The Mech Touch

As the Larkinson Clan catalogued the material goods of the Crona Lords and selectively brought them back to the fleet, Ves no longer cast his eyes in this direction.

Aside from picking up some interesting exotics, Ves mainly came for the B-stones. The three lightly-processed B-stones more than doubled his existing collection. This meant that he no longer needed to protect himself against spirituals by putting an open B-stone lockbox over his head!

Sadly, despite the abundant amount of minerals and metals the Crona Lords accumulated, Ves found no trace of P-stones and F-stones.

Neither exotics provided any utility to regular pirates. At the very least, the B-stone offered valuable protection from the discordant spiritual vortex raging in the imaginary realm.

At this time, Ves was unsure whether pirates or other factions in the Nyxian Gap recognized the true value of these three spiritually-reactive exotics.

He knew that the Five Scrolls Compact maintained a hidden base in the depths of the Nyxian Gap. Since the cult actively developed various applications of spirituality, Ves did not believe they were ignorant of the effects of spiritually-reactive exotics!

Perhaps the B-stones the Crona Lords obtained may have been mined by the 5 Scrolls Compact or one of their secret splinter organizations!

"Interesting."

It was useless to speculate any further. He knew too little about what went on in the Nyxian Gap. He also did not know whether he could obtain P-stones, F-stones and B-stones in any other part of space.

What he did know was that smashing pirate groups was an expedient and effective way to obtain more spiritually-reactive exotics. It was not as if the Larkinson Clan intended to settle down in the Nyxian Gap in order to erect its own mining operations!

"Heh. Robbing pirates is surprisingly convenient and fun."

The irony of the situation was not lost on him. Pirates usually raided other targets in order to steal their hard-earned valuables.

Now, Ves and the Larkinson Clan did the same to the pirates! The predators had become the prey.

That did not mean that the Larkinsons could keep raiding the pirates with impunity. Calabast wanted to speak to him about this topic later in the day.

First, though, Ves wanted to make some other stops.

He briefly visited a room next to the warehouse where the star of the previous battle enjoyed his rewards.

Having shaken off the Misfortune Harness, Lucky eagerly dove into the pile of yummy, higher-grade exotics that he reserved.

There was no telling what Lucky had already eaten, but fortunately Ves didn't care too much about the materials that remained. Letting them end up in Lucky's belly was not a bad outcome, especially when Ves was confident it would pay off later in the form of a powerful gem.

"Be sure to eat to your heart's content." Ves lovingly said to his cat. "I expect you to produce great things in a month."

"Meow!"

"Don't be like that. You have eaten so much other exotics in the past month and you still haven't deposited anything from your other end."

"Meow meow."

Lucky swatted his tail at Ves and ignored the human in favor of resuming his consumption.

Seeing that his cat fully enjoyed his current spoils, Ves left his cat to his current feast and left.

He took his two students to the hidden base section which hosted the Omega Laser.

As soon as his little group passed the security checkpoint, they entered a cramped chamber which contained the huge bulk 

"It's as large as a corvette!" Maikel gasped at the sheer metal monstrosity squeezed into the chamber.

In order to transfer as much heat away as possible, the huge rod-like laser weapon had been squeezed into a hole. Everytime the weapon generated heat, it could rapidly dump its heat into the surrounding walls and asteroid rock.

The Crona Lords only a modest amount of space to allow people access and to offer enough room to perform external maintenance.

As his students admired the sheer bulk and power of the Omega Laser, Ves approached a chief engineer that had been tasked with studying the weapon.

"What have you learned about the Omega Laser?"

"It's a ridiculously-sized laser cannon, sir, and I mean that literally. If you study the schematics, then core components are identical to the components of a conventional laser cannon, but scaled up by more than ten times. The sheer amount of bulk it adds and the huge amount of energy and other stresses the construction is subjected to necessitates additional components in order to keep this monstrosity functional."

That matched the conclusion that Ves initially formed after studying Lucky's scans. The Omega Laser was not an example of high technology. It achieved its raw output through brute forcing low-level tech. It was an inelegant solution and enabled unworthy people such as pirates easy access to extreme firepower.

The Big Two hated it when unworthy people obtained destructive weapons that were beyond their ability to control. This was why even if the first-rate superstates were able to field weapons that were far more damaging, their opponents were usually able to cope with this level of destruction.

To be honest, the Larkinsons shouldn't even be in the presence of this partially-intact superweapon. The Nyxian Gap might be labeled as lawless space, but the Big Two claimed that their jurisdiction extended to every corner of the Milky Way Galaxy!

The Omega Laser was very clearly a taboo weapon. One of the most obvious standards to judge this was to ask whether a mech was able to mount and use a weapon of this scale.

When Ves imagined what it would be like for a typical heavy mech to wield a weapon that was as large as a starship, the absurd mental image was enough to end this line of questioning.

"The Omega Laser is solely built to be mounted in fixed locations or purpose-built warships." The chief engineer remarked as he slapped his hand against the solid metal bulk of the weapon's exterior. "Even then, the latter has to be really big in order to cope with this big gun's demands."

"So we can't mount it on our own ships?"

"That would be very illegal, sir."

"Just tell me whether it's possible."

The chief hesitated a bit before shaking his head. "No. Our existing starships can't cope with the various demands of the Omega Laser. First, it's as big as a small starship. That means it won't fit in the hangar bays or cargo bays of our vessels. While we can install it on our larger starships, that entails an extensive refit that will take weeks to accomplish in a drydock."

