The Mech Touch

Ves partially regretted giving Venerable Tusa the opportunity to name his new expert mech.

The Dark Zephyr sounded too generic to Ves' tastes. It was a fine enough label for a custom mech or a prime mech, but as the creator of the expert mech in question, he felt it did not encompass the full might and potential of this deceptively thin machine.

"Perhaps that's the point." He whispered.

Venerable Tusa's expert mech was designed with deception, evasion, obfuscation and misdirection in mind. While not a true stealth mech, its rather understated appearance and its slippery nature made it easy for enemies to dismiss its power.

While the Dark Zephyr was most definitely an expert mech, its unique strengths weren't too obvious on the surface. Only people who knew its design well just as the Journeymen and Venerable Tusa were much more able to appreciate its awesome capabilities.

Ves smirked. "I hope our enemies won't find out the truth too soon."

He didn't have to worry about that. As long as his enemies didn't receive any forewarning, it was hard for any other mech designer to figure out the depth of the Dark Zephyr. The Perfidious Steel and other signal-dampening materials integrated in the frame made it much more difficult for sensors to get a detailed look at the mech. The longer the distance, the more vague it appeared.

The expert mech was loaded onto a large moving platform that slowly crawled across the deck. The large main entrance to Gloriana's workshop slid open, allowing the impressive machine to march straight towards the main mech hangar bay.

Every other Larkinson in the vicinity moved to the side and stood still. All of them gazed at the black-coated expert mech in wonder.

Even if the Design Department hadn't publicized the completion of the Dark Zephyr to the rank-and-file members of the clan, everyone pretty much knew that Ves and the other mech designers were working on a bunch of expert mechs.

After all, the expert pilots of the Larkinson Clan had gone on without their own expert mechs for too long. It would be a disservice to them if Ves wasn't able to supply the appropriate machines to them. The continued absence of expert mechs was even a justifiable reason for them to leave the clan!

Even if the Larkinsons didn't want to let its expert mechs go, the MTA more often than not sided with the expert pilots. These extraordinary individuals possessed a special identity and were entitled to special care from the Association.

The completion of the Larkinson Clan's first expert mech laid all of the uncertainty to rest. Now that Ves proved that he was able to supply one expert mech, he could supply other expert mechs. The top-level combat strength of the clan had become a lot more secure with this development.

While Venerable Tusa accompanied his new personal machine to the hangar bay, Ves, Gloriana, Juliet and Ketis all proceeded to the main design lab.

The journey was not short, but they accelerated their progress by moving onto floater platforms that rapidly zipped through the middle of the corridors. With their rank and authority, all other traffic had to move to the side.

When they reached the entrance to one of the key compartments of the factory ship, every assistant mech designer had already gathered. Even Maikel, Zanthar, Maisie Ann and Rennie had shown up. Each of these people wanted to witness a moment of history, and where better to examine the performance of the completed Disruptor Project than in the design lab where they could access all of the telemetry of the expert mech?

If the expert mech was fully prepared for battle, it would never transmit so much sensitive data to a ship. If a sophisticated enemy managed to intercept and decrypt the data transmissions, then the secrets of the Dark Zypher would become a lot more transparent.

This time was special because the Design Department never tested a real prototype of the expert mech. It was necessary for the expert mech to transmit as much data as possible during its initial activations and test runs in order to continue to tweak and debug the complicated machine.

Its current state might look excellent to Ves, even if the results from the simulations told him that everything was working fine and dandy, he reserved his judgement until the physical version of the expert mech worked as expected.

As the mech designers were setting up their workstations in order to examine the Dark Zephyr's performance in real time, a lot of other people began to move as well.

Thousands of mechs launched into space and began to surround a wide area of space just beyond the defensive perimeter of the fleet.

The Larkinson mechs all formed a sphere that gave enough play for an expert mech to exercise its capabilities. Numerous mechs that carried an extra module began to activate their gear, causing them to form large fields of interference.

The overlapping fields soon covered up every gap and blind spot, making it extremely difficult if not impossible for other onlookers in the star system to observe the upcoming live test.

Even the Glory Seekers and the Cross Clan wouldn't be able to see much despite their relatively close proximity. It would have been a different story if their fleets included a starship that specialized in surveillance.

The allies of the Larkinson Clan weren't impatient enough to demand a clear view of the upcoming deployment. If anything went wrong, the clan would be a lot more embarrassed if others found out about its blunder.

Since the recently-completed expert mech was the first of its kind to the Larkinsons, not everyone possessed enough confidence that it would perform at its best right out of the gate.

Patriarch Reginald Cross and Professor Benedict Cortez both gathered on the bridge of the Hemmington Cross. The latest development of the Larkinson Clan was of high interest to them both.

"What are the odds that anything goes wrong in this initial test?" The powerful expert pilot and leader of the Cross Clan asked.

