The Mech Touch

Ves visited multiple ships and groups after he departed from the Redfeather.

He visited a civilian ship which housed many of the Larkinsons and their families.

He dropped by a vessel which had been converted into company ships by the LMC.

He even took the time to travel to the Jaded Sword in order to speak with Commander Dise and learn how the Swordmaidens were faring these days.

Ves recalled the immense contribution the Swordmaidens had made during the Battle of Kesseling VIII. Without their crucial assistance in taking down the CRC knight mechs, the battle on the ground might have been lost!

The Swordmaidens paid a very heavy price for that, though. They lost around half of their landbound mechs and a slightly smaller proportion of mech pilots. The former pirates were still very depressed about the losses.

A grim-faced Commander Dise calmly greeted Ves. "Hello."

"Hello, commander."

The dark-skinned pirate commander looked more solemn and focused than he had last seen her. Due to the unusual way she became an expert candidate back on Aeon Corona VII, the vibe she exuded possessed a lot of familiaries to Qilanxo.

It was a mistake to think Dise was of the same mind as the sacred god. As Ves took the time to inspect her spiritual attributes, she still maintained a very offensive focus.

Still, Ves saw some encouraging signs that she was finally beginning to reconcile her own martial path with the strength bestowed by Qilanxo. It seemed that Dise was leveraging her responsibility as a leader and caretaker of the Swordmaidens as a way to find something in common with the protective beast.

Hopefully, this would be enough for Dise to surpass her final bottleneck and undergo apotheosis. After all of the ordeals the Swordmaidens had gone through, they certainly deserved some good news!

"Please don't mind our current condition. We are still adjusting to all of the changes."

"That's understandable."

The Swordmaidens didn't stare and gawk at him as much as he expected. Instead, there were plenty of Swordmaidens who were pretty happy with ignoring his existence entirely!

While it was a bit refreshing to be treated as a normal person, a part of Ves still felt a bit concerned about their lack of enthusiasm.

"You Swordmaidens don't seem very happy with my presence." He observed.

Commander Dise frowned. "Too many sisters died to save your hide. To many of us, this tradeoff isn't worth it. Much of those sisters have been with us for decades. It took an immense amount of effort to train them to the standard that we expect of our mech pilots. To have so many of them fall is almost as worse as losing all of the Swordmaidens on Aeon Corona VII. It doesn't help that these losses happened recently at the same time the Sand War broke out. So far, we still haven't been able to replenish our ranks."

"Are you having recruitment problems? Can I do anything to help?"

The Swordmaiden Commander shook her head. "No thanks. In the previous months, we already picked up a large batch of young women among the refugees. It takes a long time to train them up, though. It might take a decade or longer before we are back to our old level of strength."

That sounded way too long to Ves. While he understood that it was how the Swordmaidens always conducted their training, it might not be necessary to stick to their primitive training methods.

"We have plenty of training resources to accelerate the training of your Swordmaidens. You helped save my life, so the least we can do is to make up for your losses." Ves offered.

"No need, Mr. Larkinson. Calabast has already made arrangements for us. Don't think your mech pilots are the only ones who are looking to promote to second-class mech pilots."

Those arrangements soon became clear when Ves started his tour through the Jaded Sword. Amidst the rigid Swordmaidens practicing their swordsmanship, the younger prospects undergoing hellish training in order to raise them to the standard of the older women and the 'indentured' men performing most of the lesser work, he suddenly realized something very profound.

"Your Swordmaidens share a lot in common with the Hexers!" He gasped.

"Is that a surprise to you?" Commander Dise smirked at him. "To be honest, I never thought she shared so many similarities with the Hexers either. Back when we were confined to the frontier, we never thought about this relation. Civilized space was too alien to us, and a powerful second-rate state has no reason to get involved with a small pirate outfit like ours."

"Are the Hexers really uninvolved with the creation of your outfit?" Ves skeptically asked.

"You'd have to ask Commander Lydia." She shrugged in response and lowered her tone. "In truth, I'm not entirely clear about the circumstances behind the founding of the Swordmaidens. Ostensibly, Commander Lydia shaped the Swordmaidens by herself while relying on secret backing from the Reinald Republic."

"Who exactly was Commander Lydia? She shouldn't have come from nowhere. How was she able to form the Swordmaidens and grow it into an elite outfit in the most difficult circumstances imaginable?"

Commander Lydia started her outfit from scratch. Even though she received a lot of financial support, she started off with no organization, no reputation and few existing assets! She had to build up an entire organization in the frontier, a region where danger lurked in every corner and where potentates and mech pilots were not only rare, but also started off with awful foundations!

In hindsight, the emergence of the Swordmaidens as a force to be reckoned with in the frontier sounded very suspicious. If Commander Lydia was truly responsible for its successful rise, then she was anything but an average leader!

The resilience and leadership abilities shown by someone like her should be very unusual! It was impossible for her to be so competent if she came from the frontier!

"Do you think.. That the founder and former commander of your outfit was a Hexer?"

"Almost every Swordmaiden has bought into this theory." Commander Dise admitted. "There are too many coincidences to ignore this possibility. The fact that many of our customs are exactly in line with the Hegemony's traditions is too obvious, especially now that we have become more exposed to Hexers."

"What does Calabast think?"

