The Mech Touch

Now that he handled the most urgent issue, Ves tried to converse with Venerable Stark about other topics.

"So…" He trailed as he sat next to the expert pilot on the bench. "Have you thought about starting up a relationship with someone? Many of our clansmen including our expert pilots who were previously single have married and gotten kids by now. Each of them have become happier and gained more fulfillment in their lives as a consequence."

Venerable Stark shifted her gaze from her fishing line to pin Ves with her sharp eyes.

"That is their business, not mine. Don't try to persuade me to move on from the past and join your clan by marrying one of your Larkinsons.  I have forsaken all of my thoughts about starting a new family. There is no void inside me that needs to be filled by this redundant distraction. Only my hatred drives me forward. I have little room for love or affection in my heart, and that little space is already occupied by my Amaranto."

Ves wanted to palm his face. He still believed that her insane crusade against the Big Two was doomed from the start. There was no way she could ever threaten the Mech Trade Association and the Common Fleet Alliance when both organizations were at their heyday!

At least Venerable Stark was sane enough to remain discreet while she was traveling with the Larkinson Clan.

Many people in human space did not hold back in criticizing the Big Two, but that did not necessarily mean the mechers and the fleeters were so tolerant.

The idle chatter from space peasants was harmless and did not threaten the hegemony of the Big Two.

As soon as someone of greater weight and power started to speak against the current order, Ves was almost certain that the MTA and CFA would be keeping score!

This was also why Ves was partially relieved that Venerable Stark maintained a certain degree of separation from the Larkinson Clan. She was officially just a guest pilot which meant that her misdeeds would not reflect on the Larkinsons.

"Are you happy in the clan?" Ves simply asked as he gave up on persuading her to move on from her current obsession.

"I wouldn't say that I am happy." She told him. "I am… content. I have access to a strong expert mech and I am growing quickly. Sooner or later, I will grasp the strength I need to fight for the people that the vast majority of leaders ignore or disregard. By that I mean the people you have increasingly acquainted yourself with. You have moved up so quickly that you are increasingly becoming one of them. I cannot blame you for that, but it is disappointing to me that you have forgotten your roots."

Ves grew defensive after he heard her accusation.

"I have not forgotten my roots, Davia! There is nothing wrong with climbing my way up from the bottom! Everyone has ambitions, and just because I am more successful than most doesn't mean I have turned my back on my roots."

The look she gave him showed how little she believed in his statement.

"Sure, Ves. You and your clan don't seem to care at all about the third-raters you originally came from. Your latest mech designs are all second-class machines that exclusively serve your kind. Your mech company's activities back in the old galaxy have gone on life support and you have done absolutely nothing to give back to the third-rate states of your old star sector."

He sighed. "Okay, I admit that my mech company has not been releasing a lot of mechs back in the old galaxy, but it isn't as if the market over there needs our machines. Many people are doing fine without ever knowing that living mechs exist."

"And that is your excuse for abandoning the people you once professed to serve?"

"Too few mech designers in our clan have acquired PPs that allow us to radiate our influence across the Yeina Star Cluster. Also, many of our mechs designed for the Red Ocean are built to different standards and materials than what is common back in the Milky Way. It is much better and more convenient for everyone if our clan focuses on servicing our customers in the new frontier while the local mech designers over at the old galaxy attend to the needs of their own markets."

Though his argument was sound, it didn't make him look good. He could have put a greater effort into maintaining a more active business network in the Yeina Star Cluster.

Ves simply decided not to bother with this anymore. It took too much of his precious time to design or update mechs that were specifically oriented to his previous home region.

The money situation had also changed. The revenue the LMC earned in the old galaxy was only a fraction to what his mech company earned in the Red Ocean!

The paltry amount of profit generated by the LMC's business activities in the Yeina Star Cluster simply wasn't enough to fund all of the expenses of the Larkinson Clan anymore.

Ves could earn much more money starting new ventures in the Red Ocean these days!

"I don't owe anything to the people back home." Ves argued. "The Bright Republic and the Ylvaine Kingdom stabbed me in the back. The moment they deprived me of my rights is the moment when I am no longer obliged to contribute to their societies. Besides, all of these third-rate states that I have an association with have fallen under the sphere of influence of the Friday Coalition. The Fridaymen have become the rightful custodians of the entire star sector after winning the Komodo War."

Those words did not placate Venerable Stark at all. Instead, her willpower and emotions roiled even more when she thought about how much the Fridaymen had 'contributed' to the Sand War at the time.

