The Mech Touch

The Minerva Mark II Project was slowly coming together. The first-class ace command mech would become a sight to behold.

She may lack the Saint Kingdom of regular ace mechs, but her ability to empower friendly units and manipulate the battlefield would reach a whole new level.

The configuration of the Minerva Mark II was pretty much complete. Ves and Gloriana had already made every design choice that mattered. All they had to do was to fill up the increasingly more complete mech design.

This still amounted to a lot of work. If not for the fact that Ves and Gloriana wanted to maintain at least a certain degree of confidentiality and information security, they could have delegated or outsourced more work to design teams and consultants.

However, the pair did not want one of the most important assets of the Larkinson Clan to be transparent to his potential enemies and rivals.

They had to pick their help very carefully for that reason.

They only delegated work to the most trustworthy design teams in the Design Department.

They also sought meaningful contributions from fellow Journeyman Mech Designers despite their obvious lack of qualifications.

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Ves invited Viktor MacMillan to employ his specialization to develop the most luxurious and powerful close-surface azure energy shield system that he had ever realized.

"I am not qualified." Viktor said as he looked overwhelmed by the offer. "The Minerva Mark II is a first-class mech. Not only that, it is an ace mech. I… am still a second-class mech designer. I have been working hard to pass all of the courses required to become a first-class mech designer, but it is still too premature for me to work on such a high-end project."

Ves responded by casually placing his hand on the other mech designer’s shoulder. "Tough luck, Viktor, because we don’t have much to choose from besides you and a few others. I can easily look for outside consultants. There are plenty of third party Seniors and Masters that would salivate over the opportunity to put their mark on the Minerva Mark II. However, no matter how much we isolate all of the more sensitive and confidential parts of the mech design, they will always be able to learn many of the properties of our future ace mech. Since this is the case, I would rather turn to a fellow clansman than rely on the discretion of a stranger. Do you understand?"

Viktor felt ambivalent about this. He understood what Ves was getting at.

Personally, he looked forward to contributing a small but still important aspect of an ace mech that was bound to become a legendary machine among the Larkinsons and the rest of red humanity.

However, his integrity as a mech designer forced him to acknowledge that he was far from the best at improving the design of a first-class ace mech.

It was only because Ves himself insisted upon his participation that Viktor was reluctantly able to set aside his misgivings.

"If you trust me that much, then I will do my best not to disappoint you." Viktor eventually said. "I may not have completed my studies in first-class high-technologies, but I think I can whip up an extremely powerful azure shield generator so long as you permit me to license an existing first-class component design and give me permission to obtain the necessary phasewater as well as other expensive materials."

"You will have it, Viktor. Please coordinate with Master Laila Rebecca Devos for your licensing needs. You can also talk to her about purchasing the rare exotics and hypers that you want to use to build the shield generator."

The Journeyman frowned when he heard that name. "Is Master Devos involved in this mech design project?"

"Yes." Ves sighed. "Proper ace mechs can only be designed by Master Mech Designers. We used to have an understanding with Master Benedict Cortez, but he has recently become more preoccupied. Certain events have also put our relationship with him under strain. This is why we reluctantly turned to Master Laila Devos to design the aspects of an ace mech that only a Master Mech Designer can fulfill. She has actually provided a lot of help as she is able to leverage the full resources of the Devos Ancient Clan. We actually had to decline many of her offers since we don’t want the Minerva Mark II to become a fully-fledged Terran ace mech."

The Terrans and the Rubarthans had refined their mech design capabilities considerably ahead of other groups.

They were only slightly inferior to the mechers in this regard!

The Red Association generally fielded the most well-regarded mechs because it encompassed a huge variety of high technologies.

This allowed the mechers to mix and match a wide selection of tech and design philosophies to form the most synergistic mech concepts.

The Terran Alliance and the Rubarthan Pact employed plenty of mech designers as well, but they could not beat the Red Association in terms of quantity and variety.

This was why the colonial first-raters chose to narrow their focus and specialize in a limited selection of broad fields.

For example, the Terrans chose to put more emphasis on the development of melee mechs while the Rubarthans typically put more weight on the evolution of their ranged mechs.

By narrowing the focus of their R&D and industrial development, the Terrans and the Rubarthans were still able to design and field excellent first-class multipurpose mechs that remained somewhat competitive in comparison to RA mechs.

In any case, the Terrans could offer a lot of good stuff to the Minerva Mark II Project, but Ves and Gloriana were hesitant to accept them because they did not master the proprietary tech themselves.

As much as Ves had developed good relationships with the Devos Ancient Clan and Streon Ancient Clan, there was a limit to how much he wanted to make his most strategic assets dependent on other people’s tech.

Viktor MacMillan went to work. As a Journeyman who had proven his competence during the Fey Shaper Contest, he was much more competent than the average mech designer.

He urgently studied the most essential pieces of knowledge that were necessary to fulfill his latest assignment and proceeded to understand and modify the Terran azure energy shield generator according to his limited expertise.

