The Mech Touch



Ves assumed a more confident and domineering posture. He had to convey the impression that he had a 'god' on his side and did not have much restraint towards the idea of sending her out on another destructive spree.

Minister Shederin Purnesse made the same conclusions and began to feed a lot of useful advice and tips on how Ves should approach this conversation.

"Not enough. It is not enough, patriarch." The old man spoke over a private communication channel. "You need to look and sound more arrogant and vindictive. The pescans are accustomed to bowing their heads in front of the arrogant nunsers, so our goal is to tap into their old psychological reflexes. Do not forget that you hold the power of life and death over the remaining survivors. You need to treat these aliens as if they are already at your mercy."

The foreign minister was correct. Ves needed to fully play into this act in order to lower the chance that Great Chief Jaharon would act in spite or make any other outrageous moves.

"Do not talk about opening the portal or surrendering the control room first. That will make you sound desperate and give more leverage to the aliens. Instead, approach this conversation from the perspective of a leader who already has everything in hand but wants to extract more value out of a weak race. Ask more questions about the pescans. Make it look as if you are a collector that wants to survey his wares."

Though that sounded a bit strange to Ves, he quickly made the necessary adjustments.

"Jaharon." He addressed the tired-looking alien directly. "As you can clearly see, your race stood no chance in defeating my 'goddess' and champion. None of the subordinates you have left can offer any meaningful resistance against us. While your crimes towards our great human race are great, I still see value in your people. Not many members of your race are alive anymore. They have become rare, and everything that is scarce holds greater value than before. I would prefer it if you do not make an unwise decision and spoil my merchandise."

The alien leader looked meeker and less defiant than before. Just as predicted, Jaharon fell back into a more subservient aspect of himself when he thought he was facing an overwhelmingly powerful group of a superior race.

[We ask for living. Too small left. Never ask for fight. Woman god destroyed our big god. No longer tunnel to distant stars. Death and block is waiting us. We are lost.]

Huh?

Jaharon threw out a lot of information in very little words. Ves had to ask a few more questions and enlist the aid of Minister Shederin to decipher what the aliens were saying.

Through the confusing but also illuminating words of the pescan leader that had been driven into despair, Ves and the others managed to puzzle out the alien master plan.

Even if it was not quite accurate or complete, Ves strongly felt that this was the reason for everything that happened in this abandoned alien facility!

It started from the moment the pescans evacuated into this pocket space in haste.

Just as many people had already guessed, the colonization fleet of the founders of Davute truly struck too quickly and ferociously for the pescan remnants to evacuate too many individuals and supplies.

The aliens who barely managed to escape the genocide of their entire race had a miserable time while reluctantly trying to build a settlement on these floors.

They did not dare to spread out and occupy the rest of the prison because they felt it was too oppressive and would bring them too far away from their other surviving compatriots.

Although the aliens tried to start up farms and set up water recycling plants, they simply did not bring enough supplies to sustain their current level of population once they depleted their stockpile of prepared emergency food containers!

This had a strong psychological effect on the pescans. Not only did many of them lose the prospect of having children, they might even have to kill off the weakest and most useless survivors among them in order to ensure the entire population remained sustainable over the long term!

[Dark and death stalk the god prison. No longer cry as crying as died. Anti-home no home for us too dark and no life. Future is in stars of distant. Must find leave.]

The pescans couldn't stand the thought of living in this ancient prison for the rest of their lives!

It did not matter that it was safe and completely hidden from the humans that had built their new settlements on top of the former cities of the pescan civilization.

The pescans wanted to live! They wanted to evacuate from the planet by whatever means possible and take refuge with the aliens who still managed to defend their territories against the relentless onslaught of the human invaders.

Fortunately, the ancient prison might have become a shadow of its former self, but the pescans who explored its state managed to gain limited control of it and learn a few pieces of crucial information.

The pescans somehow gained access to a feed to normal space. This enabled them to study the humans over many years and conclude that breaking out on their own would instantly get them killed by lots of mechs.

The remnant aliens also figured out how to control certain internal processes such as putting people in and out of the cells as well as take people directly who were present in the middle of the Government District of Kotor City!

After a bit more tinkering with the primary control room, the pescans also managed to discover the greatest secret of this ancient prison.

Its largest and most well-defended cell held a living prisoner!

[The ancient forgotten god bleeds with vengeance and freedom. Dark but sleep, can help break cage that is wrapping after cooperation. Needed much words to placate god and beg for stomach pass to distant stars. Too bleed is weak must make you human stabbers turn knifes away.]

