The Mech Touch

The Larkinson Clan had managed to accumulate a decent collection of exclusive mech designs.

Each of them were powerful and conveyed distinct advantages on the battlefield.

The Bright Warrior was a versatile modular mech platform that could be adapted to a variety of roles.

The Ferocious Piranha could exert pressure on enemy mech pilots and paralyze weaker alien minds.

The Transcendent Punisher was able to bombard enemy weak points with uncanny accuracy.

The Valkyrie Redeemer was backed by the most powerful design spirit.

These four mech models formed the core of the Larkinson Army's mech roster for several years.

Despite their age and despite conforming the standards of the galactic rim, they acquitted themselves well so far. Although there were pioneering organizations that fielded mechs with superior performance characteristics, the Larkinson Clan could still rely on its various trump cards to close the gap.

However, this was not a sustainable method to achieve continuous victories. The foundation of a mech force was the strength and performance of its mechs.

The older Larkinson mech models had already fallen behind as soon as the expeditionary entered the Red Ocean, and this disparity would only grow worse over time.

The only way to keep up with the times was to design newer and better mechs. The mechs standing in the middle of Gloriana's workshop all represented the future of the Larkinson Clan!

Each of the new mechs bestowed new capabilities to their users. Aside from the expected combat-oriented mech models, the new lineup also contained a few auxiliary mech models.

The latter products were crucially important despite their low combat power.

The Larkinsons already possessed a lot of combat mech models and would gain a few more after this day. The issue was that many of the additions such as the new lancer mech and the new axeman mech were lacking in a single major area.

The combat mechs were all lacking in utility.

Although utility alone could never help a mech force win a battle by itself, they could substantially improve the performance of a mech force by providing additional conveniences.

Ves hadn't encountered a lot of opponents that made prominent use of auxiliary mechs, but they were particularly prominent in military organizations that possessed the necessary scale and organization to make good use of them. Auxiliary mechs were also more relevant in larger campaigns and battlefields where factors outside of direct combat power played a greater role.

Given that the Larkinsons were about to enter a complicated star system dominated by a blue supergiant star, the ordinary sensors equipped by their combat mechs no longer cut it! Their sensor suites were not designed to cope in the extremely radiation-rich space of the Garimel System.

This was why Ves was keen to add the completed Sliver Project to the Larkinson Army's mech roster. By forgoing offensive and defensive capabilities, the mech was able to carry a large amount of sensor systems that were each attuned to detect different signals and phenomena.

A scout mech like this was useful in many complex environments, not just the Garimel System!

"The Flagrant Vandals will be even happier than before." Ves smiled as he anticipated the reaction of Legion Commander Abis Firelight and his rambunctious band of former Brighter servicemen. "Our light mech-oriented mech legion will finally be able to complete its trifecta of core mech models now. With the addition of a scout mech, the Vandals will finally be able to perform its scouting functions properly."

Technically speaking, any light mech model could be used for scouting purposes. Their high mobility and low mass made them suitable for exploring new terrain and keeping an eye on enemy positions.

The Larkinsons heavily relied on the Ferocious Piranha to perform essential scouting missions for the clan.

However, the Ferocious Piranha was not optimized for scouting at all. Its explicit focus on mech combat left little room for sensor systems, which meant that they could only function as half-hearted scout mechs at best.

The emergence of the Sliver Project neatly resolved this suboptimal situation and provided the Larkinsons with true scouting capabilities.

Juliet briefly summarized the advantages of her work.

"The Sliver Project is not agile as the Ferocious Piranha, but it doesn't have to be. As long as my scout mech isn't caught in a dogfight, it does not matter how poorly it is able to outmaneuver enemy mechs. By relying on its special flight system, it can rely on its formidable straight-line acceleration power to outrun any pursuers."

Of course, the Sliver Project's lack of agility was only relative to other light mechs. It was still considerably more maneuverable than most melee mechs. This allowed the scout mech to evade long-ranged attacks with greater efficiency.

"How good are its detection capabilities?" Janassa Pellier asked.

As a mech designer who specialized in enhancing the physical power of lighter combat mechs, she was quite intrigued by the Sliver Project. Even though its current configuration left no room for combat enhancements, that might change in the future.

With the help of her specialty, she could easily apply a few solutions that could substantially improve the melee combat power of this harmless-looking mech!

Juliet activated her comm and projected a diagram showing the many sensor modules integrated into the Sliver Project's mech frame.

"As you should already know, ordinary mechs only carry composite sensor suites. Mechs such as the Bright Warrior and the Valkyrie Redeemer only rely on one or two primary sensor modules to observe the battlefield and track different units. The benefit of using them is that they can capture many different sensor readings while taking up less capacity than usual. The downside of relying on them is that they cannot do any single job well. The Sliver Project is different from our other mech models. It is the only one in our lineup that carries enhanced and standalone versions of numerous different sensor systems."