"Be that as it may, you have become unrecognizable compared to how you were back when you still resided in the Bright Republic." She told him. "You only care about your ambitions and occasionally your clansmen. I am confident that once you climb even higher and begin to design first-class mechs, you will quickly abandon your activities in the second-class mech market even if a vastly greater amount of people have come to love and depend on your products."

"That… that's not true." Ves responded even though he inwardly admitted that this was exactly how he would proceed if this situation came to pass! "I am not going to abandon the customers who are responsible for my success and have given their support to my company for many decades. I will arrange the necessary solutions to ensure that the second-class mech market will not lose access to the products that they have come to love. I can bring up second-class mech designers who have inherited a part of my design philosophy. It is also possible for the competition to have caught up to me. In that case, there will be a lot of rival mech companies to fill the void that I have left behind."

Though Ves only thought up these solutions on the spot, he was genuinely sincere about making sure the transition would proceed in an orderly manner.

As an entrepreneur, Ves understood that it was always essential to treat both his current and former customers with sincerity.

The relationships that he had built with them in the past were still valuable in many ways even if his focus had shifted away from them. The reputation and legacy he gained from his older customers would still benefit him long after the last transaction. It was just good business.

"I hope you maintain that attitude in more ways than one." Venerable Stark said as she shifted her attention back to her fishing pole. "No matter how far you are able to go in the future, I hope that there will still be a part of you that remembers that you originally started off as a space peasant. I hope that recognition will guide your decisions and encourage you to do more for the underserved communities in human space."

"I will take that into account."

To be honest, Ves wanted to do his best to forget his humble roots. He did not hate his low birth but he definitely did not harbor any nostalgia towards those simple times.

Ves had long learned the truth that remaining at the bottom had no agency in their lives. It was horrible to go through life knowing that his circumstances could change at any time due to whimsical decisions made by the people who were sitting above his head.

After getting screwed over too many times by the mistakes and intrigues of different leaders, he had made up his mind to become one himself!

At the very least he would be able to control his own life rather than allow others to dictate his trajectory!

If that meant losing touch of his former compatriots that still remained stuck at the bottom layer of society, then so be it. Ves was not a philanthropist nor an idealist.

He was just a mech designer.

After Vesended his trip to the Wild Torch, he returned to the Spirit of Bentheim and immediately started to design a powerful new luminar crystal rifle for the Amaranto.

Since Ves was able to start this side project from scratch, he had the freedom to make fundamental design choices that would ensure the Amaranto's second rifle would be effective in situations where the expert mech's original weapon was inadequate.

In order to determine the configuration of his new luminar crystal weapon, he first needed to figure out the scenarios in which Venerable Stark might prefer to use it instead.

"The Instrument of Vengeance has decent penetration characteristics, but it does not excel in this area." Ves recalled as he brought up the design schematics of the latest version of this precision rifle. "The weapon's damage output is not as high as it could have been. I needed to make plenty of compromises to ensure that its firing rate and energy efficiency are reasonable enough to make the gun practical enough in a serious battle."

The Instrument of Vengeance certainly possessed high damage potential per individual shot, but Ves could have made it even more extreme.

There were good reasons why he refrained from going overboard, but a part of him still wondered what it would be like if he stuck to his original vision.

"Maybe… I can explore this notion anew with this side project!"

The more he thought about it, the more the idea appealed to him. The Amaranto already possessed a fairly versatile and practical weapon in the form of the Instrument of Vengeance rifle.

One of the biggest situations where it might fail was when Venerable Stark needed to strike a highly protected warship or high-ranking mech.

The firepower required to penetrate their shields and armor could reach extreme levels if the Larkinson Clan bumped into much more powerful enemies!

Increasing the fire rate or lowering the energy consumption of a weapon didn't mean anything if all of the shots failed to harm the target in the end!

Ves understood what kind of weapon he needed to design.

"I need to equip the Amaranto with a weapon that gives up everything in exchange for maximum firepower and maximum penetration!" His eyes lit up as he became flooded with ideas.. "It doesn't matter if it can only fire once every minute or if a third of the Amaranto's energy reserves are drained after a single pull of the trigger. As long as firing the shot will produce a positive result, it will be worth all of the inconveniences!"

He immediately proceeded to draft a weapon that was much larger and more exaggerated than the original Instrument of Vengeance rifle.

Whereas the older weapon still looked fairly streamlined even if it was a bit oversized relative to the mech frame, the new concept that Ves came up with could not even be called a rifle anymore.

He turned it into a luminar crystal cannon!