"So that is what was going on all of this time!" General Verle managed to deduce the truth. "There was a phase whale sleeping in the central cell that could break out of the prison and take the pescan survivors out of human-occupied space. However, the Great Chief Jaharon did not have confidence that a single weakened phase whale could get them past so many powerful human forces. This is why the pescans bided their time. They wanted to gain more leverage over us in order to negotiate for safe passage."

This was a clever plan and one that probably had the highest chance of success. Though the pescans seriously underestimated the ruthlessness of humans, it was plausible for Davute to pay a heavy price to the MTA to secure safe passage for these aliens.

There was only one hindrance to the plan.

The interdiction fields that the colonial government maintained throughout Kotor City but especially the Government District prevented the pescans from taking valuable humans hostage!

Without any leverage, the pescans recognized they had little hope in their ability to escape from beyond the confines of human-controlled space.

This was why they decided to wait for better opportunities. If too much time had passed without any positive developments, then Great Chief Jaharon had no choice but to enact his most desparate plan and break out of the ancient prison without human hostages.

It was rather coincidental that the conquering humans chose to organize a founding ceremony on this day.

The pescans were also lucky enough that a lot of human VIPs and important leaders happened to gather in the center of the Government District on this important day!

What was even better was that the Karlachs successfully launched a surprise attack against the Davutans in the very same Government District!

After all of this took place, what truly enabled the pescans to enact their bold plan to take as many high-value hostages as possible was that the sabotage committed by the Karlachs also knocked out the warp interdiction field generators!

In the period they remained knocked offline, it became possible for the pescans to remotely teleport a lot of humans to the prison cells inside the hidden pocket space!

Ves couldn't believe that the pescans came up with such a convoluted plan that depended on so many different factors falling into place, only for all of that to happen anyway!

Personally, he put most of the blame on the rulers and owners of Davute. They were incredibly arrogant about building their seat of government on top of the most central location of the greatest pescan city-state to exist.

The Davutans also showed insufficient regard for safety by compelling so many important figures to attend the founding ceremony at the front rows in such great numbers.

What Ves finally faulted these darned Davutans for was that all of this could have been avoided if they had been a lot more thorough about hunting down any remaining survivors of the pescan race.

Perhaps it was not all that bad, though. The humans here had won the most important battle while Ves was in a position to extract a lot of possible benefits from the final remaining leader of the former occupants of this planet.

He just had to make sure to maintain the illusion of power while also making sure he did not drive the aliens into going down in a final blaze of glory.

Ves started to think on how he could accomplish this. He already had a few ideas.

"I prefer not to kill you all. The prisoners that my men have already taken are too few to sustain a healthy slave population. If you agree to lay down arms, I can promise you that the other humans will not exterminate your race. To me, that is a huge waste of value. I am a businessman and a collector, and I see great value in keeping you in my private zoo."

His words caught the alien off-guard. [Understanding no. Death is scheduled as last god stabbed to die. Stab killers must tear our meat.]

Ves shook his head.

"No. I will not allow you to die. Do not underestimate my power. I not only have a goddess under my command, but I am a friend of the Mech Trade Association. You know about the MTA, right? I am their collaborator, and I have many more privileges than you think. For example, I am allowed to maintain a private collection of intelligent aliens for my own use. Look at what I have obtained up until this point."

He activated a second projection that displayed the Dragon's Den. The half-organic, half-mechanical starship looked so advanced and exotic to the alien great chief that he could not tell how powerful it was. The pescans had never been a starfaring race so their vision of spacecraft was too limited.

The projection changed to display the interior of the biomes that made the Dragon's Den so valuable to the Larkinson Clan.

It displayed many different alien forests, plains and other terrain features that provided comfortable if somewhat limited habitats to many different exobeasts.

The most important biome was the one that housed tens of thousands of members of the pakklaton race.

After years of captivity, the alien refugees turned test subjects tried to make the most of their new forest biome. They built huts and settlements in the trees and built up a functional society where the avian aliens could raise their children in relative peace.

It was not a dignified state of existence, but at least these captured aliens managed to stay alive!

After spending several years in constant fear and after suffering an enormous blow from a powerful human 'goddess', the few remaining pescans left alive became a lot more willing to seek a more outcome in their doomed conflict against the invaders of another galaxy!

[Possible speaking confession survival.] Great Chief Jaharon said as his tall body drooped even further. [Must create pact and sever further knives.]

"You do not have the qualifications to impose demands on us." Ves responded with a smirk as he maintained his superior act. "I have told you what I seek from your race. It is up to you to accept or refuse the only offer that will allow you and your fellow survivors to live past this day. Surrender and live. Resist and die. Choose quickly, because my patience is at a limit."

It only took three more minutes for the transphasic energy shields that shielded the final entrance to disappear.