The diagram that depicted Sliver Project's design lit up at many different points. Each of them represented different specialized sensor components.

One was dedicated to observing visible light. Another specialized in detecting heat. A third one was highly attuned to gravitic fluctuations. A fourth one solely paid attention to dimensional fluctuations.

The latter one was particularly important to the Larkinson Clan!

Juliet pointed towards the module in question. "This has become an essential sensor system in the Red Ocean. In the old galaxy, warp drives are still nonexistent, so many mech forces do not have to be concerned about getting ambushed by mechs or warships sneaking up on them in warp. Our situation is different. Red Ocean is rife with alien warships that are all equipped with native warp drives. We may have been lucky when we fought against the pakklaton refugee fleet, but we cannot count on this to happen again. If we are confronted by fully-functional alien warships, then the chances are great that our adversaries will use their warp drives to attack us while we are unprepared. The Sliver Project can help keep us safe by providing us with greater advance warning than before."

With a specialized sensor suite that was more precisely tuned against the characteristic spatial ripples that ships in warp travel produced, the Sliver Project could potentially detect incoming enemies a few minutes in advance!

This was a powerful advance that was enough to speed up the Golden Skull Alliance's attempt to deploy as many mechs into space as possible!

The eyes of Ves and the other Journeymen grew brighter. While it was true that numerous different starships were equipped with dimensional sensors that were much more powerful, the problem was that it was a lot less safe to disperse all of these vessels away from each other!

For safety's sake, it was best to keep all of the ships together.

This was where the Sliver Project could fulfill this essential need. These mechs were so fast that they could easily distance themselves from the main fleet. This would allow them to extend their eyes and ears further away, thereby making it easier to detect distant threats in advance!

Although the scout mechs incurred a lot of risks by exposing themselves to threats in isolation, the benefits outweighed the risks.

The Larkinsons would feel incredibly distressed if they lost even a single combat carrier!

The loss of a single mech and a light one at that was a trivial price in comparison.

Mechs were more despicable than starships, so neither Ves nor anyone else felt any qualms about compelling these light mechs to perform risky scouting missions.

"We should look towards upgrading this sensor system in future. Its effective range is still a bit lackluster." Ves remarked.

After explaining the many benefits of the Sliver Project's dimensional sensors, Juliet finally moved on to the most exciting part about the new scout mech.

"Most of these sensor modules work by gathering and interpreting passive signals." She explained. "This facilitates their ability to remain hidden because they do not easily expose their presence as long as they are only focused on receiving signals. The Samasel Orb Directional Scanner Module is different. It is an active system that works by transmitting powerful signals in specific directions. If there are any objects in the way, these signals will bounce back, allowing them to be captured by the Sliver Project. This active scanning method can provide us with a rich amount of data!"

This was an extremely simplified explanation on how the Samasel Orb worked. In truth, it contained so many sophisticated scanning mechanisms that Juliet would have to stay all day in order to explain everything!

"The Samasel Orb is the centerpiece of the Sliver Project. It is the equivalent of my scout mech's main weapon. Compared to the passive sensor modules, the Samasel Orb is able to break through interference and look past meters of solid alloy. It is not perfect, though. It is only effective at medium range and shorter and it consumes a large amount of energy when activated at full power."

All of this was worth it. In confusing situations where every other mech was only able to observe their surroundings at short range, the Sliver Project could potentially dispel the fog around the mech unit by relying on its brute force observation capabilities!

Gloriana saw another powerful way to take advantage of this active system. "This Samasel Orb is great for finding weaknesses in enemy mech models. Think of how quickly our mech forces can dismantle opposing machines when we know exactly how they are constructed."

"That's not all." Ves spoke up. "What is even more important to us is that the Sliver Project possesses the capabilities of scanning the interior of alien warships. We cannot assume that the MTA database contains a blueprint of every native vessel. In those cases, we need to rely on ourselves to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of alien warships. With the Samasel Orb, we can quickly understand the structures of these vessels and tailor our response to them based on what we learn from the scanning data."

Ketis was a bit more skeptical. "The premise to doing so is to bring the Sliver Project mechs close enough that their scanners become effective. I can't imagine that would be easy against an alien warfleet."

Ves dropped his smile. His former student was right. Juliet chose the Samasel Orb over other scanning systems because it was able to collect a rich amount of data. However, it traded range for resolving power, so its utility wouldn't be as great as long as enemy forces maintained their distance!

He shrugged. "We have little choice but to accept this shortcoming. We could have opted to integrate the Sliver Project with a different scanning system, but the alternatives would certainly be less effective in analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of different assets. I don't find this tradeoff worthwhile because a scout mech's ability to provide relevant combat data is just as important as detecting threats from a distance."

Information was power, and the Sliver Project was dedicated to supplying as much relevant data to the Larkinsons as possible!