The Mech Touch

5017Refurbished Spirit

The Golden Skull Alliance finally moved into action!

After several foreseen and unforeseen delays, its famed expeditionary fleet finally departed from the Davute System!

This powerful fleet that consisted of scores of capital ships and many hundred sub-capital ships no longer made its presence felt to the residents of the port system.

The departure relieved many Davutans while concerning many more.

In the start of a new age, tens of thousands of impressive combat mechs, dozens of expert mechs and three powerful ace mechs decisively left the capital of the Colonial Federation of Davute!

No longer would these mechs be able to provide incidental protection to the residents living on Davute VII. The colonial state had to take on a greater responsibility if it wanted to maintain the stability that it so badly needed after the abrupt transition to a new era for red humanity.

Ves and many other people had already left Davute behind. They already embraced a mindset of chasing after greater heights. Why stop at a relatively ordinary second-rate state when promotion was within reach?

The upper zones had become their next target!

Whether they wanted to settle in the more resource-rich clusters of star systems or simply use them as their next stopover points, they all needed a huge amount of money, phasewater and high-grade resources in order to fulfill their intermediary goals!

United by this common goal, the members of five different pioneering organizations came together into a cohesive fleet.

Even the recently Joined Adelaides and Boojays had come to trust the odd and quirky alliance to an extent!

Although a lot of work needed to be done in order to properly integrate the mech forces of these two newcomers to the battle lineup of the overall fleet, the military officials and officers from all five pioneering organizations were already working on this matter.

Ves stood on the bridge of his refurbished factory ship with pride. It was Impossible for him to explore every nook and cranny and detail every single Improvement that the MTA had made to the ship he treated as his main home.

It was enough to tour and take note of the new sub-light propulsion systems, the new transphasic shield generators, the power generators that were somewhat capable of meeting the Increased energy consumption, the modern second-class superdrives, the vastly strengthened first-class hull plating and internal structure and the brand-new first-class Hyper Chamber.

From her relatively humble origins as a Hexer-built factory ship, the Spirit of Bentheim had evolved into a quasl-first-class ship in the truest sense of the word!

If not for certain shortcomings such as her lacking power supply or her vastly inferior data processing capabilities, the newly refitted vessel would have been able to fit in with similar capital ships that commonly roamed the upper zones!

All in all, Ves was largely content with what he got after paying a whopping sum of around 310 million MTA merits and 84 kilograms of phasewater!

This was one of his greatest sources of confidence in his ability to explore the deep frontier!

Even if all of the other ships of the expeditionary fleet foundered after a confrontation against an overpowering alien force, Ves still had a reasonable degree of confidence in the Spirit of Bentheim's ability to resist strong attacks and flee to safety with impressive speed!

As Ves ended his tour at the bridge, he took his seat on his Impressive new Golden Command Throne.

It was a huge upgrade compared to his earlier observer's seat. It effectively turned him from a bystander to an absolute leader. The effect of sitting on it was quite profound, both to the bridge officers and himself!

"So much power..."

Other people could not reach his height anymore unless they floated in the air.

Right now, the chief shipwright of the Larklnson Clan had done Just that in order to report the overall state of the Spirit of Benthelm after the crew had acclimated to their new stations.

"...The Mech Trade Association has done an excellent Job at reconstructing the Spirit of Benthelm. Many old faults in her structure have been worked away with the near-complete reconstruction of her entire hull."

Ves nodded in understanding.

I Inder normal circumstances, the Spirit of Benthelm could easily last for several centuries without requiring extensive reconstruction!

It was a pity that red humanity no longer lived under ordinary circumstances.

"I low extensively has your department made the mutations to the ship systems, Vivian?" I Ie critically asked.

"We have only just begun to conduct these examinations, sir. Any deviations that can be attributed to M87's exotic radiation are still minor. It takes powerful scanners as well as extensive data collection in order to properly track the materials and components that will become prone to malfunction in the future. The good news is that we do not have to do all of the work alone. The Red Two have already generated a new public database that collectively gathers everyone's research on effects of exotic radiation on many different materials. We only need to form a list of parts that contain any of the mutating materials."

Mutating materials. Morphing materials. Reactive materials.

Whatever they were called, each of them had become a nightmare to red humanity!

Human society relied extensively on technology in order to function. From ordinary production equipment to humongous capital ships, each of them utilized many different exotics and other materials in order to function as cohesive products of advanced technology!

What would it be like if a processor no longer spit out the right calculations?

What would happen if a power generator produced a lot of heat instead of electrical energy?

What would happen when the neural interface of a mech stuffed a lot of junk data in the head of the pilot?

These were all possible consequences of persistent exposure to E energy radiation and R particle radiation!

Fortunately, these accidents were unlikely to happen right away. It would take years of gradual change and mutation for certain materials to transform into entirely different exotics.

