Chapter 751

"Thank you for informing me, but I have to wonder.. why did you call me here?" Ves curiously asked.

He didn't think he'd be summoned here because Major Verle needed a sounding board. The mech officer had his inner circle for that.

"I called you here because this ward is one of the few locations on the ship that is not connected to the monitoring systems. Just to be sure, I'd like you to activate your signal jammer device."

Ves carefully inputted the right settings, putting it at a high power setting at a range that encompassed the entire ward and then some. Once he sent out the remote command to turn it on, the entire room became a little warbled due to all of the interference that suddenly thrummed in the air.

"There is worse news that I haven't told you yet." Major Verle said with a serious expression. He gestured at the silent form of the Fourth Prince. "Prince Hixt-Klaaster is dying. His expensive body enhancements and genetically optimized physique may have saved him from immediate death, but his lack of physical exertion has proven to be his downfall. His brains are irreversibly damaged and are failing at this very moment. The doctor in charge of his care estimates he only has two more hours to live before his brains shuts down forever."

"This!" The bombshell stunned Ves. Even a fugitive Acolyte scurrying around the ship didn't frighten him as much as this! "Sir! If the Fourth Prince dies, the Venerable Xie will go crazy!"

The mech major actually smirked. "Not if we don't tell him of the prince's death."

"That.. you should know Venerable Xie won't fall for that, sir. Experts aren't stupid and possess a keen intuition. Doesn't he use his privileges to talk with the Fourth Prince over his comm every once in awhile? What will happen if the other end of the call falls silent? He'll definitely suspect something!"

"We've recorded enough footage of Prince Hixt-Klaaster to simulate a lifelike fascimile. In the short-term, as long as they don't talk about anything they experienced in the Dark Plasma Star Sector, we should be in the clear. I admit that this is a short-term solution, though. Eventually the imperfections of our simulation of the prince will fall through."

And when that happened, a reckoning may come. An expert pilot could do a lot of damage if he decided to turn on the Flagrant Vandals!

"Then.. why not be honest, sir? While Venerable Xie obviously cares for his former patron, the Fourth Prince is kind of a loser. He doesn't have any redeeming traits as a prince or a leader."

"The profile we have constructed of Venerable Xie suggests that his loyalty to the prince is too deep to expect anything but a backlash." Major Verle replied. "In truth, the Venerable has never once shown an attachment to the Vandals. We hoped to wear down his reticence and worm inside his heart over the span over several years, but that is contingent on keeping our promise of keeping the Fourth Prince saved. Seeing as we have abysmally failed in that task, our old methods of ensuring the Venerable's loyalty are no longer suitable."

This sounded worse and worse to Ves. The major's talk of abandoning gentle methods meant he must be thinking of more drastic solutions. Ones that he might not like.

"Sir, what is the plan, if I may ask?"

"You may. In fact, our new plan hinges on your expertise." Verle emphasized as he turned his back to the unconscious and dying prince. He sighed. "What I am about to ask of you.. I do not wish to resort to this solution, but our awful state leaves us with few alternatives. Not when we are so close to reaching our mission objective."

"What is my involvement in this.. new solution, sir?"

The major sighed, which was something he never did. The man always projected an image of decisiveness. Hesitation never marred his form. "All of our analyses are overwhelmingly pessimistic when it comes to Venerable Xie's attitude to the Flagrant Vandals. The chance of a violent separation increases to near-certain levels after three weeks of time. We have no means of knowing if he will turn his ire towards the Vandals first for failing to protect the prince, but the odds are too high of such an occurrence. As a former bodyguard trained for the job, he will almost certainly blame us for the prince's death, perhaps even thinking that we deliberately let the man die."

"Did we?"

Verle threw a dirty look at Ves. "Of course not. We are not in the habit of risking utter ruin in our relationship with a potentially useful expert pilot, especially at this junction in our mission. Now, onto your involvement. After contemplating a number of methods, both open and clandestine, to insure our new expert pilot's continued loyalty, I have settled on the solution that kicks up the least amount of fuss."

A solution that Venerable Xie wouldn't notice but somehow involve Ves. As his expertise lay in mechs, he could only think of one possible 'solution' that could solve the issue of loyalty.

Ves widened his eyes and took a startled step back. "You can't! This is way over the line! Do you know the gravity of what you intend for me to do! You'll not only condemn me in the eyes of the MTA, but you'll drag down the rest of your mech regiment with you as well!"

"I see you have guessed my intention." Verle smiled at Ves. This time his smile took on a ghoulish appearance. After taking a good look at the active signal jammer, the major did not hesitate anymore and revealed his plan. "A mech pilot is able to manipulate a mech using a neural interface. While it is often the mech pilot that is manipulating the mech, I am well aware that there are means to reverse this process. According to the logs, did you not receive a crash course in how neural interfaces work?"

"I did, but she only taught me the bare minimum, just enough for me to recognize a compromised neural interface! She has never intended to teach me how to brainwash a mech pilot by manipulating the programming of the neural interface! Even if I can't do it, the MTA will go absolutely bonkers if they find out that we've brainwashed an expert pilot!"

The MTA may seem like a large but invisible power in the Komodo Star Sector, but the severe crime that Major Verle expected of Ves went way over the bottom line of the MTA!

Death was all but assured if they found out, which they would surely will after observing the expert pilot's altered behavior!

Perhaps the experts such as the Dragons of the Void were able to brainwash someone subtle enough to behave just like their old selves, but a rank amateur like Ves who hadn't even taken a single proper course in neural interface technology would surely make a million mistakes!

Ves had heard how tiny mistakes with neural interface settings often led to huge distortions in an expert pilot's behavior!

Even though expert mechs already came with neural interfaces that were carefully tweaked with effects that pushed close to the edge to outright brainwashing, each change had to be logged with the MTA for their express approval before the changes could go live!

The checks on the altered programming of an expert mech's customized neural interface was one of the strictest and most thorough certification processes performed by the association. The MTA cherished expert pilots like others cherished their sons and daughters!

The Parallax Star still utilized the previous programming optimised for Venerable O'Callahan. Just like any other customized aspect of an expert mech, the more the neural interface specialized to work with one specific mech pilot, its effectiveness when piloted by others suffered a substantial hit.

In fact, this poor fit deserved a lot of the blame for Venerable Xie's abysmal performance with the Parallax Star.

Ves had no way of fixing this problem, though. He completely lacked the qualifications to tweak the core programming of the neural interface. From what he gathered, in the last decade Professor Velten had always been the only mech designer to customize the neural interfaces for the expert mechs of the Vandals.

Even then, the professor only dared to do so after taking extensive scanning and active testing of the expert pilot under controlled lab conditions. The Wolf Mother factory ship hosted all of the advanced lab facilities, but she was currently with the main Vandal fleet that was far away from the frontier now.

All in all, it meant that Ves had no legitimate reason to mess with the neural interfaces. For Major Verle to come out and expect him to commit a major crime that might see his entire family purged was way out of line.

"This is an illegal order, sir." He hissed through his lips.

"Then it is a good thing that I am only making a request." The major replied smoothly as he turned around and bore his gaze straight into Ves. "I am quite aware of the magnitude of what I expect from you. Therefore, I am leaving the choice up to you. Cooperate or not. Just know that if you refuse, we will likely have to resort to extremely suboptimal alternatives, ones which may very well ruin our chance to benefit from the protection of a much-needed expert pilot."

"You are putting me on the spot, major! You're telling me that I have the benefit of choice, but at the same time you are telling me that the Vandals will suffer if I choose not to get on the MTA's naughty list. Don't you think that's rather unfair?"

Verle pressed into Ves. "I'm not just telling you the Vandals will suffer due to your desire to avoid the hard choice. The opponents we might encounter at the Starlight Megalodon may be fielding their own expert pilots. Without a loyal and dedicated Venerable Xie to hold the line, even a single expert can butcher hundreds of Vandal mech pilots! Such a loss will certainly break our fleet and consign us to defeat and death!"

The major deliberately piled up the pressure onto Ves without any intention of easing in the choice. This was open intrigue! Ves could either acquiesce and accept the request, or he could reject it but very likely be responsible for the deaths of every Vandal and the failure of their mission!

All of this hinged on his decision. Should he or shouldn't he? Ves thought hard and tried to sum up every objection he could think of. "Look, sir, we won't get away with this. We can't! If by some miracle we manage to survive and return to civilized space, the perceptive MTA won't be blind to the signs of brainwashing no matter how subtle the neural interface manages to exert its influence. Our jig is up by then!"

Major Verle grin grew wider at this point. "This problem is easy to circumvent. We merely have to insure that Venerable Xie does not survive the trip back home. If we want to be really thorough, we'll have to arrange for the Venerable's corpse and mech to be destroyed in action. I'm sure a mech designer like you can arrange some means to accomplish this on command."

Not only did his boss expect Ves to corrupt an expert mech's neural interface, he also suggested him to incorporate a killswitch as well!

"Sir, please give me a moment." Ves pleaded. "I need to go over this option."

"Don't take too long Mr. Larkinson."

How long could he stall? Not that long, Ves thought. The Flagrant Vandals still remained in a pickle. Damn, how come Verle came to Ves with this request? Couldn't the mech major go directly to Miss Lisbeth or something?

Then again, out of every mech designer among the Vandals, only Ves possessed the requisite knowledge and skill to pull something like this off. Just as none of the other mech designers possessed the qualifications to take over the position of head designer, so did none of the dummies possess any expertise in the highly-restricted practice of altering the programming of neural interfaces.

It was times like these that he finally experienced the downsides of assuming responsibility!

Chapter 752

While Ves had recently realized he no longer needed to march in lockstep with the MTA's principles, brainwashing an expert pilot carried same severity as outright murdering an expert pilot under his care!

In fact, if Ves completely gave in, then he would in effect be guilty of committing two capital crimes in the eyes of the mech industry!

Even getting caught by one of them was enough to ruin the career of the Skull Architect and exile him to the frontier!

Ever since the Farund Affair took place, the Mech Trade Association became extremely paranoid about tampered neural interfaces.

"I can see you are concerned at the possibility of getting caught." Major Verle spoke out. "Let me assure you that won't be the case. The only people who will be aware of what you have done are you and me. With your jamming device doing its magic, there is no chance anyone else is listening in. I can promise you that I will tell no one of this nor include it in my formal and informal reports. Neither Colonel Lowenfield, Professor Velten or some pencil pusher at the Mech Corps will ever learn of this plan."

That did not reassure Ves enough. After all, even if Major Verle seemed to be the dependable sort, he was only human. Who knew if he changed his mind someday?

"How can I trust your word then, sir? I need more than just an empty reassurance. This matter is too serious for me to believe in your good intentions. Not when you are willing to plot against an expert pilot at the same time."

Ves may have gone a little too far in his doubts, but he couldn't care less right now. If Major Verle expected him to roll over and commit a grievous crime that could lead the MTA to condemn him to death, then he better get a receive a good answer!"

The major sighed for the second time that Ves had ever seen him do it. "Very well. Let me provide some additional reassurance to you. Let me begin by asking you a question. Do you think the Flagrant Vandals are normal?"

"No, sir." Ves replied without hesitation. "Frankly speaking, there are too many discrepancies between the Vandals and any other mech regiment of the Bright Republic. Even if that is by design as alluded to by the name of the Vandals, I have been harboring serious doubts about the purpose of the Vandals. Is it really just a place for the Mech Corps to dump their undesirables and unleash them onto missions of dubious legality?"

"You are on the right track. It's good that you have been aware enough to maintain a shred of skepticism. Yet you have fallen short of identifying the critical link that ties us all together. I don't blame you, Mr. Larkinson. We do our best to hide our other connections and make it seem we are truly abandoned by the Mech Corps."

"Wait.. so all of those tales about lack of funding and being saddled with troublemakers is a lie, sir?"

"Not at all. That is all true both on the surface. We have truly been gotten by with trying to make soldiers out of dysfunctional men and women and to fund our operations by earning our income through our own efforts. Yet this is merely the smokescreen that hides our true nature. I am sure you have noticed that certain individuals among the Vandals, particularly the mech designers who are attached to our units, tend to get transferred out at some point. Now try and think what other service branch of the Bright Republic don't hesitate to recruit troublemakers for their unique talents and their unconventional thinking?"

What other branch of service was out there besides the Mech Corps? The various Auxiliary Corps? A mech designer or a mech pilot played no role among infantry or tank regiments...

A light shone in his mind as soon as he focused on the word unconventional. Rather than think of something like the Mech Corps or the Auxiliary Corps, he should rather be thinking about the intelligence services!

"You guys are fronts for spooks!"

"Crudely put, Mr. Larkinson, and not quite apt. We are not engaged in the act of spying. We are more like the people who are sent after a target after the spies have done their legwork. Call us unconventional problem solvers if you will, or operatives if you want to use the boring name."

When Ves heard something like that, he recalled the image of Calabast again for some reason. Her role likely fit this job description to a tee.

He didn't know what he was supposed to feel after hearing this revelation. It explained much of the discrepancies about the Vandals, yet... what did that change, really? Soldiers or operatives, they still served the Bright Republic, at least in theory. This simple realization allowed Ves to accept this abrupt piece of news.

He could think about the greater implications later. Right now wasn't the time to commiserate about who he really served.

"Okay. I can accept that you are part of some intelligence service, sir. Which one exactly?"

One of the areas in which the Bright Republic excelled at compared to the Vesia Kingdom was its intelligence services. Each of them focused on different missions, but all of them had proven to be crucial in mitigating the Republic's military disadvantage against the larger and more numerous Vesian Mech Legion.

Major Verle retrieved a strange badge from a slot in his armor. He held it out to Ves, who looked at the extremely lively patterns. This was no mundane badge. The craftsmanship and exotics incorporated within turned this ornament into multifaceted work of art!

A small natural projection emerged from the badge. Ves knew the effect hadn't been generated by any electronics embedded into the object, but came from a precise arrangement of exotics.

The projection formed into fiery letters that laid to rest which intelligence service the Flagrant Vandals truly belonged to. Pretty much every adult Brighter heard of this name before, which was often associated with daring actions against the Vesians during the war!

'FLASHLIGHT' MILITARY INTELLIGENCE SERVICE

'FIRESTARTERS' UNCONVENTIONAL ACTION DIVISION

"Flashlight!" Ves gasped.

He had never heard of the Firestarters division before, but every Brighters revered Flashlight. The strangely-named organization earned their fame by their ability to fool and lead the Vesian mech legions into traps, cut off their supply lines and causing them to butt heads with each other. Though the details on how they accomplished these feats were scarce, that didn't stop the government from leaking a couple details of their successes to raise morale.

"Right, Flashlight." Major Verle nodded while he carefully put back his precious badge. "Although you Larkinsons have never entered the murky territory of military intelligence, many victories of your relatives couldn't have been achieved without our timely and relevant intelligence gathering. We are the darker brother to the Mech Corps."

"Then.. the Firestarters is some kind of division within Flashflight? A group of operatives?"

"Close enough, but essentially correct. Flashlight illuminates the path, while we Firestarters tread it to set the target on fire. That is the simple meaning of our names, which describes our missions as well."

"So that promotion opportunity that's offered to me if we finished the mission and returned to the Republic. It's a transfer to Flashlight, right?"

Verle grinned. "Flashlight is too boring for an experienced man like you. In truth, the Firestarters have room for unconventional mech designers like you. I won't be able to tell you the exact details of what we have in store for you, but I can already tell you it will be more impactful than becoming a forgettable cog in the machine if you are assigned to an elite mech regiment."

The revelation along with the badge convinced Ves that the major wasn't talking out of his butt. That still left him with the same dilemma, although he became a little more convinced of Verle's credibility.

"Okay, sir." Ves let out a deep breath and tried to think through the implications. "Military intelligence or not, does that excuse the frankly outrageous request you've pushed onto my shoulders? What you're asking me to do isn't trivial at all! We are talking about a deliberate attempt to brainwash an expert pilot against his will and to dispose of him when his use comes to an end!"

Ves still couldn't quite get over the magnitude of such a crime. It was one thing to brainwash a regular mech pilot. Trillions of mech pilots existed in the galaxy so the MTA didn't care for them at all, as evidenced by the continual existence of the Dragons of the Void despite their penchant for mind control and memory warping.

"I am aware of the risks, Mr. Larkinson. As the mech officer who proposed this course of action in the first place, I cannot escape responsibility either. We are both on the same boat. Does that provide you with sufficient reassurance?"

He shook his head. "You'd have to pay me a hundred billion credits to convince me to betray the principles of the Mech Trade Association. They can be really scary when it comes to punishing errant mech designers!"

Even though he sounded scared, Ves looked at Major Verle with sharp eyes. In fact, while he pretty much accepted that he had to break his principles once again to insure his survival, he didn't want to concede to Major Verle for free!

Ves realized that ever since he entered the recovery ward, he'd been pulled into a negotiation. He only realized this belatedly because of all of the pressure Major Verle exerted onto him. The mech officer probably wanted to force a quick decision out of Ves before he clued in to the fact that he possessed a lot of negotiating power in this verbal tug-of-war!

The mech officer went directly to Ves because he was the only mech designer in the entire fleet who could pull of the request! Not perfectly, but good enough to secure a decent chance of success!

Since the outcome of the mission hinged on his participation, Ves enjoyed a decent amount of leverage in these negotiations!

This was why he threw out the ridiculous sum of a hundred billion credits in the mix. Ves spoke those words because he wanted to signal to the Major that he wanted real benefits in return to the risks he undertook to meet the request!

"While I cannot make any direct mention about this request in any documents, I can still put a note on your record that we have benefited from your exemplary assistance." Major Verle drawled out. "This is one of the ways we note your contribution while obscuring its illegal nature. Flashlight can infer the risks you undertook in order to be of service and will be most appreciative of your sacrifice and discretion. Along with my personal commendation, I have no doubt Flashlight will treat you with more trust and attention than before. Even after the war is over, you will still benefit from this advantage."

