The Mech Touch

The clan experienced many changes after another in the next handful of weeks. Now that Ves approved of the selection of the three chief ministers, the clan could finally implement the meat of Shederin's reform plan.

A lot of formal induction ceremonies and other official rituals took place as many people received new appointments. In particular, a lot of members of the former Purnesse Family filled up newly-created administrative positions in order to help run the rapidly-expanding bureaucratic machine of the Larkinson Clan.

Many clan departments changed into ministries as the clan administration began to wear the coat of a state. There weren't many people that considered the Larkinson Clan to be an actual state, but that did not mean it was detrimental to get a head start on transitioning to a state structure.

The rank-and-file members of the Larkinson Clan didn't experience too many changes in their daily lives. Sure, the clan apparatus had grown bigger and more comprehensive, but the lower levels largely remained the same. At most, some of the instructions coming down from the top had changed because a lot more people got to be in charge.

The clan soon felt the short-term benefits of all of the reforms. The leadership deficit that had been plaguing the clan still existed, but became less severe. A lot of neglected issues were finally starting to be addressed and the clan was allocating more resources to priorities that had long been overdue.

The establishment of something that resembled a real government exerted a strong influence on the civilians of the Larkinson Clan.

Before the reforms, the Larkinsons felt as if they were subjected to a military rule of some sorts. Everyone knew that the clan largely moved when Ves dictated his commands. While there weren't many people who objected to his leadership, the lack of other prominent leaders meant that a lot of average clansmen felt as if they were in a situation where they had no choice but to obey orders.

Now, the extra layers in the hierarchy along with the opening of many new positions allowed average Larkinsons to feel more connected with those who ruled over them. The distance between had narrowed and a lot more initiatives started up due to the appointment of so many fresh and eager officials.

The Larkinson Army didn't undergo as much upheaval. The Military Bureau formally transitioned into Central Command, though most soldiers simply referred to it as headquarters or Central HQ.

While the expansion of Central Command had already begun prior to the huge wave of changes, a lot more support and staff functions had opened up before subsequently being filled by both old and new clansmen.

However, the most drastic change was the transformation of the mech forces into mech legions.

On the surface, this was largely a simple change in how they were being called.

In reality, the mech legions gained a lot more autonomy and power to decide on their own matters. However, they also become more dependent on Central HQ for matters such as personnel affairs and hardware transfers.

It was a rather paradoxical change at first, but as time went by, the changes started to make sense to people. The staff working the mech legions just had to focus on the tasks that directly affected their operation, assured that Central Command took care of all of the overhead.

This was a time of great change and progress. The Larkinson Clan ushered in its greatest transformation since it opened up its doors to adopted Larkinsons.

Though there was opposition to many different changes, none of them were overwhelming enough to stop the reforms from proceeding.

Not even Major Magdalena Larkinson's elevation to the position of chief minister stirred a lot of unrest. The opposition that Ves half-expected to emerge didn't really come to life.

Sure, there were a lot of disgruntled relatives of deceased Living Sentinels, their curmudgeonly complaints never gained any traction. There were simply too few clansmen who lived through the events that took place in the Nyxian Gap. Of those survivors, there were even fewer people who retained any strong feelings about something that happened a long time ago.

Time healed many wounds and the memories of the darkest days of their lives had faded. There was so much going on in the Larkinson Clan these days that there were not a lot of people who still wallowed in the past.

With Chief Minister Magdalena Larkinson, Chief Minister Novilon Purnesse and Chief Minister Raymond Billingsley-Larkinson taking over many of the duties that Ves had neglected, an entirely new energy infused the clan with forward momentum.

They were finally making real progress now! Even though the clan hadn't acquired any new capital ships or picked up a huge batch of recruits, the different organizations within the clan were making much better use of existing resources.

The Design Department largely remained unaffected by these changes, though. This was Ves' personal kingdom and he was still in charge of it while Gloriana continued to lead the current projects.

With his wife becoming increasingly more motivated to do a good job, she exhorted everyone else to complete the design of the Sentry Project as fast as possible.

The expert rifleman mech was a very different beast from the Dark Zephyr. While both of them were rather slim, the former fought in a completely different way than the latter.

The lack of defenses and the lackluster mobility of the Sentry Project caused it to be highly vulnerable to attacks up close. Ves and the other mech designers tried their best to give the ranged mech a bit of chance in winning a close-ranged battle, but it was a futile effort for the most part.

That said, the tradeoffs were more than worth it. The abundant amount of available capacity devoted to supplying as much power to the luminar crystal rifle was impressive.

