The Mech Touch

As the auction neared its end, Ves already felt more than satisfied with the top 5 bids!

They encompassed a variety of boons that enriched his clan as well as his personal interests. The mechers normally never offered these bids to associates under normal circumstances.

Once the bid of Master Xena Wintress showed up on the list, many people continued to observe the other two envoys.

In the end, Master Tolarian Cerny declined to make a bid.

Master Henry Urbeck who represented the interests of the Fist of Defiance made the final major bid in this auction.

"We have... connections with the Red Fleet. Given your prior history with fighting against numerous different alien fleets, we can arrange an RF Frigate Warship Token for you. This token will be bound to your name. Take note that the fleeters have the right to deprive it from you as long as you abuse your privileges."

"What?!"

The audience showed a much greater reaction this time!

No one could have imagined that the Fist of Defiance could actually help Ves obtain an actual token!

Very few of them had been issued since the Red Fleet announced its controversial Warship Quota Program.

It would be an amazing benefit if the Larkinson Clan was one of the few who managed to win a token, even if it was the least valuable among the ones included in the program.

A frigate was larger than a mech, but not large enough to pose a great threat towards a decently-sized mech force.

However, a small warship was better than no warship as far as Ves was concerned!

The Larkinson Clan did not even have to wait for the Diligent Ovenbird or an external shipyard to construct an armed frigate. It could quickly put its token to good use by repairing and refurbishing one of the many captured alien vessels that fell within the specifications of the token!

The Larkinsons could even field the archeship captured by Lucky as long as they managed to repair her systems and learned how to operate her properly!

The requirements were a bit high, though. The archeship had incurred a fair amount of internal damage, so no one had a good idea how reliable she was in her current state.

Repairing the archeship required special knowledge on archetech that the Larkinson Clan did not possess at this time.

Even if Larkinsons were able to repair the archeship, she was nothing more than a gigantic alien monument so long as no one was able to control all of her systems!

While the relatively small alien stealth vessel included a number of backup controls that enabled humans to turn off the lighting, open certain hatches and so on, this was far from enough to put this incredibly valuable warship in the field!

The clan needed to gain full control over her systems. In order to make that happen, the Larkinsons needed to interface with her archetech systems somehow.

This was easier said than done. Humans did not possess the archeshells required to directly interface with the archeship. Perhaps the Xenotechnician and his researchers may have figured out a way to circumvent this requirement, but Ves did not get his hopes up that he and his clan could obtain their solution.

The only member of the Larkinson Clan that had demonstrated slightly greater control over the archeship than others was... Lucky.

For a brief moment of time, Ves visualized a highly unusual scenario.

An archeship roamed across the stars in total stealth. The repaired and modified alien vessel slipped behind enemy lines with confidence and quietly approached isolated enemy ships and ambushed them without mercy!

Once the battle had ended before it properly started, the handful of surviving aliens who were taken prisoner attempted to look their captors in the face in order to voice their defiance.

Yet when these alien captives were finally brought inside the archeship, it turned out the ship was crewed by a colony of intelligent cats!

Each cat wore the red uniforms and protective suits of the Larkinson Clan.

The most important feline of all was Lucky, whose recently transformed archemetal body enabled him to control the archeship as if he was an actual member of the arche race!

"Meow!"

Ves shook his head to get rid of this silly notion.

There was no way he would invest Lucky as the captain of the archeship and allow him to roam the new frontier like a feline freebooter!

The entire notion sounded absurd, even though there was an actual chance to make this happen!

If Ves was able to make the archeship usable, then he preferred to keep her under human control.

Who knew what kind of mischief Lucky would get up to if he gained sole control over this small but incredibly slippery vessel!

Ves would never allow Captain Lucky to roam the stars by himself!

It was much better if the Larkinson Clan could design and construct an armed frigate from scratch.

The Naval Design Department could finally tackle an exciting new project. Chief Shipwright Vivian Tsai and her staff might not have any experience with designing warships, but they were quick learners who already learned a lot of lessons from examining captured alien vessels!

A warship of the frigate classification was also small enough to limit the technological complexity of the hull. There was simply not enough capacity to fit a lot of advanced and powerful ship systems.

Even the gun batteries had to be fairly tame and limited in size in order to fit the hull.

In fact, there were many possible ways to design and configure a frigate. Ves personally did not see much of a point in mounting a large quantity of moderately sized gun batteries onto her hull.

This was the most traditional way to outfit a frigate. They excelled at point defense and shredding small craft, but were awful at damaging larger vessels.

A warship token did not restrict the caliber of gun batteries of a vessel as far as Ves knew, so it was completely possible to adopt the opposite configuration!

Instead of equipping a ship with guns, the Larkinsons could equip an enormous cannon with ship modules!

In other words, Naval Design Department could essentially design a dedicated ship killer frigate.

