The Mech Touch

Every plan and course of action required a certain amount of strength to complete.

Ves wanted to accomplish a lot of goals. Currently, he wished to blast off straight into orbit and fly back all the way to the outer system where he could reunite with his expeditionary fleet.

Theoretically, some of the vehicles in the refugee train were able to accomplish this. Perhaps their range was limited since they were primarily designed for atmospheric travel.

Due to their organic nature, the small and medium-sized biotransports suffered from a lot of problems once they ventured into space. They suffered from oxygen deficiency if they spent a prolonged time in space. Extreme temperatures assaulted their exteriors. Stellar radiation damaged their cells. The list of issues went on and on. It was much harder to make a biovessel spaceworthy.

That said, as long as the journey didn't take too long, Ves could easily cope with these issues. While he wasn't able to modify a biovehicle directly, he could grab some spare materials and augment the vehicle with conventional parts.

He could armor up a biotransport so that it wore its own 'spacesuit'.

He could hollow out such a vehicle and install conventional parts in their place that did the same job but much better.

He could even fabricate his own shuttle as long as he had access to a decent workshop along with sufficient raw materials!

In fact, the most ideal solution would be to steal a vehicle that was spaceworthy from the start.

Sadly, pretty much every vessel that satisfied his conditions was in the hands of the Prosperous Hill Transportation Service. Due to their monopoly on interplanetary transportation and logistics, all of these excellent biovessels were either in the hands of powerful factions or locked inside highly-defended bases!

"It doesn't even matter if we grab one of those vehicles." Venerable Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson snorted. "Anyone and their grandmother can shoot it down as long as they have a gun."

He was right. Right after the Supreme Revolution broke out, many citizens with means attempted to escape Prosperous Hill VI by launching into space!

Even though the fighting had also extended into orbit, as long as any vehicle managed to reach deep space, they would probably get shot down by one of the many thousands of ranged mechs in the surrounding area!

In fact, this had already happened plenty of times! Thousands of flaming wrecks rained down from the skies in the first hour alone. Not just shuttles, but also mechs attracted a lot of fire as long as they flew high enough to be noticeable!

This was why aerial mechs consistently lowered their altitude throughout their engagements. They didn't want to get sniped by a ranged mech that was situated on the other side of a city!

Shuttles stopped escaping into space as well. Instead, they flew low and tried to fly to the less-populated areas of the planet in order to avoid the hotspots of the civil war.

The only way a vehicle would be able to survive the passage into deep space was if it was heavy-protected or capable of maintaining stealth.

The former was only reserved for bigger factions while the latter was very challenging from a technical aspect.

As a result, it was not feasible for the Larkinsons and their allies to just pack up their bags and leave the planet at the moment!

This realization weighed heavily on everyone. They each had the means to flee, but the environment was too dangerous to make the attempt!

"We indeed need more strength." Captain Ulmond Cross said. "No one on this planet is our friend. Aside from the people in our base, we can't trust anyone, not even the refugees that are parked outside of our walls."

The refugees had already begun to settle down. Some of them even deployed temporary structures in order to offer some rest or create a workspace to fix their equipment.

Yet despite their docile demeanor, everyone in the conference room knew that the refugees could easily turn into enemies. The base occupants had to manage their relations with other people carefully.

This applied to every organization and faction on the planet. In a situation where they were cut off from reinforcements and expected to fend for themselves, Ves and his people could hardly afford to provoke too many enemies!

The more enemies he attracted, the greater the chance of getting defeated by an overwhelming attack of enemy mechs!

Commander Casella Ingvar recognized the dilemma of their current reality.

"We can't make it on our own with our current level of manpower, supplies and assets. We are especially short on mechs. If we want to expand our strength, we need to go out to acquire what we need to increase our security and work towards a possible escape route from this planet."

Expanding their strength meant getting their hands on more mechs and everything related to them. Ves understood this very early, so he proactively made the first steps by trying to attract refugees.

Ves wasn't interested in picking up ordinary strays. The stupid Lifers could kill themselves for all he cared.

What he truly wanted was to gain the allegiance of existing armed groups!

Any small and absorbable organization that possessed mechs like the Roving Hunters were prime targets in his eyes. As long as they weren't too troublesome or aligned to any troublesome factions, then they were acceptable additions to the Larkinson Clan!

He highly preferred absorbing these strong but not too stubborn Lifers into his clan over merely forming a temporary pact with them. He had no faith in verbal agreements and he had gotten screwed by them plenty of times in the past.

Only an agreement with guarantees could make him feel assured. Goldie's vigilance along with the influencing mechanism of the Larkinson Network were ideal in making sure that the new recruits wouldn't do anything detrimental once they joined!

When the discussion turned to attracting more refugees, the Larkinsons themselves were okay with it, but the other members of the Golden Skull Alliance did not maintain the same level of confidence.