"Even she agrees. She has taken a look at all of our surviving records, and while there isn't any hard evidence, she has made the same conclusion. According to her, Commander Lydia was likely a Hexer officer who fell victim to one of the intrigues that took place in the Hegemony. I can't imagine what drove her to flee all of the way to the frontier, but I'm thankful she did. A lot of our Swordmaidens would have led much worse lives if not for Commander Lydia's efforts."

Ves had very mixed feelings about this conclusion. It turned out that his visit to Centerpoint wasn't the start of his entanglement with Hexers. With everything the Swordmaidens had done so far, Ves respected them immensely. To find out that they were effective surrogate Hexers left a sour taste in his mouth.

Still, he refused to allow his biases to color his impression of the Swordmaidens. Regardless of their Hexer DNA, they had still fought valiantly during the crucial ground battle at Kesseling VIII. The inspiring sight of their swordsman mechs dragging down the floating knight mechs of the CRC was something that he would never forget!

As the tour proceeded, Ves asked a couple of perfunctory questions to which Commander Dise always answered in a perfunctory manner.

Ves had a feeling that Commander Dise respected Calabast a lot more than himself! She didn't consider Ves to be her boss or superior at all!

"Ever since we got rolled into the Black Cats, we are trying to find a new identity. We're no longer the daughters of the frontier. Perhaps we'll all be donning black uniforms soon."

"Do you object to the transition?"

"Don't get me wrong, Mr. Larkinson. We are not opposed to change. It's just that we are unsure which direction we should be developing towards. We want to preserve as much of our original Swordmaiden traditions as possible, but we don't want to remain weak and marginal. Since everyone is constantly growing stronger, we have to keep up as well or risk getting left in the dust."

That was very evident from the persistent training that took place aboard the Jaded Sword. Hardly any woman was idling around! If the Swordmaidens weren't on patrol, they were challenging themselves in virtual simulations. If they weren't training their mech piloting skills, they were training their swordsmanship.

Just like a genuine elite outfit, the Swordmaidens were truly dedicated towards their profession!

Ves noticed something very noteworthy though. As he toured some of the training venues, he suddenly halted.

"Are those.. Hexers?"

"Yes." Commander Dise grinned. "Calabast managed to secure some trainers to help us in our training. In particular, the Hexer mech instructors have been helping us learn the principles of piloting second-class mechs. Your people aren't the only ones who are looking forward to piloting higher-classed mechs!"

That didn't sound so strange. Calabast would be a fool to neglect the development of her Swordmaidens.

What truly shocked Ves was that the Hexer mech instructors didn't just wear the uniform of the Glory Battalion.

A couple of the trainers who attracted an immense amount of respect from the Swordmaidens happened to wear the uniform of the Penitent Sisters! The ♂ emblem on their chests were simply too glaring to ignore!

Commander Dise was perceptive enough to notice his stare. "The Penitent Sisters eagerly dispatched their own trainers to assist in the training of my Swordmaidens. The Hexers have been quite generous, actually. I think we are pretty much the only element in the fleet that meets their approval. The Sisters don't like the Glory Battalion very much."

"Oh?" That sounded strange to Ves! "What makes the Penitent Sisters so friendly towards your Swordmaidens?"

"I think they believe that Commander Lydia might have been one of theirs. Even if that isn't true, our former commander probably shared a lot in common with them. The Sisters pretty much treat us Maidens as their lost kin due to those suspicions."

That.. was a very unexpected development to Ves. He thought the Penitent Sisters had always been keeping to themselves when they joined the fleet, but it seems the Sisters were already starting to reach out to certain elements.

"Does Calabast know about this?" He worriedly asked.

"She facilitated this exchange." Commander Dise grinned.

That sounded exactly like something Calabast would do. Ves furrowed his brows. Didn��t his strategic partner realize how crazy the Penitent Sisters were? What if they radicalized the Swordmaidens?!

Though Ves had to admit that the Swordmaidens were already similar to the Hexers in many ways, the Penitent Sisters were some of the worst the Hegemony had ever produced!

He groaned and palmed his face. "It looks like I need to have another talk with Calabast."

After finishing his tour aboard the Swordmaiden flagship, Ves headed back to the shuttle. Before he left, he asked one more question to Commander Dise.

"If the Swordmaidens received the option to join the Larkinson Clan, would you and your sisters accept this option?"

"Yes."

His heart sank at this answer. Though the Swordmaidens deserved to be rewarded for their contributions to the Larkinson Clan, he was very reluctant to turn these de-facto Hexers into Larkinsons!

"Is that because Calabast told you or is this what you Swordmaidens truly want?"

"This is our own choice." Commander Dise reiterated. Her spiritual potential flared! "For our entire lives, we worked hard to eke out an independent existence. Only later on did we slowly realize that it's too difficult to rely on ourselves. For better or worse, we need to shelter under an umbrella. As much as we don't share that much in common with your clan, you Larkinsons are quite nice. Unlike others, I feel I can trust you Larkinsons to respect my Swordmaidens as equals and fellow mech pilots. As long as we can maintain our own traditions, we have no objections to joining your clan!"

Though Ves appreciated the compliment, he was a lot less sure about the sentiment behind it! "Why don't you join the Hexers?"

"We're trash from the frontier, Ves. Do you truly think the elitist Hexers will accept us in our ranks? Just because we are like-minded women doesn't mean we all get along!"

"I see."

He didn't.