The Mech Touch

Although the Living Mech Corporation did not supply as much mechs to the colonial government as the bigger local players, it was undeniable that the Larkinsons offered substantial support.

It would have been nice if Ves became aware of these activities much earlier, but that was the downside to delegating a lot of decisions to other people.

The Larkinsons working in the Marketing Department, the Relations Department and the Production Department had all made important policy decisions on their own without thinking whether Ves had any objections to their proposals.

Although the government not only paid for all of the mechs at full price if they were delivered on time, it also made sure to supply all of the necessary raw materials needed to complete the large orders!

As such, he would have probably assented to these public contracts anyway, but he should have been the one to have the final say!

His wife merely crossed her arms when she heard his futile complaints.

"You are suffering from a bad case of tunnel vision again, Ves. You always fixate far too much on individual projects that you wouldn't have paid attention to even if someone brought up this matter to you. I believe that your assistant Gavin Neumann may have addressed this matter to you several months ago. You must have signaled your approval without paying full attention to the matter at hand."

That sounded a lot more plausible than Ves wished.

"You may be right, honey. I guess I need to pay more attention to this boring stuff from now on. Now that there are more indications than ever that a war is about to break out, our clan needs to be more mindful on how to navigate the worsening political landscape."

As much as Ves enjoyed a tour through his company's flagship store, this was not the principal reason why he thought it was worthwhile to pay a visit to this location.

His real purpose was to connect with his clients and customers. It had been far too long since he paid any attention to his customers on a more personal level.

It was not just about himself either. He purposefully brought his children along because he wanted them to get up to speed on how his customers utilized his living mechs and what they thought about their features!

Ves and his family eventually retired to a well-furnished room used to entertain VIPs and sat down on the comfortable and roomy couches.

Soon enough, the store manager brought in the first regular customer that he selected with great care.

The middle-aged woman wore a uniform that marked her as a mech officer from one of the many mercenary outfits headquartered in Davute.

The woman clearly felt nervous and excited, but she possessed enough control over herself to maintain a formal demeanor.

She saluted to Ves. "It is an honor to be able to meet with you in person, Patriarch Larkinson. I am Salica Yontrus, mech captain and second-in-command of Giorno's Ridebashers."

"Hihihihi!" Andraste giggled as she couldn't hold in her amusement. "Ridebashers! What does that mean!?"

For her part, Captain Yontrus responded with a smile. "There is a long story behind it. I would love to explain it to you, but I think your parents would prefer it if I talk about other topics."

"That is correct." Ves said as he picked up Andraste and sat her down on his lap to keep her in check. "First off, how long ago did your outfit buy its first LMC mech?"

"Oh… that must have been four or so years ago. It happened not too long after we arrived in the Red Ocean." The mercenary officer answered. "When we came, we noticed that the old mechs we brought from the old galaxy are serviceable, but that it would be best if we replaced them with better machines. We started our search here in Davute. We had a clear idea on what we needed. Since we prefer to complete missions on land, we mostly focused on finding good landbound mechs for us to buy. As our name suggests, we like to move quickly, so we also sought mechs that could run at good speeds."

The LMC did not have a large catalog of pure landbound mech models. Its selection was relatively limited compared to the offerings of other established mech companies. This meant that it was not the first choice that came in mind to many mech buyers who wanted to buy a large and varied batch of landbound melee mechs.

Ves continued to hug his second daughter as he asked another question.

"How did you come to consider the products of the LMC?"

"It was a coincidence, really." Captain Yontrus replied. "My boss and I had already spent days researching the mech market and visiting the showrooms of the biggest mech companies in town. We already drafted up a decent list of models that we considered looking into further, but then everything changed."

"What changed?" Marvaine curiously asked as he snuggled up to Clixie.

"Miaow?" The cat echoed.

The mercenary captain waved her arm in a half-circle. "We were walking on the streets when a pair of Planetary Guard mechs flew above our heads. They normally travel in the higher air bands, but for some reason they flew much lower than usual, causing my boss and I to become affected by their glows for the first time. It was… a life-changing experience."

Her eyes misted over as if she was recalling a cherished memory.

There was definitely a greater story behind odd reaction, but Ves didn't pry into this matter. He already had a good idea why Giorno's Ridebashers turned to the LMC.

"So our Pacifier model brought you to this store?"

"Yes." The captain replied. "When we asked around, the locals pointed us to the LMC. That was when we decided to drop our plan and head straight over here to see if all of these living mechs can produce an effect as magical as your Pacifier mechs. When we came in and explored all of the mechs on display… you can't imagine how much your work expanded our appreciation of mechs. We truly felt as if we were looking at giant, living monsters instead of plain metal machines that function like clockwork."

The woman praised the qualities of living mechs a bit more, though Ves had already heard these reasons many times before.

"Tell me about the mech models you decided to order first. Which ones did you go for as a start?"

"Well, your company does not have a lot of different mech models for sale, but it just so happened that we fell in love with the kind of mechs we needed the most. We first decided to buy your Crystal Lords. As we have mentioned earlier, we need a fast-moving ranged mech that can pose a threat at a distance. Your Crystal Lords have this weird vibe that initially made us feel weirded out, but once we got used to it, we discovered that they make their pilots more attentive and more in tune with their luminar crystal rifles."

