The Mech Touch

As much as Ves disliked confronting Ark on an unpleasant matter, they had to do what was necessary to clear the air between them. They could not afford to remain divided in opinion.

Ves crossed his arms and broached the matter directly. "I thought we had an understanding, uncle. You would join our clan and either hole up in the Davute Branch or join me in my expeditions in order to seek your opportunity to break through in battle. In the meantime, I would start work on a new expert mech design project that will replace your current expert mech with a supermachine that is far more powerful than the initial version of the Mars. What happened?"

Ark did not immediately answer. He looked up for a few seconds as if he needed to think on how to phrase his answer.

"Nothing happened." The older Larkinson eventually replied. "I was approached by a representative of the colony and heard out a generous proposal that just happens to fulfill all of my needs, including the ones that I was not aware of until recently. Before this meeting, I already chose to settle into the Davute Branch for several years. Joining you on your expedition makes little sense when it takes at least a year or two for me to receive your promised living expert mech. I thought I may as well reside on this planet and help the members of the Larkinson Family integrate into the clan."

"Why didn't you stick to that, then? Why throw yourself into another group's war?"

"Because it is no longer someone else's war to us, Ves. From the moment I chose to join the Davute Branch, I am also slated to become a citizen of Davute. In other words, this state will soon become my new home."

"The Larkinson Clan is supposed to be your new home. It is not a fully functioning state as of yet, but it is getting there. Davute is only a supply point in my perspective."

"I am sorry, Ves, but I have to disagree with you on this." Ark replied. "Citizenship is a serious matter. It bestows me with both rights and responsibilities. There is a universal expectation that the strong and the capable of any state must step up and come to its defense. Since I am more than able to fight in a war between different states, I feel obligated to lend my considerable skills to my new home state."

Bang!

Ves slammed his fist against the metal table in frustration! "Our clan also needs your considerable skills, you know! What happened to the notion of putting family first?! What you are doing is nothing less than favoring a stranger's fight over the legitimate needs of our clan!"

His arguments did not sway the expert pilot.

"That is where I have to disagree with you again, kiddo." Ark calmly responded as he took no notice of his nephew's outburst. "While I may be in limbo at the moment, I am constantly keeping the best interests of the Larkinsons in mind. Mind you, that does not necessarily equate to your personal interests."

"Are you just saying that in order to excuse your break in policy with me, or are you actually being serious about this, uncle?"

Ark shook his head. "Ves, Ves, Ves. You should know that I would never joke around serious matters like these. As I have stated earlier, I take my responsibilities extremely seriously. While I am looking to serve Davute as one of its new citizens, I have not forgotten my obligations to our fellow Larkinsons. I merely believe that I can best serve both of their interests by taking the generous offer extended by the government."

Ves let out a sound in frustration. "You will have to explain that to me, because from what I am seeing, your decisions will take away valuable combat assets from our expeditionary fleet."

"That is a one-sided characterization of what will happen. Let me give you the other side considering that you have conveniently neglected to mention it. First, I am bringing in more carrier vessels and more particularly fleet carriers into our clan. This is extremely important as you well know. It is almost impossible to buy them on the open market as every state is mainly concerned about deploying them into a war that will determine their future status in the Red Ocean. The best way to get more ships in this climate is to promise to help a state fight its war."

This was a simple win-win arrangement. Davute would get to deploy more forces and increase its chances of winning the war while the Larkinson Clan hopefully retained a lot of carrier vessels at the end!

"There are two flaws in the scenario that you have sketched." Ves responded in a gruff tone. "First, there is no guarantee that Davute can win the war at all. From the intelligence that I have read, Karlach is gearing up to be a considerably more militaristic state. The armed forces of Karlach will certainly not be weak and will certainly exhibit greater unity and coordination against the scattered troops of Davute."

Uncle Ark shrugged his shoulders. "The same has been said of the differences between the Friday Coalition and the Hexadric Hegemony. You know very well who won the war between the two states in our home star sector."

"Pff!" Ves snorted. "This is hardly a valid comparison! There are way more circumstances that have affected the outcome of that stupid war. If you want to bring in the conflict between the Fridaymen and the Hexers as an example, then think about this. Despite siding with the Hexers in the Komodo War, all my clan and I have done is to provide assistance by remote in the form of fulfilling mech design commissions and giving them my moral support. When the Hexadric Hegemony eventually fell, I remained safe and largely unaffected because I did not accept the invitation of the Hexers to settle my clan in their doomed state."

