The Mech Touch

Ves took a rare excursion to orbit. A hefty guard force consisting of both Avatar and Kronon mechs surrounded his heavily-armored shuttle as it climbed from the surface.

Neither the Avatars nor the Ylvainans were complacent when it came to the safety of Ves! Past events had already shown that his life was far from secure.

With over a hundred mechs acting as an honor guard, every other traffic automatically made way as they received new instruction from traffic control.

The shuttle eventually docked with an orbital shipyard. Though it wasnʼt particularly large or impressive, it was the best that Ves could hire in the Kesseling System.

After Ves, Lucky, Nitaa and a lot of other guards emerged from the shuttle, they moved to the heart of the shipyard.

A director met them on their way.

”How long will it take to complete the overhauls to the Scarlet Rose?” Ves asked.

”Four months at the very least.”

”Thatʼs too long.” Ves frowned. ”From the size of your shipyard and the amount of people who work here, a typical overhaul shouldnʼt take more than two months.”

”The proposals offered by your men are very difficult to work with, Your Excellency.” The director nervously admitted. ”Our engineers and shipwrights have never worked on a ship so advanced. Just the issue of shipping the rare exotics and other materials to us is a significant burden. Both the Sand War and Komodo War have disrupted the supply and transportation of many critical materials.”

Ves remained unmoved. ”I didnʼt come all the way up here to listen to your excuses. Trade may have disrupted, but it hasnʼt stopped entirely. I think there should definitely be a way for your shipyard to obtain the materials you need. Perhaps you can correspond with the Curins, starting with Madame Cecily Curin. Iʼm sure theyʼll be able to expedite the necessary procurements.”

”Thank you, Bright Martyr!”

”Please donʼt call me that.”

They finally entered the massive drydock hall where the Scarlet Rose rested in the very center.

The hall was designed to accommodate much larger ships up to massive freighters and cargo haulers. The Scarlet Rose looked fairly compact for this reason, but only from afar. Once they came close, the grandness of the mobile supply frigate became evident.

Though a frigate was a fairly small class of starship, the Scarlet Rose still towered over humans as well as mechs!

The tonnage of the starfaring vessel was astounding, and the materials that made up her structure and armor layers could all be used to produce enough second-class mechs to form a full mech company!

The value of the Scarlet Rose was inestimable to Ves. She became an essential asset to him ever since he managed to steal her from the Fridaymen.

The sheer utility and prestige he gained from owning such a potent vessel was enough to make Ves ecstatic.

The potentially-infinite Breyer alloy production loop skyrocketed the Scarlet Roseʼs value by at least a hundred times, if not more!

There was no way Ves could afford to neglect the Scarlet Rose! The constantly-renewing mysterious escape pod had become an absolute point of focus for his future plans!

Due to the extremely sensitive nature of the mysterious escape pod, only his most trusted subordinates were allowed to approach the mech workshop and the surrounding compartments.

The shipyard engineers and technicians were only allowed to work on the periphery of the ship! Everything else that Ves and his underlings deemed sensitive could only be accessed by the Battle Criers!

While this slowed down much of the work, Ves would rather be safe than sorry. Perhaps it wasnʼt unreasonable that it would take at least four month to complete the renovation of the ship.

She was worth the wait, Ves thought as he looked up and admired the half-exposed ship. Plenty of workers and bots crawled over the Scarlet Roseʼs surface in order to remove the damaged armor plating.

If the damage was light, then the holes and other damage could still be reversed to some extent. If the damage was too deep, then the shipyard had no choice but to send the broken parts to a recycling plant in order to recover some of the materials needed to build replacement parts.

As Ves was technically literate, he understood most of the processes that had to take place to renovate the Scarlet Rose.

The main goals of these overhauls was to increase the security of the ship and to remove as many Fridaymen systems as possible that possessed a high risk of containing backdoors.

Michael Crindon played an essential role in reforming the security systems of the ship. He also became the main person in charge of cordoning off and increasing the security of the production loop.

Ves met with his Kinner security expert near the original compartment which held all of the escape pods.

The structure already looked much different from here. New bulkheads had been erected where there was previously empty space. Access to the site where Cassandra Breyerʼs escape pod appeared over and over again became a lot more difficult.

”Iʼm glad to see at least some work has already been done.” Ves commented with satisfaction.

”Meow.”

”Go ahead.” Ves sighed.

Lucky instantly raced off and phased through the bulkhead in order to access the small stockpile of Breyer alloy in the next compartment.

”Tell me what youʼve managed to accomplish.”

”We directed most of our Kinner technicians to rearrange the layout of this deck.” Crindon explained and swept his arms towards the newly-added structural components. ”We have cut off almost every path between the site of importance and the rest of the ship, including the mech workshop. In order to maintain and increase the ʼloopʼ, weʼve cleared out all of the escape pods in the original compartment. This provides us with enough space to add the forging machine as well as an independent power supply to keep the machine going without drawing a suspicious amount of power elsewhere.”