"This is a reckless course of action." Irvine Spefan of the Infinity Guards remarked. "You are gambling on being able to control many different strangers. Your Larkinsons are very different from the average citizen of the LRA. This makes it very challenging to absorb so many Lifers at once. You can easily lose control of the situation when the amount of newly-added people and biomechs exceed that of your original numbers."

The Infinity Guard liaison made a good point. The problem was that Irvine's judgement did not take the Larkinson Network into account.

Captain Valeis and Captain Ulmond Cross briefly exchanged glances. They had been traveling with the Larkinson Clan for some time now. They had observed first-hand how relentlessly the Larkinson Clan expanded its ranks. Despite the insane pace of recruitment, the Larkinsons, both old and new, remained remarkably cohesive!

It was insane! Only the oldest and most traditional organizations were able to maintain such harmony over so many people.

Both the Glory Seekers and the Cross Clan had tried to find out how the Larkinsons were able to convert their recruits so easily. They even suspected that the clan made use of illegal brainwashing tech, but the results of their findings turned out to be a bit more nuanced.

They learned that glows somehow played a large part in how newer Larkinsons easily blended in with the older ones. The glow of the Bright Warrior models were particularly key to this process.

Did this count as brainwashing? Perhaps, but only if someone considered every form of glow to be brainwashing. This would obviously make LMC mechs illegal, but so far the Mech Trade Association declined to make this judgement.

In fact, with how often Master Willix supported the Larkinson Patriarch in public, it was clear that the MTA had no intentions of getting in the way!

While the Glory Seekers didn't have much trouble in accepting this outcome, the Crossers were not as comfortable.

There was something profoundly wrong about subjecting people to an invisible influence in order to alter their behavior. The only reason why the Cross Clan didn't confront the Larkinsons about this issue was because Patriarch Reginald Cross didn't really care.

The leader just wanted Ves to assist in the design of his ultimate expert mech. Every other issue was secondary to this goal!

Since both the Glory Seekers and the Cross Clan were already aware of the Larkinson Clan's unique advantage, they both agreed to the strategy that Ves had set forth.

It didn't matter if the envoy from the Infinity Guards looked confused.

The mercenaries weren't completely useless, however. Even if Irvine wasn't aware of how well the Larkinsons were able to absorb newcomers, the Infinity Guards developed numerous connections with local institutions and companies.

"If I may make a suggestion, I think we should try to band together with foreign organizations who are in the same predicament as yours." Irvine spoke up. He waved his hand to activate a projection of their current area. "As you know, this remote region is filled with bases that are rented out to foreigners on a regular basis. While they may not have as many mechs as you wish, these strongholds are filled with useful supplies and equipment. In addition, the mechs they possess are largely made of metal, which is doubtlessly more helpful to a classical mech designer such as yourself, patriarch."

Ves nodded. "That's indeed the case. While I have several ideas on how to augment biomechs, I am heavily limited in doing so. I can do so much more with regular mechs, but this is not an urgent priority. The mechs we already possess are already enough to keep myself busy."

He activated a projection that listed out the mechs at their disposal.

The Larkinsons currently possessed 3 Bright Warriors, 2 Ferocious Piranha's, a single Piranha Prime and 2 Eternal Redemptions.

"It's too bad we weren't able to bring any Transcendent Punishers." Ves sighed with regret.

The heavy artillery mechs were way too destructive! While the Transcendent Punishers did not excel at area bombardments, their direct armaments could still deal a devastating amount of damage to any city district!

This was why the authorities strictly forbid the use of any artillery mechs on the surface!

The new Eternal Redemption model barely passed the inspections. While their destructive potential at range was also powerful, the collateral damage they generated was much more contained.

Ves turned to Captain Valeis. "At the entrance, I only saw 6 Valkyrie Redeemers. Is that all of the mechs you were able to bring?"

The Glory Seeker officer grimaced. "We requested to bring more, but the inspectors weren't so friendly towards us. They told us that we can't be trusted to control ourselves. The insolence! Those boys should look at themselves in the mirror. The chaos that has swept over this planet is the perfect example why they are wrong!"

Having heard similar remarks from Gloriana, Ves automatically filtered out the nonsense. While the Valkyrie Redeemers were strong, they were ultimately limited by their numbers. Six mechs wasn't enough to form a battle formation.

"What about you?" Ves asked the Crossers.

"We have managed to ship 8 of our aerial mechs to the surface. We currently have 3 axeman mechs, 3 rifleman mechs and 2 light skirmishers. Unlike your multi-environmental mechs, each of our war machines are optimized for aerial combat."

Captain Ulmond Cross sounded especially proud of that, and he was right to feel this way. Ves was keenly aware that his multi-environmental mechs performed best in space. On land and in the air, they suffered from various constraints.

This was an especially serious problem for the Eternal Redemptions! They were so heavy and cumbersome that they were better off planting their feet on the ground!

As Ves studied the composition of his main mech force, he began to think what he could do with all of this strength.