The Mech Touch

As Ves and Professor Benedict Cortez examined the phasewater that they collected from their defeated opponents, both of them were considerably happy with how much they managed to obtain.

Although phasewater was supposed to be fairly prevalent in the Red Ocean, it was still a high-grade exotic that was difficult to obtain in greater quantities.

"Have you ever wondered how phasewater can appear in the cosmos?" Professor Benedict asked.

"Yeah. Plenty of times." Ves replied. "From what I learned, there doesn't appear to be a lot of rules concerning how they are formed. They can appear in space where there is not a drop of water in the vicinity. They can also appear underneath the immense oceans of heavy gravity planets. It really is inexplicable."

"Exotics do not make sense by definition. They are abnormal materials that are infused with greater energy than we can detect on the surface. For such a light material, it is highly unusual for phasewater to contain so much power. I advise you not to delve too deeply into the nature of exotic materials. Only material scientists have the necessary background and prerequisite knowledge to perform these studies. For mech designers such as ourselves, it is much more useful to generate new and better ideas on how to harness the existing properties of phasewater."

He was right. There were lots of mysteries in the multiverse. Except for maybe the Polymath, there was no other single individual who could possibly investigate every single unknown phenomenon.

Mech designers were engineers by nature, and that meant that they were mostly in the business of developing new products.

Of course, the good ones also performed a lot of original research, but they only did so in order to push their mech designs to a higher level.

Both of them began to direct their thoughts to the more immediate applications of phasewater.

"We could theoretically use the phasewater we have plundered from the pakklatons to make 83 minidrives." Ves remarked. "They say it takes at least 50 grams of phasewater to make a single minidrive to work, right?"

"It is more complicated than that, Ves. There are actually two types of minidrives. There is the miniaturized warp drive that can enable a mech to traverse distances in-system at a rapid rate. They excel in combat situations as they can quickly enable melee mechs to approach an enemy fleet and they can also allow mech forces to make unprecedentedly fast tactical movements in space combat. They are already starting to be used in battles involving first-class forces."

Professor Benedict activated a projection that displayed a battle between a first-class pioneering fleet and a group of nunser warships.

Though first-class mech forces were generally a lot more powerful than the Larkinson Army, the ones in the footage brilliantly displayed how miniaturized warp drives changed the game for the human forces.

While the two forces initially took potshots at each other at extreme range, hundreds of human mechs appeared at the flank of the nunser fleet without warning!

Upon showing up, the first-class multipurpose mechs instantly unleashed all of their ranged weapons at the adjacent alien vessels. They also activated all of their boosters in order to close the distance as fast as possible.

While the deadly nunser warships ought to possess more than enough firepower to repel the human mechs, the problem was that much of the weapons of the centaur-like aliens were pointed towards the distant pioneering fleet!

It took time for the nunsers to reorient their ships and vessels. In the meantime, their warships could only make use of only some primary weapons and lots of secondary weapons to repel the human mechs.

While a few mechs succumbed from focused fire, the other mechs managed to make it through by relying on their excellent shield generators and armor systems as a buffer.

Once the mechs finally got close, they employed their deadly melee capabilities to tear apart the alien ships with impunity!

While the nunser vessels possessed plenty of means to repel infantry-level boarding parties, they weren't designed to cope with mechs at all! Not even other ships could help out as their powerful anti-ship weapons were liable to deal more damage to the friendly ships than onto the mechs that were wreaking havoc inside!

Once the raiding first-class mechs managed to destroy a few nunser warships through this method, they jumped out and quickly split up in order to threaten many more alien vessels at a time!

Although the nunsers did possess shielding technology, it was considerably weaker than the human equivalent. The mechs possessed enough firepower to blow a hole in the shield cover.

Combined with the long-ranged fire support from the artillery mechs of the main human fleet, the nunser warships did not stand a chance!

"Impressive." Ves gasped. "Although the nunser fleet doesn't look all that big, it's incredibly inspiring to see how those mechs made short work of those warships."

The human fleet could have overcome the nunser fleet if it fought in a conventional manner, but the victory wouldn't be as smooth.

"Scenarios such as this are already taking place in the Red Ocean." Benedict said. "Mechs equipped with early-generation miniaturized warp drives are not practical enough to be used to travel to other star systems. A journey of weeks can take many months. It is much more efficient to board a simple combat carrier that can make the trip without relying on phasewater. The real utility of this type of minidrive is to enable mechs to perform long-distance tactical maneuvers on the battlefield. They are already starting to be called combat drives for that reason."

The combat drive was the cheapest faster-than-light device that mech designers could mount onto mechs. They were derived from traditional warp drives that aliens had already mastered for eons.

It did not take much of a stretch to figure out that the native alien races must have come up with minidrives themselves. The Big Two merely stole the small drives and reverse-engineered them so that they grasped the tech as well!

Professor Benedict waved his hand, causing another projection to appear. "Miniaturized FTL drives are more interesting. They make creative use of phasewater to massively lower the requirements to operate an FTL drive. With enough phasewater, a mech can enter FTL travel without relying on a ship and reach another star system in around the same amount of time."