All of that sounded swell, but how did this benefit Ves? Major Verle only listed out some vague promises about how Flashlight would treat him with a bit more care. Ves did not trust anything he claimed that wasn't written down in a contract.

"I think the expectation being set on me deserves a little more recognition, don't you agree, sir? Between Flashlight and the MTA, the former can't protect me from the wrath of the latter. Besides, regardless of whether I accept or not, how are you so certain my beginner-level knowledge in neural interface technology is sufficient enough to brainwash an expert pilot? I haven't even pulled apart a neural interface or tinkered with its programming even once!"

"I will let you peruse every textbook, blueprint and other related material on neural interfaces in the technical library of our local database without limits." Verle added without hesitation. "While our offline database isn't as extensive as the central library, I have full discretion over who I can grant permission to access the library. I can grant you permission at any time. No red tape will get in the way."

That did sound extremely attractive, if a bit more worrisome for Ves. Perverting a neural interface went against his design philosophy, and studying how to become proficient against it would inflict real damage to his very design DNA!

While his fragile but flexible design philosophy could bend with the wind, he doubted it would survive against a hurricane!

Chapter 753

Since he recognized that Major Verle desired for his earnest cooperation and effort, he did not hesitate to leverage his negotiating power. What did it matter to the mech officer and operative of the Firestarters? He only acquiesced to concessions that either cost his organization nothing or became someone else's problem to fulfill.

Besides, for the steep service of scheming to brainwash and subsequently kill an expert pilot, the Firestarters better pay a commensurate price!

"I want full access to the technical library on the local database."

"I can't do that. The local database is hard-locked to only draw out snippets of its contents at any time. I can promise you to open up the library section on one narrowly-defined topic."

"Two." Ves pushed.

"That is rather difficult to arrange, but possible. Two and only two."

"I want the right to wear better gear. This standard-issue suit of light combat armor looks nice, but its plating is predominantly made out of titanium and trace amounts of junk exotics. Surely the Vandals have something better in stock?"

"Most of our higher-quality suits of armor consists of at least medium and heavy combat armor, which require special training to be proficient in their use. Smart or not, the skill is not something you can pick up in a couple of weeks. We don't have any better-quality light armor available because most of our officers and chiefs possess the requisite training to wear at least medium combat armor."

"Then provide me with a good blueprint from the local database and the right to draw out the resources required to fabricate it. In fact, I prefer this option because I get to customize my primary form of protection."

"Fine." Major Verle waved his hand dismissively. "You have access to anything you need from the cargo holds, but don't think about borrowing something from the vault. The higher-quality exotics and materials are too precious to be spent on a single suit of armor."

"I want a better comm as well."

"I'm sure we have a couple of officer-grade comms in the armory."

Ves started to feel that Major Verle's patience and limits came within sight. He decided to drop the most crucial

"I want the LMC, my mech company, to enjoy Flashlight's implicit support, sir. It's rumored that you guys are propping up certain companies, or at least favoring when it comes to procurement and contracting. I want my company to be associated in Flashlight's orbit, if that is possible."

This caused Major Verle to send Ves and appreciative smile. "Interesting demand. Clever, as well. Are you aware that any company that reaches a certain size has to be intertwined with the government?"

"No, but I can guess."

"Companies are like children. The state fosters their birth and raises them under their protection against unlawful conduct. Once the children become adults, they are expected to pay back the care they received when they were weak. Now, the best I can do is nominate your company into the list of possible associates, but the final decision is out of my hands. Continue to perform merits and you may see your wish come true. I do have to warn you that associating with Flashlight will put you and your company into their camp."

"What does that entail, sir?"

"You'll gain both allies and enemies. Unfortunately, allies within Flashlight's sphere have a tendency to mistrust each other, so don't count on them to lend any actual help. As for your enemies, they fall into two categories. First you will earn the ire of our governmental allies. The Ministry of Economic Development is possessive of the companies and industries it grasps, and they won't be happy with you for pulling your company out of their orbit. They are powerful, Mr. Larkinson, but more importantly they are well-connected."

"If it's a choice between Flashlight or the Ministry of Economic Development, I'd rather go with you guys. There's no connection between the ministry and I, while I've performed huge favors for Flashlight. If you guys aren't completely ungrateful with what I'm about to do, then I hope you remember my contribution and take me under your wing."

Major Verle shook his head. "I can't decide whether you are a fool or a prophet. What you say is true, yet I think you are sorely underestimating consequences if Flashlight decides to pull your company into their orbit. Once you get in, Flashlight expects you to continue to perform some favors if needed."

"That's a given." Ves conceded. "However, it's not as if the Ministry of Economic Development has no pushback either if they are so eager to hog all of the companies for themselves. If there's anything I know about the Bright Republic, they don't want to put all of their eggs in a single basket. Rather than letting my company be forgotten in a huge basket with much larger eggs, I'd rather take my egg to the smaller basket where it will actually gain some appreciation."

Major Verle chuckled. "Interesting analogy. However, you'll have to take into account that the bigger basket is safer. While the smaller basket allows your egg to gain more prominence, it's also expected to pitch in so that the basket stays strong enough to protect its precious cargo."

Even if Ves had to work for Flashlight every now and then even after the war, as long as he continued to remain useful to the military intelligence agency, they would continue to value him and his company. A continuous relationship benefited both sides of the arrangement. The hardest part was getting his foot in the door.

In a way, Ves also paved the way for his Shadow Force to potentially receive official sanction or at least become a tolerated existence if they discovered its ties to him. If Flashlight or the Firestarters adopted the same 'the end justifies the means' mentality as the Flagrant Vandals, then he'd fit right in with their band of misfits!

They finalized their agreement on a handshake and a verbal promise. This sort of agreement could never be put into a contract to be signed and notarized by others. Ves just had to trust Major Verle and his back organization to uphold their end of the deal.

Still, that reminded him of a potentially awful outcome. "What will happen if you encounter a mishap, sir? Who will know that I've performed this service?"

"You don't have to worry about that." Major Verle assured, content now that he secured Ves' cooperation. "We are still in the possession of at least one working quantum entanglement node. I've been sending sporadic reports to the Mech Corps and the Firestarters. While the details of this agreement can never be committed into a record and be sent through a channel effectively controlled by the Comm Consortium, it's sufficient for me to transmit a few obscure codes associated with your name."

Ves couldn't obtain a better assurance than this, but at least he received a promise that even if the Vandal fleet fell apart, his contribution would still be recognized, if only in an abstract fashion.

After they closed the deal, Ves was just about to turn to the exit when the pod that held the prince's body came into his view.

With his jamming device still active, every electronic device should have been blinded and deafened, but that did not apply to organic bodies and constructs.

"Sir, the prince..."

"I'll take care of it." Major Verle replied.

Ves imagined the prince's body would be dissolved and turned into elementary particles to be thrown out of the airlock during FTL travel. It would be the perfect way to dispose of it without getting traced back to the Vandals.

It was an awful way to treat the deceased. Even the criminals who received a cold burial at least held out hope that his remains would return to the cycle of life.

As he deactivated his signal jammer and got his gear back, he sent out a quick message to Ketis while he contemplated how to go about his job.

If he returned to his office and sat behind his terminal to research neural interface technology and use that knowledge to compromise a neural interface, then he'd definitely leave traces behind. Even with the major's cooperation, they couldn't guarantee complete privacy. Even his military-issued comm came with many hidden functions that Ves couldn't entirely trust.

"I'll have to fabricate a basic comm that leaves no traces."

He stopped walking towards the office and turned around to head towards the workshops at the lower decks. Ideas began to flit in his mind. Verle already promised him a better comm among other concessions, but it suffered the same problem as his current comm.

"I don't need to make anything fancy. In fact, the simpler the better, though I'll have to make sure it's sufficiently secure against remote hacking."

Ves arrived at the workshop and claimed a free precision-oriented 3D printer for himself. He pulled out a basic comm blueprint from the local database.

He opted to go for a basic one because that left the device with fewer openings and backdoors. In order to maximize its security, he upgraded the parameters of some of its processors and other functions, as well as adding high-quality shielding that naturally shielded the device from weaker scans and remote intrusion.

Sadly, it didn't work as effectively as Captain Murtadon's alloy shielding which effectively hid his bioimplants from the strongest mundane scans. Ves just had to make do with an inferior comm built with inferior materials in his haste to complete a secure device upon which he could do his dastardly deeds without getting found out.

In fact, the device wouldn't be secure on its own. Ves intended to rely on his signal jammer to insure complete privacy while he worked.

"I'll only have to make sure this secure comm doesn't frizzle out while my high-powered signal jammer is active."

Perhaps other engineers wouldn't be able to design a comm that resisted the extremely penetrating electrical interference of his signal jammer at the higher strengths, but as the person who adapted the tech in the first place, he knew of a few ways.

Ves incorporated a specific alloy shell that shielded the hardened comm against the exact kind of interference thrown up by the signal jammer. It amounted to taking advantage of the loopholes in his imperfect implementation so that the shielded comm continued to function normally.

Naturally, he left out every type of remote connection. The only way for Ves to transfer data into the comm was through inputting a chip into a special socket that usually remained sealed. He even incorporated a hardware break from the socket and the data chips of the comm in order to prevent advanced remote intrusions from making intermittent connection with the socket and thereby access the comm through this fashion.

He bet that Flashlight and all the other intelligence agencies developed means to stealthily access hardware sockets from a distance in this fashion. Just because a comm lacked a transceiver didn't mean it couldn't be hacked. Any device with connections or interfaces remained vulnerable to the many esoteric means that hackers developed over the ages.

"I hope the precautions I built into this comm is enough." Ves shook his head. He couldn't outsmart every hacker in the galaxy, but the best ones tended to be in the galactic center. "I can't anticipate every intrusion method."

Ves worked quickly to design and fabricate his modifications. Because it consisted of a tiny device, it didn't take all that long to fabricate a working copy. Once he finished it, he grabbed it and stored it in his toolbelt.

He could play with it later. Right now, the Flagrant Swordmaidens still needed to process the current crisis.

When he hopped back into his observer's seat, he turned to Ketis. "What did I miss?"

"A lot. A big fleet arrived."

"Is it the Temple of Haatumak and her pirate escorts?"

"Surprisingly, no. We Swordmaidens aren't too familiar with them, but apparantly the fleet comes from one of your old enemies."

Ves logged into the console of his seat and summoned up a local plot of the star system. A large, intimidating fleet arrived just over two light-hours away from another emergence zone.

The incoming fleet had taken a different route to this star system, and they evidently arrived a few hours later tha the Flagrant Swordmaidens. The delay in detecting the new presence was because the light of their arrival had only just reached their sensors.

Analysis of the faint light reflected from the dim brown dwarf led towards an alarming conclusion. The AIs tentatively identified the incoming ships as military combat carriers from the Mech Legion!

"The Vesians have come!"

Chapter 754

The only reason why Ves and the others remained calm was because the distance couldn't be closed within a short amount of time. Still, due to the light that bounced off the Flagrant Swordmaiden fleet at an earlier time, the Vesians had already started accelerating towards their foes.

While the Flagrant Swordmaidens could have easily kited the Vesians around, right now their entire fleet suffered a substantial slowdown. Not only did they still haven't taken complete control over their newly conquered light carriers, the Vandals also raced to repair the sublight propulsion and the FTL drives of the Finmoth Regal and the Linever Swan.

With the Flagrant Swordmaidens fleeing at half their maximum acceleration, the Vesian newcomers would eventually be able to catch up!

"When will the Vesians intercept our fleet?" He asked with an increasing amount of worry. "And have we identified their mech regiment?"

"Sixteen hours. And no, the sensor operators and analysts don't have a clue yet. The Vesians who arrived apparently make use of standard Vesian combat carrier classes. At this distance, it's too hard to make out any markings or variations."

If the Vandals brought a reconnaissance corvette or something like that, then they might have been able to resolve more detail. As of now, the ominous Vesian fleet's origins remained a mystery to everyone. Did they hail from Imodris? Venidse? Hafner?

Their exact origins made all of the difference. So far, it didn't seem likely they hailed from Venidse because their fleet moved significantly faster than the sluggish, heavily-armored combat vessels the Venidsans routinely preferred.

The Vesians knew they held an information advantage and actively worked to extend it. Almost immediately upon emergence, they activated a number of countermeasures.

"They're employing a reflective dust field to obscure our long-ranged optical sensors. Their laser-armed mechs are also beaming their weapons in a dispersed angle in the direction fleet."

A cheap and convenient way to hinder optical sensors from resolving details in long range was to throw a lot of junk data at them. The reflective dust bounced light that passed through them back and forth, which caused the images the optical sensors resolved to come out dimmer and distorted.

The dispersed laser emissions only exacerbated the problem. At this distance, a laser beam dispersed most of its energy. However, trying to stare at the fleet while distant lasers shone into the optical sensors was like trying to resolve detail while staring directly into a bright sun!

"Ves? Why is it so important for you to know what unit you're facing?"

Since Ketis hadn't experienced their run throughout Vesian space, Ves briefly filled her in. "Of the three Vesian duchies the Vandals have pissed off in recent times, we're practically reviled by the Imodris and Hafner. The former because we raided two of their planets, and the latter because we captured and ransomed one of their up-and-coming expert pilots."

"I heard some rumors about it, but to think you lived through that is impressive!" Ketis exclaimed. "It also sounds really humiliating for Imodris and Hafner. No wonder you Vandals are shaking in your boots right now. Do you think they're here to hunt you Vandals down?"

Ves thought about it but shook his head. "They wouldn't have entered the frontier or go all the way into the deep frontier just for us. I bet they're likely after the same objective as us. It's rather brave of them to travel all the way up here without allying themselves with a local pirate outfit."

How they managed to get here mattered little at the moment. The point was that the Vesian vessels started catching up to the half-crippled Flagrant Swordmaidens and would certainly be able to reach them before the engineers replaced the FTL drives!

According to the reports sent by the engineers in charge of the replacement process, the sabotage did not only disable the FTL drive, but also the network of corrections around it. Fixing all of it required an extensive teardown that consumed a lot of time.

Even if the engineers cut as many corners as possible to speed up the work, they still lacked too many chief engineers who knew how to work with the FTL drives! As the most sophisticated component of a ship, a bunch of junior engineers had no business messing with them! It took decades for the average engineer to pass all the certifications that allowed them to handle FTL drives responsibly.

"According to the latest update, the engineers estimate the Finmoth Regal's FTL drive will take at least twenty hours to repair, while the drive for the Linever Swan will take at least thirty-six hours!"

Both repairs took far too long to fix! The Acolytes had really employed their explosive charges with a great degree of skill!

This left the Vandals specifically with an awful dilemma. Would they choose to abandon another combat carrier and a vital logistics ship and transition into FTL without them, or stick around and wait until they completed repairs?

The latter option sounded patently unviable. Although the Vesians hadn't brought a full mech regiment, they brought at least half of its strength. If the Vesian fleet's mech roster consisted of an even mix of spaceborn and landbound mechs, then that meant the Vandals would have to contend against at least five-hundred spaceborn mechs!

The Verle Task Force may have been able to match their strength in their prime, but after all of the battles and casualties the Vandals could only bring half of their strength to bear. Actually less so now that they lost a couple of mech captains.

"This is not good news at all. Death is creeping onto our backs but we can't run away fast enough to escape its hungry grasp! Not if we cut off our wounded tail!"

Having already lost the Antecedent, it would hurt if they had to discard the Finmoth Regal and the Linever Swan as well. By now, the other independent pirate vessels had run away as far as they could from the Flagrant Swordmaidens, some even transitioning into FTL to depart the star system entirely!

Ves analyzed the plot and made a damning conclusion. "Every neutral and hostile pirate vessel in our range has flown out of the FTL restriction zone for even the cheapest FTL drives. They've traveled far enough from the brown dwarf that they're unaffected by its weak gravity. They can jump into FTL as soon as we send our mechs in their direction."

"So we can't hijack more ships in order to replace the two vesssels that you are about to lose." Ketis figured out.

"Just for the Finmoth Regal. The Linever Swan is almost irreplaceable for us. Both of us are depending on her to give us a continuing edge in terms of supplies once we reach the Aeon Corona System."

If the Swordmaidens captured a few spare ships while they had the chance, they might have been in a better situation as they would at least have some berths for one mech company's worth of mechs. Still, even if they missed the opportunity, the rest of the fleet could still squeeze in the surplus mechs somewhere, though only half at most, perhaps even less.

The decision on whether to dump the Finmoth Regal and the Linever Swan all came down to Major Verle's decision. After he returned from the infirmary, the man looked to be in a poor mood. Right now, they had less than sixteen hours to see whether they could expedite the repairs or if they needed to abandon their crippled ships to avoid meeting the larger Vesian fleet in combat.

As a raiding regiment, the Vandals generally lost out to most combat-oriented Vesian mechs even if they possessed the advantage in numbers. Right now, they not only dealt with this handicap, but for once the Vesians held the numbers advantage this time!

This double whammy of inferior numbers and inferior quality condemned the Flagrant Vandals to a certain loss! The addition of Lydia's Swordmaidens hardly affected the equation because they possessed even greater handicaps compared to the Vandals. Their strength lay in their formidable landbound mech roster. In space, the Vesians could easily tear apart the individualistic Misty Slashers.

Due to the distance involved, Ves had no data to work with. Whatever patrol mechs the Vesians deployed were even harder to identify than their starships. While he could still ride herd over the mech designers, he still had another, more important task to take care of. Ves looked at Major Verle, who nodded back.

"Here are the files you need on the topics you requested." The commanding officer nonchalantly said, holding out his palm upon which rested a secure data chip. "The chip will fry after use or in two hours. The encrypted data held within can only be accessed with a keycode that I've transmitted to you, which will cause the encryption itself to change after it is used once. You have three hours to study the knowledge relevant to your assignment before the encryption irreversibly scrambles the contents into garbage. As for the other topic, you have a week to digest them before they're scrambled as well."

