The Mech Touch

Ves picked up a data pad and skimmed through the intelligence that the Black Cats had gathered about the Fridayman presence on Davute.

He had always been aware that the Friday Coalition might not be finished with him, but he never took the state seriously as a result.

Despite winning the Komodo War, the Fridaymen lost a huge amount of strength, wealth and manpower.

They needed to allocate almost everything they had left just to take possession of the former territories of the Hexadric Hegemony and integrate them into their growing state.

Given all of their needs at home, how could the Fridaymen possibly transfer so many troops, resources and qualified manpower to an entirely different dwarf galaxy?

Starting a colonial adventure should never come at the cost of losing one's foundation at home!

Ves bet that pretty much all of the leaders and powerful stakeholders of the Friday Coalition still resided in the Komodo Star Sector.

Each of these leaders came from lineages that had built up their own commercial and political empires in their home state. It was in their best self-interest to avoid compromising their existing assets just to be able to plant more flags in the Red Ocean.

Ves never took the Fridayman colonies as a result. The Golden Skull Alliance had grown too strong for his old enemies to attempt another raid like the one that resulted in the Battle of Reckoning.

He expected the Friday Coalition to mind its business and stay in its own lanes while Ves went on with his business like normal.

To be honest, he couldn't care less about the hostile state. While there were still harsh feelings between the two, the heat of the moment had already passed after the Komodo War had passed.

Years had passed since the Hex Army launched millions of Valkyrie mechs and other living mechs at the mech armies of the coalition partners.

Back then, there was a real rationale for taking out Ves as his removal would directly reduce the losses suffered by the Fridayman mech forces.

Now that this was no longer the case, the Fridayman shouldn't be so eager to invest so much resources into neutralizing him. They had much better things to do with their depleted forces.

Though Ves and the Friday Coalition still had some remaining entanglements, they shouldn't be enough for either side to continue to obsess over each other.

He never expected the Fridaymen to take the initiative to contact him, though. Not this soon and not through an unexpected spokesperson like Tristan.

"Why him? Why did he come here? Shouldn't he be building up his career all the way in the old galaxy?"

Ves still possessed a decent impression of Tristan. As one of the direct disciples of Master Meredith Katzenberg, he had access to a lot more wealth and opportunities than almost every other mech designer.

Such a mech designer did not need to build a mech company from scratch nor go through desperate measures in order to carve a place in the mech industry. He just needed to follow the arrangements of his Master or use her network to gain a head-start in his own career.

A soft mech designer like Tristan Wesseling did not belong in a harsh and wild environment like the Red Ocean!

The new frontier was a turbulent place for mech designers. Plenty of them who did not possess opportunities at home had risen up from nowhere, but even more of them were beaten down by the overwhelming competition from the dominant market players.

Rather than trying so hard to achieve success in one of the most competitive mech markets in human space, Tristan would have a much better time if he competed in a market he was familiar with and could take maximum advantage of his existing connections.

However, according to the intelligence report, it did not seem that Tristan had traveled to the Red Ocean in order to start his own business or lay the groundwork for Master Katzenberg to extend her tentacles to the new frontier.

"The Friday Coalition has turned Tristan into an envoy." Calabast succinctly explained. "The goal is to secure an opportunity to bring you to the negotiating table in person in order to hold a deep and serious discussion with you. Previously, the Fridaymen had dispatched their diplomats to us, but Minister Shederin never let them go any further."

"I imagine that's for good reason. Shederin would have notified me if there was any use to talking with the Fridaymen. Is this why they decided to send Tristan this time?"

The Director of Intelligence grinned as she squished Lucky's face. The cat luxuriated in the pampering that he received.

"Correct. In truth, the situation of the Fridaymen has changed over the years. As their position has worsened, they have become more desperate to negotiate with us. Sending Tristan is a sign that they are willing to be sincere about concluding a deal that satisfies both sides."

"Oh? Tell me what's going on. Anything that makes the Fridaymen feel uneasy should be advantageous to us." Ves leaned forward in anticipation of hearing a good story.

Calabast did not disappoint on this front. The Black Cats had gathered a heap of intelligence. Combined with the analysis conducted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Larkinson Clan possessed a pretty clear picture of how the Friday Coalition was doing these days.

The spymaster quickly went over the aftermath of the Komodo War, the increasing tensions between the 'winners' and 'losers' among the coalition partners and the increasing importance of securing colonies in the Red Ocean.

The rise of phasewater technology most acutely affected the new frontier, but also had massive implications for the old galaxy.

Every state and established power that was rooted in the Milky Way needed to establish a colony in the Red Ocean in order to gain an 'internal' channel for phasewater.

If a state like the Friday Coalition was unable to found and keep their colonies in the new frontier, then it would not only have access to less phasewater than other rivals, but also be forced to buy it from alternate channels at a hefty premium!

It would not surprise anyone at all that states without their own supply of phasewater would have to pay triple the amount of money to obtain this valuable substance!