The sights of the MTA's first-class multipurpose mechs exiting from one star system only to appear in another star system tens of light-years away was impressive in a different manner.

Although it was horrendously expensive to equip mechs with such extravagant drives, it provided mech pilots with an unprecedented degree of freedom. None of them had to rely on motherships any longer!

Though humanity was still searching for practical and cost-efficient uses of FTL-capable mechs, there was no doubt that such mechs might become the mainstay for certain specialized mech forces one day!

"I heard these miniaturized FTL drives are substantially more demanding than miniaturized warp drives."

Professor Benedict nodded. "That is especially the case when they need to mirror the performance of a superdrive that can travel ten times or even a hundred times faster than an ordinary FTL drive. In order to distinguish between the two performance standards, the people in the relevant industries have taken to calling the basic version a 'cruise drive' and the amplified version a 'supercruise drive'. Both of them can replace ships entirely when it comes to interstellar travel, but only the supercruise drive can be utilized in combat situations."

In short, the distinction was similar to the regular-sized drives.

The combat drive only excelled in combat.

The cruise drive was only usable for interstellar travel.

The supercruise drive possessed the capabilities of both of the aforementioned drives.

Naturally, the cost of the latter was insane!

"How much phasewater is needed to build a supercruise drive?" Ves asked.

"The development of supercruise drives has only recently begun. The few early generation models that are known to the public are extremely rudimentary. They make use of an excess of phasewater to brute-force processes that we do not fully understand. I have heard that one model uses an excess of 10 kilograms of phasewater just to provide superdrive capabilities to a single heavy mech."

10 kilograms!

Ves almost felt sick!

The same quantity of phasewater could easily provide superdrive capabilities to several capital ships! To provide the same to a single mech sounded like an enormous waste of resources considering how much less space needs to be warped to make a single mech go faster.

Professor Benedict smirked. "The current prototypes are merely the toys of overeager researchers that are not short on funding. The magnates and companies funding their development do not think they are wasting their money. As long as they manage to accumulate more know-how and achieve an early breakthrough, they can quickly dominate the market for minidrives, which has the potential to yield unheard-of profits."

This was a game that could only be played by the biggest market players. Neither the Larkinson Clan nor the Cross Clan could touch this sector at the moment.

Ves fell into thought as he considered the different varieties of minidrives that humanity was exploring.

"If we want to employ the phasewater we've obtained in any of our mechs, then we should start with the relatively simple combat drive. Not only does it require the least amount of phasewater, it is also more stable and relatively cheaper for us to acquire. We probably can't build it ourselves though, is that right?"

The Senior Mech Designer slowly nodded. "That is correct. I am looking into rectifying that, but do not expect any news on this front in the short term. Our only choice at the moment is to commission a third-party manufacturer that is specialized in making drives and minidrives to fabricate the combat drives for us. I have already performed an investigation and there are numerous relevant companies in Davute that have recently opened up for business."

"I can hear a 'but' coming…"

"You are quite sharp, Ves. An ordinary shipbuilding company such as Murphy & Sons are incapable of producing minidrives. You need to approach a specialized institution or company, of which a handful exist in this zone. Each of them not only charge high fees for their services, but also demand that we submit more than the necessary quantities of phasewater required to build the minidrives."

"Can you give me an example?"

"We need to submit 100 grams of phasewater to obtain a combat drive that incorporates 50 grams of phasewater."

"WHAT A RIPOFF!"

Ves couldn't believe what he heard. He and his fleet struggled so hard to challenge alien warships. If not for the Amaranto's crucial move, the Golden Skull Alliance wouldn't have been able to obtain 4 kilograms of phasewater.

To give up half of that to obtain a handful of combat drives made him feel incredibly sore about this situation. The profiteers in the rear were harvesting the greatest benefits of the Red Ocean!

"We have little choice." Professor Benedict said in a tone that already conveyed his resignation. "High technology is difficult to master. The companies based in Davute are not only in the business of developing and selling FTL drives for generations, they have also invested enormous sums of money to develop their first successful combat drives. If we wait five to ten years, the market for minidrives will no longer be as cramped. The ratio will certainly drop to more reasonable levels at that point."

Ves grimaced. "If that is the case, then I guess I will have to wait. What about you, professor?"

"I think you may have already guessed our clan's intentions. Patriarch Reginald Cross wishes to incorporate a combat drive for his next expert mech."

"So soon!?" Ves reacted with shock. "You'll squander half of your phasewater if you go this route!"

"Reginald does not mind. He seeks to pilot the strongest expert mech he can obtain from us, and it is within our means to integrate a ready-made combat drive to a design. I have already begun to study this module and how it should be added to a mech, but it is useful if you can gain familiarity with it as well. This is one of the reasons why I have invited you here to study phasewater together."

If Professor Benedict was being serious, then Patriarch Reginald Cross' next expert mech would likely be the first machine to gain faster-than-light travel capabilities in the expeditionary fleet!