This meant that a bot programmed to haul the mysterious escape pod to a forging machine didnʼt have to cross through multiple compartments and corridors anymore.

The process of retrieving the escape pod and chucking it into a forging machine happened in seconds now that the distance between them had shrunk!

Ves left behind most of his guards and only brought Nitaa with him as he entered the area known as ʼCompartment G-13ʼ.

”G-13 here not only offers enough space for the forging machine and a power supply, but also some storage space, but not that much.” Crindon waved at the stacked bars of alloy.

Naturally, Lucky was already there and munching on his first bar as if it was made out of chocolate!

”What if this space runs out?”

”There is an exit there leading to adjacent compartments which we have also cleared out for the sole purpose of storing the Breyer alloy. Furthermore, weʼre planning on constructing an entirely new corridor that will connect to a new lift that will go straight down to the cargo bay. From there, the Breyer alloy can be securely shipped away as long as the workers follow a tight procedure.”

To Ves, it wasnʼt the best way to keep the production loop a secret, but Ves didnʼt have the time or resources to implement a better arrangement.

If Ves wanted to keep the production loop absolutely secret, then he would turn the Scarlet Rose into a massive vault and replace most of her structure with the densest sensor-blocking exotics he could find. Then, he would stash it deep underground in a chamber made of even more sensor-blocking materials!

However, that was not only prohibitively expensive, but also made it difficult to move his ship if some kind of emergency took place.

Therefore, after a discussion with Crindon, Ves decided to hide the Breyer alloy production loop in plain sight by operating the Scarlet Rose as his new flagship.

Ves and Crindon had already planned ahead to explain the supply of Breyer alloy. They would simply dispatch the Scarlet Rose to an undisclosed location. From there, the ship returned with a batch of Breyer alloy.

They didnʼt have to explain anything further. Those who watched the movements of his ship would conclude that the Scarlet Rose had been dispatched to pick up a shipment from some trader or black market organization. The latter was much more likely because the conventional supply of Breyer alloy was very limited!

In other words, those who questioned where the Breyer alloy came from would simply fill up the gaps with their own guesses.

Since the Scarlet Rose was a very fast ship, it was extremely difficult for most watchers to keep up with her.

Those that were able to do so would definitely be noticed by the Scarlet Rose.

All of these arrangements meant that there was a high possibility this ruse might work?

As for how Ves could possibly pay for all of those valuable exotics.. that was another matter that he intended to keep in the dark.

Perhaps he paid with all of the cash he earned from the LMC. Perhaps he designed secrets mechs for insanely lucrative rewards. Perhaps he made a connection with a very powerful organization.

In this way, Ves and Crindon set up a strong but not too complicated ruse that ʼexplainedʼ where all of the Breyer alloy came from. People would never suspect the alloy was actually being ʼproducedʼ right inside Compartment G-13!

Ves inspected the loop in action. After the forging machine underwent a round of tests and self-diagnostics and found nothing amiss, it became open for business again.

Once the inner chamber heated up, a specially-designed bot remotely lifted the mysterious escape pod from the tube, which had been completely blocked on the other end, and dropped it into the forging machine.

A strange shockwave of discordant spirituality suddenly swept Vesʼ body. He became alarmed, especially when he figured out that the shockwave originated from the forging machine!

”Did you feel that?” Ves warily asked.

”I.. did not experience anything unusual, sir.”

”Did you feel as if a wave of energy crashed through your body? Did you feel a spark on your body as if you were being shocked by static electricity?”

Crindon shook his head in confusion. ”I have not experienced any of those sensations.”

Ves turned to Lucky. ”What about you, buddy?”

”Meoow..”

His cat only had eyes for his Breyer alloy! Lucky was already starting to devour a second bar! What a gluttonous beast!

”How is the rest of the overhaul going?”

”Weʼve learned a lot from our prior overhaul of the Barracuda, sir. We arenʼt groping in the dark this time because we are already aware of which ship parts we have to alter or replace. Your.. partner.. has also been helpful in pointing out what needs to be changed, particularly on the software level. Without this additional help, we would have been forced to hire extra security experts or downgrade the ship.”

All in all, it sounded as if his men had the Scarlet Rose well in hand. While they werenʼt capable of fulfilling all of his wishes, at least nothing went wrong.

The only concern that plagued Ves was any changes relating to Cassandra Breyer.

What if she worked to free herself from this loop? What if she intended to exact revenge when she finally became free?

Just the spiritual shockwave emanating from the forging machine upon the mysterious podʼs destruction was enough to prove that the situation could change!

Perhaps Ves couldnʼt be as hands off as he wanted. Was it really necessary to look into Cassandra Breyer?

As Ves stared at the forging machine decomposing the escape pod into its constituent materials, he had a hunch that Cassandra had to warm up and show her might.

What if she was able to exert more power? Ves would definitely have to endure some sort of spiritual attack, one that might be beyond his means to solve! He had no confidence in his simple spiritual shield!