The Mech Touch

"You already know about the Storm Sword that I am working on." Ketis began first as she nonchalantly polished the blade of her large and intimidating Bloodsinger. "The design project is still in its early stages as I spent most of my time on completing the Stormblade Samurai. I wanted to see my latest work in action in order to confirm that stormblade technology lives up to its promises and can provide our swordsman mechs with a more effective way to drain transphasic shields."

As the recent battle clearly showed, the dozen or so Stormblade Samurais amply met her expectations for this new tech!

"I noticed." Ves responded as he leaned forward as he showed greater interest. "Those stormblades are indeed capable of destabilizing transphasic energy shields more effectively than normal weapons. I also noticed that the Stormblade Samurais drained their energy reserves a lot faster in order to keep their weapons electrified."

Ketis sighed. "That is an unavoidable downside to using stormblade technology. To be honest, I tuned up the power of the stormblade in order to help them break through energy shields faster, but that has caused their operational times to drop by half."

"So how do you propose to deal with this problem with the Storm Sword?"

"I have been thinking about asking Master Benedict to contribute to the design."

That caused the other mech designers to look a bit surprised.

"His help doesn't come for free, Ketis." Ves seriously told her. "While we are friends with him, he will expect us to reciprocate In exchange for his services. Are you sure it is worthwhile to call upon his help for this specific project?"

Ketis nodded. "I am. The Storm Sword has the potential to become one of the potent and effective melee shield breaker model in our mech roster. Don't forget that the Stormblade Samurai doesn't make use of any phasewater. It is able to damage energy shields with increased effectiveness by relying solely on electrifying its blades in a special manner. Once we incorporate this tech in a transphasic sword, I think it is not a dream for the Storm Sword to become a bane of all warships."

While Ves was not certain whether stormblade technology could effectively be combined with phasewater technology, Ketis sounded confident enough that it was probably feasible.

The synergy would actually be great if her ambition worked out! Stormblades were highly effective against energy-based defenses while solid phasewater blades were most effective against physical defenses.

Ves eventually bought into the proposal. "I will allow you to bring Master Benedict as long as you can win him over. Who else do you want to contribute to this project? Mind you that I must be involved as well."

"Why?" Ketis frowned.

"Because of the mech ecosystem that we just talked about, remember? I am not kidding when I say that I plan to implement a much more expanded version of a living mech to all of the mechs that are part of the same ecosystem. I can't explain what I have in mind right now because I still need time to complete the framework, but it will be better and more comprehensive than anything you have seen me make before."

The swordmaster looked dubiously at Ves. "Okay... anyway, if this is the case, then I would like to bring Tifi and Sara onboard as well. Both of them have worked on the design of the Stormblade Samurai so they are already highly familiar with the sort of mech that I have in mind next. I originally wanted to include Juliet as well, but if you insist in meddling with my design, then I suppose I will have to settle for less than stellar mobility."

Compared to other possible mechs of the upcoming mech ecosystem, the Storm Sword would likely possess the greatest lethality at close range while also possessing respective staying power courtesy of Master Benedict Cortez.

However, the Storm Sword would likely feature adequate defenses and uninspiring mobility.

All of this was relative, of course. The heightened standards meant that the Storm Sword would still be a lot tougher and faster than the Second Sword in every way!

Ves was satisfied with this modified proposal. He had high hopes for this mech as it was set up to become the ideal flanking mech model.

So long as the enemy did not have any chance of focusing the bulk of their firepower at the Storm Swords, the new Swordmaiden-exclusive mechs would chop everything apart!

Once the discussion on the Storm Sword concluded, Ves decided to introduce his own mech proposal.

He first activated a projection that showed a recording of the previous battle. It focused entirely on the 15,000 mechs that had spread out and tried to close in on the distant fleet of alien warships.

"You should all be familiar with this sight." He said. "While it is true that we have won this battle with 'minimal' casualties, the lives of our mech pilots are too precious to squander on the native alien version of cannon fodder. It is not worth it to sacrifice hundreds of highly trained Larkinson mech pilots to defeat scores of lesser alien warships. While I have many ideas on how we can reduce the loss rate in future battles, I have an idea that is highly flexible and can be utilized against many different types of adversaries."

The projection changed to show a rudimentary draft design of a thin and unarmored mech frame.

"This is only the basic platform. Look at what comes next." Ves grinned and waved his hand.

The mech suddenly gained a lot of additional mass. Six bulbous constructs had been attached to the frame on all sides, which added a lot of protection on each side.

However, these constructs weren't meant to remain attached to the mech frame.

The projected image shifted as the constructs separated from the mech platform and started to hover around it in different formations!