"It's hard to say without taking a look at this much-anticipated expert mech." The Senior replied. "Master Willix acted as the technical consultant for this design project, so there shouldn't be anything egregiously wrong. It is probable that minor issues might surface during its first deployment due to oversights or production faults."

"I hope the expert mech lives up to the reputation of Ves Larkinson." Reginald said with an intensity in his voice. "As long as the expert mechs of the Larkinson Clan are amazing, my own new expert mech will become even more groundbreaking!"

Patriarch Reginald Cross had shown great patience towards the Larkinson Clan. The Crossers even fought alongside the Larkinsons in order to make sure that its most innovative mech designer would remain able and willing to contribute to the expert mech that would one day replace his Bolvar Rage.

As for Professor Benedict, his interest in the upcoming expert mechs of the Larkinson Clan leaned in a different direction. He had a faint thought that he might be able to solve the greatest issues that held him back from advancing to Master if he collaborated with Ves on a major mech design project.

Though he did not have solid proof that he would be able to gain the insights he wanted, his powerful intuition told him that working together with the Larkinson Patriarch would definitely expose him to a different perspective and approach to mech design.

If this wasn't the case, Professor Benedict would have never shown as much patience to the Larkinson Clan.

This was also why he envied Gloriana so much. Benedict knew that the Hexer woman had already reaped a ton of benefits from her close collaboration.

He was curious to see how the new expert mech looked once it launched from the hangar bay of the Spirit of Bentheim. At his level, Professor Benedict only needed a single glimpse of the powerful machine in order to determine the overall skill and design approach of the mech designers involved in its development.

He didn't have to wait for long.

When the Dark Zephyr had been moved to the hangar bay, Venerable Tusa finally received permission to activate his mech.

The anticipation in his mind had already risen to a peak. His will had become noticeably more condensed as one of his dreams had finally come true.

"I have a real expert mech now."

Even if he had yet to turn his new expert mech online, he could already feel a strong bond between him and his new primary war machine.

As his force of will expanded across the entire cockpit and beyond, he felt as if his influence encountered a receptive audience. This was the first time in his life where he felt completely at home as an expert pilot. No longer did he feel as vulnerable and hollow as before.

While the Piranha Prime provided him with some comfort, the magnitude was incomparable. Only the Dark Zephyr was able to make him feel that he could exercise his will to its full potential.

"My strength is no longer limited by my mech!" He gleefully observed. "This mech will definitely be able to keep up with me for a long time. I don't need to pilot any other mech as long as I have my Dark Zephyr!"

Just as how Venerable Tusa gained an instant love for the Dark Zephyr, the mech also responded to the presence of the pilot it had always been designed to serve. While the living component of the mech wasn't able to do much while the expert mech was in its dormant state, that was about to change very soon.

When Venerable Tusa went through the brief but thorough identify verification procedure, he formally activated the mech for the first time.

The cockpit began to light up as projections and data screens lit up. All kinds of technical readouts scrolled past Tusa's eyes as the Dark Zephyr finally awakened for the very first time.

A soft humming noise spread out across the entire hangar bay as the slender beast rose up from its slumber. An undefinable pressure emanated from the expert mech that forced every mech technician and other clansman inside the large compartment to take a few steps back.

The Larkinsons observing the expert mech from the sides only endured a fraction of what the expert pilot was experiencing.

As an expert mech that incorporated the principles of a prime mech, its boot procedure alone was absolutely remarkable. The first activation of a mech and its initial pairing with a new mech pilot were always significant, but what took place inside the cockpit of the Dark Zephyr surpassed anything that Venerable Tusa had ever experienced.

His entire mind and will seemed to open up and merge with a new and strangely intimate presence. A huge amount of data streams passed through the customized neural interface, but Venerable Tusa's extraordinary head was easily able to handle the potent influx.

What Tusa truly found remarkable was how the expert mech connected to him at a level beyond pure data. His will had already found a comfortable home in the Dark Zephyr, but once the expert mech truly came online, he found to his delight that his will fully merged within the entire frame of the mech!

A soft light blue glow even began to surround the mech. If Tusa wanted to, he could effortlessly activate a resonance shield that was many times stronger than the half-baked version that surrounded his former mech.

The gap between the Piranha Prime and the Dark Zephyr was a lot more immense than he realized!

"If my prior mech is a chicken, then this one is a phoenix!"

There were even more wonders that Venerable Tusa was just beginning to grapple with. The mech possessed a potent presence of its own that began to merge with him in a way that reminded him a lot of a prime mech. Yet due to the properties of the expert mech, this bond went a lot deeper, causing him to literally feel that he and the mech were of the same mind!

Although it did not reach the level of the mythical unity between man and machine, it was well on its way of reaching that point!

Venerable Tusa spent several more minutes to acclimatize himself to the new sensations bombarding his senses and the powerful controls at his disposal.

Once he succeeded in calming himself down, he began to issue his first command.

The expert mech took a powerful step forward.