The Mech Touch

The truth had finally come out after all of this time.

Ves rapidly connected the dots in his mind. All of the scattered clues that previously seemed to bear little relation to each other finally fit into a picture that should have been so obvious in hindsight!

The Palace of Shame never centered around the orvens at all. It turned out that the phase whales were the ones who set all of this into motion.

The original purpose for creating this asteroid base was not to build a retirement home for an exiled orven prince.

Instead, the phase whales just wanted to toss away one of their own criminals who had committed the unforgivable sin of devouring his or her own kind.

Why the phase whales refused to get rid of a hidden danger and execute the cannibal in the first place, Ves didn't know.

What was important was that the phase whales in all of their wisdom not only decided to imprison their fallen whale, but do so in the periphery of the Red Ocean that was sufficiently far away from the center of the dwarf galaxy.

That was probably how the Palace of Shame came to be. It was a prison that was solely designed to contain the disgraced subject for an indefinite period of time.

This also explained the true purpose of the orvens that were primarily responsible for maintaining order in the asteroid base.

"No wonder why their group is called the Unspoken. They have probably been contracted by the phase whales to act as the jailors who take care of the Palace of Shame and make sure that the only prisoner remains under control."

The subject of unclean whales was a touchy subject among the phase whales. None of the members of the powerful race liked to publicize any information about the most deplorable members of their kind.

Since it was apparently impossible for a phase whale to commit all of his time to watch over one of their own, the powerful race instead subcontracted this unpleasant duty to a group belonging to a different alien race.

This was how the Unspoken not only watched over the prisoner for over a thousand years, but also successfully kept everyone else in the dark.

It would have been rather hard to explain why a bunch of orvens hung out in such a remote asteroid base for multiple generations.

Instead of trying to hide their presence completely, they instead pretended to be pirates. They even opened up the Palace of Shame to other occupants and lured in a large amount of pirates, smugglers and other lowlives to reinforce the impression that the entire place was nothing but a den of iniquity!

Although there were numerous pieces of evidence that the Palace of Shame was more than a simple pirate stronghold since it was able to exist for so long, the secret was still safe for the most part.

The phase whales even checked up on the state of the Palace of Shame from time to time.

This was evidenced by the testimony of the three orven prisoners that Ves had interrogated. They all spoke about witnessing secret meetings between the Unspoken and a member of the powerful aquatic race.

"It turns out that there is no great pan-racial secret order after all. This is nothing but a boss inspecting a group of employees to make sure they are still diligent about performing their duties."

Perhaps the charade was meant to persist for many more years, but the sudden arrival of humanity changed everything.

A chunk of the Red Ocean that everyone previously regarded as a quiet backwater abruptly fell into the hands of extragalactic invaders.

Few if any indigenous aliens could have seen this coming. Recent events likely disrupted whatever intentions the phase whale race held towards the captive unclean whale and the Palace of Shame.

"It even explains why the pirates refused to leave the Palace of Shame even as every other alien with a ship has long fled to safer regions. They can't abandon their duties or else they will suffer terrible punishment at the hands of the phase whales!"

The Unspoken and all of the pirate groups that had inadvertently fallen into this obligatory duty had found themselves in an impossible situation.

As humanity increasingly took control over all of the surrounding regions, the pressure for the pirates to leave became more and more unbearable.

However, without receiving permission from their powerful but uncaring phase whale masters, they could not desert their current posts.

Whatever hold the phase whales had over the pirates had forced even the most shameless and despicable pirates to stand their ground and defend the Palace of Shame to the death!

This was the most unexplainable part about this mystery. Why didn't the pirates just... run away?

No matter how much the phase whales loomed over them, the most selfish among the pirates should probably have enough self-preservation instincts to flee from the humans rather than fight for a cause that likely didn't interest them in the slightest.

"Have the aliens been brainwashed or are they stuck here for another reason?"

Ves didn't have enough information to resolve this question, so he set it aside and focused on more important matters.

One of them was how much the Gemini Family actually knew about the Palace of Shame.

When Ves recalled his past interactions with the Geminis and the intelligence he received about them, he began to grow a lot more suspicious.

Now that he found out what the Palace of Shame was truly hiding, the behavior of the Gemini Family made a lot more sense as well.

If his suspicions were correct, the Geminis most definitely knew that the Palace of Shame was hiding either an unclean whale or a phase whale!

"They fooled us! The damn incestual bastards hoodwinked us all!" Ves cursed.

Their family-wide obsession about marrying their brothers and sisters to each other must have caused a few screws to get loose in their minds.

How could these fools ever think it was a good idea to mess with the arrangements of the phase whales?!