Considering that the weapon that combined both alien technology and human ingenuity produced a lot less waste heat than comparable weapons, Ves was able to crank up the power of its shots to a high degree without worrying too much about melting the entire weapon.

"The Sentry Project's firepower can only be surpassed by an expert artillery mech in the same class!"

Yet that didn't mean the Sentry Project was limited to firing a handful of discreet high-powered beams. Energy weapons were highly scalable and easily adjustable. This allowed Ves to enable the weapon to lower its energy output to a substantial degree. The lower energy draw along with the reduced stress of firing low-powered shots allowed the expert mech to fire a rapid barrage of weaker beams that should still be powerful enough to eliminate hundreds of regular second-class mechs.

Of course, a true mid-range expert rifleman mech such as the upcoming Star Dancer Mark II was able to make much better use of a rapid-firing gun than a more sniper-oriented machine like the Sentry Project.

Upon the final days of the project, the mech designers completed another intensive work session.

Mrow..

Blinky's star-streaking form had faded again as he reached the limit of his capacity. The invisible bonds that tied the minds of Ves, Gloriana and their assistants had all faded, causing them to feel a lot more diminished.

Still, the smiles on their faces signified that they were highly pleased with what they accomplished. Even with the bottleneck in processing power, there was still plenty of manual work that they could do to improve the design by another push.

Ves slowly approached his wife and pulled her into a warm embrace as her fading but still pleasant scent wafted in his face.

"We can finally start with fabricating our second expert mech." He remarked.

She nodded as she leaned her head against his shoulder. "Mhmm. I've already prepared all of the necessary materials and prepared all of our production equipment. I hope that this time we will be able to employ a lot more skill when trying to fabricate and assemble all of the complicated components of this expert mech."

"I have done my best to study up and practice with the production machines. I'm as ready as I can manage. The only thing I'm lacking is actual experience."

The two continued to cuddle together as they gazed at the almost-finished schematic of the Sentry Project. In fact, it was already good enough to be put in use, but Gloriana still wanted to address some final issues before she was comfortable with finalizing the design.

She looked down at her body. Her pregnancy was still at an early stage, so her belly didn't show any significant swelling as of yet. However, she wasn't looking at her body, but instead trying to imagine her growing daughter.

"I can feel her." She swore. "My baby daughter.. I think I can feel her. She's so tiny, but… there is just something within me that I can't help but shower with love."

Ves scratched his head. "Are you sure?"

"I think that Blinky is helping me connect to my daughter. I swear that in the last few days, whenever your new pet performs his job, I feel more connected to everything, including my baby girl. It's… so magical. Whenever I feel troubled or frustrated, I just need to direct my concentration of what's inside my womb in order to regain the motivation to work hard again. She's been my greatest support."

Ves didn't know what to say. He was initially skeptical about her claims. Blinky most certainly did not poke his tail through Gloriana's stomach. How could his wife already feel the growing collection of cells that was quietly growing inside her body?

Then, he realized what might actually be happening. Whenever Blinky formed a design network, every participating mech designer shared some of their abilities to others.

Ves already knew for a while now that Gloriana obtained a portion of his sensitivity towards life, but she mostly relied on her own abilities in order to optimize her mech designs. There was hardly any room for her to make use of what she was able to borrow from her husband.

Only in their closest and most intimate synergy sessions was she able to understand his abilities to a degree where she could make better use of it. Outside of that, the advantages that he passed on to her only provided her with general benefits such as being able to make her work more in line with the spiritual design of her work.

Yet Ves overlooked that a sensitivity towards life also enabled Gloriana to pick up the growing presence of her remarkable daughter!

Compared to other fetuses who were in a similar stage of pregnancy, their daughter already developed a stronger spiritual presence. Ves infused it with his own spiritual energy every day so that his unborn child would quickly be able to develop to the point where Ves could impart her with a companion spirit seed.

She was far from reaching that point, but her presence had already grown strong enough that even someone with a weaker version of his sensitivity like Gloriana could feel her own daughter!

Ves could see how that was affecting his wife. Gloriana exuded the warmth that only mothers could convey. Her entire body and mind became filled with affection.

Love was a wondrous force that could never be quantified in numbers or described in words. Yet Ves did not mind that at all as he basked in the glow exuded by his partner in life.

Gloriana's daughter was his daughter as well. Neither of them wanted to see their little girl come to harm.

"We still have many months to go." She whispered.

"Yup." He nodded. "I really can't wait to hold her. The months go by too slowly for my tastes."

"We can speed it up as long as we do our best to finish our remaining expert mech designs."

"Hmmm, I'm not sure if we can complete the current round in time."

"Do your best. Do it for our daughter."

"I'll try."