Perhaps if Ves specialized in hacking or computer science and possessed a specialized comm, he would have been able to halt the time limits. Too bad he didn't enjoy either of those advantages, so he just had to make do with these limits.

"Three hours is way too little time, sir." He protested. "How can you expect me to become an expert in this extremely delicate field in the time it takes to cycle the FTL drive of a corvette?"

"Deal with it. Venerable Xie needs to become accustomed to the new upgrades as fast as possible, preferably within sixteen hours if we decide to put up a fight."

"What?!"

Damn. Did Major Verle intend to kickstart the brainwashing process by forcing a battle here? That was madness!

"No arguments. A shuttle is waiting for you at the shuttle deck. Get on board the Gorgon's Gaze and perform your upgrades. And don't forget to reflect the upgrades to the Venerable simulator pod as well!"

Ves glowered a bit as he stomped out of the command center. Not only did he have to 'upgrade' the Parallax Star within less than a day, he also had to incorporate the same upgrades into the expert pilot's exclusive simulator pod while keeping them a secret from everyone else.

All of these challenges continued to occupy him as he made his way down the shuttle deck. After undergoing an extensive security check, he boarded his assigned shuttle and strapped himself in. He was tempted to access the data chip immediately, but he had a feeling that activating his signal jammer aboard the shuttle would screw over his own ride.

As the shuttle rumbled and flew out of the shuttle battle bay, something very important popped into his mind. Wasn't there an acolyte at large? Ves received no word that the assassin of Prince Hixt-Klaaster had ever been caught.

He also guessed that this was the first shuttle launching out of the Shield since the lockdown.

Ves started to have a bad feeling about this transit. On a hunch, he summoned up his concentration and directed some of his spiritual energy into his left eyeball. He disengaged the straps that held him secure against his crash seat and rose up as if stretching his limbs.

In truth, he used the motions as an excuse to swivel around his vision. While his right eye spotted nothing except for empty seats, his left eye spotted a very ominous presence.

One that stood right behind his back.

His eye twitched. The Acolyte standing behind him must have caught it! Already, the robed figure raised his arm as if to unleash a strike.

"Damn! Why are you here?!"

Those useless security officers performed so many checks before they let the shuttle go, but they still managed to drop the ball!

Chapter 755

Even though Ves activated his spiritual vision to watch out for uninvited guests, he hadn't been mentally prepared to respond!

As his arm was about to come down while materializing the Amastendira, his left eye detected a swirl of energy shooting from the acolyte's palm! Ves only noted that it looked weaker than the previous energy waves he witnessed before he got hit!

Both of them paused for a bit. Ves waited for the pain to hit home, while the acolyte likely waited for him to crumble.

Yet.. it was as if his nerves got hit by a pillow! The strange energy that passed through his body barely tickled him as it traveled onwards!

Three seconds passed until Ves opened his mouth. "Was that supposed to hurt?"

Before he waited for an answer, the Ves finished aiming the recently-materialized Amastendira and shot a laser beam straight into the gaping mouth of the acolyte!

Unfortunately, the laser beam continued to bore out hole through the shuttle hull! The entire interior threw into chaos as all of the air sucked out into space. Fortunately, his combat armor's helmet folded up to protect him from the lack of air.

Just as he dematerialized the Amastendira and tried to figure out a way to explain the mess, the hatch to the cockpit shifted open. The shuttle pilot scanned the passenger room with a pistol in hand, staring bewilderingly at the hole burned straight through the hull and the partially headless corpse of the fugitive acolyte.

Strangely enough, the vacsuit the dead acolyte wore automatically folded out a thin helmet to cover up the destroyed head as best it could, thereby unintentionally preserving the body.

If not for the airtight seal, bubbling blood would have literally spurted from the blasted head due to the extreme change in pressure!

A comm channel automatically switched online.

"What happened here, Mr. Larkinson?"

"This invisible bastard popped up behind my back and I shot him before he could attack me. I'm lucky to be alive, honestly. If he got his attack off, I'd either be dead or in a coma."

Of course, this story leaked like a sieve. Ves was pretty sure that the shuttle's monitoring system captured everything, but right now he didn't wish to be dragged into a time-consuming investigation.

"Protocol says we need to land at the closest ship with a functional shuttle bay. We've just departed from the Shield of Hispania, so we'll be back in a jiffy." The pilot stated.

"No! Continue to the Gorgon's Gaze."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Larkinson, but the shuttle is still unsafe. We need to return as fast as possible."

"Let me call Major Verle."

Ves ignored the shuttle pilot's bleating and called Major Verle right away.

One minute later, the shuttle pilot received new orders directly from the big man himself. It basically reaffirmed his old orders.

Grumbling about protocol before he shut off the channel, the pilot reentered the cockpit and resumed the journey, this time with an extra hole in the passenger compartment.

After a short amount of time, the pilot evidently activated a damage control module, because a bot emerged from a hidden slot and flew towards the hole. It sprayed some white slime-like substance that quickly hardened into a hard, dry seal.

Reserve air started pumping back in, causing the interior of the shuttle to regain standard pressure.

"That's convenient." Ves spoke as his helmet folded back into itself again.

Ves contemplated sitting down somewhere far away from the body, which started reeking, but changed his mind when he stared at it. He never received permission to investigate the corpses of the acolytes caught in the previous ambush.

He should take advantage of this unique opportunity. After all, it took the shuttle at least fifteen to cross the void that separated the starships.

Even after vaporizing the upper head, the most crucial area when it came to spirituality, Ves could still poke around the corpse. He always wondered how the acolytes looked like beneath their obscuring robes.

While the Vandals would probably be annoyed at him for messing around with a corpse, it wasn't as if they already had enough dead acolytes stored in the morgue. With that excuse in hand, he bent down and started to unceremoniously strip the body of the robe.

Due to his armor, he handled the body rougher than he was supposed to. The robe tore under his hamfisted attempt to get it off.

"Oops."

He inspected the black fabric and found it to be nothing but cheap synthetic woven into a thick faux-woolen cloth.

After throwing it aside, Ves inspected the body proper.

"So it turns out they do engage in extreme genetic modification.

The bulky robes hid the dead acolyte's extreme divergences from a baseline human.

First, the acolyte actually possessed a misshapen third arm right underneath the left arm. The creepy limb appeared to be fully functional by all accounts and resembled a small alien's limb more than a human one.

Second, when Ves cut into the vacsuit material with a small multitool he kept in his toolbelt, the acolyte's skin looked completely unlike a human. The rough, grey skin resembled the texture of sandpaper.

More small anomalies popped up. Ves couldn't even count how many alien species his genetic modifications encompassed, but it must have been more than six because of all of the strange stuff he detected.

The acolyte's arms featured vestigial fins.

His reproductive organ looked like abstract art.

His chest cavity hosted an oversized heart that looked like a gnarly monstrosity.

He only possessed three toes per foot and four fingers per limb.

His spinal nerves were vastly oversized and swelled.

Ves focused on this last observation. Though his crude cutting and butchering had already made an awful on the deck, he readily endured the horror in an overriding desire to satisfy his curiosity.

While he may have hesitated at first, he found he could easily flip an invisible switch in his mind that caused him to regard the body as a machine. As a mech designer, the study of the human body formed an important component in his foundational studies. Battle mechatronics forced him to become even more familiar with the variations of the human body.

Humanoid mechs gained their shape from a mech designer's understanding and adaptation of the human body.

"When you think about it, a human body is kind of like an autonomous, miniature-sized organic mech. Beneath its human consciousness is a finely-tuned organic machine that has formed into its current shape after millions of years of evolution. However, like any machine, it's made out of many components that all serve a different purpose."

Leveraging his existing understanding of human mechs while treating the corpse as a mech led to many minor discoveries and insights, though he couldn't quite make sense of them right now.

Treating a human body like a mech was like treating a miniature as a fully-fledged mech. Some things just didn't translate correctly.

More to the point, Ves still hadn't been able to figure out how the acolytes gained the ability to manipulate spirituality and form them into an attack that affected real people! He had a strong suspicion the bloated spinal nerve played a key role in this, but Ves was no doctor or surgeon!

This was one of the many areas where treating the body as a mech failed. A real mech did not possess a real spinal nerve or brains for that matter. Instead, the cockpit and mech pilot took over their jobs.

However, his radical perspective did result in a harvest of sorts. While the many strange alien genes appeared to have resulted in an inhuman monstrosity so monstrous that people might wonder how it managed to function, Ves recognized a focused application of a premeditated design.

Some exobiologist envisioned a certain end product and manipulated the acolyte's genes to achieve this result.

"This body is able to generate and channel a lot of energy."

The overall design of the body echoed laser rifleman mechs such as his Crystal Lord design. Energy management played a central role in the configuration of the acolyte's altered human body.

For some reason, the body possessed some means of minimizing its heat emissions. Even under a high exertion, the acolyte neither radiated heat nor absorbed it from the environment, thereby avoiding tripping any heat-sensitive sensors!

Ves identified a few strange, dense growths in the lower body which may have served as heat sinks.

One of the most extreme changes to the acolyte was that he possessed an extremely altered digestive system. It took up a lot less space, but at the cost of losing the ability to digest most kinds of foods! In fact, if Ves didn't know any better, the only kinds of food the acolyte could digest were nutrient packs!

"What is it with the cultists and their love for nutrient packs?"

Strange food preferences aside, he found out enough clues to reconstruct the overall 'design' of the half-alien acolyte.

"Everything comes down to generating lots of energy and converting them into.. something else."

Had the exobiologist responsible for producing this human monstrosity figured out how to transform energy into spiritual power? It sounded ludicrous, yet the 'autopsy' he performed seemed to suggest that this was very real!

As Ves fell into thought, the shuttle suddenly thumped. It had reached the shuttle bay of the Gorgon's Gaze! A few seconds later, the outer hatch opened up to allow for the entry of a team of armed security officers.

"What the hell?!" The security lieutenant in the lead suddenly uttered as he beheld the macabre butchering that took place in the middle of the passenger compartment. The sight was so gruesome that he automatically drew his rifle onto Ves. "Stand back!"

Ves suddenly pulled out of his thoughts and looked befuddled at the rifles pointed in his direction. Those were some big guns.

"Damnit."

A few minutes later, Ves had been escorted out of the shuttle and endured a rough interrogation from the lieutenant in charge with inspecting the aftermath of the ambush.

He couldn't really provide an excuse for why he spontaneously cut up a dead body except to state that he did it for research. When that didn't fly, Ves merely placed another call to Major Verle, who responded with an exasperated sigh over the comm before he hung up.

Minutes later, Ves exited the shuttle bay as a free man again. Nothing could possibly stop him in his current task. Even if he shot a random Vandal right in the corridor, he'd probably be able to get away with it with a lame excuse.

He navigated the familiar corridors until he came down the special workshop area next to the private hangar bay of Venerable Karol Xie.

Miss Lisbeth Eta-Denmersken nervously wrung her hands as she greeted him. "Head designer! I've received your notification. The Parallax Star and the Pale Dancer have both been moved to the workshop. Do you require anything else?"

"Nothing else but complete privacy." He spoke succinctly. "The modifications I'm about to perform on the Parallax Star involve highly classified technology that you and your crew aren't allowed to witness. Major Verle has lent me the authority to have this workshop vacated of every mech designer and mech technician."

"But sir! The Parallax Star is my baby!"

"The Parallax Star is the property of the Flagrant Vandals! It is emphatically not your baby." Ves rebuked. "I'm aware that you are intricately involved in its construction and servicing, but you've been assigned to a single mech for so long that you've forgotten what it means to be a mech designers. Even Ketis, a mech designer from the frontier, has more sense than you."

"That's preposterous!" Miss Lisbeth looked offended.

"I'm only stating the facts here. Now get out of this workshop and make sure everyone gets the message that they're not allowed to barge inside."

In order to make sure that Miss Lisbeth didn't barge in unexpectedly, Ves borrowed Major Verle's authority again to have some security officers guard the hatches against entry.

"Now, let's get to work." He said as he stared up to the impressive form of the Parallax Star.

Chapter 756

When Iris stayed with the Vandals as a guest for the Vesian Revolutionary Front, she inducted Ves into the barebones essence of how neural interfaces worked.

It served one of the most important roles in a mech because they enabled human thought and machine processing to blend in seamlessly in a combined entity with an extraordinary capacity for information processing and decision making.

Humans by themselves made do with their brains and spine as the central nervous system that operated their bodies and gave them thought.

A mech can include all the raw processing power as its mech designer can manage to stuff inside, but without a good mind to operate the machine, most of its raw power would be wasted.

These days, AIs did a good job at serving as the basic brains of a mech, but skilled pilots were always able to leverage their creativity and intense practice to outsmart these dimwitted bot-like mechs.

Therefore, putting the human mind in the center of a mech's control mechanism proved to be the winning combination. Yet the strain they experienced when they blended their mind with the cold processors of a machine prompted neural interface developers to refine this component with advanced instructions and algorithms meant to filter and process the input and output of data in a more efficient fashion.

The Church of Haatumak's Redemption Duel taught Ves what would happen if this went wrong. Working with and experiencing the consequences of an improperly configured neural interface hit home how easy it would be to destroy a mech pilot.

Each time a mech pilot interfaced with a mech, they put the integrity of their mind in the hands of the mech designer who developed the mech and the mech technicians who fabricated and serviced the machine.

In essence, it was as if Ves held a gun and the mech pilot voluntarily pressed their head against its muzzle, trusting that Ves wouldn't pull the trigger.

The MTA made sure that mech designers were too afraid of the consequences if they pulled the trigger.

Yet this time, Ves struck a deal with Major Verle that forced him to go against every ethical boundary and pull the trigger.

Even working on Acolyte Gien's Evaporating Spear wasn't this egregious! At least then someone else already pulled the trigger. Ves merely acted as an accessory to the crime. This time he'd be the principal murderer, and bloody his hands with the blood of an authentic expert mech!

Any lesser mech designer would collapse and break at this implacable conundrum.

To Ves, it depended on whether he could bend his principles far enough without breaking them. It posed a severe challenge to him because manipulating the neural interface of a mech in his care went directly against his fundamental principles.

He did not feel entirely comfortable with engaging in this practice.

"Maybe the three-hour time limit is a blessing. If I dive in any further, I'd be liable to break my design philosophy."

Limiting the time spent on this unsavory project could enable Ves to get away with it, if only barely. He still couldn't believe that Major Verle talked him into this insane plan.

Worse yet, Ves actually agreed with the necessity of it all. Venerable Xie regularly talked with the Fourth Prince over the comm whenever they fell out of FTL, and his current absence at this moment must surely be of concern to the former bodyguard.

Right now, the Vandals managed to stall the expert pilot by putting an AI simulation of the prince over the comm channel.

That wouldn't last forever. The expert pilot may even be growing suspicious right at this moment if the pair layered their conversations with hidden codes that the AI may or may not have figured out.

"Time is of the essence. The sooner I get this done, the faster this risk goes away."

He first patrolled the entire mech workshop, inspecting every possible nook and cranny where someone might be hiding. He employed his stealth detector in a high-powered mode and his spiritual vision to be absolutely certain nobody would be able to witness his actions.

Once he reassured himself that the workshop hosted no one else but Ves, he picked out an area stacked with a number of crates and commanded a couple of bots to build a makeshift hut around him that blocked direct vision.

After that, he employed his signal jammer in a fairly high setting to make sure that even the most discerning sensors would capture nothing but static if pointed in his direction.

"This should be enough precautions."

He arrived at the moment he anticipated the most. He retrieved the encrypted data chip from its case and slotted it into his newly-fabricated secure comm. After a few seconds of interfacing and decryption with the supplied codes, the comm gained a new app that temporarily granted him access to two different sets of documents.

One of them granted him a three-hour of access to a limited selection of textbooks, blueprints and even research papers related to neural interface technology. The selection of reading material disappointed him a bit. Evidently, the local database did not store that much books on neural interfaces by default.

"Well, I'll have to make due I guess."

The second set of documents consisted of a haphazard sampling of engineering textbooks related to FTL drives!

Yes, Ves deliberately requested access to high-quality textbooks related to the design and construction of FTL drives, something which a mech designer should ordinarily leave to people like Chief Engineer Avanaeon!

However, all the mishaps the Flagrant Vandals suffered with FTL drives these past few months made Ves concerned about their reliance on very senior engineers to fix any problems relating to their principal means of traversing the stars.

What if the Vandals lost every FTL drive? What then? Ves was unwilling to leave his chance to survive and escape the deep frontier to others. Also, unlike other mech designers, Ves possessed a deep understanding in Physics, and though he only possessed knowledge related to mechs, he was certain he could leverage his transhuman level of Intelligence to learn enough about FTL technology to fix up a slightly-damaged FTL drive at the very least.

"I don't think I can design and fabricate something as complex as an FTL drive from scratch. You have to be the equivalent of a Journeyman Mech Designer to be able to cobble up the most primitive form that's outdated by a couple of thousands of years."

He may lack a foundation in starship engineering, but Ves did not shy away from the challenge of trying to understand FTL technology. He only held complete trust in the machines he built himself. Having already crafted devices unrelated to mechs such as his gadgets and his new comm, he became more confident in his ability to build up an entire arsenal reserved for his own use!

Even though he could have asked for textbooks on easier topics, Ves remained committed to his choice, especially considering how deep inside sandmen space they intruded.

Still, trying to gain a rudimentary understanding of FTL technology was easier said than done. Many engineers tried and failed. Ves came from a different discipline of engineering, so he couldn't leverage his existing base of knowledge to facilitate his learning.

"Well, let's leave that issue for later. For now, I have a job to do."

He turned back to the folder containing the documents related to neural interface technology. A quick look inside their pages caused Ves to immediately grow cross-eyed.

"Too complex!"

It didn't help that the documents presumed an extremely deep familiarity with human biology and neurology as well. The texts contained numerous references to mechanical aspects as well as biological aspects, sometimes in the same sentence!

