The Mech Touch

The Sliver Project possessed negligible combat power, but its immense utility addressed a lot of shortcomings of the Larkinson Clan.

The combination of its specialized sensor modules along with its powerful Samasel Orb Directional Scanning Module made it a lot harder for adversaries to withhold crucial information.

ᴘ ᴀɴᴅ ᴀ ɴ ᴏᴠᴇʟ From detecting approaching enemies at range to exposing their structural strengths and weaknesses, the Sliver Project was a nightmare to opponents that relied on information symmetry to gain advantages in battle!

The expeditionary fleet became a lot harder to fool once the Flagrant Vandals were able to field their new scout mech model in greater numbers.

What made Ves especially happy was that the Sliver Project also excelled at detecting hidden enemies.

The scout mech's passive sensor systems were slightly better at capturing the faint fluctuations generated by stealth vessels. Mechs and shuttles sneaking up while under active stealth needed to behave a lot more carefully in order to avoid exposing their presence in advance.

Perhaps the presence of the Sliver Project mechs might be enough to deter saboteurs from launching covert operations on the expeditionary fleet!

The threat of the Sliver Project was especially great if the Vandal mech pilots suspected that there were sneaky bastards in the vicinity.

Although it was costly to run the Samasal Orb at full power, its directional scanning capabilities were so strong that it could easily overwhelm the equilibrium of active stealth systems!

As Juliet finished explaining all of the main functions of the completed Sliver Project, there was one more feature that she had yet to address.

"As you have noticed, I did not completely design this mech by myself. In order to make this mech alive and fit the requirements of the Larkinson Clan, our patriarch has contributed to it in several ways. His most notable addition is the glow."

"I was wondering about that." Janassa Pellier said. "I think I have experienced echoes of this glow when I studied the Amaranto one day. The glow of this impressive masterwork mech makes me feel as if I'm being mesmerized by light. How can this glow be relevant in a substantially different mech type? A scout mech performs a completely different role than a rifleman mech!"

Everyone turned to Ves. Not even Juliet fully comprehended this choice.

To be honest, Ves only resorted to the Illustrious One because there weren't any better options available.

He thought about creating a new design spirit that excelled in detection, but he didn't have any suitable spiritual ingredients in his possession.

As his collection of design spirits expanded, he became more and more discerning about their quality and advantages. A more generic design spirit hardly conveyed any benefits and their growth potential was also a lot lower.

He would rather wait a few years and see whether the Larkinson Biotech Institute was able to acquire or breed a suitable mutated beast. Once a mutated beast with a useful power emerged in the Dragon's Den, he had multiple ways to turn this asset into an excellent design spirit!

Although the Larkinson Biotech Institute managed to acquire dozens of mutated beasts, none of them possessed any notable scouting abilities.

Fortunately, Ves discovered that the Illustrious One was a fine substitute for a more dedicated detection-oriented design spirit.

Although the Illustrious One's exact abilities had always been vague, his history and inheritances granted him with a fantastic affinity for electromagnetic radiation. He felt at home when flooded with light and other energy rays and his understanding of them was derived from the masters of light, the luminar race!

Optical sensors and other EM-oriented systems constituted the most important detection tools of the Sliver Project. If the Illustrious One was able to help the mech capture and interpret these signals through different means, then the scout mech model possessed an additional advantage compared to others of its kind!

Ves wasn't entirely confident about this solution, though. This was the first time he tied the Illustrious One to a scout mech model, so he was not able to foresee how much of a difference it made.

He would just have to keep a closer eye on the Sliver Project mechs once they were put into use. Their ability to leverage their glows to their advantage would determine whether he would keep the Illustrious One in place or design an updated version with a different design spirit in the future.

Once everyone understood what the new scout mech model was capable of, Ves asked one final question.

"Juliet."

"Yes, sir?"

"You have led this design project from beginning to end. Although I may have contributed to it a little bit, you have made virtually all of the most important design choices. The Sliver Project is a product of your vision, so it is only right for you to name it. You already have a proper one in mind, right?"

The Penitent Sister mech designer nodded. "Yes. I have thought about it for many weeks. My work is related to both the Flagrant Vandals and the Illustrious One, so I came up with a name that reflects both of these relationships. My choice would be to call it the Light Hunter."

Light Hunter. It evoked the image of a mech roaming in darkness in search of any points of light. Ves liked the name because of that. Although the word ‘hunter' might not be the most appropriate considering that the scout mech did not possess any meaningful offensive capabilities, it could still work in this combination.

Once Ves officially registered the name of the completed Sliver Project, the crowd of Journeymen finally moved on to studying Juliet's second completed project.<del>panda novel</del>

"As you can see, the Nanny Project is another auxiliary mech." She explained as she stood in front of the copy she made. "Since it shares numerous similarities with the Light Hunter, you will find that I have applied the same solutions. Its offensive and defensive parameters are almost identical. In terms of mobility, the Nanny Project is a little more agile, making it easier to evade attacks. There are other differences, but that is mainly because the Nanny Project possesses more feminine contours."

