The Mech Touch

Ah yes, Lucky might not regard Ves favorably after getting dumped into a completely unknown alien ship.

Being forced to fend for himself when contending against confoundingly capable alien troops, getting captured by a powerful arche lord and almost getting probed from the rear by the same alien leader were plenty justifications for the gem cat to harbor a lot of resentment towards the person who put him through this ordeal in the first place!

Ves did not exactly look forward to paying a visit to Lucky at this time, but he knew it was essential to furthering his understanding of archetech.

After all, compared to examining a completely alien and unfriendly ship that was unlike anything the Larkinsons had worked with in the past, it was much more convenient to study a gem cat that had apparently assimilated the new tech!

Before he went off to the bridge of the alien vessel, he first had to fend off his wife's request.

"Look at all of this, Ves." Gloriana said as she waved her free arm across the compartment. "I have never been a fan of alien tech like you, but I am finally beginning to understand why you obsess so much over luminar crystal technology. I do not have any sympathies for the arche, but their civilization has spawned an ingenious approach towards construction that is absolutely fascinating. Have you recognized the potential of archetech in mechs as well? I am filled with inspiration at this time, and I have yet to conduct a serious study of the archeship! I can completely use this to upgrade my design philosophy and pursue a superior form of perfect vessels in my work!"

Gloriana enthusiastically babbled on about all of the aspects that she liked about archetech.

Marvaine meanwhile listened on with rapt attention. Even though he was far too young to understand his mother's technical terminology, he was happy to get caught up in his mother's passion!

"Will your mechs become shaped like turtles?"

"Oh no, my dear. That will never happen. The archemechs that I seek to make will not take on alien aesthetics. They will be similar to Lucky. Their underlying construction may be radically different, but they shall still appear and behave like the mechs that we are all familiar with. This is the essence of human technological advancement, Marvaine. Our race has a long tradition of studying alien tech and converting its advantages into our own competencies."

"Isn't that stealing, mama?"

Gloriana grinned and rocked her son around a bit. "It is, but stealing is not wrong in this case. The aliens have a deadly feud against us. Anything that causes harm to them is a good deed to humans. It is our sacred duty and honor to obtain their unique inventions and assimilate them into our own tech base. If you ever find yourself in a similar position in the future, you must make the same evaluation in order to determine whether it is right for you to steal someone else's tech. Remember this lesson carefully. Show no mercy towards the people and aliens who seek to kill you and your family!"

"Kill!" Marvaine clapped his hands and cheered.

Ves awkwardly coughed. "Ahem, let's leave this kind of lesson to me, alright? Don't stuff too many extreme opinions inside our little boy's head. As for you Marvaine, you should consider the consequences of your actions as well. One of the downsides of stealing another race's signature tech is that its original owners will get really angry at you. If our clan starts to parade around mechs made out of archemetal, I can guarantee that the arche will become so furious that they will start to send out attack fleets to punish us for our deeds."

"That's bad!"

"It is worth it in this case." Gloriana remarked. "The arche are dangerous, but they are not unmanageable once we have learned the principles of their archetech. Stealth is their greatest reliance. Once we are able to develop effective countermeasures against this tech, we will be able to claim more samples of native archetech in the future!"

That was tempting fate!

Though Ves did not necessarily object to adopting archetech on a wider scale, he did not assume that dealing with the arche would be as easy as she described.

"Let's take this situation step by step, honey. We can't figure this tech out by ourselves, so we need to employ a highly competent research group to do the work on our behalf."

"I am aware of our needs, Ves. We should transfer our archeship to the Hex Federation. There are many brilliant scientists and Master Mech Designers over there who would be happy to examine and reverse engineer archetech for free. This tech can revolutionize their tech as well as ours! Even if the most essential secrets will eventually leak to the rest of red humanity's society, we will still be a step ahead of the rest of our competition!"

Ves immediately shook his head. "That is not a good idea, Gloriana. I know the Hexers are friends and all, but they are still second-raters for the most part. The sophistication of archetech exceeds what they can comfortably handle. It may take three to five times as long for the best Hexer researchers to figure out anything useful from this alien ship. I am more in favor of presenting the archeship to one of my first-class contacts."

"What?! You can't do that! The Hexers are more than qualified to undertake these research projects!"

The married couple argued with each other as usual.

Marvaine rolled his eyes scrambled out of his mother's arms and began to join his sister and Clixie into exploring the funny looking alien devices.

Though Gloriana was adamant about transferring the archeship to the Hex Federation, she did not have the right to decide upon this matter.

"I've already spoken to Marshal Ariadne Wodin about this matter." She stated. "My aunt will back me up on this. She recognizes the value of this alien tech as well. We need all of the advantages we can get to gain the upper hand against the Friday Colonies."

