout his journeys were so small that he pretty much assumed that he would never be able to find one in his lifetime.

That didn't mean he would stop looking entirely. He resolved to always pay attention to any news that could potentially lead him to the burial place of other primordial humans.

He could also break the odds entirely if he became more capable in the future. If Ylvaine managed to grow stronger in the following decades, then Ves could even use the Great Prophet's powers to track down a skeleton of the same quality as that of David!

In short, Ves did not need to develop too much of an attachment to David, because the Red Ocean should also have a Simon, Michael, Mary and a Joanna buried under a rock somewhere!

After Ves fixed up the last crystal on the list, he carefully inserted it into a slot and beheld his work.

He had decided to imitate the color arrangement of the original crystals and placed the purple and blue ones in the center while putting the lower-level crystals closer to the sides.

This produced a lot of gaps that were most pronounced immediately around the center.

"Can you activate it now, Ves?"

"Not yet, sister. I doubt this control system is easy to take over. A prison most definitely has multiple security safeguards. The long passage of time may have degraded them to an extent, but from how solid this place is built, I doubt the original constructors overlooked such an obvious security vulnerability. I need to create my own 'access key' based on the luminar crystal technology that I am familiar with. I don't have the time or the equipment to synthesize such a crystal from scratch, so I will have to make it from an existing crystal, preferably a purple one that has the highest access rights."