The Light Hunter was designed for the Flagrant Vandals, so it possessed a normal masculine appearance.

The Nanny Project was designed for the Penitent Sisters, so Juliet went back to her Hexer roots and made it female.

"Aside from making it female, what makes the Nanny Project different from your Light Hunter?" Tifi Coslone wondered.

"I was getting to that, Tifi." Juliet smiled. "The Light Hunter is a scout mech that is designed to perform reconnaissance-oriented tasks. Its configuration makes it suitable to deploy away from our main forces. Its low energy signature and abundance of passive sensor systems allows it to remain somewhat hidden while it is able to observe enemy positions from afar. While its Samasel Orb allows it to play a more active role in serious battles, the real use of this active scanner is to expose stealthed opponents and perform deep scans outside of direct combat situations."

In other words, the Light Hunter was more at home when it stayed away from active battlefields.

"So the Nanny Project is an auxiliary mech that performs much better when deployed on the front lines?" Tifi guessed.

"Correct. The Nanny Project is primarily designed to accompany different mech units as they spread across a battlefield or a theater. This is why the word ‘nanny' is part of its codename. It takes care of the mech unit it is attached to by performing two essential roles."

Juliet summoned a projection that displayed the Nanny Project's design. She inputted a command that lit up the mech's sensor modules.

"If you look closely and compare it to the diagram that I showed before, you will see that the Nanny Project is equipped with a different suite of sensor modules. Many of them possess both passive and active modes. The latter is particularly useful as it allows the Nanny System to provide rich sensor data under heavy jamming and interference."

A few mech designers looked confused when they heard about the active sensors.

Dulo Voiken raised his hand like a schoolboy.

"What exactly makes the Nanny Project's sensors different from that of the Light Hunter?"

"The Light Hunter's Samasel Orb is a powerful but energy-hungry directional scanning system." Juliet answered. "The mech cannot keep it active at full power for long. Not only will the scanning module overheat quickly, but it will also drain its energy reserves in a matter of minutes. Aside from that, it is also directional, which means it can miss important details if it is pointed in the wrong direction. Think of it as a spotlight."

The female mech designer pointed towards the various sensor modules highlighted in the diagram. "The Nanny Project does not possess a directional scanning system. Instead, it carries a whole host of specialized sensor systems that can go active whenever needed. Different from the Samasal Orb, these active sensor systems are more omnidirectional, so the Nanny Project has no blind spots. They also work at a lower intensity, which means they put considerably less strain on the mech. The mech can keep all of its sensors active for half an hour under ideal circumstances. The pilot can choose to activate only a portion of the sensor systems if there is no need for more. This can extend the deployment time of the Nanny Project even further. It functions as a torchlight in that sense."

All this talk about different lights caused Ves to remember the time he served in the Mech Corps.

It had been so long ago when he was just a random mech designer who got in touch with Flashlight.

Meanwhile, Juliet continued to explain the nuances of the Nanny Project's sensor suite. The Penitent Sister auxiliary mech was much more efficient at short-ranged, omni-directional detection and tracking.

"The Nanny Project can break through many forms of interference and electronic countermeasures at relatively shorter ranges." She said. "This allows it to feed much more precise targeting data to friendly mechs whether they are next to it or situated further in the rear. It is one of the best mechs to tell our ranged mechs where they should fire their guns."

"Shouldn't other mechs be able to do this as well?"

"They can, but the Nanny Project is a considerably more effective spotter than any other mech in our lineup including the Light Hunter. Just because they both carry powerful sensor suites does not mean they excel in the same areas."

"The Nanny Project possesses another feature that makes it well-suited to feed targeting data to other mechs." Ves added. "Its glow is identical to that of one of my past works, the Cherub model that is currently being used by the Hex Army."

It took a moment for some of the mech designers to recall this mech model. While they never participated in its design, they still read up on all of the patriarch's known mech designs.

"You mean the communication mech?"

Ves nodded. "Yes. I would argue that communication is the Nanny Project's primary responsibility. It not only carries a powerful communication system that excels at breaking through jamming, it also incorporates a more esoteric communication method that cannot be blocked through regular means."

The mech designers here understood the value of the Nanny Project. It was a mech that could keep in touch with each other even when they were in the middle of an active battlefield!

The quality of communication and data transfers always degraded under those conditions. Being able to ensure reliable communications while at the same time providing detailed sensor data meant that the Nanny Project was able to cut through the fog of war and provide unprecedented clarity!

Even though the Larkinson Clan didn't really need the Nanny Project in most of its past battles, who knew whether that might change in the future. Alien forces possessed all kinds of weird technologies while the human forces in the Red Ocean were vastly stronger and more capable than the ones in the galactic rim.

It was better to have an auxiliary mech such as the Nanny Project early rather than late!