"It's impossible for me to understand the underlying theories at this rate!"

Neural interfaces worked with both man and machine, and while Ves had the latter covered, he lacked a sufficiently detailed understanding of the former.

It was like trying to participate in a footrace with one of his legs sawed off. He may be able to hop forward for a few steps, but eventually he'd fall flat on the ground while barely passing over the starting line!

Of course, with only three hours at his disposal, he wouldn't have been able to achieve an elementary mastery of this field to the same degree he gained a foundation in ultracompact energy storage systems.

He didn't need to be so thorough for this project.

"Thank the heavens that I've received some blueprints and design schematics."

Ves quickly spotted one set of files stored in a separate folder that served as the lynchpin to his project. Major Verle somehow managed to access and copy over the complete design specifications for the Parallax Star's custom neural interface!

"This.. this is annotated! Everything is complete!"

The design specifications not only listed out the properties of the neural interface, but it also broke down its inner workings! Not only did Ves receive a guide towards how its hardware had been designed, but he also had access to detailed commentary to the billions of lines of code that made up the customized programming that effectively altered and manipulated the pilot of the Parallax Star!

"This makes this project a lot easier!"

Instead of groping blind in the dark trying to mess things around in the hopes of reaching a distant destination, Ves now held a small candle that allowed him to navigate the dark and complex maze without getting stuck.

He immediately took a deeper dive into the commentary and annotations of the programming of the neural interface. Due to the sheer abundance of code, many of which pertained to trivial operations, Ves had to make a careful selection of portions that offered him the best hope of manipulating a mech pilot's mentality.

He narrowed down his selection to the sections that dealt with pairing a mental trigger word to activating a specific resonance sequence in the mech.

For example, if an expert pilot wanted to summon up a protective energy field, they would usually convey the word 'shield' or something to their mechs. The neural interface picked up this trigger word and automatically activated a set of instructions that facilitated the activation of the energy field.

The configuration of these settings needed to be tailored to the individual mech pilot to insure a smooth activation of resonance.

The complexity of the code astounded Ves. He could spend months trying to understand their workings and only master twenty percent of it before he bumped against a hard wall that required extreme familiarity with resonatic exotics and their neurological triggers.

Ves did not need to understand that much. In fact, he didn't even need to understand a single percent of what went on. He only needed to change a few parameters and add a few lines of code to distort an innocent function into something more nefarious.

It was like how Ves could take a power reactor and change a dozen little things to transform it into a bomb powerful enough to disintegrate the entire mech. It actually took a lot less effort than anyone thought to perform such sabotage!

"This is the nature of interconnectedness. One change will ripple into a huge wave that can affect millions of variables."

Of course, this interconnectedness also turned the entire programming structure into a house of cards. If Ves messed something up and inadvertently pulled out a card, the entire neural interface could easily turn into a dangerous disaster akin to the tampered neural interfaces used in the Redemption Duel.

It reinforced the notion that mech pilots entrusted their very lives to the soundness of the neural interfaces each time they deployed.

Ves understood the true value of a neural interface specialist. They weren't just responsible for the smooth functioning of a small cog in the machine. It wouldn't be exaggerated to say that they held the power over the lives and deaths of every mech pilot that made use of their neural interfaces.

A single moment of negligence could lead to a permanent distortion in a mech pilot's personality!

Chapter 757

What Ves needed to do was to find the root programming and sneak in a few extra codes.

However, Ves faced a huge issue at this juncture. He wasn't adept in the special programming language used to instruct a neural interface on how to manage the man-machine connection. He couldn't just write something like 'make the mech pilot unflinchingly loyal to the 6th Flagrant Vandals mech regiment, oh, and also forget about your past loyalty to Prince Hixt-Klaaster'.

The phrase described the desired outcome, but to get there Ves needed to manipulate the machine language into an exact set of code that specifically resulted in such an outcome. To do that from scratch, Ves needed to develop an extreme amount of expertise in the inner workings of the human mind in order to be able to target the specific brain sections related to loyalty and recognition of specific individuals and groups.

Fortunately, Ves came across a potential shortcut to the problem when he returned to browsing the textbooks. A huge section on ethics of all things provided the solution!

"Of course! Anyone who specializes in neural interfaces can't go around the Farund Affair!"

The Farund Affair that prompted the MTA to impose restrictions on neural interface technology changed the mech industry forever. A mech designer foolishly used to brainwash his customers into becoming devoted fans to his products in order to drive up sales.

"What a fool!"

If a mech designer had the power to brainwash millions of mech pilots, then at least use that power to conquer a state or something! Wasting all of that power to earn more money was one of the stupidest abuses of power in the history of the mech industry.

Ever since then, the MTA cracked down the endless variations in neural interfaces that mech designers had cooked up. The unethical practice of slipping in small subliminal brainwashing tricks make their customers become inexplicably attracted to their own products immediately came to an end.

The MTA even outright executed the worst offenders!

The sordid incident emphasized the huge potential for harm that mech designers wielded. If they completely lost all of their morality, they could corrupt thousands of mech pilots or cause harm at an untold scale.

Ves recognized the purpose behind the MTA's caution towards neural interface technology. It reflected in the sections of the textbooks that discussed the Farund Affair as a cautionary tale.

As Ves read through these sections, he skipped right over the many warnings and proselytizing to do the right thing. "Blablabla, I'm not interested in this irrelevant garbage. Where are the examples?"

Finally, he reached a page which contained an actual snippet of code sampled out of one of Farund Inc.'s tampered mech designs!

Best yet, the rest of the chapter detailed the exact mechanisms behind the code and how they all worked together to impose an unnoticeable mental compulsion upon the mech pilot whenever they interfaced with one of Farund's mechs!

"This is like the blueprint of a crime!"

The goal of these sections was to teach mech designers authorized to study neural interface technology to recognize the signs of altered programming and to identify their effects. It was much like how police detectives learned how other criminals performed their crimes.

It also had the unintended effect of teaching a crooked detective how to perform their crimes more efficiently and how to get away with it. The step-by-step outlining and deconstruction of key code sections taught Ves exactly how Farund Inc. and some of the other unethical mech designers managed to target the specific brain sections to achieve the desired response.

Of course, at some point, Ves felt a faint pressure building up in the back of his mind, and it didn't originate from the nauseating effects of his signal jammer. The pressure built up to such an extent that he had to forcibly jerk away his sight.

"I've finally come to this point." He frowned as he nursed his forehead. His obsessive state caught up to him, and he recklessly consumed the contents of the textbooks without regard to how his design philosophy might object to his current area of interest.

Even if he flipped the mental switch in his mind that allowed him to put his ethics and his principles inside a box and put it in the closet, he still couldn't escape the fundamental discordance that came with his actions.

"I can lie to everyone else, but I can't lie to myself."

His design philosophy centered around recognizing the intrinsic value of life of mechs. Implicit in this assumption that mechs shared the same right to recognition as the mech pilots that piloted them. If Ves purposely engaged in an act that impacted the life of a mech pilot, then that would automatically degrade the status of the mech as well.

It sounded a bit convoluted, but it essentially boiled down to that he should treat his mech pilots like he treated his mechs. With respect.

Any violation of this maxim threatened to collapse the entire theoretical underpinning of his design philosophy!

"It boils down to respecting the dignity of human life."

Ves became stuck at this juncture. If he really wanted to, he could force the issue and cause his design philosophy to stop harping so much about this demand. Yet he didn't wish to do so.

Just like how Ketis formulated her design philosophy in a deeply personal moment where she drew upon her most cherished memories and values, so did Ves share the same attachment for his own design philosophy.

How could he tarnish the guiding star he always dreamt of reaching in his career? That would be like a champion mech athlete suddenly retiring from the dueling scene in order to become a farmer!

In the end, Ves hadn't been able to come up with a better solution that to take bite-sized pieces out of his reading material and hoped he learned enough to apply them to his situation.

Fortunately, with the examples related to the Farund Affair to provide the starting point, Ves crudely copied entire sections of code and pasted them wherever they fit in the custom programming for the Parallax Star's neural interface.

Of course, it wouldn't be so easy to complete this job. It was like Ves modified an existing mech by stuffing it with parts from an entirely different design. Ves needed to seamlessly blend in the new code, adjust its parameters to redirect its loyalty-reinforcing mechanisms from Farund Inc. to the Flagrant Vandals, and make sure that the effects were inconspicuous enough that nobody sensed anything wrong.

The last part had the potential to expose his crimes. One uncontrolled outburst from the mech pilot or severe neurological damage could lead to an investigation that eventually narrowed down the source of the expert pilot's affliction to the altered neural interface!

And since Ves was currently working on the Parallax Star without allowing any recordings or maintaining any logs, he'd be the prime suspect!

Therefore, despite his desire not to, Ves returned to the textbooks and tried to study as much as possible before his access expired.

His design philosophy creaked and groaned under the strain. Ves gritted his teeth and pushed through by studying less important aspects about the programming of a neural interface. Ves inferred the use, application and functionality of a core function or code by trying to understand the workings of a smaller and less important functions related to the greater one.

It was like testing the lethality of a mech-sized weapon by letting himself be shot by a scale model a thousand times less powerful than the real thing. It still hurt an awful lot if he got hit by the toy, but at least it wouldn't outright turn his body into a smear of flesh and blood!

His clever learning method worked to a degree. Ves basically fooled his own design philosophy with this method, but the downside was that his learning efficiency dropped by eighty percent.

By the time the three-hour time limit finally passed, Ves barely managed to increase his understanding of the code, much of it built on spurious logic.

"I'm not cut out to customize a neural interface." He muttered. His design philosophy fundamentally objected to the entire practice, even if he used it for benign purposes.

It basically meant he had to resign himself to the fact that he'd be missing a vital tool in his toolbox when he finally started designing custom mechs and expert mechs. Either he could leave the custom programming to another mech designer, or just make use of one of the many off-the-shelf packages from the MTA.

That was a problem for later. Right now, he had less than twelve hours to figure out his configuration and apply it to both the mech and the simulator pod.

Ves actually completed his work in eight hours.

Not because he was so good that he finished his work early, but because he lacked sufficient understanding to do very much. In the end, Ves became highly unsatisfied with the improvised cobbled-together code that crudely replaced the subject to plead loyalty to from Farund Inc. to the Flagrant Vandals.

In fact, he did more than that. He added other pieces of code that temporarily boosted a mech pilot's compatibility with a mech in exchange for slowly wearing out their potential.

Over a few months of constant use, the implications of this short-term boost would become evident as the mech pilot's brains and nerves started to exhibit signs of breaking down.

"Since this guy is supposed to die anyway, there's no harm in milking him for all he's worth."

His design philosophy screamed when he adapted this portion of code. Ves had the feeling that if he forcibly increased the performance boost at the cost of degrading the mech pilot's mind faster, he wouldn't have come away as a different mech designer.

"That was close." He sighed in relief. He only got away with it because the changes only happened gradually over time. If the mech pilot stopped piloting the mech, then he had a chance to recover.

"Not that this is going to happen anytime soon."

Ves used the extra time that remained by adapting the same set of tampered code to the custom programming of the Pale Dancer, which was Venerable Xie's personal landbound rifleman mech.

It only took him two more hours to complete the transplant. Neural interface programming followed certain industry-wide rules, so Ves didn't have to reinvent the wheel. He just needed to connect the code to the right functions and make sure that the altered parameters didn't cause a problem down the line.

It was as easy as ripping out a power reactor of one mech and putting it inside a mech of a different model but with similar parameters. Ves only needed to adjust a small amount of connections and tweak the programming to make the new combination compatible with each other.

Once he finalized the programming for the two mechs along with their simulator versions, he only spent a half hour in updating their firmware. It took seconds to actually replace the old version with the newly tampered version, but it took a lot more time to verify the changes had stuck and that it wouldn't be reverted by the many backups stored in other parts of the system.

Due to the demands of the MTA, mech designers were compelled to include many safety features that protected against the corruption of the programming. After all, battles in space and barren planets often exposed mechs to cosmic radiation, which in rare cases corrupted data banks or transmissions of sensitive data.

This problem usually happened to cheap mechs that cut a lot of corners in terms of safety features. However, it could also happen to normal mechs or even expert mechs if the radiation shielding built around the cockpit sustained a breach and incurred substantial battle damage.

Still, the textbooks already listed out all the possible countermeasures against corruption, so he corrupted them as well.

By the time he was finished with updating the neural interfaces and the simulator pod, Ves mentally padded himself on the back and finally disengaged his signal jammer.

A slew of high-priority messages immediately arrived at his comm. Ves took one look at the oldest message and cursed.

"The Temple of Haatumak has arrived!"

Chapter 758

The Flagrant Vandals already deduced that the Temple of Haatumak and her accompanying swarm of independent pirate vessels intended to arrive in this star system.

The invisible Acolytes stationed aboard almost every vessel of the Flagrant Swordmaidens hadn't been placed there for sightseeing. The only conclusion the Vandals and the Swordmaidens could make was that they'd been placed as a fifth column placed ahead among their ranks.

As long as they utilized their strange form of stealth to remain completely unnoticed, they would be in a prime position to facilitate a two-pronged attack once the main force of the Church of Haatumak arrived and commenced their attack!

With the key to enter the Aeon Corona System in the hands of the Flagrant Swordmaidens, the cultists who plotted against them from the start needed to make their move very soon if they wanted to obtain the key.

Dealing with the Church of Haatumak already posed a significant challenge. Not only was their Temple almost as huge as a fleet carrier, they also enjoyed the devotion of many independent pirates who would gladly throw hundreds of mechs at the Flagrant Swordmaidens to please their god!

Fending off a swarm of low-quality mechs would take every bit of strength the Flagrant Swordmaidens could summon. If the invisible Acolytes suddenly assassinated the majority of their upper hierarchy, then the loss of command and coordination would certainly spell their end at the hands of cultists and fanatical pirates!

Even if the Vandals and the Swordmaidens confronted the Acolytes earlier than scheduled, they still had to deal with the other prong of attack. That was why Ves became confused why he only received a delayed notification of the threat.

Shouldn't they be fighting for their lives since the first message arrived? Ves looked up its timestamp and noticed that it had been sent just after he activated his signal jammer!

"What?! An hostile force transitioned into the star system and nobody warned me?!"

Ves emerged out of his hut of crates and marched towards the exit. He unlocked the hatch and slipped out before confronting the nearest security officer. "What's the state of the battle?!"

"Uhh.. battle, sir?"

"The Temple of Haatumak arrived in this system some time ago, isn't that right?"

"That is correct."

Something strange was going on. "Did a battle erupt between cultists and our forces?"

"No, sir."

Ves blinked. "Then what did the forces aligned to the Church actually do?"

"They went on the attack, Mr. Larkinson. It's just that they didn't aim for us, but rather the Vesians!"

"What!?"

This sounded extremely preposterous at first. Ves raised his comm and read through the subsequent messages. He had a feeling he missed some details.

The messages indeed stated that the cultist fleet emerged close to the entry zone where the Vesian fleet had arrived. All of this had actually happened a few hours before, but the light of their emergence only just started arriving to the Vandals.

To sum up the observations made by the Vandal long-ranged sensors, they detected a significant amount of disarray among the Vesian fleet. Their countermeasures against long-ranged observation abruply ceased while several valuable combat carriers flew out of poisition or slowly began to blow up!

"The Vesians paid a visit to the Temple of Haatumak as well!"

Evidently, the Vesians sought out massive Temple in order to pay their respects and requested their ships to be blessed by their Priests so their powerful and energetic fleet wouldn't have to skirmish against the sandmen every step of the way.

It made sense for the Vesians to do so, yet it allowed their ship to be infiltrated by the creepy invisible Acolytes who had a tendency of stalking important people at close proximity from behind.

The Acolytes must have initiated a decapitation attack as soon as the Temple of Haatumak and her sycophants jumped into the system and closed in on the disarrayed Vesian force!

Presumably, with many officers assassinated or taken out of action and with sabotage wracking several of their vessels, the Vesians shouldn't have been in a good shape to repel the swarm of pirate mechs that deployed from the pirates.

The first minutes of the battle proceeded chaotically as the Vandal long-ranged sensors worked hard to figure out what was going on, something which the battle didn't help with all of the lasers and explosions scattering light in every direction.

When the battle between the Vesians and the worshippers initially began, the Vandals expected to witness a difficult battle for both sides. Which side won depended whether the numerically-inferior Vesians regained enough wits to form a coordinated defense.

Something like this should be hard to achieve if the Acolytes had free reign aboard their combat carriers. Unlike the Vandals, the Vesians couldn't rely on a tip-off from Ves to be prepared to root out an invisible intruder among their ranks.

The subsequent messages that arrived at his comm reflected this prediction as the Vandals expected the pirates to vanquish the Vesians, though at heavy cost as the Vesian mech pilots didn't go down without a fight.

Yet the battle did not proceed along this fashion, because at some point the Vesians deployed an expert mech.

How did the Vandals know? Because of the mech's subsequent performance and the resonance emanations their sensors picked up. The mech was like a beacon in the dark!

This expert mech first proceeded to crash in the middle of the pirate ranks. Having entered the chicken coop, the wolf proceeded to demolish them in rapid tempo!

In the first minute, it slew twenty pirate mechs!

In the second minute, it destroyed fifteen pirate mechs!

In the third minute, it slashed apart twenty-seven pirate mechs!

The pirates fell into complete panic where the expert mech went. Not a single pirate mech dared to confront the insanely lethal expert pilot in close combat! This caused the expert mech to single-handedly disrupt and push back the pirate mech swarm until the Vesians finally gained sufficient room to regain some of their organization!

After that, the Vesians counter-attacked! They charged into the uncoordinated pirate swarm and used superior formations and tactics to mow down the pirate mechs with the expert mech in the lead!

Eventually, the Temple of Haatumak and her pirate escorts ordered a full retreat, pulling back their mechs and burning away from the Vesian fleet as fast as possible!