"Interesting. Did you buy copies of any other mech models?"

"Yes. We opted to buy a single Monster Slayer. We became attracted by its relative affordability and its excellent kinesthetic design. Anyone who specializes in melee combat can just tell that whoever designed this mech understands real combat. The only fly in the ointment is the fact that it is optimized for greatswords, which we have never used in our mercenary outfit. We were skeptical whether such a large and unwieldy weapon can keep the Monster Slayer mobile and agile enough."

"And?"

"We learned that most of our assumptions were wrong." Captain Yontrus said with a happy expression. "When our melee mech pilots all tried out the single machine we ordered, they fumbled around with the greatsword at first. Yet by the time they got a few hours in, they already became a lot better at wielding this big weapon than at the start. The mech became so popular that everyone was fighting to get a turn to pilot her during live practice sessions!"

Even then, Giorno's Ridebashers managed to resist the calls to purchase additional Monster Slayers until they had proven this unique and quirky mech in actual battle.

The female mercenary officer quickly shifted her story to the first mission where her outfit had to make use of their new purchases.

"So there we were. We had been hired to reinforce a colony that was located further away from Davute on short notice. Our employers told us that they learned information that their colony would get raided by a mech force that sided with Karlach. Something about wanting to burn the settlement down to push back Davute's borders. Our Ridebashers weren't the only mercenary companies that accepted this mission. Hundreds of machines arrived and joined the defense of the colony. One of the mercenary outfits even specialized in static defense. We installed so many heavy anti-air and anti-orbital defenses that any assault from above is doomed to fail."

This was interesting. Ves already figured out that this was probably a border skirmish. In essence, the war between Davute and Karlach had already begun at this time. They just didn't announce it in a grandstanding manner for development reasons.

"Karlach eventually arrived, am I correct?"

A bloodthirsty expression appeared on the mercenary captain's face. "They did. Despite all of the reinforcements on our side, Karlach's mercenary mechs outnumbered ours by at least 5 to 2. We couldn't do much but stick close to the main settlement and rely on its favorable terrain and heavy static defenses to hold out. We couldn't defeat the invaders by ourselves. Our instructions were to hold the line and wait for additional reinforcements from Davute to arrive and drive the invaders away."

Hard fighting ensued. Though Captain Yontrus did not wish to go into too much graphic detail about the fighting, she described how well the new LMC mechs fared compared to their other machines or those from their colleagues.

"The other mercenaries on our side fought well when they were manning the walls, but sheltering them would just give the enemy to bombard us into rubble." She said. "We needed to sortie out and harass their elements further away from the settlement. This required us to approach quickly, strike hard and run away before the surrounding enemy mechs converged and cut off our escape routes. We found that many of the mechs of our rivals were only good at moving quickly or launching powerful attacks, but not both."

"Yours were different."

"Yes, to varying degrees. We found that while our old galaxy mechs could still move as quickly as always, their weapons couldn't overpower the defenses of the enemy machines as well anymore."

"Did you suffer the same problem with the Crystal Lords and the Monster Slayer?"

The captain grinned wider. "No. They are not the strongest, toughest or fastest mechs deployed on the planet, but they are just good enough in each of those areas to beat our opponents. We quickly found that our Crystal Lords can easily outfight other rifleman mechs, especially if the latter utilizes energy weapons. Our sole Monster Slayer on the other hand has turned into a beast in the hands of our best melee mech pilot. We turned it into the centerpiece of our formation."

The strategy of the Ridebashers was simple. Their Crystal Lords restrained the enemy's ranged mechs while their melee mechs mostly focused on blocking the enemy melee units as best as possible.

In theory, this allowed the Monster Slayer to move around wherever it needed to land the killing blows on vulnerable enemy machines!

"It was glorious." The woman spoke as if it was the happiest memory of her life. "The Monster Slayer ran around and evaded a lot of attacks in the process. Each time it attacked an enemy mech from the side or rear with a full swing, its greatsword dealt crippling damage. Either a limb got chopped off or the sword inflicted so much internal damage that the enemy unit became a lot weaker out of a sudden. Our other mechs easily finished off the damaged machine."

This was the horror of the Monster Slayer! Its sharp and heavy greatsword was such a formidable weapon that a good strike could overcome many defenses in an instant!

"We managed to reach the tipping point quickly. The battle started out even for both sides, but after our Monster Slayer managed to hack at four different enemy melee mechs, our adversary's frontline collapsed. After that, our Monster Slayer pursued and eventually managed to catch up to the enemy's fleeing ranged mechs."

Andraste's eyes lit up as she imagined this amazing fight in her active mind. "You chopped them all up, right!?"

"We did. Without any melee mechs forming any organized position, our greatsword-wielding machine easily struck down one ranged mech after another. We brought back so much salvage and claimed so many lucrative bounties that day that we already decided to spend every MTA credit we earned on ordering as many Monster Slayers and Crystal Lords as possible. That is the battle that started our hardcore fascination for your company's mechs."

This was a gratifying story to hear for Ves. He was happy that his company's products truly made a positive difference in the lives of his customers.

What made him even more satisfied was that he knew that this was not a unique case!

There were many more customers like Giorno's Ridebashers that managed to soar with the help of living mechs!