Ves and the rest of the Golden Skull Alliance already had prior experience with that when they accidentally embarked on the Purgatory Campaign.

That instance largely ended up well, but only because the mythical phase whale that had originally created the pocket space was over a million years dead!

This situation was a lot different! Not only was the Palace of Shame set up a lot more recently, but there was also a living phase whale locked inside its belly!

There was no ambiguity about whether the phase whale or unclean whale was still alive. Not only did the creature project an active spatial barrier to resist every attack launched by the ace mechs, but Ves could even spot motion underneath that signified that the massive alien creature was moving its body.

As many different people were trying to figure out a way to solve this imminent crisis, Ves grew a lot more upset towards the people who were largely responsible for dragging him into this mess.

He inputted a command and opened up a direct communication channel to the two leaders of the Gemini Family.

"What is the matter, Patriarch Larkinson?" Matriarch Sena Gemini impatiently asked.

"You knew." Ves hissed. "Don't lie to me. You Geminis knew from the start that an unclean whale was imprisoned within the Palace of Shame. Did you ever think that we should have been warned about this in advance?! How dare you withhold such crucial information from us all! You may have doomed us all with your selfish actions!"

"That is uncalled for, Larkinson!" Patriarch Kobal Gemini replied in a heated tone. "We admit that we had indications that a phase whale may have been hiding inside the Palace of Shame, but we do not have any solid proof in our hands. It is irresponsible for us to share hearsay and unreliable evidence with you. When our Gemini Family initially made our case to you all, we solely stuck to the facts to make certain that you do not base your decisions on fantasies and mistaken assumptions."

"Don't play word games with me! You guys know exactly what you have been doing. Even if you weren't sure about the captive phase whale, you should have come up with plenty of guesses that the Palace of Shame is a lot more dangerous than a normal pirate base. Your deliberate refusal to share your reasonable suspicions towards us has left us all in the dark about the true risks of Operation Lighthouse. This is like inviting us to travel to a star system while conveniently leaving out the possibility that the star might be ready to go supernova!"

"Calm down, Patriarch Larkinson. You can accuse us all you want, but this is not the time for recriminations." Matriarch Sena Gemini made a calming motion with her palm. "Let us address the more immediate threat first. Do you have any solution in your bag of tricks that can solve the phase whale that is disturbing the surrounding space?"

Ves scowled and shook his head. "No! I wouldn't be so angry if that was the case!"

"Doesn't your clan have a means of attack that can bypass any form of defense and directly deprive organic beings of life? Many of your mechs have just demonstrated this capability during an earlier phase of the battle."

Ves grew a lot angrier when he heard those words!

"This is exactly why it was so important for the rest of us to know about the possibility of a hidden phase whale in advance. If I knew what was coming, I wouldn't have used up this trump card. As it is, all of the mech pilots who are capable of pulling off this specific battle formation attack have already exhausted themselves. They are all resting in order to recuperate their mental energies, but I can already tell you now that it will take at least half a day for them to regain enough vigor to pull off the same kind of attack."

He actually fudged the truth a little bit in order to prevent any possible enemies from taking advantage of this detail, but the most important message was still true.

The Larkinson Clan and the Glory Seekers could no longer pull out another powerful death energy wave attack from their sleeves!

"That is not the only method that your clan possesses. Isn't one of your expert mechs launching energy beam attacks that is channeling a similar sort of power at this very moment?"

Ves briefly turned his head to glance at a projection showing the Blade Chaser Mark II.

The glowing expert mech that was empowered by both Imon Ingvar and his sister Casella Ingvar was trying its utmost to boost the damage output of the Gray Lotus.

Ves could even sense Helena doing her best to lend as much of her power to this effort as possible.

With the support of the Daughter of Death, the first blessed weapon developed by Ves began to show its might.

Again and again, the Blade Chaser Mark II fired one inconspicuous death energy beam after another.

Different from all of the other attacks that were hitting the seemingly impervious spatial barrier that was protecting the unclean whale from damage, the gray beam partially managed to pass through!

Not even the most penetrating attacks launched by ace mechs such as the Thunderer Mark II and the Mars could imitate this result!

Yet whenever the death beams struck the massive organic body of the unclean whale, they simply sank into the fatty flesh without evoking any further changes or reactions.

The unclean whale was still merrily channeling an enormous spatial technique without any hint that it had come closer to death.

Ves grew depressed when he saw this result.

"It isn't working." He told the leaders of the Gemini Family. "A single weapon isn't enough to put a dent into a life form that is as powerful as a phase whale. Sure, the weapon in the hands of the Gray Lotus can easily kill a random human being, but it can't do anything to expert pilots and other entities with powerful mental defenses. We need to find another solution!"

That was easier said than done.

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