The Vesians didn't pursue, likely because they already broke the pirates and gained nothing from stomping the overconfident pirates and cultists further into the ground. Besides, they still needed to deal with the aftermath of the assassination attempts and the sabotage wracking their vessels.

Ves looked up from his comm. "Have heard some rumors about how the Vesian fleet is doing right now?"

The man in front of him shrugged. "I'm just a security officer, sir. All that mech and spaceship stuff is out of my purview. However, I did hear rumors of how the Vesian evacuated a couple of combat carriers and ships from their supply train. Over two-thirds of their surviving mech force along with the expert mech resumed chasing after the attackers, up until the pirates voluntarily gave up ten random pirate ships."

The Vesians suffered the same problem as the Vandals, but to a much more serious degree. Not only did they lose more ships and officers, but they also needed to obtain replacement ship to provide new homes to mechs that have lost their motherships.

The grit and discipline shown by the Vesian mechs on the field and the stellar performance of the expert mech frightened the wits out of the Vandal analysts. Even in their damaged state, they likely still outnumbered the Flagrant Swordmaidens and their expert pilot alone already exhibited a much stronger resonance than Venerable Xie ever demonstrated!

"I need to return." He said. "Please inform the captain of the Gorgon's Gaze to prepare a shuttle ride back."

He then turned around and sought out Miss Lisbeth. The deranged mech designer still wore a hazard suit as she sat behind a console. As best as Ves could tell, stared listlessly at past combat footage of the Parallax Star in action.

She acted like an addict who had her supply of stimulants taken away. Ves shook his head. She made for a pathetic sight.

"Miss Lisbeth."

"Yes head designer!" The woman immediately turned around and gazed at Ves with pleading eyes. "Please tell me you are finished with modifying the expert mechs! I need them back! It's been more than twelve straight hours! I can't sleep as long as they're separated from me!"

Ves wanted to palm his face and give her another rebuke. Eventually he held off because it wouldn't change anything. Witnessing her appalled reaction made him feel rather sorry for Miss Lisbeth. She had come into touch with knowledge and design concepts beyond her means to understand and became irrevocably warped by those experiences.

That made her a useful mech designer to help keep the expert mechs in tip-top shape, but the continued exposure only deepened the damage.

Ves could have ended up like that if he strained his design philosophy a little more. It was a good thing he respected his limits and took a detour to achieve his results.

"Miss Lisbeth, I've finished implementing the classified changes. I suggest that Venerable Xie should first test out the adjustments in the simulator pod before taking the Parallax Star out into space for a spin. I'm sure I can get Major Verle to approve a live test when I return to the Shield of Hispania."

Her eyes immediately began to glow as all signs of glumness disappeared from her face. "You're finished? Great! I will prepare the Parallax Star for deployment immediately! Don't you worry, head designer, with me in charge nothing will go wrong!"

"Make sure to log the telemetry of the simulator pod and the actual mech and all the other relevant data you can gather. Put that all into an encrypted data chip and send them over to me via shuttle. Don't transmit the data remotely."

Once he issued his orders, he turned around and headed down to the shuttle bay. He entered a prepared shuttle and carefully swept its passenger compartment for any uninvited guests before he took a seat.

Even though he didn't expect to meet an Acolyte this time, he could never be too sure.

As the shuttle calmly exited the Gorgon's Gaze and brought him back to his assigned ship, Ves reflected on what he had just done.

To say that he felt conflicted was an understatement.

While he eroded his conscience to such an extent these days that he shouldn't be disturbed at plotting to harm an expert pilot indirectly under his care, his design philosophy disagreed.

"My mind reluctantly accepts the necessity, but my heart is disgusted at my actions."

He hadn't just turned his back on his principles. He ran them over with a battleship and threw down a few nukes for good measure!

Yet despite treating them so rottenly, Ves felt as if he could bounce right back to normal after his sordid actions faded from his mind!

The more he deceived, the easier he could maintain his doublethink. Even though he performed a heinous crime, he still thought of himself as a good mech designer. The mental gymnastics he performed in his mind became so sophisticated that he felt his conscience should go back to normal after it stopped making a fuss.

However, his design philosophy was another matter entirely. Even if he could lie to his mind, he couldn't lie to his heart.

It had suffered a lot of stress from being bent in every direction. Restoring it to its normal, pure, bright and aspirational form wouldn't be easy. He had a suspicion that it took more than time to straighten it out into its original shape.

"Well, if my design philosophy is a little bent, then I'll just have to hammer it back into shape."

Chapter 759

Once Ves finally returned to the Shield of Hispania, received an immediate summons to Major Verle's stateroom. After activating his signal jammer, he provided a brief report of his work using allusions, indirect words and code words.

Just because Ves trusted his signal jammer to disable most types of recording devices did not mean it could defeat everything. The Privacy Shield from the System worked a lot better than his cobbled up device, and worked on scientific principles far beyond his depth.

"So you don't have a high degree of confidence that your modifications have worked?" Major Verle pressed with a frown.

"No, sir." Ves replied. He really wanted to scratch his head right now, but his armored fingers wouldn't make that a pleasant experience. Due to the continued state of heightened alert, nobody had shed their bulky suits as of yet. "Look, the best way I can put it is like putting a third-year mech design student in charge of designing a mech. There's a fifty percent chance the mech works and there's a fifty percent chance the mech will suffer a catastrophic error such as blowing up or cooking the mech pilot alive."

"Fifty-fifty?"

"Maybe sixty-forty. I have a bit more confidence in my success than failure, sir. Even then, there are different gradations of success and failure. A partial success would be that the.. intended effect is working, but the intrusion is too blunt and noticeable. A partial failure may be that my modifications are working, but it is achieving the wrong effect."

"How do we know whether which one is the case?"

"We don't, not at first. I had to make a choice how strong I wanted to push the modifications. If it's shaped like a hammer, we risk incurring immediate damage. If it's as soft as a pillow, then the effect won't be as obvious, but it will take a lot of pillow hits in order to achieve the same effect as a simple hammer strike."

"What's the timeframe until we are able to perceive a difference?"

"I truly don't know, sir. According to historical examples, it may take up to a week of piloting time to achieve a lasting change. The effect is more telling with the real thing rather than with a simulation. I highly advise conducting at least one simulation session and one live exercise before we depart this star system. I can compare the telemetry of both situations. While it doesn't allow me to determine whether the effect has the desired outcome, I can at least identify if anything has gone wrong or if there are unintended consequences."

A simulator pod contained a lot of safeties and hardware limitations for Ves to circumvent. Although it couldn't prevent the brainwashing effect entirely, it severely curtailed its effect.

A neural interface faced fewer limits, especially when it came to versions geared towards expert pilots. They needed to be capable of channeling a lot more data as expert pilots exhibited a massively increased capacity towards processing data. Ves possessed a lot more flexibility in abusing its expanded capabilities to his will.

"Alright. I will immediately schedule some tests. It will take at least four to five hours before the Finmoth Regal and the Linever Swan regain FTL functionality. Once that is done, we will key in the right settings into our fleet's FTL drives so that we can punch through the spacetime anomaly of the Aeon Corona System and finally reach the other side. The chief engineers have estimated that the journey will take about five to twelve days, depending on how much spacetime turbulence we will finally encounter. That will give us plenty of time to see whether your modifications have achieved the desired effect."

"Sir, if I may ask.. Do we know what's out there on the other side?"

The mech officer gazed at Ves with a sharp glance. "We have.. clues. Snippets of information. If you are asking me if we know why the Aeon Corona System is surrounded by a spacetime anomaly, I can't explain that. We don't know how many planets orbit the trinary stars nor do we know what opposition we will meet beside our competitors."

"And the Starlight Megalodon, sir? How are you so sure she's there and crash landed onto a Super Earth?"

"We don't. We only have third-hand information at best. What information we have gathered on the long-lost CFA battleship is obtained from interrogation and torture conducted by others. I've been told the interrogations hasn't achieved a lot of results. The shuttle pilots that have escaped the Aeon Corona System for the first time in three-hundred years actually turned out to be clones. They only provided the answers they intended to disseminate."

Clones!

"That makes this entire venture even more suspicious!"

"Don't you think we don't know that?!" Major Verle slammed his fist against his desk. His suit's servos enhanced the impact force, causing the desk to rattle. "Even if the Aeon Corona System is a trap, someone has to take the bait, because the news we've learned is too great for us to ignore. Why do you think we've been sent? Because we are expendable! No matter what dangers we meet, all of the risks are worth it if even a fraction of what the clones have spilled are true!"

"This.." Ves knew in his heart that this had always been the case. He just hadn't expected Verle to be so upfront about it. "What are we really after, sir? What is so valuable about the outdated remains of a CFA battleship that's so attractive that the Bright Republic readily sends us out as sacrificial lambs?"

Major Verle didn't sigh, but his face took on a weary expression. The pressure of shouldering a monumentally dangerous mission deep inside the frontier had taken on him as well. As the highest-ranking Vandal in the fleet, his decisions could either save or doom the thousands of Vandal servicemen under his care.

"Everyone is a pawn for someone else. It is not my role to question the orders handed down to us from above. Even if we are acting on dubious intelligence, someone has to go, because the consequences of missing an amazing opportunity is too dear to miss. Might I remind you that the Vesians have sent out their own expedition here, one that is both stronger and more costly than ours."

That reminded him of the strange battle that took place after he isolated himself in his work. It had been a stroke of luck to the Vandals that the Vesians fell prey to the vagaries of the frontier.

Major Verle quickly lost his patience and shooed Ves away. After orienting himself in the corridor, he decided to return to his office. It appeared that due to the sudden ambush by the forces aligned to the Church of Haatumak, the Vesian fleet decisively halted their pursuit to the half-crippled Flagrant Swordmaidens.

Both of them suffered from the aftermath of the Church of Haatumak's aggression. Neither the Flagrant Swordmaidens nor the Vesians ever expected the low-key cultists to abandon their centuries-long neutrality to plan a surprise attack on both forces. They must have thought that the price must be worth it. Ves keenly noticed that Major Verle deftly skirted around the question of what drove them to such lengths to reach the fabled Starlight Megalodon.

"So many forces have gone through so many extremes. What is driving them so mad?"

Life-prolonging treatment serum? Advanced technological data banks? Tons of high-grade exotics? All of them sounded attractive, to be sure, but Ves had an inkling it might be more than that. Whatever drove the big players so mad, it must have been something truly substantial.

"Well, in a few hours, we'll finally be on our way."

Ves returned to his office. Right now, Ketis was off-duty and asleep so Ves had some time to himself. He nursed his head and thought about the problem with his bent design philosophy. As he came out of his most reject assignment, he had some time to rest his mind and take stock of his current mentality.

It didn't look good. It appeared when Ves kept playing with fire, eventually his fingers might sustain some burn damage even if he thought he'd been careful.

His design philosophy lost some of its luster, and it had suffered quite a bit from all the abuse Ves subjected it too. He felt a little guilty at his recent appalling behavior. Even if he did some of them out of necessity, those were merely rationalizations that could only convince his mind, but not his heart.

"I can lie to my mind but not my heart."

He'd have to brainwash himself to achieve such an effect, kind of like what he attempted to do to Venerable Xie.

"Well, I could give it a try if only my genetic aptitude isn't so abysmal."

He chuckled to himself. He seriously contemplated putting himself under the same circumstances as his latest guinea pig. If not for the impediment of being unable to interface with a mech, then it might have worked!

He couldn't cheat his way out of undying the damage he inflicted upon himself. He acted like a crook, and now he had to pay for it. "I still don't regret what I've done."

Perhaps being unrepentant may not be the best course of action towards recovery, but starting with honesty was a necessary step. The fact of the matter was that he willfully schemed against an expert pilot who piloted the expert mechs the Venerable had entrusted to the Flagrant Vandals.

As the head designer, Ves bore the responsibility of ensuring that they functioned safe and well. It was one thing to neglect his duties and let them rot due to lack of maintenance, but it was another thing entirely to deliberately turn them into a brainwashing machine that slowly sapped their mech pilot to death!

The only reason why his design philosophy hadn't cracked was because Ves performed these modifications for a client who became a danger to himself and the Vandals.

Treating his latest customer like an enemy instead of a valid client helped soothe some of his ethical conflicts, though strictly speaking the MTA wouldn't think of it that way. They always took the side of the expert pilots over the mech designers.

"A true mech designer doesn't care whether his customers are friendly, neutral or hostile. Their only job is to design mechs. How they are distributed or sold shouldn't matter to them. Even if he ends up arming his own enemies, the mech designer ought to celebrate because his mechs are so good even his foes can't help but favor his machines!"

This kind of example expressed the dominant viewpoint the MTA liked to espouse. Mech pilots fought for power, politics, ideals and more. They were the stars of the show that decided how the galaxy should be run.

Mech designers acted as their support crew. They provided the most important tool for the mech pilots to exert their power. A mech designer was not meant to wield power for themselves. The mech industry tolerated a certain amount of influence gathering as long as their ambitions remained within the scope of the mech industry.

A mech designer ought to be detached from politics. If the Vesia Kingdom by some miracle successfully conquered the Bright Republic, Ves should feel no compulsions about working under the Vesians.

The MTA was delusional if they believed that would happen. Mech designers loyal to the Bright Republic wouldn't accept their new rulers, and the Vesians would certainly favor their native mech designers over their newly-conquered subjects.

In essence, they key to solving his wounded design philosophy was to recognize that Ves did not harm his own client. Rather, he needed to convince his heart that he instead followed orders to sabotage a potential enemy, thereby neutralizing a ticking time bomb that could have exploded in everyone's faces.

While he had a fiduciary duty to deliver a safe product to his clients, he had no such obligations to do so to an acute threat to his life!

Ves felt out his heart and found that his design philosophy had grown a tiny bit less agitated. "Maybe I'm onto something here."

Chapter 760

After an hour of introspection, he imagined he achieved a tiny bit of progress in straightening out his crooked design philosophy. It wasn't easy by any means, and it might take months to restore it to a pure state, but at least Ves saw some hope in his current approach.

"I only need a couple of minutes to put my design philosophy to the brink, but I need months to undo all of the damage I've done."

Creation was harder than destruction. That applied to pretty much anything, so Ves did not expect an easy road to recovery.

In the meantime, Ves sensed that he really shouldn't put his design philosophy under stress during his recovery period. Putting more stress on a broken limb for example only exacerbated the damage and prolonged his recovery period.

Even though he should take it easy for the next couple of months, Ves feared he may need to compromise his much-abused principles yet again if the Aeon Corona System turned out to be a cesspool of danger.

"I feel like an abusive husband who can't help but make excuses for hitting my wife." He grimaced.

His design philosophy was his 'wife' in this analogy. The danger here was that he might hit her too often or too hard one day that his design philosophy decided to give up on him and file for divorce.

With all that he put his design philosophy through lately, Ves certainly deserved it, but he did not want this to happen.

"Can you forgive me, please? I swear I won't hit you again!"

Ves suddenly shook his head. What was he thinking about? Why did he suddenly imagine his design philosophy as his wife?

"I think I have to call this a day."

He felt reluctant to go to sleep. While the Vandals stood down from red alert, the current condition or yellow alert meant that they still anticipated possible threats. Yellow alert merely allowed for a rotation of shifts so that all of the stations would continue to be manned while off-duty personnel had a chance to eat and sleep.

"Still, my mind really needs a break."

Ves figured that someone would wake him up again if anything drastic happened, which admittedly didn't seem very likely.

The Flagrant Swordmaiden fleet had limped their way out their initial emergence zone. The ominous Vesian fleet that initially burned in pursuit had sustained heavy damage from the pirates, while the forces aligned to the Church of Haatumak learned the hard way why they shouldn't challenge a detachment of a battle-hardened military mech regiment.

He rested for four hours before an alert woke him up. Ves blearily emerged from his bed and took one look at the message from his comm before he jumped out and dressed himself up at his best speed.

He raced towards his office where a security officer handed over an important package to him. As soon as he received it, he thanks the officer, entered his office, threw a sloppy greeting to Ketis and jumped behind his desk, activated his signal jammer before finally inserting the encrypted data chip inside the package into his secure comm.

The contents inside the data chip contained all of the logs, readings and telemetry out of the simulations and live deployment of the Parallax Star!

While Ves grumbled a bit about missing out on the tests as they happened, at least it appeared that nothing drastic had gone wrong. Venerable Xie hadn't gone insane or went onto a random murder spree. According to the biometric logs, the expert pilot exhibited an increased amount of exertion, but that could have been attributed to the man's slightly increased performance with the Parallax Star from before.

"It's good to see at least one of my changes went as planned."

The slight increase in performance helped justify his changes and mask all of his shenanigans behind the scenes. To the rest of the Vandals, it appeared that Ves managed to successfully tweak the Parallax Star in favor of Venerable Xie.

Only Ves and Major Verle knew the truth, and if it was up to him, that would remain so forever.

He still found it a waste to set a fatal trap for an expert pilot. If the expert pilot hadn't been so slavishly devoted to the failure of a Fourth Prince, then the Vandals could have forged a tighter bond with the versatile fugitive from the Dark Plasma Star Sector.

Incidents like these illustrate the difficulty of converting a foreign expert pilot to another cause. No one wanted to let go of their trump cards, especially to those with power and ambition, so they did everything in their power to indoctrinate their expert pilots into becoming their loyal servants.

The MTA's emphasis on protecting the rights and privileges of expert pilots emerged out of necessity. If expert pilots enjoyed no such protection, that left them vulnerable to all kinds of brainwashing and coercion by unscrupulous states and power players.

The fact that practically any expert pilot that experienced forceful persuasion often stagnated or regressed didn't stop them at all, though it would be bad for the MTA as a whole. In order to make the advancement towards expert pilot as attractive as possible and to leave the path open towards ace pilot and god pilots, elite mech pilots of all stripes needed to be treated with respect.

