The Mech Touch

Ves and Gloriana spent too much time apart.

After Ves led Task Force Predator into the Nyxian Gap, his collaboration with Gloriana mostly happened through remote.

While that did not significantly impact the quality of their mech designs, they still grew rusty when it came to knowing each other's habits and preferences.

It also didn't help that both of them progressed their design philosophy significantly. Ves not only made several breakthroughs in his specialty, but he had also evolved his design style further.

The increasingly desperate circumstances of his task force forced him to develop new tricks and solutions to cope with the restrictions he faced. He put his life on the line for every change or modification he made to his mechs.

He also became exposed to a lot of pirate mechs. Though their quality and maintenance left much to be desired, the pirates exhibited quite a lot of ingenuity when it came to keeping their mechs running even if they hadn't been properly serviced in years.

Pirates were consumers of mechs as well. Just like regular customers, they had their own wants and needs. They abided by several familiar conditions such as limits on complexity, piloting difficulty and budget.

Though most pirate mech designers were as sloppy and awful as Johnny Blast, the mechs utilized by the more organized pirate groups such as the Dry Snakes and the Allidus Alliance were not inferior compared to his own work!

Observing how his pirate counterparts solved or mitigated the challenges unique to the Nyxian Gap provided Ves with a lot of inspiration. His design style shifted even further towards emphasizing robustness and reliability.

This was an evolution of his design style. He became less hung up on maximizing performance because he had witnessed plenty of times in battle that making mechs last was a much greater priority.

It didn't matter if he could squeeze 5 to 10 percent more performance out of a mech. Ves had to make a lot of tradeoffs to achieve increasingly smaller gains. Just a tiny amount of extra performance could easily cause a mech to reach its limit 20 percent sooner!

Different mech designers had different ideas about the balance they should set. While Ves increasingly leaned towards the side of stability, the problem was that Gloriana went in the opposite direction.

Performance mattered. Many customers evaluated and bought mechs by comparing their prices and specs with each other. When mech designers developed their products, they had to make some very hard choices on how to configure their mechs.

Should they pursue the limits of performance? How much reliability was acceptable to them? To what extent should they account for improper handling?

Ves and his wife were on increasingly opposite ends with regards to these spectrums.

Gloriana followed the direction of typical mech designers. While she knew that offering rugged mechs was important, she believed it was worthwhile to sacrifice a bit of longevity and reliability to increase the peak performance of her designs.

To her, designing the strongest mechs gave her much more satisfaction!

"It's what customers want as well." She clarified her views to him. "I feel bad if a mech degrades by 10 to 20 percent after several years of intensive use, but mechs aren't sustainable products to begin with. It's better to achieve the highest possible performance parameters so that if the mech does degrade over time, it starts to drop from a higher height."

"That makes little sense. We can easily lessen the performance drop over time by making our mechs more robust! Besides, in actual battles, other factors play a much greater role in determining victory or defeat than a measly 5 percent difference in performance!"

"You idiot! This margin is enough to sway the outcome of duels!"

It shouldn't have been a surprise that they leaned towards opposite directions with regards to this profound issue.

Ves was much more attuned to large-scale battles where the complex environment, large quantities of mechs and the combination of different mech models often resulted in lots of chaos and confusion!

Under these anything-but-ideal conditions, plenty of factors that seemed important actually didn't matter as much. Instead, Ves learned to set aside every variable except how long a mech was able to last and how much punishment it could take.

Such an extremely basic and simplistic approach rubbed Gloriana the wrong way.

"If every mech designer adopted your perspective, the mech industry would have been a lot more boring!" She yelled! "Mechs are already designed to take hits and endure damage. You're getting overboard when it comes to maximizing reliability. How will our mechs ever stand out from the competition if they consistently underperform compared to their peers?"

"Our mechs have other advantages that make them strong."

"THAT'S NOT AN EXCUSE TO LET WEAKNESSES SLIDE!"

"A mech that lasts longer always retains a good reputation. A mech that performed great at the start but falls off sooner won't sell as much after a decade."

"That's just because too many mech owners are too unwilling to invest in proper maintenance! If our customers service their mechs exactly according to manufacturer instructions, they wouldn't lose so much value in so little time!"

"You can't expect perfection from your customers, Gloriana! Most people are inherently sloppy and don't understand the value of proper maintenance. Customers are also constrained by how much manpower, resources and capacity they can allocate towards servicing and repairing their mechs."

"THAT'S THEIR FAULT! We gave them the conditions to maximize the value of their mechs. If they don't take our recommendations seriously, then they are unworthy to pilot our mechs!"

Ves looked exasperated at his obstinate partner. Gloriana based her approach from an entirely different background.

While Ves frequently spent time among the lowest class of consumers such as mercenaries and pirates, Gloriana mainly preferred to interact with the upper end of the mech market.

In her formative years, Gloriana mainly designed custom mechs for rich and wealthy Hexers who could easily afford to provide the best maintenance to their products.