Of course, a more pertinent reason why Ves vehemently rejected any notion of getting further entangled with the Hexadric Hegemony was because he disliked and disagreed with the Hexers and their original culture with a passion!

Ark leaned forward and assumed a serious expression. "I understand what you are trying to say, but I am not as distrustful towards states as you, Ves. I sympathize with your bad experiences, but not everyone is at ease with pursuing a nomadic and rootless lifestyle that you are trying to propagate."

"You are anchoring yourself to a planet! You are making it harder for you to flee and escape doom in a galaxy that is filled with dozens of races that can commit genocide at a much greater scale than the sandmen back in our old star sector!"

This agitated the powerful force of will of the Larkinson expert pilot!

The discussion had reached a point where his conviction was at stake!

"If the aliens come to take away our homes, I will fight to defend the lives and livelihoods of everyone rather than forsake my duty and abandon the citizens that look up to its protectors in their time of need. Some people can only feel comfortable when they are part of a large, fixed community and when they have a life and family on a large and expansive planet. They desire this future so much that they are willing to fight for it. To you, it may seem stupid, but to individuals such as myself, this is what gives meaning to our lives."

The two Larkinsons possessed diverging perspectives. Their life experiences were too far apart from each other, causing them to develop widely different opinions and preferences.

The problem was that neither of them were the kind of heroes that conceded more easily than ordinary people. It was hard for them to give ground.

Seeing how serious and determined Ark had become about fighting for Davute, Ves was afraid that his uncle might break with the Larkinson Clan if he became stymied.

Ves took a deep breath and tried to rein in his anger and frustration.

No matter how amiable Ark behaved most of the time, he was still an expert pilot, and one that was close to becoming an ace pilot at that. This meant that he shared all of the common flaws of high-ranking mech pilots, which was that they were incredibly confident and self-righteous about their decisions!

Trying to force them to change their minds when they were set on an issue was nearly impossible. The best way to deal with them was to accept their own choices and try his best to work around their stubbornness.

"Fine." Ves spat out. "Go fight in this petty war if that is what you want. I am not going to play along with it, though. I am still preparing to resume my Trailblazer Expedition. There is an entire dwarf galaxy out there that is still untouched by humans. It would be remiss for me to miss all of the opportunities to explore the unique curiosities that the new frontier has to offer. I will be taking my starships and troops with me as well."

His uncle crossed his arms and smirked. "Not all. The Davutans should have told you already that I need to bring my own troops to the fight. I have already scoped out the rank-and-file mech pilots of the Davute Branch that are ordinarily assigned to defend our holdings on this planet. I think I can rally at least a thousand or so volunteers to fill up the positions of the two Larkinson mech regiments that will fall under my command. I still need 3000 more mech pilots along with tens of thousands of support personnel to fill up the remaining vacancies. I hope to be able to borrow them from your Larkinson Army."

Ves felt sick to his stomach. "No! Those soldiers are mine!"

"Those soldiers are not yours, Ves. Not truly." Ark shook his head in disapproval. "They are servants of the clan. They have their own wants and needs. Have you ever approached them lately and polled what they think about your current expeditions? Not all of your precious pilots are happy with the current direction of the clan. When given the choice between taking part in your expeditions and taking part in the upcoming war, I estimate that at least 15 percent of our troops are more than willing to fight by my side."

"What?!"

That was too much! Ves thought he had made certain that his clansmen learned the futility of taking part in petty squabbles between rival states. There was no reason for them to die in what amounted to a simple turf war!

However, for all of Ves' opinions, even he could be wrong at times!

"You are a fantastic mech designer, Ves, but you do not understand mech pilots like I do. I used to be like them. We trained for this, you know. There is comfort in fighting in a war that we have prepared for since the first day we stepped into the mech academy. Aside from that, the more structured battles between mech forces also gives us more consistent opportunities for us to grow our strength and break through in battle. This is not only important to myself, but also the other expert pilots in your clan."

"You talked to my expert pilots about taking part in the war?!"

"I have told you before, they are not 'your' pilots. They are members of the Larkinson Clan. They have the freedom to choose to either remain in the expeditionary fleet, or transfer to the Davute Branch. Numerous expert pilots I have spoken to have taken serious consideration on doing the latter if that is what it takes for them to put down their obligations to the expeditionary fleet and join me on my attempt to build a greater future in Davute!"

"...I think I am going to feel sick."