It was absurd for Gloriana and the Hexers to continue to obsess over the Fridaymen when all of humanity had greater enemies to worry about!

Many of the feuds between rival human powers had become irrelevant as far as Ves was concerned. Though he understood that the Hexers would never be able to get rid of their grudge, it was a bit excessive to still be obsessed about preparing for war against the Fridaymen!

Ves grew tired of dealing with his wife. "At least half of the archeship belongs to the Larkinson Clan, which in practice means me. I only need to gain the support of one other alliance partner to decide where to send this prize. I think we'll be able to obtain much better and faster results if we send it to a first-class organization like the Eden Institute. Don't argue with me on this. My decision is already set. I'm going off to check up on Lucky."

He left the compartment before his wife could resume her futile persuasion attempt. He navigated through the corridors before he ended up in a control center that pretty much functioned as the bridge.

The chamber contained over a dozen constructs that possessed the typical half-oval-shaped cavities.

Each of them were normally designed to be interfaced by aliens with archeshells, but Ves was greeted with an exception at this time.

The cute white-suited form of Aurelia currently stood in front of a central depression that currently held a certain gem cat.

Despite not fitting into the large bowl shape at all, Lucky still managed to reluctantly interface with the archeship by virtue of his limited physical contact onto the surface!

"Does it hurt, Lucky?" the young girl asked.

"Meow..." The recently transformed mechanical construct responded.

"Mew mew mew." Mana rested on top of Lucky's archemetal body and licked his brand-new exterior plating.

As Ves walked closer, Lucky immediately started to hiss and issue his complaints.

"Meowwww!"

"Hey, I don't see why you are so mad! It all worked out for you as far as I can see. That is a cause for celebration, not complaint! I'm not entirely sure what it means to convert your body to archemetal, but I can easily guess that you've become a lot stronger now! You'll be able to do a lot better in future infiltration missions. I think you won't need to be careful and skulk around anymore when you sneak in another archeship in the future. You can use your newfound control over archetech to immediately mess around with the vessel!"

Lucky's response to his words was immediate.

"Meow!..."

The artificial gravity at Ves' exact position suddenly reversed. This caused his armored form to lift off the deck and 'fall' onto the ceiling!

"Ouch! Hey, that's uncalled for! I know you are not exactly feeling well at the moment, but you don't have to take it out on me, Lucky!"

The local gravity suddenly turned normal again, causing Ves to slam right back onto the deck!

"Okay, you have your fun. Stop fooling around, okay? How much control do you have over the ship, anyway?"

Despite Lucky's demonstration of control, the cat did not magically obtain full command authority over the archeship.

"Meow meow meow..."

The arche were not total fools. They exercised proper information security and other common sense procedures. The arche lord along with the officers of the archeship were able to exert a lot of control over the ship because the entire hull was essentially keyed to the unique signatures of their archeshells.

It was the alien version of a biometric scan!

Ves had to admit that this was both an elegant and extremely effective security measure. Each archeshell was completely unique. No two shells could be the same because each of them were organically grown based on genes, environmental pressures, nutrition and phasewater.

So long as the arche in question did not turn traitor, it was pretty safe to tie their command access with their own shells.

This caused Ves to grow a little confused. "If this is the case, then how are you able to exert any control at all? Shouldn't the ship lock you out completely?"

"Meow meow."

"Ah, I forgot that you ate all of the archeshells of the former crew of this ship. You've been a little too ruthless in this, do you know that? According to the exobiologists over at the Dragon's Den, the survivors of your assault have completely lost their desire to live. It's pretty much impossible to extract any useful information from their mouths because they already consider themselves as walking dead."

Lucky predictably looked completely unapologetic about this. He deliberately spared the turtle aliens in order to prolong and amplify their suffering!

Aurelia walked up to her father and held up her hands towards him. "I found this, papa. They're so shiny and ugly at the same time. What are they?"

Ves suddenly lost his train of thought as he beheld the small collection of misshapen gems in his daughter's hands.

"Those are very precious gifts. I will show you what you can do with them in the future. For now, let me take them so that I can keep them safe."

He carefully took possession of all nine recently produced gems and placed them in a pocket built into his Unending Regalia.

While he definitely intended to study them in greater detail once he returned to his design lab, he could already tell that they were anything but normal based on their appearances and their descriptions!

For example, one of the gems that remained in his armored palm exuded a particular sense of threat!

[CARICAS FRAGMENT]

A semi-processed gem that inadequately contains the spiteful song of a malignant phase whale. Destabilizes all nearby phasewater and phasewater phenomena according to the emotional responses of the remnant contained within. Strong emotions may bleed over and affect the surrounding environment.