The Mech Touch

Ves did not have much luck with missing person cases.

At least in person, Ves had abjectly failed in retrieving any notable person that went missing.

He had made numerous attempts to look for Alloc Brandstad, Mayra, Solok Reyva and other people, but he had failed each time.

A number of those failures hit him harder than others. His lack of success in these endeavors taught him how difficult it was to find someone.

Space was too big!

Millions if not billions of star systems were spread out across regions of space. Each of those star systems were like miniature universes in themselves as they featured a large range of planets, moons, asteroid belts and possibly anomalous spaces.

The odds of finding a missing fleet let alone a single missing individual was so slim that the Yorul-Tavik Clan shouldn't get its hopes up. Even if thousands of greedy pioneers had swarmed the border area that sat between the Krakatoa Middle Zone and the Zelmar Upper Zone, the majority of them would probably return empty-handed.

The Golden Skull Alliance likely wouldn't have any better luck either, but that was fine. The journey was more important than the destination. There were plenty of other interesting planets and curiosities that the expeditionary fleet could explore while looking out for the missing lord.

In truth, Ves wanted to try a bit harder to succeed in this mission. His past failures in finding the aforementioned missing individuals stained his conscience and unsettled him more than he wished.

He could go a long way in resolving this source of pain if he could actually succeed in rescuing a person that he set out to find.

Of course, the premise of all of this was that Lord Pearian Yorul-Tavik still remained alive.

"Do you think that guy is still kicking after all this time?" Ves asked Calabast just before the end of his visit to the Blinding Banshee.

Calabast confidently smirked. "Don't underestimate the survival ability of rich and powerful scions. The man might not be good at preserving his fleet, but his core team of bodyguards as well as his access to the best first-class equipment provided by his clan should allow him to survive between the cracks for a long time. We should worry more about the possibility that other pioneers will find Lord Paerian first."

The mission along with all of the rich rewards promised by the Yoruk-Tavik Clan would come to an end as soon as a lucky pioneer brought the missing lordling back to civilized space.

Even so, there should still be plenty of other reasons to stay in the border region a little longer. The prospect of stumbling upon derelict first-class ships and mechs was attractive enough to hold his interest.

"By the way, is there any word about the enemy force that has driven Lord Pearian's pioneering fleet to such a dire state?" Ves asked.

"According to sources, Lord Pearian's fleet encountered a nunser warfleet in the deep frontier. The aliens developed such an animosity towards the human pioneering fleet that they did not hesitate to persist in chasing their targets towards human territory. Though an MTA fleet eventually managed to intercept and destroy the nunser vessels, the mechers arrived too late."

"I see."

The MTA was strong, but the new frontier was way too big to adequately cover every region. The mechers didn't even bother to stay around to find the missing lordling as the task was beneath their station.

The nunsers were certainly powerful. In fact, they were among the most dominant of the major alien races of the Red Ocean.

However, the nunsers also possessed a highly communal and collectivist culture and rarely engaged in subterfuge or sneaky actions. It was unlikely for them to dispatch a powerful ship of theirs that was lingering in the border region, especially when they had already destroyed the fleet of the humans that attracted their hatred.

Ves was more concerned about the friction that might ensue if he bumped into any human forces, but it was rare for any of them to have any ace mechs in their lineup.

As long as Patriarch Reginald and the Mars remained available, ordinary pioneers could no longer pose a threat to the Golden Skull Alliance!

When Ves returned to the Spirit of Bentheim, he transmitted a brief message to various leaders in order to notify them of this potential opportunity.

They agreed to discuss this matter during a future meeting after the expeditionary fleet returned to Davute.

Right now, many people were still preoccupied with handling the affairs of the previous battle and operation.

For example, Ves had to preside over a meeting between all of the Journeymen of the Larkinson Clan.

Everyone had picked up a lot of gains over the course of the Battle of Pima Prime. Ves and all of the other mech designers discovered serious shortcomings about the performance of their existing mechs, gained a lot of inspiration from seeing the enemy mechs in action and developed a lot of new ideas for future mech design projects.

Since every mech designer was different, Ves and the others found it desirable to share and exchange their insights with each other.

When Ves entered the conference room, everyone else had already taken their seats.

He took his seat beside his wife and glanced at the faces.

Old and familiar figures such as Ketis and Juliet looked relaxed while the newer faces such as Miles Tovar, Merril O'Brian and Cormaunt Hempkamp looked a bit out of place.

The latter three had yet to make any contributions to the Larkinson Army. The previous battle didn't feature any mechs that they had designed because they had advanced too recently to make significant contributions to any design project.