This was a massive expense and one that could seriously affect the balance of power in many star sectors and star clusters.

Now that Ves thought about it, the colonization fever had picked up as of late. A lot more pioneers had poured into the Red Ocean despite the price of passage remaining as high as ever.

Building up a presence in the Red Ocean was no longer seen as a luxury. It had become a matter of survival!

Given the increased importance of maintaining a solid presence in the Red Ocean, it made a lot more sense why the Fridaymen wanted to hold a serious talk with Ves.

This was especially the case considering the vengeful Hexer exiles could not let go of the fact that they lost the Komodo War!

His wife may have told him stories about the Hexers stirring up trouble against their Fridayman rivals in the Magair Middle Zone, but he never expected that it had reached this level!

"They're still going on about this?" Ves puzzlingly asked.

"Yes." Calabast stated. "Many of the dynasties that previously reigned over the Hegemony have successfully managed to transplant the essence of their forces and liquid assets to their new holdings in the Magair Middle Zone. They currently possess a significant force advantage over their old enemies, and have not been shy about exploiting this disparity."

"Why don't the Hexers roll over the Fridaymen colonies entirely if this is the case? I can imagine that those angry women are more than eager to exact their pound of flesh."

"They can't, Ves. The Magair Middle Zone is bigger than the Fridaymen and Hexers. There are many other pioneers that have founded their own colonies in the same region. Each of them have formed their own power blocs that each put the other in check. The reality of the situation is that every colony must constantly be protected by a sizable garrison in order to deter opportunists from launching raids."

"I see."

The Hexers probably would have loved to do nothing more than to kick the Fridaymen out of the Red Ocean, but they could not afford to deploy the majority of their mech forces away from their own holdings.

Many of the powerful dynasties essentially had nothing left now that they had fled to the new frontier! The colonies that they had founded a few years ago represented the last bastion of these dynasties. There was no escape route left after they had sacrificed so much already.

This led to the current impasse. The Hexer raiders might not be strong enough to topple the Friday colonies outright, but they still made the lives of their old enemies hell by harassing the weaker and more vulnerable settlements.

However, it just so happened that the weaker Fridayman colonies happened to belong to the less well-off coalition partners!

While a number of the colonies founded by the Carnegie Group, the Vermeer Group, the Vanguard Group and the Puffer Clan all suffered serious losses and setbacks, the stronger ones founded by the Gauge Dynasty and the Konsu Clan were mostly spared from harassment!

Ves began to comprehend the nuances behind the latest development.

"Not every Fridayman is eager to negotiate a cessation of hostilities, is that what you're saying?"

"Correct. Nominally, the Friday Coalition wishes to stem the losses by negotiating with you." Calabast said after clarifying the context behind the new development. "In reality, only a part of the Coalition wants to form a resolution of the problem. The other part is not in a hurry to stop the Hexer raids. The more the current situation proceeds, the more the balance of power will tilt towards the most dominant members of the state."

Ves cynically chuckled. "I knew these backstabbers wouldn't be able to remain united. Those Gaugers have always been too full of themselves. Why the hell should we intervene in the first place? Let them fight and suffer!"

He was not particularly sad to hear that the Friday Coalition was starting to show its fault lines.

A sense of schadenfreude overtook his mood. He derived a lot of pleasure from imagining how the Friday Coalition might fall apart one day!

"The Friday Coalition isn't made up of stupid people, Ves." Calabast cautioned him. "It is impossible for the Fridaymen to let external parties take advantage of their infighting. The Coalition is unlikely to break up completely, but it is a realistic possibility that the Gauge Dynasty and the Konsu Clan will become a lot more dominant than before. From our analysis, we believe that as long as the weaker coalition partners are willing to make concessions to the Gaugers and the Konsus, the latter two will do more to protect the outlying colonies that are under pressure."

Ves frowned. This situation sounded increasingly more complicated.

"So the primary conflict is not between the Fridaymen or the Hexers, but between these dummies themselves. The Hexers and myself are simply external factors that the Fridaymen wish to leverage in order to manipulate their domestic political landscape."

The overarching message that Calabast wanted to convey was that everything revolved around interests. The Gaugers and the other coalition partners were solely trying to secure their own advantages without letting their feelings and sentiments interfere with their calculus.

Tristan's surprise arrival in Davute had nothing to do with trying to reconcile a strained relationship. The Fridaymen who supported the negotiation effort just wanted to hold an exchange of interests.

"The Gaugers and the Konsus might not be so eager to forge a new deal with you, but the remaining ones are much more desperate to enact changes." Calabast noted. "You should expect them to offer a considerable amount of concessions to you in order to obtain your agreement. This alone makes it worthwhile to listen to their proposals."

"I don't know, Calabast. The Trailblazer Expedition is due to start. I don't need any further distractions in my life. More importantly, I'm pretty sure that my wife will vehemently oppose any deal I make with the Fridaymen."

He could already imagine his wife screaming in his face!

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