So long as people identified these gradual changes in time, they only needed to spend a bit of time and effort to replace the problematic parts to remove any future risks.

The problem was that not all of these dangerous parts were as easy to change. The Spirit of Benthelm most definitely needed to return to a drydock in a decade or so to completely rip out all of the parts that could produce serious accidents and malfunctions over time!

"We still have enough buffer time at the current rate of mutation." Vivian Tsai consoled the patriarch. "The problematic parts may show progressively deviations in the following years, but much of our technology is fairly robust enough to possess generous tolerances. Our engineers can also make targeted modifications and adjustments to mitigate the side effects of physical mutations."

"I know, but do we have the manpower and equipment to do all of this work?"

The chief shipwright immediately shook her head. "Not even close to it. Remember that we not only have to perform a huge amount of additional maintenance on the Spirit of Benthelm, but also our other ships. The Gorgoneion, the Wild Torch, the Dragon's Den and the Blinding Banshee all have to undergo continuous examinations and adjustments in order to extend their lifespan and reduce their incident rates, and I haven't even touched upon our combat carriers as of yet. Even with the assistance from the crews serving on the aforementioned ships, we need at least a hundred times more qualified personnel in order to keep our fleet in good shape in the long-term!"

Ves groaned and rubbed his palm against his face. This was an astronomical amount of work.

"We would be better off if we can dump all of our old starships and replace them with brand-new ones that are designed with M87 adaptations in mind. In fact, we should do our best to save a lot of funding and resources so that we can replace our second-class starships with first-class equivalents straight away. This is the most efficient way for us to complete our transition to a first-class organization!"

I lis plan made a lot of sense, but it was pure fantasy at this stage!

"The disparity between the supply and demand of starships has never been as skewed as today." Vivian Tsai told Ves. "Back in the Age of Mechs, the incredibly high demand for carriers and other starships could still be alleviated by the steady supply of vessels pouring out of the greater beyonder gate. Now that it has fallen silent, red humanity must completely rely on the ships that it can construct on its own territories. This has caused a huge disruption in the starship market! Many contracts are on the verge of breaking apart due to the ripple effects of the Great Severing."

Ves suddenly grew more alarmed. "Will Davute renege on the deal that we struck? The original agreement was that the state would supply us with 3 medium-sized fleet carriers per completed mech commission."

There was also another deal related to gifting the starships allocated to the 77th Warborn Mech Division to the Larkinson Clan and the Cross Clan. This deal was likely to hold as the elite assault-oriented mech unit directly served Davute's Interests!

"My department has already communicated with the colonial government, sir. The officials over there have immediately assured us that the agreement still holds true. The federal military has become even more eager for you to complete the promised mech commissions. The excellent performance of the Pacifier model a week ago along with the increased effectiveness of all of your living mechs has caused the Davutans to expect more from your next works."

"I won't disappoint them." Ves confidently promised. "Davute will not regret this decision."

The value of starships had practically doubled overnight. The starship Industry had become the hottest and most profitable sector in the new frontier's economy.

Ves doubted that he would be able to make a similar deal in the future. Trading 3 mech commissions for 9 medium-sized fleet carrier was practically a steal to the Larkinson Clan!

The patriarch and the shipwright continued to discuss more ship-related matters. They inevitably touched upon the possibility of adding warships to the expeditionary fleet.

"It is not that difficult to design a third-class warship with our current ship development capacity." Vivian Tsai honestly said. "We can comfortably design most variations of second-class warships up to the level of a heavy cruiser. A battlecruiser is beyond us. We can design one if we have to, but if you want to obtain a good design that is tough enough to withstand serious attacks, we will need time or lots of external assistance."

Ves dismissively waved his hand. "There is no need to consider battlecruisers. We have to kill an ancient phase whale in order to earn the corresponding token, and that will never happen. We only have a shot of earning a couple of tokens of lower value."

"Our burden is much lighter if that is the case." Vivian replied in a relieved tone. "We already have an extensive foundation in designing most of the aspects of warships, sir. We only need to hire additional personnel who specialize in working with warship-grade weapon systems and various auxiliary systems. It should only take us two to three years to complete our first proper second-class destroyer design."

He shook his head in disappointment. This was not what he wanted from a token earned by killing a powerful alien leader.

"It's a waste to use a token on a second-class warship. Is it possible for your department to design a basic but proper first-class warship?"

"That... is much more problematic. We do not have the capability to design any first-class vehicle or starship at this time. We will need to spend a huge amount of time and resources on supplementing our skills and knowledge. It would help Immensely if we can hire at least a couple of first-class shipwrights, but this is impossible. A first-rater will never condescend to working for a second-class organization."

She was right. It was too much for Ves to expect for the Naval Design Department to spit out ready-made first-class ship designs.

"Well, let's set aside this discussion for later. We are not even close to earning a token yet, so we have plenty of time to explore our options."