Even so, they could still learn a lot by listening and taking part in this discussion.

"Alright." Ves broke the silence. "All of you know why we are here. The main goal of this meeting is to evaluate the performance of our products and figure out what has worked and what hasn't worked. If there is a case of the latter, then I hope that we can go into further detail to figure out the reasons behind a shortcoming and how we can remedy that in the future. Before we address any specific mech model or design in particular, do any of you have any general impressions about our mech roster and force makeup that you wish to share?"

A few hands shot up. Ves gestured towards one of the new faces.

"Cormaunt, you can go first. You have joined our ranks the latest, so you should have retained your outsider's perspective. What do our forces look like in your eyes?"

It was not a coincidence that Ves first gave the word to the mech designer with the lowest seniority among the gathering. He wanted to integrate the newer lead designers into the clan and Design Department as quickly as possible. Engaging them in constructive activities was a great way to speed up their assimilation.

Mr. Hempkamp briefly blinked as if he did not expect to be the center of attention so soon. He soon regained his composure, fortunately.

"From my time in our clan, I have already learned that the main emphasis of our clan lies in space combat. I have already adjusted my expectations on the performance of our mechs when we brought them down to the surface. Once they started to fight against the local defenders, I found that their performance was worse than I anticipated. In my judgment, the mech pilots are well-trained if not entirely comfortable with landbound operations, but their mechs simply possess too many hindrances in a planetary environment."

No one exhibited any surprise when they heard this evaluation.

Ves sighed. "Our mechs are far from reaching the technological standards of first-class multipurpose mechs. We have to make hard choices in a circumstance where we never have enough carrier vessels to bring along enough mechs. We have all made the decision to focus on designing spaceborn mechs that can also function decently on land and in the air when needed. Sure, the mechs don't look graceful at all when operating in the latter two environments, but at least they still retain enough battle power, and that is what matters the most."

"Understood. This is a difficult dilemma. I agree with your choice."

"Do you have any other general ideas that you wish to share, Cormaunt?"

"Yes. As you all know, I specialize in developing neural interfaces. I have carefully studied how our mech pilots are able to operate different mechs through the standard neural interface that you have selected in the past, and I can already state with confidence that the performance of every Larkinson mech can be elevated by at least 5 percent if I equip them with more tailored and optimized neural interface models."

Gloriana became engaged in this topic. "We shouldn't wait until we start new design projects that are centered around overhauling our existing mech models to replace their older neural interfaces with newer ones. Our mech pilots deserve better. The sooner their mechs are updated with better neural interfaces, the less casualties we will suffer in the next battles. Cormaunt, can you update all of our existing mech designs in batches?"

The man had already thought about this matter, so he quickly nodded.

"I can. There is almost no technical challenge involved with replacing one neural interface model with another one in a given mech design. The only matter that takes time is designing the optimized neural interfaces that best compliments every unique mech design. In order to save time, I think it is best if I limit my work to the base models of every large mech line. There are too many variants for me to take care of in person. It would be better if I have a team of Apprentices working for me that can take over this burden."

Ves looked interested. "That is actually a good idea. I will leave you in charge of that. From now on, I want every product that comes out of our Design Department to feature a neural interface model that truly fits the design. We need to hold ourselves to higher standards. We have always emphasized quality over speed or volume, and I do not want to cut corners when we can clearly do better. Mr. Hempkamp, please see if you can hire a team of Apprentices in Davute that can assist you in your work."

The other Journeyman looked seriously. "There are not many Apprentices that possess the required certifications to work on neural interface technology, but we should be able to incentivize them into working for us as long as we promise enough benefits."

"Then do that. We aren't short on money and I am more than willing to invest in essential talent."

The clan should have done this earlier, but it was not too late to plug this gap.

"Do you have anything else to say?"

"No. Not for now." Cormaunt replied.

"We appreciate your input." Ves smiled. "Don't hesitate to say anything if you feel your opinion can benefit everyone. Our clan isn't strict on sharing feedback, whether it is positive or negative. We are all mech designers here, and designing stronger and better mechs is what matters the most. If people like myself aren't able to take a hit, then we have no business aiming for the top of our profession."

While it was fairly easy to maintain a close and intimate atmosphere among the Journeymen of the Larkinson Clan at the moment, Ves knew that it wouldn't last forever.

As more Journeymen joined the clan and as the first Seniors began to emerge from the ranks, the changes would likely lead to a shift in culture and norms that would make the discussions a lot more formal and stilted.

Whether this was a good or bad development remained to be seen, but Ves wanted to cherish these moments as much as possible while this period lasted.