The Mech Touch

"Maaow."

A grey shorthair hopped onto a bunk and prodded her paw on a sleepy face.

"Maaow. Maaow."

"Come here, Syrcy."

A pair of slender but toned arms embraced the cat for a moment. Lanie luxuriated in the warmth of her pet before she roused from her bed and freshened up. After donning her cadet uniform and trying her brown hair in a simple ponytail, she exited her small cabin and moved to the nearest mess hall with her cat padding after her stride.

"Hey Lanie."

"Good morning, Jacob."

"What's up, Gigi?"

"I hope you studied enough to pass the test this time, Imri."

"Don't even start on me about that. I don't have a cranial implant yet like you guys!"

Several other cadets who woke up at the same time strode towards the same mess hall situated close to their block of cabins. Once they entered the large compartments, they approached their tables while bots floated in while putting trays of nutritious meals.

In the early days, the meals consisted of industrial meals prepared by autochefs and large food preparation machines, but the cadets complained so much that the ship soon took on human chefs.

As the future of the Larkinson Clan, the cadets deserved to enjoy some refinements. Nothing was more important than supplying their growing bodies and minds with the nutrients they needed.

"Maaow." Syrcy rubbed her head against Lanie's boot.

"Go off to your little friends, Syrcy. I'll be okay."

"Maaow!"

The slender cat rubbed her face against Lanie's leg one more time before running over to a dedicated pet section of the mess hall. She threaded through throngs of dogs, birds, lizards and other pets before reaching a small circle of cats who greeted her arrival with slight enthusiasm before getting back to putting their heads back into their bowls.

As Lanie dug into her bowl of warm and filling porridge while chatting with the cadets sitting at the same table, someone sat down next to her at one point.

"Good morning, Lanie." He said as a bot plumped down a hearty meal consisting of eggs, sausages, beans and eggplant.

"Ohhh." A female cadet dramatically uttered. "It's the highborn again, looking to woo the princess of our clan."

"I'm not a princess!" Lanie barked back.

"That's not what everyone else is thinking, you know. You're one of the few trueborn Larkinsons in the academy and you're the highest performer to boot. You're still at the top of your year, right?"

Lanie shrugged. "I just have a head start, that's all. Once more people get invited to the Dragon's Den to receive their suite of augments, I'm sure they'll catch up eventually."

Due to her excellent performance in the academy, she received priority access to a suite of high-quality gene treatments and cranial implants that were especially developed by the Lifer biotech experts over at the bioresearch ship. Even though the augments weren't very refined, they were quite expensive and improved a lot of piloting-related parameters such as mental acuity, reaction time, high impact force resistance and other helpful improvements.

While it wasn't necessary for a mech cadet or mech pilot to possess augments in order to perform well, it made it a lot easier to pass the classes. Over time, the standards of the Larkinson Mech Academy had risen and it became increasingly harder for ordinary cadets to keep up with the curriculum.

Lanie didn't understand why the implants were only provided early to the best performers of the class. The gap between the top cadets and the bottom cadets of every class became wider. At this rate, the top graduates would probably receive a direct invitation to join one of the elite mech legions while the bottom performers might not even make it into the Living Sentinels.

It was none of her business, though. She was just a young cadet and had no right to tell the mech instructors that they were wrong for ignoring the less talented cadets.

She felt sad about some of her old friends that she had fallen out of touch with. They were no longer able to hang out as often due to enrolling into different classe. With her rapidly developing skill set, it made no sense for her to remain stuck in the more basic classes.

That had led her to hang out with a different crowd of potentates, chief among them the boy that tried to befriend her in recent times.

"Are you still planning to pursue a ranged specialization track? It's a real shame for you to commit to it when you are so good with melee weapons."

"I'm not changing my mind, Petrus." She said as she was halfway done with eating her porridge. "I do enjoy my time in the melee classes and I did score highly in the last exams, but I don't see this as my future. I'm much more interested in improving my marksmanship and hearing about the amazing new Amaranto and the new luminar crystal technology that will soon become the new standard has only made me more enthused about my choice."

Petrus Purnesse looked disappointed. "That's a great waste of your talents, Lanie. Won't you at least consider taking up at least some advanced swordsmanship classes? Maybe you can become the next Venerable Joshua Larkinson one day and be able to fight with any mech at any distance."

"Ugh, those new Heavensworder instructors don't like wafflers in their classes." Lanie grimaced. "They're good, there's no doubt about it, but they demand complete dedication to the sword."

"There are always other melee classes. You can join my axe classes, for example. Axes might not be as popular as swords in our clan, but they're excellent at breaking through armor."

"No thanks. I am already enrolled in a lot of other marksmanship-related classes. I still need to improve in many areas such as accuracy, energy weapon theory and also the new introductory class on luminar crystal technology!"

She was particularly enthused about the latter. Though the clan had been mum about the full capabilities of luminar crystals, the rumors she heard already made it was the new killer of the Larkinson Clan.

She couldn't wait to handle a real luminar crystal rifle herself!