"Those are autonomous spurs!" Dulo Voiken called out. "Are you actually thinking about designing a drone mech of sorts this time, sir?"

Ves nodded. "Yes. I know that the use of spurs is not always reliable, but hear me out. What you see before you is the Fey Project. Different from the Minerva Project that it is based upon, this command mech is solely designed to command and coordinate its linked spurs which 1 call fey. These fey are not ordinary drones. There are two distinct and unique features to them that make them extremely useful to our clan."

Everyone listened with great interest to his explanation. It was not common to field mechs like these as spurs tended to be fragile, unreliable and needlessly complex.

While Ves was familiar with all of these disadvantages, he was convinced that he could make it work!

The projection changed to zoom in on the drafted version of a fey. Its appearance and technical aspects did not look remarkable. The only noteworthy aspect was that it mounted a luminar crystal gun.

"One of the functions of the fey is to increase the volume of fire of our mech force, but that is only the most basic requirement. What I truly want is to turn them into effective decoys. That is why they are called fey. They are designed with trickery and deception in mind. I want them to trick every enemy we come across and draw lots of enemy fire, particularly warship fire. Every shot that is fired towards a fey is another attack that is not able to land on a piloted mech."

The fey in the image started to activate its inbuilt projector that surrounded its form with a realistic illusion of a Bright Warrior mech!

The false mech was even armed with a luminar crystal rifle, which could perfectly align with the luminar crystal gun of the fey so that it could fire actual energy beams without breaking the facade!

Although the gathered Journeymen looked slightly impressed at this idea, Miles Tovar shook his head.

"If spurs like these could function as highly realistic and effective decoys, drone mechs such as your Fey Project would have been more common in the mech market. It is too difficult to fool enemies for too long."

Ves smirked. "That is true in ordinary cases, but recall the battle scenario that I just showed earlier. Enemy sensors are much less capable of distinguishing reality from falsehood at longer ranges and under heavy interference. Even if the fey cannot maintain the illusion at shorter ranges, it doesn't matter too much as they have already served their primary purpose at that time. What matters is that the expendable fey draw as much enemy fire away from our much more precious mechs during the approach phase of every space battle."

This might actually work in those cases. While more sophisticated and technology advanced enemies had a much higher chance of penetrating the camouflage, everyone figured out that this implementation would be extremely effective against weaker opponents such as the wheednar warships!

"These 'fey' can do more than attract enemy fire." Gloriana said with an enthused gleam in her eyes. "They can also be used to give our opponents a mistaken impression of our total combat power! So long as the illusions hold, an enemy may think we are about to attack them with 50,000 mechs as opposed to just 10,000 mechs. The threat they pose on enemies is completely different! Our targets may even lose so much confidence that they have decided to give up the battle before it has even started!"

That would be a fantastic outcome! Enemies that have dropped all organized resistance in order to flee like cowards were much easier to roll over!

This was only a dream scenario, though. It was still extremely difficult to turn this into a reality!

"As long as we are facing enemies that are familiar with mechs, it is extremely difficult to maintain this camouflage." Miles told everyone. "It only takes a single flaw to allow our enemies to distinguish the real mechs from all of the fey that are pretending to be bigger than they actually are. It also becomes exponentially more difficult for the fey to serve as effective decoys at closer ranges."

"That is why I want you to take part in the Fey Project, Miles."

"Pardon?"

"Your specialty makes you good at emission control. What I want from you is to reduce the emissions of the mech platform and increase the emissions of the fey to maximize the probability that the enemy will target the latter. Can you do that?"

Miles looked rather interested at the prospect of helping Ves turn this mech concept into a reality.

"I will do so if you will have me. It is not what I ordinarily do, but I think I can make the fey appear close to a real mech to enemy sensors."

"Good." Ves looked satisfied. "Your work is key to making the Fey Project work. Its value will be a lot more discounted if the fey cannot convincingly pretend to be mechs.

He did not want to resort to the more obvious Journeymen all of the time. He had to make sure that all of the lead designers had an opportunity to shine in the Design Department.

He moved on to explaining the second key characteristic of the spurs of the Fey Project.

"Now, part of what can make the deception more convincing is if the fey can move and fight close to a real piloted mech. Even if they drop the illusion, they must still be excellently controlled in order to maximize their damage and survival rate. The mech platform must also maintain reliable connections to all of its fey, which can be very challenging at times. I have devised a special solution that can solve all of these problems."

"And that is..."

"I intend to make all of the fey alive." Ves replied with a smirk. "Each mech platform is a living mech by itself, but all of the fey that it can pair with are independently alive as well! In effect, every pilot of the Fey Project will be in charge of multiple living machines!"

"What?!"