The Mech Touch

Lucky performed his duties more diligently now that he was working on a full stomach.

Of course, that didn't stop him from eating 'snacks' from time to time, but that only drove him to work harder.

The gem cat's diligent search allowed him to uncover one hidden hiding hole after another.

The rich district of Ardam concentrated many of the movers and shakers of the Gaugers who had transferred to the Red Ocean.

These were individuals who founded the colony, invested in the businesses that went on to dominate the local economy and occupied the top of the chain of command of the Sundered Phalanx mech divisions stationed in the port system.

Practically none of the aforementioned elites possessed grassroots identities. They were all descendants of the Gauge Dynasty or emerged from the most powerful families and organizations rooted in the territory of the coalition partner.

Whatever the case, the figures that formed the upper echelon of the Gauge Dynasty's presence in the Red Ocean were so wealthy and powerful that they were bound to own a lot of valuable assets!

Lucky managed to stumble upon a lot of useful finds during his exploration of the vaults and storehouses the wealthy Gaugers built underneath their exclusive plots of land.

The quality and effectiveness of the anti-detection technology applied to these underground treasure houses was considerably high.

None of them had been marked in any maps or intelligence reports.

The sensors and scanners of many second-class mechs and starships didn't have the capabilities to detect most of them. The only way for the Larkinsons to pick up all of this hidden wealth was to use a powerful scanner at full power to sweep the ground at close range.

It would have taken a lot of Light Hunter mechs a lot of time to sweep the entire rich district in this fashion!

If the Larkinson Clan had a week of time to plunder the star system, then it wouldn't have been a big deal for the Flagrant Vandals to find and dig out all of the stashes.

The schedule was too tight to accommodate carpet searches. This was why the Larkinsons and their allies largely skipped the rich district despite being able to guess that there ought to be plenty of worthwhile treasures for the taking. They simply had better goals to chase after in the limited time they had available.

Fortunately, the Larkinson Clan had Lucky. His effectiveness in detecting and breaking into the vaults was higher than expected. His performance clearly improved as his capabilities expanded. He also became more familiar with how the wealthy Gaugers tended to hide their stuff.

Despite finding a lot of hidden vaults, not all of them were filled with treasure. The elites who owned them had emptied them all out, but at least half of them were surprisingly untouched.

Perhaps their owners ran away from the Pima Prime System too quickly for them to think about emptying their vaults.

Perhaps the owners weren't able to reserve enough cargo space to bring much of their valuable cargo.

Perhaps the owners were confident in the measures they took to hide their vaults and expected to return with their treasures in place after a few months.

Whatever the case, the Larkinson Clan dispatched additional digging machines and personnel to the rich district in order to retrieve all of the valuables that had been left behind!

Though Lucky regularly took bites out of valuable exotics and technological products, he surrendered most of the loot to the Larkinson Clan.

When Ves obtained constant updates on what his cat was able to uncover from the rich district, even he became surprised at all of the rich loot that was steadily being brought back to the fleet in orbit.

Gloriana stepped forward and skimmed the expanding list. "If I knew the Fridaymen were stupid enough to leave so many valuable assets behind, I would have send out Lucky down to the surface earlier. I can't believe how many strategic materials they left untouched."

Though Ves was happy to read the list of all of the medium and high-grade exotics that the raiding parties were digging up, he also tempered his expectations.

"While the variety of these materials are great, their quantities are not as impressive. I have no idea what these people are using them for. None of us have any use of these rare and obscure exotics. I suppose we can add them to our strategic materials reserve and wait for a time where we just happened to have a use for them, but honestly speaking I feel tempted to just add them to Lucky's meal plans."

Unlike materials such as phasewater that were both valuable, powerful and widely applicable, a lot of other exotic materials were not as useless.

For example, there were exotics on the list that were only relevant to aquatic mechs.

There were also other valuable rocks and metals that didn't even have any useful properties for mechs. Their main use in human society was to serve as materials for the creation of fine art!

"The materials might not be enough for us to build or upgrade mechs, but they can still be used to develop powerful new equipment." Gloriana mentioned. "If nothing else, we can sell the excess and earn an extra 150,000 MTA credits for our troubles."

Selling the high-value materials was a last resort as far as Ves was concerned. Though he was always happy to earn more money, he would rather put the plundered materials to better use. Perhaps he might make them available to the other mech designers in his employ if he couldn't find a use for them himself.

Ves smiled. "Materials aren't the only treasures that Lucky has managed to find for us. We've also obtained a small arsenal's worth of heirloom-grade weapons, shield generators and even a single-use emergency personal teleporter."

He was incredibly surprised to hear about the latter. A personal teleporter was a life-saving device that was extremely rare in second-rate states but was a lot more common in first-rate states.