This policy sounded good to Ves until he ended up in the position of one of those people who needed an expert pilot under their thumb. Then it became a hindrance that Ves had willfully violated.

Ves dove into the logs and the telemetry, trying to find any signs his intervention had any side effects. He found plenty of abnormal indicators, but they shouldn't come to anyone's attention as long as they remained small.

The amount of abnormalities did concern him, however. It told him that his changes resulted in a spillover effect that cascaded many other parameters.

The man-machine connection was one of the most complex and mystifying fields in mech design. It occupied the same status as FTL drive mechanics to starship engineers.

Ves merely dipped his toes in the field himself, so while he expected his changes to have missed the mark somewhat, he did not feel pleased that it had grown to this extent.

This was like ordering an artillery mech to perform a precision bombing but instead the mech decided to go wild and carpet bomb the entire surroundings around the target region!

"I've been fudging all of my projects lately."

The batteries, his gadgets, the Six-Sided Dice, the Evaporating Spear and now the tampered neural interface were all rush jobs that Ves had hastily completed due to a perpetual lack of time and capability. This left way too many shortcomings into his final products.

"I have no choice in the matter." He sighed.

Ves recognized that the situation compelled him to these dire straits. His current woes reiterated his desire to gain more autonomy over his own life. Even if Major Verle was correct in that everyone was someone else's pawn, working under someone's thumb really grated on him. The sooner he jumped off the chessboard, the sooner he stopped ending up in situations beyond his control.

Ves spent a half-hour in total to skim through all of the data. Most of it consisted of irrelevant or incomprehensible observations, and he couldn't figure out if his changes had actually stuck or not. At the very least, he concluded that no major problems had occurred despite his inexpert handling of the code.

"Ketis?"

"Good morning to you too, Ves." She grumbled.

"Sorry, I became preoccupied with an important task."

"It's fine. I know what you're like."

After a bit of chit-chat, Ves turned towards her own development. "Did you do as I suggested earlier?"

"You mean to talk with the mech pilot of that swordsman mech we visited before? I did, but the Vandal didn't want to tell me much. I think it's because I'm a Swordmaiden, so he didn't want to give away his secrets."

He had overlooked that possibility. The Vandal mech pilot did nothing wrong, and Ves should have passed on some instructions or the like. Well, it may have been an irresponsible suggestion from the start.

"You'll get the opportunity to interview your fellow Swordmaidens when you return to their midst. Just remember to do it. You really need to understand their quirks and their idiosyncrasies to design your own mechs in the future that fit with your intended clients."

"Isn't that part of marketing?" She asked.

"Yup. What I've just described is marketing research in a nutshell. I can't just design a random mech and dump it onto the market. Well, I can do that if I really want to, but I shouldn't expect it to pay for itself because it won't sell that much. The mech market is immense. Even in the Komodo Star Sector, a lot of mechs change hands all the time. The competition is so big that you simply can't afford to go your own way. Mech designers have to adopt the mentality of putting their customers at the center of their vision. Without an existing base of customers to appeal to, who is going to buy your mechs?"

"I don't see how that matters to me. I'm just a pirate designer and I don't care at all about the mech market in the frontier. Can't I just do my own thing?"

Ves shook his head. "Just because you've read it in a marketing textbook doesn't mean the theories can't be applied in non-commercial settings. Every form of labor a mech designer performs is intertwined with a transaction of some sorts. Would Mayra be so highly valued by Lydia's Swordmaidens if she only designs and fabricates spearman mechs?"

"Of course not! That's stupid!"

"That's because she knows her customers, which in this case is the outfit she is a part of. Just because she is a member of the outfit doesn't mean that all of the marketing theories are invalid. In fact, they matter even more so, because designing mechs that are a poor fit to the Swordmaidens directly affects her safety."

"Okay.. I get what you're telling me. You don't want me to design the mechs I've imagined in my mind?"

"Not exactly. If you have a strong belief that a mech you formed from your own insights and experience, then you can go ahead and design it. Just make sure that it's attractive enough that someone wants to pilot it. It sounds stupid, but many mech designers who just started business actually neglect finding out if the market has any appetite for their products!"

Not every mech designer was cut out to be an entrepreneur. Mech designers cared about designing great mechs, while businessmen wanted to earn as much profit as possible. These priorities differed from each other, but an independent mech designer constantly needed to pay equal attention to both.

"The biggest mech manufacturers won't hesitate to spend millions of K-coins just to understand their target segment a little better."

"Really? It costs that much to interview a couple of mech pilots?"

"They do more than a simple interview." Ves replied dryly. "There's a whole science behind it, but you don't need to know the details. Once you get to my level and own your own business, you can ask for a report and have your underlings or an external marketing agency do the heavy lifting."

"Here you go again." She rolled her eyes. "You always state that I'm destined to start my own mech company or something."

"That's because I believe you are meant for greater things. I have the utmost amount of confidence in your abilities."

She didn't know how to reply to that. What Ves said was so ludicrous she didn't even consider it a realistic possibility.

Ves did not mind. As long as she remained confident, she had the potential to outgrow the Swordmaidens. However, if she ever took that step, then she sorely needed to become familiar with the fundamentals of running a business.

If Ves did not bring up the necessity to design her mechs with an eye to her customers, she might make a misstep at some point.

Ketis eventually showed signs that she comprehended his point.

"I guess if you think about it, even if designing the mech of your dreams is fun, it's not a game. Sometimes you have to design mechs you don't like to pay the bills." She remarked in an uncharacteristic display of wisdom. "Mayra often receives commissions to design mechs for our friends, and she sometimes comes back complaining about how she hates the way they fight and how she needed to adapt that into her commissioned designs. Some of them are real scumbags who..."

As Ves listened to her rambling, he felt a bit more at ease. The unsettling sensation in the depth of his heart had subsided by a tiny bit. Surprised, Ves turned his concentration inward and found to his surprise that his design philosophy actually regained a small amount of brightness!

Chapter 761

Did the act of teaching redeem his crimes?

When Ves asked himself that question, he suspected that this may be one of the reasons why certain mech designers pursued the teaching profession. Teaching was a way of giving back to the profession. Since he taught Ketis so earnestly without turning her into his puppet, his own conscience must have decided that it was a valid way of absolving himself of his misdeeds!

What a stroke of luck!

After handling the inquiries of his student before he handed over another virtual textbook for her to flip through in her spare time, Ves leaned back in his chair and smiled.

If teaching turned out to be a good way to undo the damage of my misdeeds, then he could effectively break the rules more often without having to pay a painful price!

"It's like wiping away my debts by performing a couple of good deeds."

Ves developed a small theory about this phenomenon. It resembled the concept of karma. As long as he did more good than bad, then his net balance of karma remained positive.

In his perspective, karma went from a concept of morality to an immeasurable but very real commodity. If Ves wanted to keep his design philosophy in a healthy state while occasionally play fast and loose with his principles, then he needed to make sure he treated karma like he treated his budgets and bank accounts.

The basics of maintaining a good budget was to ensure his income surpassed his expenses.

For example, if his tampering with Venerable Xie's neural interfaces put him 1,000 karma under debt, then he needed to compensate that with at least 1,000 karma worth of good deeds.

Ves sensed that the little lesson just then probably had a value of 0.01 karma at most. That was hardly impactful, but the lesson didn't last very long. If Ves continued to guide Ketis, he could probably ramp up his income and pay off his karma debt a month earlier and restore his design philosophy to normal!

Whatever the case, this was just the start! If Ves ever took in more students, he could easily earn bucketloads of karma, thereby expanding his allowance of misdeeds!

Of course, that was easier said than done, and he hadn't figured out the mechanics behind this phenomenon yet. He idly called it karma, but it probably behaved in a different manner than money.

For example, he wouldn't be able to borrow karma from others, or invest it in some stocks and profit off his dividends and capital gains.

He doubted that he could lend his karma to others, who subsequently used it to perform more good deeds in their own stead, and thereby pay them back after they have succeeded in their ventures.

His design philosophy was something deeply personal to Ves. It encapsulated his hopes and aspirations as well as his core values related to mech design. He formulated his design philosophy long before he joined the Vandals and adopted some of the crooked ways he learned from the pirates and them. In that aspect, his design philosophy reflected the product of a pure, naive mech designer who never once stepped foot out of civilized space.

It was uncomfortably bright and innocent to someone as jaded as Ves, yet he couldn't help but cling to it regardless.

"My design philosophy is my salvation."

All of this bore further investigation, but first the Flagrant Swordmaidens needed to get the hell out of this star system!

When Ves called up a status update on the condition of the fleet, he found out that the engineers aboard the Finmoth Regal finished restoring her FTL drive. Her sublight propulsion took more time to repair, but they could easily perform that work after they transitioned into FTL.

Right now, the chief engineers that had been freed up after finishing their job transferred over to the Linever Swan and accelerated the installation of her own FTL drive. As a large logistics ship, her FTL drive was significantly larger and more complex, and thus took more time to install.

"Just two more hours until we jump."

It actually took a bit longer than that. The two hours the chief engineers provided had just been an estimate, and several snags during the repairs delayed the installation of the new FTL drive long enough to surpass their initial estimates by an hour.

Still, at least they managed to finish their work. After performing a range of brief tests, the chief engineers tentatively declared the Finmoth Regal and the Linever Swan to be shipworthy enough to engage their FTL drives!

With the help of the mysterious key in the possession of the Flagrant Swordmaidens, the engineers programmed both drives with the exact settings that would theoretically allow them to circumvent the raging spacetime storms surrounding the Aeon Corona System.

With not a single mech or spaceship belonging to another force in the vicinity of the Flagrant Swordmaiden fleet, they were all prepared to jump into the unknown. Patrol mechs already started following their recall orders and slowly tightened their guard perimeter as they returned to their carriers.

Just before the fleet made the fateful transition, Major Verle solemnly stood from his chair and issued the order they had all been waiting for. Months of bleeding through Vesian space and even more months of traversing the frontier finally culminated in this moment where they needed to take only a single step to reach their destination.

"It's been hard on you all." He spoke as he held a small speech. "We have fought many battles, several of them against the best the Vesian Mech Legion has to offer, and we survived. We have traversed more light-years this past half-year than any mech regiment traverses in a decade! We have despoiled a Vesian star system, humiliated an entire duchy by kidnapping one of their hopes, kicked a lot of pirate butts along the way and impressed the ladies over at the Swordmaidens of our battle prowess! Do you feel proud!?"

A loose rumble escaped from everyone's throats. In the command center, everyone responded with a yes of some sort. Elsewhere, the Vandals uttered their enthusiastic affirmations to the projection of their commanding officer.

Considering all the battles they went through, not a single Vandal felt unworthy of their name!

"Then what are we afraid of? The Aeon Corona System may be uncharted territory for us, but what does that matter when we have reached far beyond civilized space and penetrated the deep frontier without a single moment of hesitation? What lies before us is not a hazard, but an opportunity. It represents a chance to earn riches, fame and glory! Come now! Accept my hand and let me take you into Valhalla itself! Initiate FTL transition sequence!"

The Shield of Hispania hummed and rumbled as the ethereal FTL drive came to life. The huge, complex ship component responsible for propelling every vessel into a range of alternate dimensions that effectively allowed for travel at superluminal speeds took a few moments to spool up.

It actually took a little longer for the entire fleet to spool up. The replacement FTL drives of the Finmoth Regal and Linever Swan needed some time to get going because the chief engineers wanted to make sure they didn't spin out of control.

Three minutes later, the fleet finally winked out. They successfully transitioned into FTL and were on their way to the Aeon Corona System!

Everyone stood down from yellow alert. Neither the Vesians nor the worshippers of Haatumak could extend their reaches into FTL space.

Nobody moved to shed their hazard suits or suits of combat armor, though. The strangeness of their destination compelled every Vandal aboard the Shield of Hispania to play it safe in case the storm decided to burp or something.

With no other emergency to deal with, Ves relaxed and returned to his office to study his latest bounty.

One of the rewards for incurring negative karma rested right inside the data chip embedded into his secure comm. When Ves activated his secure comm and activated the decryption program that allowed him to access the reading material on FTL drive technology, he smiled.

"These engineering textbooks are the crystallization of the Mech Corps' understanding of FTL drives."

The Mech Corps composed these books to educate thousands of senior engineers and chief engineers. The more people became proficient at servicing and repairing an FTL drive, the more ships they could effectively deploy.

"One of the greatest limiters of any spaceborn force is how many capable engineers they possess."

States that neglected their education sector tended to suffer the most from this crunch. This was why pretty much every state with common sense tried to foster as much people as possible into studying the sciences. They didn't need to raise a lot of top-tier academics who pumped out research papers every week. States merely hoped to foster enough engineers to increase the chances that one of them would be smart enough to understand the basics of the science behind FTL drives.

It was an uphill battle.

The Mech Corps obviously spent a lot of care into editing the textbooks as Ves browsed through the pages of one of the starter books. The language used was exceptionally simple and clear, and illustrated examples accompanied each newly introduced concept.

Ves had no problem understanding the first thirty percent of the book. Then he suddenly crashed against a cliff that represented the remaining seventy percent of FTL theory.

"What the heck?!"

The sciences involved abruptly doubled in complexity, and doubled a few pages later, and doubled again after that!

The abrupt jump in difficulty couldn't be blamed on the authors and editors who composed the textbook. The theory was simply that much ridiculous!

Even with his transhuman level of Intelligence and deep foundation in Physics, Ves in fact missed a lot of the prerequisite knowledge that formed the foundation of how FTL drives worked.

Just the explanation of how FTL drives magically whisked away a starship out of material space and into a band of higher dimensions already surpassed his understanding.

The mathematical concepts behind the phenomena that explained how the FTL drives achieved their effects also put a lot of pressure on his mind! Humans simply didn't thought that way!

"Well, I guess this is a natural consequence of stealing the tech from an alien race. Even after thousands of years, we still haven't gotten rid of the fingerprints of those whales."

Humanity actually encountered several different forms of FTL travel during the Age of Conquest. Each of them took advantage of a loophole in a set of natural laws. However, the most predominant form of FTL today was still the same. It had the advantage of speed and cost efficiency.

Other forms of FTL usually cost at least ten times more in energy, fuel or exotics to engage. While they provided some unique advantages such as being able to travel faster than light within the inner system of a star system, the CFA and MTA had pretty much monopolized those technologies for themselves.

According to rumors, the rest of the galaxy pretty much accepted that, because the math and science behind other forms of FTL was reputedly even more complex to learn!

"If this is what engineers have to cram in order to be qualified to work with FTL drives, then it's no wonder there's so few of them in our fleet!"

His respect for Chief Engineer Avanaeon increased remarkably.

"Hey wait a minute..."

Since Ves was pretty much friends with Chief Avanaeon, maybe he could obtain some guidance from him. Perhaps Ves could even beg the chief engineer to tutor him in full before the decryption of his lesson materials expired.

"I'll be back, Ketis! Just stay here and do your homework!"

"Pff, it's always homework homework homework!" She retorted in a cranky manner. "You're just blowing me off again!"

"I'll promise to spend some time with you, but this is really urgent! Take care and don't wander around!"

Ves hardly put her into his mind as his mind was only filled with the desire for knowledge. He walked across the ship until he reached the hangar bay. Curious engineers and ship ratings stepped aside as Ves hastily crossed the engineering bay to Chief Avanaeon who stood behind a control panel that displayed something about fuel efficiency.

"Chief Avanaeon?"

"Ves? What are you doing here?"

"I'd like to ask you for another favor. Can you bring me somewhere private?"

Avanaeon stepped away from the control panel and guided Ves to one of the offices in the next compartment over. "Speak."

"It's like this. I've recently come into possession of some really good books on FTL drive technology. I want you to tutor me on this subject."

The engineer blinked at Ves. "Are you joking? A mech designer who wants to comprehend the secrets of FTL? Are you crazy?"

Reality had turned upside down if a mech designer thought he could learn the science of FTL technology!

Chapter 762

Chief Avanaeon reacted with disbelief when Ves express interest in picking up the fundamentals in understanding FTL drive technology.

"Let me get this straight. You somehow blackmailed Major Verle for a week's access to engineering textbooks on FTL, and you need my help to make sense of a field that takes the average engineer fifty years of study and practice to get smart enough to understand the very basics?"

"Well... when you put it that way, it sounds a bit unrealistic. However, I didn't blackmail the big boss. I did him a favor and he allowed me to borrow some books from the local database."

"These aren't your average textbooks." Avanaeon said. "In fact, there's more than just the basics included here. I don't know how you got Major Verle to do it, but he even allowed you access to the next step, which includes basic explanations on all the subcomponents included in most basic models of modern FTL drives."

"And that's valuable because...?" Ves trailed off.

"FTL drives aren't like mechs. Any kid can look at a humanoid mech and see it consists of a torso, a pair of arms, a pair of legs and a head. The smarter kids can even say what's inside the torso like doctors can recall all the organs inside a human body. It's actually not that obvious with FTL drives because it can consist of up to a hundred different core subcomponents, each of which tweak the drive's ultimate performance in many different ways."

"A hundred core subcomponents!"

Even a mech only carried around ten to twenty core subcomponents on average, with advanced mechs featuring more systems than frontline mechs which emphasize economy.

Ves could not imagine how a drive that looked to all appearances like one big block to be so complex from within.

"It's not as bad as it sounds, as the first twenty or so are the most vital ones." The chief engineer continued. "They enable the drive to elevate the ship from the material dimensions to the higher dimensions. The other eighty subcomponents have to do with navigating the gravitic currents and maintain the ship's course under the various conditions that you can encounter during FTL travel. They are still vital, but an FTL drive won't suddenly fail if one of them is configured incorrectly."

"And I suppose that's not the case for the first twenty."

"Correct. If any of them is even a single percent off, it could mean the difference between transitioning out of FTL to a normal destination like the Bentheim System or launching your ship straight into a black hole. If you think black holes are bad enough in realspace, they're orders of magnitude worse in the higher dimensions!"