There was room for another contributing mech designer.

Ves thought the Minerva Mark II needed a stronger bite. Hebriefly thought about involving Zanthar Larkinson, but Gloriana insisted on bringing in Beatrice Hendrix.

"Your luminar crystal rifles are already strong enough." She said. "There is little added value to substituting the next version of the Irvan luminar crystal rifle with one of Zanthar’s strange ’EEE Weapons’. As far as the Saint Commander is concerned, her subordinates are her weapons. It is best if we invest in additional defenses. Enemies will focus more and more on eliminating the Minerva Mark II as she becomes increasingly more famous and powerful."

"Then who do you want to suggest instead?"

"Beatrice Hendrix has made strides in improving her Adaptive Modular Armor Systems. She is able to design a basic but functional first-class edition of the Battle Skirt System that will provide an extra layer of adaptive protection for the Minerva Mark II as well as the Victrix. The modular armor plating of this system also synergizes extremely well with the resonating ability derived from Dragon Scales."

If they were working on another project, then Ves would have argued that such a strong focus on defenses was excessive.

They already tasked Viktor MacMillan to develop an extra powerful azure shield generator for the Minerva Mark II.

Adding an improved version of the Battle Skirt System almost sounded redundant.

However, Ves acknowledged that Gloriana made an excellent point. There was no need to put heavy emphasis on direct offensive power in the high-end mech design project.

Classical ace command mechs weren’t supposed to defeat their enemies directly.

They were designed to empower other friendly units while trying to stay alive as much as possible.

Many famous high-ranking command mechs possessed multiple redundant defensive layers due to the fact that they lacked traditional Saint Kingdoms.

Without a strong domain fueled by willpower that was centered around themselves, the ace pilots were much more vulnerable to powerful attacks!

Ace mechs that did not compensate for this critical shortcoming tended to attract assassination attempts and decapitation strikes at much greater frequencies than normal.

Enemies simply couldn’t resist the obvious opening!

By turtling up the Minerva Mark II, the Larkinsons would not only be able to reduce the success rate of any targeted strikes, but also deter enemies from making the attempt in the first place.

One of the benefits of the new Battle Skirt System soon became clear.

"There is strong synergy between the adaptive modular armor plating and archetech." Gloriana judged after she worked with Beatrice to puzzle out a custom solution for the Minerva Mark II. "The regular modular armor plating consists of a solid plate at the front, but is embedded with relatively fragile electrical components in the rear. Even if they are shielded and covered up with protective layers, it is still a fact that these modular armor plates tend to lose control before their physical structures are entirely spent. We can eliminate this shortcoming by making the modular armor plates out of archemetal."

This was an intriguing suggestion that could significantly increase the performance of the Battle Skirt System.

"All of this sounds great, Gloriana, but it will also make the Battle Skirt System more expensive and troublesome to make." Ves mentioned. "Unless the new archemetal plating is easy to mass produce by other specialists in our clan, you will have to devote extra time to fabricate a lot of spare plating in case the Minerva Mark II or the Victrix incurred serious damage."

"I am prepared to do so. It shouldn’t take too much time to mass produce enough spare archemetal modular armor plating to replenish the entire Battle Skirt System at least two times."

Ves actually grew more and more impressed by the properties of this archemetal variation of the Battle Skirt System.

"We should look to implement this design application in other mechs whenever possible." Ves said.

"I agree." Gloriana said. "It should have been an excellent fit for the First Sword Mark III, but Ketis has shut me out of the project."

"Ketis has found another mech designer to take care of the defensive needs of the First Sword Mark III."

"I predict that the solution from this outsider is not as elegant and feminine as the Battle Skirt System."

"Looks don’t matter as much as being able to resist the impact of superdimensional weapons head-on." Ves pointed out. "The Archemetal Battle Skirt System does not score well in this area unless we make the modular armor plating out of armor-grade superdimensional matter."

"Then tell Ketis to hurry up and convince the Heavensword to open up another portal to the Blue Dimension!"

Ves’ refusal to allocate the limited amount of armor-grade superdimensional matter to the Minerva Mark II still did not sit well with his wife.

As much as he felt tempted to change his mind, he ultimately stuck to his original decision whenever he imagined his ambitious vision for the Riot Mark III.

Venerable Rosa Orfan needed the power of superdimensional matter much more urgently than Saint Commander Casella Ingvar!

He tried his best to set this matter aside and resume his work.

The contributions of Viktor MacMillan and Beatrice Hendrix should provide more than enough of a defensive boost to the Minerva Mark II to keep her safe and active on the battlefield.

However, it was the unique contribution made by Master Laila Rebecca Devos that truly gave an additional dimension to the Minerva Mark II.

Master Laila most definitely possessed the expertise and wisdom to become the leading authority on mechs within the Devos Ancient Clan.

She had lived for over 300 years, which meant that she had entered the mech industry during the start of its heyday and lived through the remainder of the Age of Mechs.

Her design philosophy reflected this long journey of development.

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