Though the first-raters also possessed the technology to block the personal teleporters from doing their jobs, in general they were still highly precious tools that could save people's lives during crisis situations.

Ves was tempted to claim this personal teleportation gadget for himself, but the risks were too great. Who knew what kind of backdoors and security precautions they contained.

He didn't know how teleportation technology worked at all. How could he entrust his body and life to a piece of high technology that could contain all kinds of malicious programming?

Perhaps this teleporter might randomly transport him inside the thrusters of an active starship or dump him deep within the gravity well of a gas giant!

It was too wasteful to ignore it, though.

"Do you have a good way to examine the personal teleporter and make it safe enough for us to use?" Ves asked his wife.

Gloriana crossed her arms. "Our clan doesn't have the required expertise. You should pass it on to friendly associates and see what they can make of it. The Hex Federation has plenty of—"

"—No Hexers." Ves interrupted his wife.

"...I suppose you can give it to Master Benedict Cortez or maybe Professor Neihy Almar of Melmen Advanced Systems. We have formed a good cooperation with both."

Those were better suggestions. Perhaps Ves might be able to barter the personal teleporter along with other valuable goods for additional shares in the development company.

Ves continued to study the list of goods that Lucky had sniffed out. Though there weren't any items on the list that exceeded the value and utility of the personal teleporter, he was quite surprised by the amount of masterwork weapons that had been stored in these underground vaults.

The rich and powerful apparently had a habit of building secret arsenals where they hung up all of their finest weapons and gear onto walls.

A lot of these weapons tended to be older relics that the ancestors of the owners utilized in the past.

The technology of these old guns were horribly outdated. Some vaults even stored heirloom weapons that dated back to the Age of Conquest!

Though the stories behind these historical weapons weren't entirely clear, he held serious doubts about whether they originated from the ancestors of their current owners.

Since they undoubtedly came from a time before the Friday Coalition existed, it was anything but certain that they had any ties to the Gaugers or the Fridaymen!

"Maybe their owners are collectors."

Regardless of the providence of these ancient heirlooms, Ves was incredibly interested in getting his hands on them. His growth-oriented design philosophy made him sensitive to all sorts of products that got used and taken care of over many years.

If Ves' suspicions were correct, at least a part of these ancient guns and tech might contain the remnants of their past owners.

Ves could study the spiritual remnants and experiment on them in order to deepen his theoretical framework and gain a better idea on how to handle the reconstruction of the Shield of Samar.

Perhaps it might be useful to practice a new approach by attempting to upgrade all of these outdated heirlooms to modern standards.

"A part of the gear retrieved from the vaults are masterworks." Gloriana pointed out. "These are great research materials for me. Make sure to reserve them for my use. I have never ceased my attempts to figure out how to increase my chances of making a masterwork mech."

"Got it." Ves nodded. "By the way, our retrieval parties also pulled out plenty of data storage devices from the vaults. Most of the contents are encrypted and will take a lot of time to crack. I wonder what they contain."

His wife rolled his eyes. "Don't get too excited. The members of powerful families and dynasties don't tend to store any incriminating data in their vaults, so don't expect to find any shocking news. These sorts of people typically fill up their data chips with ledgers, historical records, family trees, ancient contracts and so on. While this sort of data and information still has a certain amount of value, you are better off with passing them on to DIVA."

"Hmm… I suppose you're right."

It only makes sense to hold onto this specific data if Ves had plans to target the Fridaymen in the future.

If he was hellbent on waging war on the Friday Colonies, then it would definitely be useful to meddle in the internal politics of his enemies!

Ves had no plans to waste his time on tormenting the Fridaymen any further. He did not mind it if he could exploit their weaknesses again, but it currently wasn't profitable for his clan to launch another attack on the Friday Colonies.

The Trailblazer Expedition was of much greater significance to him. As far as he was concerned, Operation Saturday Market turned out to be a fruitful practice exercise to his clan.

The Larkinsons not only confirmed their strength and ability to respond to threats.

They also grew and matured in many ways, allowing them to become a lot more prepared to handle future crises in the future!

"How long will our forces remain on the surface?" Gloriana asked. "Numerous scattered Fridaymen fleets have already entered the star system. They're currently consolidating their forces, but it will only be a matter of time before they are ready to launch a counterattack."

As much as she enjoyed the fact that the Fridaymen got beat up in this operation, she still prioritized the safety of her children.

"It won't take long anymore. Our schedule hasn't changed. If nothing unexpected happens, we'll pull out in six hours."

"I am sure the locals will erupt in celebration as soon as we have made our departure." Gloriana quipped.

The locals would be glad to see the plunderers and raiders leave their ruined homes. They all wanted this nightmare to end!