In short, Ves needed to gain a decent understanding of the theoretical underpinnings behind the twenty core subcomponents. This gave him the most preliminary level of mastery in FTL drive technology. Although it wouldn't allow him to design and craft an FTL drive from scratch, it at least gave him the most minimum qualifications to repair one if he ever encountered a slightly damaged drive.

"Genius or not, it's impossible for you to understand the basics of all twenty subcomponents within a week!" The chief engineer exclaimed. "It's like studying twenty entirely different fields of science to a fairly deep level, because that's what it comes down to. Those textbooks provided to you by Major Verle are really great, but they are meant to be accessed only when an engineer has completed over a hundred other courses. The contents won't make sense in the same way that a novel won't make sense if you start reading the final pages."

Through his brief tirade, Avanaeon made it more than clear to Ves that he had been a little bit too arrogant for his own good. Ves may have a good depth of knowledge in the fields related to mechs, but he did not even possess the minimum qualifications in astronautics to design and build a basic shuttle on his own.

Ves accepted this argument, because the joint-development of the Six-Sided Dice already showed his complete inability to design a shuttle from the ground up.

"I only have a week to study the contents of my bounty before the encryption scrambles them forever. What do you suggest I do? Go back to the library and borrow some basic engineering textbooks?"

Avanaeon shook his head. "It takes decades for the average engineer to read through all of the prerequisite books. Even a freak like you will take years to go through the materials I bet. With your level of cognitive abilities, there's a better solution available. Just memorize the most essential materials by rote. As long as you are able to store the contents in your mind, you can always get back to them when you are better read. No one can take your memorized data away from you either."

That was an excellent suggestion!

"I think I can do that! It's only that the reading material is too much for me to memorize in its entirety. Can you help me select the parts which I absolutely have to memorize and which ones I can skip?"

"Hmm. I can do that as a favor." The chief acquiesced. "Besides, I'm curious to what these textbooks have to say on some of the issues that I'm puzzled about for a while. These books are completely unredacted! Usually you have to earn a large amount of merit before you can unlock the next parts of the books."

"Knowledge is power. It makes sense for the Mech Corps to ration out its library." Ves nodded. This happened everywhere because it took good experts a lot of their time to compose good textbooks that distilled their knowledge down into a pure and untainted form.

They proceeded to work together to select the best content to memorize. Avanaeon selected a slew of formulas, essential theories, massive tables, informative charts and more, consisting about one-third of the average textbook.

"Why so much?" Ves asked. He expected to make do with only a tenth of the contents of a single book.

"Because you'd be lost if you miss any of it. The complicated math and theories that form the foundation of how FTL work can't be skipped."

Avanaeon browsed through the pages in rapid tempo, selecting each of them by leaving behind a special bookmark in the software. After several hours, he ran through most of the contents, only leaving behind some supplementary materials such as the blueprints.

"These blueprints are extremely valuable. While they're outdated, they outline the design of a fully functional FTL drive that's been in use several thousands of years ago. They are the simplest iteration of an FTL drive that's been stripped with most of the alien idiosyncrasies while not being bogged down with countless minor innovations that make it more complex. They're well worth your time to study and reference as you go through the theory. I suggest you memorize all of them, but if you do, make sure you memorize their exact dimensions and properties."

"I'll do that." Ves nodded. "Thanks for your help!"

"No problem,Ves. Just remember to pay back the favor!"

After saying goodbye to the chief, Ves strode out of the engineering bay and returned to his office. After performing some routine work and checking up with Ketis, Ves began to prepare himself for rote memorization.

Unlike his previous attempts at learning, this time he wouldn't spend any time in trying to decipher anything. Instead, he would attempt to capture and dump all of the selected contents into his brains in a raw and unprocessed format.

It was one of the stupidest ways of learning, but Ves could always go back to it and decipher its contents in his free time.

When Ves began to memorize the selected contents, he expected to only be able to memorize parts of it because of their sheer volume.

The memorization process went a little smoother than he thought. His brains appeared to be wired in a way that easily accepted an influx of raw data. It kind of felt like the time he bought Senior-level Physics from the System!

Back then, an enormous amount of knowledge forcibly bore into his mind!

Compared to that previous painful event, memorizing a few thousands of pages of highly abstruse knowledge felt a little difficult but not as much as he thought.

"It's as if my mind has turned into a mental library. I can store as much content as I want without having to read through them yet!"

This unexpected advantage accelerated his memorization process as Ves experienced no limitations while he crammed pages after pages into his mind!

The more he memorized, the more he became accustomed to the task. He developed various techniques to hasten his memorization, and while they didn't cut down on the time too much, every little bit helped.

By the time a week had gone by and the encryption software finally scrambled the contents of the data chip into pure nonsense, Ves sighed and wearily leaned back against his chair.

He not only managed to memorize all of the contents marked out by Chief Avanaeon, but he also memorized a little bit extra in the form of extra theories and explanations that would help him understand the basics without having to expend too much time into deducing them himself.

Along with that, he also accessed the local database and downloaded a handful of absolutely essential engineer textbooks that Ves needed to go through first before he could tackle FTL drive theory.

Unlike the restricted textbooks, the simpler knowledge came with fewer restrictions. With his access privileges which was equivalent to a chief engineer's, he did not have to worry about his books expiring on them. Anyone could study something similar from the galactic net, though not as easily.

"Looks like you're finally done." Ketis spoke from the side. "You spazzed out for an entire week. Why are you trying to hard to understand FTL theory?"

"Because I have a small hunch I might need it. Don't you think you want to know how to repair and configure a salvaged FTL drive if you ever became stranded and separated from the fleet?"

"You are way too paranoid, you know. I think if we ever end up in a situation like that, we're screwed anyway."

"We'll see in the future whether my precautions bear fruit." Ves stated carefully. "I've been screwed too many times to count, and many times I ended up in a worse situation than I ought to because of a lack of preparation. This time I've tried hard to make my preparations beforehand. All of my side projects are geared towards expanding my capabilities, and they've already shown their worth several times."

"That's true."

Ketis couldn't argue with that, though she wasn't fully aware of all the times he successfully employed his signal jammer and stealth detector to good effect. She currently held onto the Mark I versions of his gadgets. While they lacked the raw power of his high-powered devices, they might still be of use to her at some later point.

Ves checked the fleet's progress to the Aeon Corona System. So far, they had already spent a week into FTL, but Chief Engineer Avanaeon as well as a couple of very smart science officers determined that they had only just crested the half-way point of their journey.

The spacetime anomaly surrounding the Aeon Corona System effectively slowed down their advance in the higher dimensions. The best way Avanaeon described it in a report was as if an aircar attempted to fly against hurricane-level winds.

Not only did the aircar face a lot of resistance than normal, it also had to expend more effort into remaining stable and on course.

Replace that aircar with a combat carrier and replace the winds with gravitic spacetime ripples and that described their situation in a nutshell.

With an estimated week to go before the fleet finally arrived at the Aeon Corona System, Ves decided to complete yet another side project in the agenda.

"Hey, Ketis? You know a thing or two about combat armor, right? Would you like to help me design and craft my own suit of combat armor?"

Her eyes instantly shone. "That sounds fun!"

Chapter 763

Ves actually requested two sets of knowledge from the library of the local database. One set consisted of a sampling of textbooks on FTL drive technology.

The other consisted of a set of books on designing and fabrication combat armor.

When Ves initially requested knowledge on this subject, Major Verle actually offered an alternative. "The books we contain on combat armor isn't very elaborate. It's not worth your while to study them. We usually order our suits in large batches from the Mech Corps. According to them, it's more efficient, but I think it's because they don't want us to produce suits of heavy armor or exoskeleton armor in our own production facilities and sell them through the black market."

"Really, sir?" Ves looked puzzled. "They allow mech regiments to fabricate their own mechs, but not their own combat armor?"

"Even the cheapest mechs costs millions of bright credits to produce. They're big and fairly distinctive, so if any mech regiment engages in the practice, they can easily be tracked down. It's different for combat armor because they're far cheaper and humans don't need genetic aptitude to be trained in their use. Producing combat armor is big business, and the best suits are firmly in the hand of the military."

What Major Verle said made sense. They were in such high demand that producing combat armor en masse allowed for real cost savings as economies of scale went into force. A handful of large defense contractors dominated the industry because they produced the most suits of combat armor at much cheaper prices than anyone else in the domestic market.

"I have a suggestion, Mr. Larkinson." The mech officer offered.

"What's that, sir?"

"What you really want is to modify a good suit of light combat armor. Not everything you want has to be done by yourself. We have very good armorers aboard our ship who made it their life's work to understand everything there is to know about the weapons and gear that keep us safe. I can give our chief armorer an order to help you out as much as possible when you are attempting to build a suit of custom armor."

"Hmm.. I'll take that option, sir."

While Ves would have liked to be able to design his own combat armor, he understood the reality that he couldn't do everything by himself. It wasn't a good idea for him to become like Ketis and become too distracted by side projects. The only reason why he did so against his own advice was because he wanted to gear himself up and couldn't rely on others."

This time was different. Ves planned to pull in both Ketis and the chief armorer in the development of his custom suit of armor. It was high time he did so, as the lacking capabilities of his standard-issue suit of light armor really made him shake his head in disappointment.

Ves pulled Ketis down to the armory compartment, which stored most of the combat carrier's heavy infantry gear and armament. From massive machine guns that required an augmented suit to carry, to expansive arrays of exoskeleton armor in a row, the armory contained enough gear to outfit a full boarding party!

"Chief Mandelsen!"

"Oh, if it isn't the little squirt that's taken care of all of our mechs. So you finally decided to grace the armory again, huh?"

A muscular and fit woman wearing her own custom suit of heavy armor marched over to the younger pair. Chief Kayla Mandelson looked like a veteran soldier in her mid-fifties, which put her roughly in the same generation as the other chiefs.

From what Ves could gather from her brief record, Chief Mandelson used to be a security officer, but eventually discovered a love in tinkering with her own gear. She cross-trained into her current occupation until she became the head of the armory division aboard the Shield of Hispania.

Much like Ves was nominally in charge of the soundness of all of the mechs in the fleet, Chief Mandelson took charge of all of the weapons and suits in use aboard the ship. Regarding suits, her responsibilities encompassed both all kinds of gear, not just those dedicated to combat such as vacsuits and hazard suits.

"I don't know if Major Verle informed you, but he told me that I could come to you for help in developing a better suit of armor."

"He did." Mandelson said while nodding thoughtfully at Ves. "I can already tell you need it. This suit is way too light on your frame. You lack the training to wear medium combat armor, though."

"I don't need that." Ves responded quickly. "It's rumored that we're heading towards a massive Super Earth where the gravity is five or six times stronger than Old Earth. If I'm assigned to the ground and I end up in an area where there isn't any gravity compensation, I don't want to be crushed and immobilized by my own suit."

"That's a good point." Chief Mandelson nodded sagely. "In fact, that's what I've been working on with at least half of the combat armor in our reserves. While the servos and other motor assistance built into the suits will help their wearers move even if they are exposed to heavy gravity, not all of them are powerful enough to counteract the heavy force. A suit of combat armor optimized for five or six g's is a lot different than combat armor that's optimized for 1 g, which in turn is nothing like a suit meant to be used under zero-g."

Ves understood when he equated the suits to mechs. "I understand. According to the preliminary plans in my hands, there's a high chance I'll be part of the support staff that will be deployed to the surface. I don't want to be caught naked without protection or burdened with a suit that's too heavy for my own good."

While the pair discussed the particulars of what Ves demanded from his custom armor, Ketis kept measuring staring at Mandelson with an appraising glance. The chief noticed her stare.

"You want to have a tussle with me or something?"

"I don't think I stand a chance." Ketis admitted frankly.

Ves looked at her in surprise. "Aren't you supposed to pretend you do?"

"That's only when we're facing strangers or enemies. There's no shame in recognizing that I can't beat your chief armorer in a fight. If I was as old as her, the story would be different." She stated that last bit confidently, if only to soothe her pride as a Swordmaiden.

"Whatever you say, kid." Chief Mandelson smirked before she turned back to Ves. "As for you, there's no need to design and build a suit from scratch. It takes way too long, requires expertise that none of us have and it's completely unnecessary when we can modify an existing suit."

"We do that all the time back at the Swordmaidens." Ketis added. "Most combat armor we salvage are fitted for men. It's a lot of trouble to convert them into somethign wearable for girls."

With the advice of Chief Mandelson with a little commentary from Ketis, Ves selected a semi-modular suit of light armor from a model line called the C22 Custom.

Chief Mandelson unlocked one of the lockers and showed them a copy. "The C22 Customs don't offer the best protection nor the best servo-assist out of our stock of light armors, but they're adaptable and score high on reliability. You need that reliability when the suit is constantly subjected to five times normal gravity."

"Is there anything special besides those qualities?"

"Nope. If you want any bells and whistles added to this armor, then we need to add them ourselves. This is a suit designed for support staff deployed in the rear of the field."

"Alright. Let's draft up a modification scheme then. I'm curious to see how much we can improve a standard suit of combat armor."

Quite a lot, it turned out. The chief armorer knew almost every trick in the book, and plenty more that nobody ever wrote down in a book. They took the schematic of the C22 Custom, stripped down every standard part and replaced them with higher quality ones.

Upon Ketis' suggestion, they bulked up the light armor a bit to make room for extra modules. This was so that Ves could store his vulnerable weapons and gadgets underneath the protective shell of his armor instead of exposing them to all sorts of environmental dangers.

"You'll have to say goodbye to your toolbelt, Ves." Ketis cheekily teased.

Ves laughed at that. "The toolbelt does give me the impression of competence."

Some mech technicians didn't know who he was or why a young man like him got to be in charge. Wearing a toolbelt helped reinforce the impression that he knew what he was talking about.

Still, wearing a toolbelt on a Super Earth risked crushing some of his tools if he ever fell down for some reason. Ves did not want to know the outcome if he inadvertently squashed one of his ultracompact batteries. Even though he reinforced their casing to withstand a considerable amount of abuse, he did not wish to tempt fate.

Since they added a bit of extra room, they even decided to add in integrated armament such as hidden knife holsters along the torso, arm, leg and boot sections. That made for ten small backup knives in total, each of which incorporated enough exotics to cut through steel like butter!

The best part was that they were so hidden that cheap weapon detectors wouldn't be able to distinguish them in a normal sweep. Ves incorporated some of his insights into stealth tech and stealth detector tech into their implementation.

"Damn, this is a really great way to hide those backup knives." Mandelson commented in awe. "I'm glad we cooperated on this. Do you mind if I copy your tricks?"

"Feel free to do so."

Ves did not mind sharing these tricks because they didn't involve the core insights into stealth tech, which he couldn't disseminate without suffering repercussions.

One of the other areas they looked at was the armor plating. Ves knew a thing or two about armor, but only the ones scaled up for mechs. Infantry-sized armor plating utilized different paradigms and different armor system formulas in order to make the most out of their limited mass and volume allowances.

"One of our biggest concerns is balance. It's already important in normal gravity conditions, but it's ten times more important under heavy gravity conditions." The chief explained. "Keeping the center of mass firmly in the middle is essential. This is why the bulk of the armor is around the torso while the arms and legs are comparatively lighter. We also have to take into account that the leg armor should be strong enough to support all the other weight when put into a locked position."

Mandelson selected two different armor system formulas. A heavier and sturdier set of plating for the torso and a small part of the legs formed the base. At the projected thickness, it possessed enough defense to withstand a few rifle rounds, which was more than Ves could say about his current armor. A lighter set of plates encompassed the arms and the remainder of the legs to allow him to move his limbs even if the servo-assist failed to work.

The reliability of the servos and the lack thereof became one of their major concerns.

"Are you really concerned about them?"

The chief laughed. "Not everyone is like you. Major Verle granted you the full treatment we reserve to senior officers. The servos and motors built into your suits are a lot more expensive than almost any other suit that passed my hands. I've adjusted all of the servos in the armor reserved for our personnel in the ground, but even then they are several times more fragile than yours."

At least Ves got his money's worth with regards of this concession. The chief armorer accommodated his every wish as best she could. Ves felt as if he got the same treatment as a VIP shopping for a custom mech.

He spent so much time as a provider of services and producer of goods that it was nice to experience the other side of the equation. He had lost touch with what it was like to be a customer for a change.

Chapter 764

After a bit of tinkering, they completed the modifications done to the basic frame of the C22 Custom reserved for Ves.

It looked nothing like the base model of the C22. Significantly bulkier than a standard suit of light armor and several times as resilient, the customized version nonetheless weighed only a little more due to the extensive use of high-quality lightweight armor plating.

The contours of the armor had been rounded out as much as possible, changing its profile into a shape that allowed Ves to roll or bend his body a little easier should he ever fall under heavy gravity conditions.

"Sharp edges and completely flat surfaces are bad ideas in 5 g or more." Chief Mandelson explained. "If you happen to fall flat on the ground for some reason, you're going to have to exert several times more force if you want to roll to the side. That can be the difference between life and death if there's a battle going on and cover is only a few steps away."

She even strengthened some of the servos assisting his arms and legs to facilitate this kind of movement.

Besides that, she also added a couple of weak but robust internal antigrav modules that lightened the effect of gravity on his head and his upper body by a few g's.

"One of the biggest dangers you'll face when you are on a heavy gravity planet is that when you are standing or sitting upright, your blood gets pulled down to your legs. That won't do your brains any favors. One of the biggest causes of death to people exposed to heavy gravity doesn't come from breaking their bones and thereby losing their mobility. It's because so little blood circulated through their brains that they quickly black out."

"I've read that in one of the safety instructions Major Verle sent out to the entire crew." Ves nodded. "The manual also states that it helps if you lie down flat against the ground for a time to let your blood access your head without fighting an uphill battle against several g's of crushing gravity."