In this case, the entire length of the frigate's hull wrapped around an oversized naval cannon.

This disproportionately powerful gun imposed such a heavy load on the frigate that the ship had no capacity left to accommodate any other weapon systems or useful auxiliary functions!

In order to maximize her firepower to the best possible extent, the ship designers would also have to make compromises in many other areas. The frigate would move as slow as a capital ship and become awfully vulnerable to attacks.

Was it really worth it to sacrifice so much just to field an unbalanced ship killer frigate?

Hell yes! Ves couldn't count the number of times where he wanted to gain a lot of hard firepower to overcome the absurdly strong transphasic energy shields of alien warships.

It took a lot of mechs or expensive transphasic weapons to chew through those defenses. The time and effort expended on this chore resulted in significant delays and led to the deaths of a considerable number of mech pilots in every battle.

A ship killer frigate might not be able to fight an alien warship by herself, but she was an excellent complement to a mech army that did not have access to any other large caliber weapon systems!

As long as Ves was able to apply some of his unique solutions to the warship, her effective firepower may exceed every other comparable frigate!

This was a much more palatable alternative to putting the token to use by putting Lucky in charge of the archeship.

Ves no longer held any doubts and ranked Master Urbeck's bid at the very top.

An RA Frigate Warship Token was just that valuable!

Though the changes triggered a small discussion among the attendees, nobody expressed any serious objections towards the ranking.

It was largely based on Ves' subjective needs. The mechers might not have a high opinion of the Red Fleet, but that was because they already fielded their own warships!

The Larkinson Clan did not enjoy this privilege, so a warship token sounded particularly attractive to Ves. There was no way that he wanted to let this permit slip from his grasp, so he put it right at the top!

A few more minutes passed by as a handful of individuals issued cautious bids. None of them managed to get in the top 5, so Ves was ready to conclude this event.

He found it a bit odd that Master Tolarian Cerny did not make a bid on behalf of the Polymath's clique.

"Don't bother waiting." Jovy communicated to Ves. "I already have a companion spirit. The Polymath and her followers have already examined my Eye of Providence in great detail. Companion spirits are not as mysterious to them anymore."

That made sense, sort of. Ves clapped his hands in order to signal the end of the auction.

"The bidding window has closed! Thank you for participating in this auction. I am sincerely grateful to all of you for showing so much willingness to exchange your benefits with mine. The time allotted to this closed session has run out. This ends my presentation on companion spirits. I hope that each of you as well as the red humanity can gain strength from them. If you can, please convince your colleagues and superiors to support the initiative to grow companion spirit fruit trees en masse and make their fruits available to the wider public. The more humans become empowered by companion spirits, the faster our race can assimilate in our new cosmic neighborhood."

Much of the 700 attendees chose to clap their hands and applaud Ves for taking the initiative to share this potentially life-changing invention.

All of them recognized the magnitude of his contribution even though nothing had happened as of yet. As long as companion spirits were truly as safe and useful as Ves claimed, there was no way the Red Association could stop their adoption!

The only questionable part was mass production. The Red Association's research groups still had to solve a lot of problems before these vital trees could be multiplied to a point where their fruits could readily meet all of the demand.

As Ves and Jovy surrendered the hall to the next assigned speaker, the three envoys called the two over so that they could hold a discussion in a more private setting.

"Come. There is a secure meeting room on the next deck where we can discuss our initial decisions towards your proposal."

It did not take long for them to enter a secure meeting compartment that was already configured for sensitive talks.

The two groups sat on the opposite end of a square metal table.

Ves understood that the most important moment had come. The only Survivalists who had the right to decide upon this enormous matter were the three faction leaders.

It was not necessary for two Star Designers and a god pilot to pass judgment on this matter in person, so the envoys effectively possessed the power to make the initial decision on what to do with companion spirits.

"Professor Ves Larkinson." Master Xena Wintress broke the silence. "First of all, congratulations for holding your first presentation in our conference. Your reputation and word of your innovation will have undoubtedly spread among our members and associates. We are not satisfied with the lack of extensive testing data, but we judge your work to be practical and useful enough to permit an initial rollout among a select group of humans. Once we have solved the mass production issue, we will decide on how extensively red humanity can gain access to companion spirit fruits."

Master Tolarian Cerny spoke next. "There are arguments in favor of universal adoption. There are also arguments in opposition to this stance. As the inventor of companion spirits, we would like you to provide your input on how companion spirits should be utilized by our race. We will take your opinions into account when we draft our follow-up policies."

"Regardless of our decisions, we will credit your work to your name." Master Henry Urbeck said with an approving smile. "We have not overlooked your selfless dedication to the cause of our collective survival. Depending on how extensively we make use of your invention, you are entitled to receive much greater rewards than a RA warship token."

The mention of greater rewards immediately caused Ves to grow more excited. The following discussion was critical to his ambitions!