That was way too much effort, and Xiphard Base didn't offer the appropriate facilities.

"What about installing it on one of our captured pirate ships?"

"Hmmm.. some of those vessels are large enough to fit the Omega Laser, but there are an enormous number of practical problems. For one, we need to install additional power reactors and other power management systems onto the ship. All of this will take months of work with our current capabilities."

In other words, it was not feasible to bring along the Omega Laser and use it as a trump card against powerful threats.

"A pity." Ves looked remorseful. "The power of this weapon is considerable. Pirate engineering isn't very sophisticated, but it is quite brilliant in leveraging its few strengths."

"What's an even greater pity is the self-destruction of all of those Allidus Alliance ships. Something like an Omega Laser is too big and demanding for us to mount on any ship, but the Judgement Lasers are different. While they are still bigger than anything a mech could handle, their size is optimized for typical light carrier-sized vessels."

Lord Drogen's decisive action put an end to this action. The Allidus pirates did not want to leave any possibility of their weapons being used against their compatriots.

After learning a few more details about the Omega Laser, Ves eventually decided on what to do with this big toy.

"Well, since there is no practical or legal way to make use of this Omega Laser, we might as well scrap it and salvage the most valuable bits. Is there anything good in this massive construction?"

"The Omega Laser predominantly consists of large quantities of low-grade alloys. However, there are numerous specialized components that contain traces of medium and high-grade exotics. It's well worth it to break down these parts in order to increase our stockpile of high-value materials."

"Do it, then."

If this superweapon was no use to him intact, then he had no qualms in tearing it apart.

Respectfully, of course. This was a weapon that required a lot of effort to build. Ves appreciated its design and craftsmanship. Whoever designed and built this weapon possessed a genuine love and passion for powerful weapons.

He even wondered whether he could ever meet this brilliant developer and conduct a fruitful exchange. Ves already picked up a number of small insights from studying the creative and unconventional solutions to get around the lack of key materials and tech in a barren place like the Nyxian Gap!

After bidding farewell to the Omega Laser, he left the hidden base section and ventured to another guarded location.

Ves arrived at a secure detention facility in the bowels of Xiphard Base. The infantry soldiers who secured the base had gradually hauled their prisoners to this facility, which was large and robust enough to fit every pirate and slave as long as they shared their cells.

The detention facilities weren't comfortable by any means, but it was a good short-term solution that kept the dangerous elements contained.

None of his students and assistant mech designers accompanied him this time. What he wanted to do next was not something they should be concerned about.

"Ves. You're finally here." Calabast greeted at the entrance. "Let's head inside and inspect the prisoners."

"Have you sorted them out like I asked?" He said as he walked alongside the black-clad spymaster.

"We did. While we lack the manpower to inspect and interrogate every individual pirate or slave, after we borrowed the processing power of the Scarlet Rose and the Peninent Sister ships, our automated algorithms and AIs has scanned all of the archival footage and gathered other evidence that can definitely declare whether someone is tainted with a 99.341 percent success rate."

As for Crona Lords or slaves who fell under the 0.659 percent and received the wrong evaluation, Ves didn't care. The lucky pirates who were mistaken as slaves obtained a new lease on life, while the unlucky slaves who were unjustly regarded as criminals were still pirates on paper.

"How many people are we talking about?"

"Of the tens of thousands of captives we've sorted, over six-thousand of them are pirates. There used to be thousands more, but the Battle of Xiphard Base had taken a toll on their numbers. Many Crona Lord mech pilots have died as the Penitent Sisters explicitly targeted their bodies. Those we managed to rescue from their ejected cockpits or reasonably-intact wrecks are mostly intact, but they only constitute thirty percent of the Crona Lord's original pilot roster."

That disappointed him. He held an elevated interest towards mech pilots for his upcoming experiments. It wouldn't be the same if he conducted all of his experiments on norms.

Fortunately, there was no question that they were pirates. No matter what excuses those mech pilots brought forward, the fact that they hopped into a pirate mech and urged it to fight alongside other pirates sealed their guilt!

"Show me the prisoners who are proven to be pirates. Have you made sure to catalog all of the evidence and get all of the paperwork in order?"

"Yes, but…" Calabast frowned. "This is usually unnecessary. The Big Two usually turns a blind eye to what people do towards captives in the Nyxian Gap."

"Don't neglect this step! I want to cover my legal avenues in case my activities draw scrutiny."

"...What are you up to now?"

"Exploring the mysteries of reality and the laws of nature."

Calabast immediately grew dark. "Human experimentation."

"Can it even be called as such when pirates aren't legally recognized as humans anymore?" Ves directed an amused look at her. "This is why proper record-keeping is important. While I don't intend to spread what will happen, if it does, at least I won't get into any major trouble! Don't pity the pirates. The harm they do towards human civilization is so egregious that they deserve worse punishment!"

Even if Ves was right, Calabast still found his intentions distasteful. As someone who keenly understood how humans worked, she knew that anyone who performed depraved acts tended to descend to this level.

No matter what veneer of legality or civility that people used to justify their actions, the vile nature of their actions could not be changed!

This was why the Big Two prohibited slavery, brainwashing, mass murder and other crimes against humanity. To progress their race and civilization, humans needed to advance forwards, not backwards!