Hexers were very vain about their mechs. Their machines not only needed to perform well, but be in their best state as possible in order to show them off without feeling ashamed.

Since actual conflict wasn't very frequent in the highly-secure space of the Hexadric Hegemony, mech designers such as Gloriana had some very different ideas on what constituted the best mechs.

The Hexers placed much less emphasis on the problems that arose when their products were subject to wear and tear.

Ves and Gloriana couldn't ignore their widening philosophical differences any longer. Along with other factors, their opposing beliefs caused their first attempt at fabricating the Valkyrie Redeemer to fall far short of their expectations.

They clashed way too much against each other during the three days it took to produce a mediocre copy by their standards!

"We need a reset." Ves stated to his wife. "We can't possibly go on to fabricate the next mech on the list with such a dark cloud hanging over our heads."

Even Gloriana recognized the futility of proceeding further. The disgraceful result showed how urgently they needed to find a middle ground.

While their assistants carted the completed Valkyrie Redeemer from the mech workshop, the two newlyweds sat on a bench while holding their cats.

The impromptu pet therapy had a wonderful influence on the couple. Just a few minutes of taking comfort in the company of their pets already cleared up much of their tension.

"Meow?" Lucky looked up at Gloriana as he settled in on her lap.

"You've grown even closer to perfection than before, hihi!"

To her, Lucky was a remarkable work of engineering. In her eyes, almost every aspect about him was refined, elegant and sublime. Admiring his construction and trying to figure out how she could incorporate his exquisite form in her own work always aroused her interest.

"Miaow miaow miaow."

Clixie's furry tail gently swayed back and forth as Ves ran his hands over her soft fur. Her physical warmth along with her emotional warmth caused his heart to ease and melt.

There was just something about furry felines that brought him a lot of joy!

As a cat person, he adored cats. While he also liked Lucky's company, he was not a traditional pet.

As someone who was attuned to life, Ves found it much more relaxing to interact with Clixie. She wasn't as naughty as Lucky and was quite obedient. She also luxuriated in his love and attention. His ability to understand and communicate with animals easily allowed her to make her demands known!

"Miaow miaow."

"I understand your frustrations, but I can't do that yet." He smiled adoringly at the Rubarthan Sentinel Cat.

"Miaow?"

"You're asking for something that trillions of humans in the galaxy would kill to have. Let alone empowering a human, I don't even know how to grant this ability to a cat!"

"Miaow!" Clixie cutely showed off her claws!

Ves chuckled and rubbed her colorful head. "If you've been observing my work for a time, you know that it tends to get dangerous. I don't want to risk harming you, so you'll have to wait until I've solved all of the problems. I'll boost you right away once I've developed a viable solution!"

It seemed that Clixie had run out of patience with regards to her lack of capabilities. Compared to Lucky's frequent upgrades and Goldie's easy growth, the organic cat was getting very frustrated at being left behind!

While Ves had never seen her in action, he knew that Rubarthan Sentinel Cats were actually quite formidable in battle. It was just that she had already reached her maturity and couldn't grow any further.

It was not a good idea to perform further genetic modifications on her. She was a precisely-engineered designer cat developed by some of the best cat geneticists of the New Rubarth Empire.

Let alone Dr. Ranya, not even the best cat specialists of Felixia would be able to add any improvements to her highly-developed gene design!

Perhaps it was possible to augment her with implants, but that was very precarious due to her complex internal physique.

Ves saw no way to improve her aside from augmenting her spirit. Yet that was another challenge in itself because Clixie did not possess any spiritual potential!

As he racked his head for ideas, he suddenly developed a novel idea.

"Why should I do everything myself? Don't I have other helpers?"

He wasn't talking about James. The obnoxious bastard may possess deep insights into the extraordinary, but he was completely useless when it came to developing specific solutions.

Instead, he turned to the Larkinson Mandate. After taking the book from Nitaa, he called up the spirit resting inside.

"Goldie."

A glowing cat quickly materialized in the air and began to brush against his head.

"Nyaaa!"

"Hehehe. I have a little problem here that you might be able to help with. Can you figure out a way to solve Clixie's problem?"

As soon as he explained the issue to the Golden Cat, the two cats began to converse with each other.

"Nyaa?"

"Miaow miaow."

"Nyaaa… nyaa…"

"Miaow!"

Goldie looked back at Ves in puzzlement.

He sight. "I know it's not any easy problem to solve, but I think we can work together on this. Let's just take it slow while we come up with some good ideas. Moving too quickly will only lead to danger. Is that okay, Clixie?"

"Miaow…"

Clixie looked downcast, but Goldie soon swooped down to cheer her up. His lap became very busy as the two cats began to lick each other.

Ves smiled at the sight.

He hoped that pulling in Goldie might help with solving this critical issue. With how much Goldie cared about her 'mother', she had plenty of motivation to figure out a solution!

Perhaps Ves might even be able to freeload off her hard work!

Ves and Gloriana continued to relax with their pets for a couple more hours before retiring for sleep.

They slept in the same bed.