The Mech Touch

Ves did not waste his time on the Dragon's Den.

Aside from sharing some of his latest plans to Director Ranya, he also took the initiative to come down to one of the major biomes of the bioresearch vessel in order to see how the pakklaton refugees were doing.

Accompanied by Ranya and his bodyguards, Ves approached a transparent barrier that provided him with a view of a forested biome.

"This environment looks close to the original habitat of the pakklaton race." He remarked.

"That is the point, sir. We have no intention of making the lives of our alien captives needlessly uncomfortable. We have invested a great amount of effort and resources into transforming the environment of this biome. However, we cannot give the pakklatons what they truly want. Their home planets, their star nation and many of their fellow aliens are all gone now. They can never go back to their old and idyllic lives, and it is all because of the fault of humans such as ourselves. How can they possibly be happy with their new conditions? They don't even control their own lives anymore. We can euthanize them tomorrow and they cannot do a thing to resist our actions."

If Ves was in the shoes of the pakklatons, then he would definitely feel angry, helpless and resentful at all of the unfairness directed towards the race.

Fortunately, he was a human, so there was no need for him to extend any sympathy for an alien race that had become uprooted and would eventually cease to exist in the future.

Ves had no confidence that he could fulfill Ketis' wish in the long term. No matter how Ves tried to turn the pakklatons into useful assets, the galaxy was not short on suitable test subjects. There were plenty of pirates and other alien races that could fulfill this role a lot better than a bird-like race!

He could only hope that by the time the pakklaton race had become extinct, Ketis would have long set her sights on more important matters.

As he continued to peer through the transparent screen, he frowned as he had yet to see any of the pakklatons in person.

"The aliens do not like to linger at the edge of the biome." Ranya explained to him. "The cage reminds them of their lack of freedom. The inability to fly far and wide has made the pakklatons considerably upset. They are not comfortable with being confined to such a relatively small space."

"Oh? Don't they live on starships where space is at a premium? How can they possibly cope with the conditions of this biome?"

Ranya hesitated. "We… are not entirely certain of that, sir. The MTA has not conducted any thorough studies on the pakklatons. In any case, do you wish to drag over a few alien specimens?"

"Please do. I'd like to inspect their mentalities, and for that I need to get close to them. Studying them by remote is not good enough."

Ves waited for a minute before six different bots came over while clutching onto different pakklatons.

"Cawww! Cawww! Cawww!"

Naturally, the bound and immobilized pakklatons were all panicking. They continued to struggle against the solid grips of the bots, not knowing what the humans had in store for them. Were they about to be treated as sacrifices?

Ves didn't care what the pakklatons were thinking. He extended his spiritual senses without any warning and studied the individuals one by one.

Ranya had been thoughtful enough to instruct the bots to retrieve different pakklatons at different stages of growth and power.

Ves had already noticed this in his earlier examinations, but now that he was able to examine the large avian species without any immediate on his shoulders, he recognized that they were more emotional than humans on average.

Though this caused them to think differently from humans, extreme emotions could also trigger breakthroughs. If the pakklatons piloted mechs, how much stronger would they become?

The youngest pakklaton in this group looked like a typical angry bird that swore vengeance on humanity. The creature's beak was so poisonous that the translation programs couldn't fully convey what the youngster was speaking!

Ves had the greatest hopes on the alien equivalent of a teenager. The young pakklaton's mental development was the most malleable due to his young age. There were many ways to exploit this trait in order to transform the young bird into an entirely different creature!

The other two pakklatons were much less flexible. The adult and older pakklatons shared the same hatred and rignation as their younger comrade, but the difference was that their advanced growth and life experiences had already locked their mentalities in place.

Ves did not need to tinker with their minds and spirits to know that performing any adjustments on them was going to be an uphill battle.

He recalled the case of Venerable Stark. Unlike other expert pilots, she broke through at a later stage of her life and career. After that, she suffered so much trauma that her willpower broke because it wasn't malleable enough to cope with drastic changes.

"Hmm… I should test this hypothesis in a study in order to confirm whether it is true."

As he examined the three prisoners, he continued to develop all kinds of interesting guesses that needed to be confirmed.

The best part about all of this was that he could perform a wide latitude of experiments on the intelligent birds without worrying about violating any human rights.

Aliens weren't humans, so they didn't possess any human rights!

In the scientific community, any non-human organics were the equivalent of lab mice. They just possessed different properties. Just like how no one cared if someone grafted an ear onto the back of a mouse or pumped painful toxins inside their veins to see how much they twitched before their hearts burst apart, the authorities would never arrest him if he tried to do the same to a bunch of aliens like these angry-looking pakklatons."