After the cadets finished their breakfasts, they left to attend their classes for the day.

Lanie's schedule consisted of a mixture of physical exercise, simulation training and tactical instruction and basic physics.

The mix of theory, practice and physical exertion was carefully balanced to avoid overexerting Lanie. Though she had to work hard to keep up despite her augments, she was always rewarded for doing well.

Due to her distinct identity in the Larkinson Mech Academy, she received more attention than others. Though she hated to admit it, being a trueblood Larkinson had its perks. The fact that her scores vaulted her to the top of her year only seemed to vindicate her treatment.

The next time she met with Petrus was late in the day. Though Lanie had already gone through multiple tiring hours of instructions, she had become far too enthused to let her exhaustion get the better of herself.

"Finally! I've missed you so much, Sagittarius!"

The Chirons had become ubiquitous presences aboard the Discentibus. They were considered as the definite training mechs of the Larkinson Clan for many reasons.

The problem was that the Discentibus could only carry so many Chirons, so the mech cadets had to go on a rotation in order to get their turn to pilot a real, physical mech.

This was nothing unusual as many other mech academies adopted the same approach. It was too extravagant to reserve a single training mech for just a single mech cadet. Only the wealthiest and most elite mech academies in the galaxy engaged in such a wasteful practice.

As a result, the Sagittarius along with every other Chiron mech had already passed through the hands of multiple mech cadets today. Though the mech academy cleaned and fixed up the training mechs after every use, Lanie could still see plenty of signs of use by other mech cadets.

"It sounds like we're about to play out another battle scenario today." Petrus remarked. "I hope we'll be assigned to the same team again."

Lanie snorted. "I doubt that will happen. We perform too well. It makes much more sense to put us in opposing teams."

A mech instructor eventually strode in front of the gathered cadets. The younger clansmen all straightened up and stood at attention.

After the tough-looking veteran opened up the class by addressing some routine matters, he finally described the plan for today.

"Our fleet is about to head into dwarf country soon, and that has given us a great idea on how to conduct your next training scenario. It took a bit of time, but we managed to convince the engineers to ramp up the artificial gravity of one of the training compartments. Each of you will have the distinct pleasure of trying to pilot a mech under 1.5 g! Don't underestimate this small number. Every mech and every object effectively becomes 50 percent heavier. Now, I would love to explain to you how that will affect mech combat, but I figure there's nothing better than throwing you into the field straight away and letting you experience the changes for yourself!"

Half an hour later, the cadets had all entered their assigned Chirons and grouped up into teams of four. Lanie had become the leader by default and led her cadets through a hilly biome that was filled with artificially generated fog.

The sensors of a real mech were easily able to penetrate the fog, but in order to give ranged mechs more of a challenge, their sensors were deliberately crippled so that their visibility was not much better than the naked eye.

That didn't entirely prevent Lanie from detecting a threat.

"Stop. Enemies are hunkering at 2 o'clock. I can feel they are close!"

Though the Sagittarius was piloted by multiple mech cadets under a rotation, that didn't make the Chiron mech less effective. In fact, it was the opposite! The lessons learned by the other mech cadets somehow passed on to the mech and allowed others to benefit from the insights of others.

When the Larkinson Mech Academy discovered this phenomenon, they adopted the rotation schedule to take advantage of these unannounced capabilities.

The Sagittarius stood out from many other Chiron mechs due to two reasons. First, only ranged mech cadets were assigned to this specific training mech. Second, these cadets all consisted of the best performers!

This has quickly caused the Sagittarius to become a more specialized and focused training mech that offered excellent help to people like Lanie.

The bond between Lanie and the Sagittarius grew as the former drew more from the latter. Despite the fog obscuring their vision, the Chiron mech resisted the stronger gravity and raised its training rifle in a specific direction.

"Get ready!"

Lanie pulled the trigger, causing the training rifle to release a bright but completely harmless laser beam that struck a mech that had been kneeling roughly fifty meters ahead!

"Ahhh! How did you find us?!" An angry voice roared.

Seeing that the element of surprise had been lost, the remaining Chiron mechs rose to their feet and closed in on Lanie's team.

Unfortunately, the heavier-than-usual gravity acted against the approaching mechs and forced them to slow their advance lest they fell. This gave Lanie plenty of time to fire deep within the fog and eliminate three out of the four Chiron mechs of the opposition team!

By the time the final axe-wielding Chiron closed the distance, Lanie's teammates shamelessly grouped up and attacked their poor victim from multiple directions.

Skilled or not, Petrus Purnesse couldn't defend himself from attacks launched in three different directions!

"Lanie! I know it's you! How did you manage to find us and target us through this fog?! Are you cheating?!"

Lanie smirked underneath her protective helmet. "It's not cheating. I'm just that good. This is what dedicating my practice time looks like. I wouldn't have been able to suss you out this quickly if I didn't take all of those specialized classes."

She had received so much help from Ves, her mech instructors and the Larkinson Clan. She wanted to make sure she lived up to their expectations!