Ves grinned at the resentful specimens. "Go ahead. Be angry at me. The more your emotions are riled up, the more you will stimulate your mentality. You need to have lots of spirit in order to do well in the experiments to come."

"Caww! Cawww! Cawww!"

The aliens didn't understand his words at all. Not that it mattered. They hated the humans to the bone and would not hesitate to rip Ves apart with their beaks.

Though Ves could have used various means to make them understand his words, he did not bother to do so. Likewise, it was pointless for the aliens to comprehend his words.

"You probably aren't aware of this, but I am doing all of you a favor. Each of you should have been eliminated if we captured your fleet normally. It is only due to your research value that we are allowed to keep you alive and in captivity. If you want to do your best to cling on to your lives, then you should do your best to ensure you retain your value of test subjects."

"Caww! Caww! Cawww!"

The more defiance displayed by the pakklatons, the more Ves became satisfied with the quality of test subjects. The samples brought forward by the bots were particularly more energetic than he thought.

"You pakklatons should feel lucky that you have become the property of the Larkinson Clan. If other organizations have managed to capture you alive, then your fates would doubtlessly be worse. Here, you can not only relax and try to build new nests in the comfortable and spacious biomes we have made available to you, but you also don't have to worry about participating in any excessively dangerous experiments."

"Caww! Cawww!"

Ves waved his hand. "Send them back. Although I would love to experiment on them, now is not the time."

The bots forcefully brought the captive pakklatons back to the interior of the forest environment.

After lingering for a while longer, Ves ended his inspection of the biomes and the pakklatons kept inside.

He only made one last stop before he ended his visit to the Dragon's Den.

Both Ves and Dr. Ranya entered a cold compartment where stacks of alien eggs were put into storage arrays. The climate controlled environment ensured that the incubation of the unhatched pakklaton embryos stretched on for many years, effectively freezing them in time.

"How are the eggs?" Ves asked.

"They are in good condition more or less." The director answered. "Aside from a handful that have cracked during the transportation, the majority of them can still hatch healthy chicks if we wish."

"What do you think we should do? Should we hatch a few and give the captive pakklatons something more fruitful to do by raising new chicks?"

Ranya took a deep breath. "That depends on your long-term plans with the prisoners. So far, we have not heard anything from you about how to treat and settle these pakklatons on a more permanent basis. While we can continue to take care of them aboard this ship, their presence here is a burden on our life support system and our supplies. It's like our clan has expanded by 40 percent all of a sudden. Not only are there a lot of them, but they are also larger than average humans. This means we need to invest more into feeding them and fulfilling their basic needs. Though we have plundered a lot of pakklaton-specific food and other supplies, storing all of them takes up a considerable amount of cargo space."

"I understand your concerns. To be honest, I haven't decided on what to do with them yet." Ves replied. "I don't like to keep them all in our expeditionary fleet either. Hosting over 40,000 pakklatons on a single ship sounds way too precarious. Once our T Institute is up and running, I will task the people there with forming a more sustainable plan. I think the most likely option that we can take is to build an internment camp or something on a planet and dump the majority of the prisoners in them so that they won't burden our fleet anymore."

"That's a good idea, sir. A camp on a planet, preferably a settled one, is much cheaper and easier to run. Even if the prisoners manage to break out, they will not pose any danger towards a vital ship of our fleet."

"We shouldn't transfer all of the pakklaton prisoners away, though." Ves said after a bit of thought. "We need to keep a few hundred promising test subjects within my reach so that I can conduct my most promising studies on them. Once the T Institute is operational, I will find a way to divide the pakklaton prisoners into different categories that will help us distinguish their value."

The most valuable pakklaton prisoners were those that possessed spiritual potential. While Ves had not yet encountered an alien bird that displayed this quality, there were bound to be a few among such a large population of captives.

He did not worry about finding one at all. Every intelligent species was able to produce those that had the potential to activate their spiritualities.

Even the test subjects that didn't possess spiritual potential were useful to Ves. One of his major goals was to find a way to activate this property.

In the past, he had been too afraid of harming Larkinsons who entrusted their lives to him, but he didn't need to be so reserved towards his new test subjects!

Though there were certainly risks involved with trying to impart spiritual potential in those that lacked it, how could he make an omelet if he didn't break a few alien eggs?

Accidents happened over the course of many experiments and it was unreasonable to hold himself back too much. If the T Institute failed to be productive enough, then why bother retaining so many test subjects?

If the pakklatons wanted to stay alive, then they should do their best to cooperate with whatever experiment he had in store for their group!