"That can actually work, and it can save your life if you're stranded outside a protected zone, but it's only a stopgap method at best. Humans don't belong on heavy gravity planets." She warned. "Just think about it. Someone like me will effectively weigh almost half a ton when I'm on a Super Earth, and that's without taking my armor into account. While the weight is well-distributed, it's still a feat of superhuman effort to walk like a normal person."

"I didn't think it would be that bad." Ketis suddenly frowned and thumped the surface of her own combat armor. "I don't think my heavy armor is quite up to the task. Can you help upgrade my suit as well? I'm not sure if my own servos can handle the load."

Ves waved his hand. "Just put the account out of my allowance. Major Verle has already given me free reign of the inventory, so I doubt he'll mind if we take out something extra."

The chief armor shrugged. "If the bean counters complain, I'm sending them to you."

They worked on two modifying two more components before they finished with the plan. First, the chief strengthened the rear mount for the combat armor's Modular Fitting Standard.

Just as with mechs, combat armor also featured a slot in the rear that could mount standardized backpack modules. While the Vandals adopted the Vesian standard when it came to mechs, they defaulted to the Bright Republic's standard when it came to infantry-sized suits.

In most exoplanet deployments, specialized oxygen tanks occupied the rear slot. Though the suit stored a small amount of emergency oxygen compounds, they only lasted him an hour at most, and that was if he didn't exert himself.

What he really wanted was an air cycler module that could recycle the spent air in his suit into something breathable again, but that took way too much space at their current level of technology.

"I hear it's possible in the second-rate states, but for us even the smallest air cycler weighs far too much to be realistically be mounted onto your back." Mandelson remarked.

Once they went over the MFS, they finally turned their attention to the foldable helmet.

"One of my biggest problems is that my marksmanship is too rudimentary." Ves said. "I'd like to add an integrated targeting and aim assist system into my suit."

"Just like what my armor offers." Ketis piped up.

"Are you sure, kid? If anyone hacks your C22 Custom, you're liable to shoot your own allies."

"We can just upgrade the security suite of the C22 while we're at it. If there's any room left, I'd also like to upgrade the visor with an integrated scanner system. I'm using a regular handheld scanner right now but it's not powerful enough for my needs. I'd like to add a strengthened transceiver as well to facilitate communications."

"You can't just keep piling extra features onto your armor. All of that takes up valuable space, not to mention drain your suit's batteries even faster."

"Don't worry about the power draw. I already have a solution in store for that." Ves grinned.

They proceeded to incorporate all of the changes Ves requested. They needed to shift a lot of components around in order to make enough space and harden them enough to withstand a high amount of gravity. In the end, they managed to complete a new variant of the C22 Custom that performed almost nowhere near the base model.

Chief Mandelson whistled in appreciation of the design. "It's more bloated than I like, but it's practically the best we can cobble together on short notice. It's a shame you aren't trained for medium combat armor though, we could have added a lot more goodies in that case."

"We can send some of those goodies to Ketis instead." Ves smiled. "In any case, I'll go down to the workshops and fabricate these parts. They don't seem more complex than what I've already fabricated before so I can handle them on my own."

"If you say so, kid. You're going to need my help when you assemble your new C22 Custom though, or you're bound to miss something important. By the way, this suit is so different from a regular C22 Custom that it deserves its own name. What do you want to call your new suit?"

"Hmm. It doesn't have to be any fancy." Ves quickly came up with a few options before he settled on one in particular. "Let's call it the C22 Earth Ant."

The suit had taken on a slightly bulbous appearance that resembled the exoskeleton of ants.

"Not the most flattering name, but it's your suit."

"It's my turn now!" The woman in question bubbled.

As Ketis and Mandelson huddled together to discuss the modifications of her own suit of heavy combat armor, Ves took the details of the plan and brought them down to the workshop where he began to fabricate all of the new parts.

This was familiar to him, and despite the differences, his adeptness and experience in handling the 3D printer enabled him to churn out parts without any apparent flaws.

He encountered the most difficulty when he fabricated the compressed armor plating. While Ves wasn't unfamiliar with the extra treatment they required, he had never produced plates so small and thin.

While he knew how to handle such delicate work in theory, he failed several times before he tentatively got the hang of it at the cost of wasting fifty percent more materials than he thought.

The good news was that he wouldn't be facing so many stumbles next time he fabricated infantry-sized armor plating.

He also put his concentration to use in attempting to imbue his parts with an X-Factor, but despite his considerable Spirituality, he sensed he hadn't managed to affect the parts very much. It was pretty much the same story for when he fabricated his other gear as well.

Evidently, Ves did not grasp the essence of crafting other objects besides mechs.

"Well, it's not as if I need anything more than a faint boost. It's way too soon for me to experiment on this aspect."

Fabricating all of the parts took almost a full day, which was considerable considering how little he produced compared to fabricating the components of a mechs.

Fumbling around with the compressed armor plating ate up far too much time, but he also wanted to take it slow in order to insure every part was as mechanically perfect as possible. Ves would be relying on the C22 Earth Ant to safeguard his life while deployed to the rumored Super Earth where the Starlight Megalodon could be found, and from his previous experiences he always needed to be ready for battle when stepping foot on exoplanets.

"It would be great if nothing serious happens, but with all the pirates and the Vesians converging on the Starlight Megalodon, avoiding conflict is probably a pipedream."

He didn't even want to be deployed to the surface of a Super Earth in the first place, but the planning of the missions called for the best mech designer to be on hand in case their landbound mech force required acute adjustments.

Nobody knew what kind of strange conditions they might encounter on a Super Earth in a star system surrounded by a strange and incomprehensible spacetime storm.

That alone caused many Vandals to shudder in fear. Spacetime storms were no joke, and they had often been responsible for insane feats such as launching a meandering starship in FTL halfway across the galaxy or even several decades in the future!

Of course, the most likely outcome to ships being flung off-course by these storms during FTL travel was to crash into a random stellar object in the vicinity. Black holes often had a tendency to slurp ships thrown off-course.

As Ves returned to the armory with a floater platform of parts trailing behind, he waited for the chief armorer to finish her modification plan for the suit of armor worn by Ketis.

The plan was a lot less extravagant than his own, but then again her heavy combat armor already protected the Swordmaiden well enough. She just wanted some strengthening so her suit could continue to operate under heavy gravity.

"Ves?"

"Yes, Ketis?"

"Can you help me fabricate these parts?" She swung a data pad containing her modification plan to him. "I don't feel confident enough to do it myself like you just did."

"I guess I can show you the ropes." He sighed. He turned to Mandelson. "Chief, here's the parts. I'd love to help with assembling the C22 Earth Ant, but I have to help our guest designer here."

"Go ahead." She waved her hand dismissively. "Your help won't be needed anyway."

Unlike Ves, Ketis lacked the skills to fabricate the complicated parts that she planned to introduce in her own armor. Once they returned to the workshop, he carefully demonstrated how to work the 3D printer.

She oohed and awed whenever a new part came into being. Ves put her in charge of scanning and inspecting the products for any deviances and faults. So far, she found nothing to complain about.

"How come you're so good at fabricating this stuff? This nonexistent failure rate of yours is inhuman!"

"I studied a lot." He fibbed, avoiding any mention of the System. "I also care a lot about craftsmanship. Now that you've found your design philosophy and gained a direction, there will come a time where you are tempted to keep designing new mechs without end. That's not a good approach because you risk distancing yourself too much from the nitty gritty of mechs."

"That's something you care a lot as well. Not even Mayra pays that much attention to this kind of manual labor. She always leaves the production to others."

"Mayra is at a stage where she doesn't need to touch a copy of her own design to be able to judge how good it is. Still, even if I become a Journeyman, I won't ever give up on crafting my own mechs. Sometimes, you need to remind yourself of why you entered the profession in the first place."

Chapter 765

The completion of the C22 Earth Ant along with the upgrades to the armor worn by Ketis marked the end of his preparations.

After thanking Chief Mandelson for her generous assistance, Ves left the armory wearing his new and lightweight Earth Ant along with a replacement for his standard-issue comm.

Major Verle promised him a better comm, so Ves drew out an officer-grade comm that integrated neatly in the systems of his C22 Earth Ant. While it came with some extra features, Ves chose to go for a high-quality comm model with the most extensive security suite and remote signal hardening.

Having been burned by an unsecure comm before, Ves wanted to make sure he didn't repeat his mistakes.

The officer-grade comm he received complimented his secure comm pretty well.

The officer-grade comm became his primary comm which he could use to connect to other Vandals remotely at a very long range.

Ves repurposed his secure comm as his 'offline' backup device which he could use to access the contents of encrypted data chips which he couldn't afford to leak. It had the ability to operate under intense jamming and other forms of electromagnetic interference, though its lack of remote connectivity wouldn't allow him to call for help.

Not that the jamming and interference would let him in the first place.

In any case, Ves tentatively judged that he made adequate preparations to survive whatever hell the Aeon Corona System threw at him. He mentally listed out his full complement of gear.

The C22 Earth Ant needed no introduction, as his new suit of light armor surpassed any suit he had ever worn before. The greatly strengthened armor plating, the added integrated modules and the many dedicated storage slots for his weapons and his gadgets turned it into a veritable

For his weapons, he could rely on his Amastendira as his trump card and a backup laser pistol as his official weapon. While he was at the armory, he exchanged his barely-used ballistic pistol for a handy laser pistol compatible with his Earth Ant's new targeting and aim assist modules.

"On a planet where everything weighs at least five times heavier, ballistic weapons are going to have a hard time."

Compared to a ballistic round that quickly sunk into the ground due to gravity, a laser beam would still travel straight ahead at shorter distances.

All of his remaining gadgets and equipment completed his loadout.

His signal jammer granted him some moments of privacy from the ubiquitous monitoring system.

His stealth detector enabled him to expose invisible bastards hiding under electronic stealth systems.

His military-issue multiscanner allowed him to scan all kinds of unknown objects and substances.

And finally, he possessed a spare ultracompact battery. He wanted to reserve its use for a third gadget, but Ves figured he wouldn't have the time to design and fabricate an entirely new device.

"Oh well, I can use it to supplement the power supply of my Earth Ant."

One of the features he included in the design of the Earth Ant was a robust slot that could handle the power output of an ultracompact battery. Ves did not intend to direct an excess amount of power to any of the integrated systems in his suit. Instead, he reserved the battery as an emergency long-term source of energy if he ever got stranded and cut off from the Vandals.

Together with the completion of the Six-Sided Dice, Ves hoped that his preparations left him with enough tools to secure his life in the coming storm.

"You're so obsessed with gearing yourself up." Ketis remarked as she witnessed Ves treating his gadgets and his new armor like precious treasures. "It's like you're one-hundred percent certain that we'll lose all our ships and that we're going to be stranded by ourselves with no mechs of allies to protect us from whatever you expect to find in the Aeon Corona System."

Ves pressed his lips. "If you've lived through all the battles the Flagrant Vandals have gone through ever since we entered Vesian space, you'll grow as insecure as I. The fact of the matter is that the Flagrant Vandals is set up like a raiding regiment, and not a particularly good one either. They lack funding, skilled personnel, a good cadre of capable leaders, a martial tradition that has been tested over centuries and ample preparation. It's that last one that's really the cause of all of my brushes with death."

"Preparation?"

"Yes, preparation." Ves reiterated. "All of those earlier faults can be compensated to some level if the Flagrant Vandals had months or years to prepare for this mission. It's obvious though that some higher-ups dropped this mission on their lap without giving them the time to prepare. Just look at the Vesian fleet. Even if we could only peek at them through long-ranged sensors, what we've already seen is that they're superior in all the fronts I've mentioned even after the Church of Haatumak stabbed them in the back."

"Yet the spooky Vesians got stabbed in the back and not us. We took care of our ambush early." She pointed out. "Unlike those Vesians you Vandals are all so scared of, you've got us Swordmaidens to cover your back!"

He chuckled a bit. They hadn't been very useful up to now. Their real strength lay in their landbound mechs and this advantage hadn't come into play yet. "However much you believe in our combined strength, it is not comprehensive enough to protect us individually against every threat. The Vandals don't care about me in particular. They care about themselves and their mission. I don't blame them for their priorities, but this does leave me at an awkward position. The only person who cares about my life is myself."

"That's not true. I care about you, Ves." She said.

"Ah, thank you for correcting me. I care about you too, perhaps more than any other Vandal that's supposed to be on my own side." Ves smiled sardonically. "I guess I don't quite fit in with the Vandals in the first place."

In his perspective, the Vandals exhibited a certain amount of cockiness to keep up morale. From what he could guess, Major Verle decided to maintain everyone's level of morale in order to prevent them from questioning the purpose of their mission or start to realize how deep in alien space they had ventured.

Such a policy paid dividends. The levels of anxiety among the crew hadn't boiled over yet, at least aboard the Shield of Hispania. This was despite the occasional turbulence that wracked the ship as she attempted to bore straight through a narrow channel of relative calm in the middle of a horrible spacetime storm.

The shaking and creaking of the combat carrier along with general wave of nausea and unpleasantness that did their best to unsettle the crew. If not for all the constant drilling and the frequent pep talk sessions, who knew if someone snapped.

Ves did not have much work in store. With the Shield of Hispania isolated in FTL, he couldn't issue orders nor keep tabs on the mechs aboard the other Vandal ships.

He felt a burning curiosity how his modifications affected Venerable Xie. The foreign expert pilot often practiced with the virtual version of the Parallax Star in order to grasp some of its nuances.

If the changes Ves had made to his simulator pod came through, then the expert pilot should slowly become more loyal to the Flagrant Vandals.

Other changes should also bring out more of his strength in the coming months at the cost of burning out. Ves felt the most guilty about this particular change because it condemned the expert pilot to a slow and irreversible death.

At least humanity developed means to remedy or reverse the effects of brainwashing.

Though Ves attended daily briefings, Ves felt as if the planners spun off increasingly more unlikely contingency plans. Every major detail had already been discussed to death, so they started running on fantasies to foster discussion and make sure that everyone knew what to do in the event of an unlikely occurrence.

A couple of days quietly passed until their emergency out of FTL came abruptly at an unexpected time.

Ves slept quietly in his bunk when the ship suddenly jerked out of FTL. He almost fell out of his bunk, his sheets tangling his legs, as the red alert immediately flashed.

"UNEXPECTED FTL EMERGENCE! RED ALERT! ALL HANDS TO ACTION STATIONS!"

"What the hell is going?!" He slapped himself awake. "I thought we are two days away from reaching the Aeon Corona System?"

Had the Shield of Hispania encountered an interdiction? Did the spacetime storm throw them off course? All kinds of awful disasters sprung into his mind. The only good thing was that the Vandals developed contingency plans in these kinds of cases, so Ves and the rest knew what to do.

In any case, the first step they needed to do was to hop inside their suits and get to their stations!

Ves kept his C22 Earth Ant on a rack mounted against the bulkhead of his cabin. He shed his pajama's and wore a thin underlayer skintight vacsuit before inserting his body into the open armor. The C22 Earth Ant had been constructed in such a way that it could fold itself open like a beetle spreading its wings.

Once he positioning himself in place, the armor plating folded around his body, enclosing him in a tight fit that felt a little bit too snug. He experimentally moved his limbs around, first with servo-assist and then without mechanical assistance, and nodded in satisfaction.

As a newly modified suit of armor, Ves frequently encountered minor issues in the first couple of days. Every day, he returned to the armory so that Chief Mandelson could perform minute adjustments.

"Well, let's head to the command center now."

He marched into the corridors and followed the route to the center of the combat carrier.

Groups of Vandals in hazard suits and various forms of armor briskly walked towards their stations. Each of them exhibited panic in their expression, but none of them broke out into a run.

Running while potentially wearing suits of various sizes and mass could be a real hazard if they crashed against someone. No matter what kind of emergency the Shield of Hispania had landed themselves into, it did not absolve them from the safety rules!

As Ves went through a fast but thorough security check, he passed through the hatch and jumped into his observer's seat.

A minute later, Ketis arrived decked out in her heavier suit of armor. Among the officers and operators manning their stations in the command center, she looked larger and more menacing than most.

Naturally, she couldn't beat the exoskeleton-suited security officers standing guard inside and outside the compartment.

"What's all the fuss about? Why did we get thrown off FTL?" She asked in a sleepy and befuddled manner. Being forcibly awoken from her beauty sleep had made her crankier than usual.

"From what I can gather, we've arrived in the Aeon Corona System ahead of schedule, but we don't know why! Also, we can't get in touch with the other ships of our combined fleet! There's some sort of interference that's hampering our communication and sensor arrays."

They had entered the Aeon Corona System blind, deaf and mute and that frightened the Vandals most of all!

When they switched their view to a normal optical camera, they began to see a warped storm of yellow and orange particles flowing through space. These particles didn't appear to be solid or dangerous, but they effectively blocked all of their sensors starting from a range of just a hundred kilometers away!

In stellar navigation terms, this was practically point-blank range!

Throughout the haze of yellow-orange streams that played havoc with optical and gravitic sensors, somehow the planets and the trinary stars shone like beacons in the light.

The Aeon Corona System turned out to be a massive star system! With over nineteen planets and hundreds of moons of varying shapes and sizes, this star system contained enough real estate to make it an ideal capital system for a second-rate state!

Even deep within the frontier, a rich star system like this shouldn't have been hidden away from everyone!

"Sir! We've detected an incoming patrol of mechs. They're from the Swordmaidens! They report that their ship is just out of our sensor range!"

Everyone sighed in relief. The presence of the Swordmaiden patrol indicated that while the fleet might have been scrambled a bit when they transitioned out of FTL, they should at least be able to gather back together.

"Deploy our full complement of spaceborn mechs. Spread out in a spherical search pattern and track down the rest of our fleet!"

Chapter 766

Nobody knew where the shimmering yellow-orange particles came from and how they managed to scramble their communications and sensors. Some of the geeky science officers posited that the particles consisted of a form of higher-dimensional energy that somehow spilled over into realspace.

While the particles blocked their sight and interrupted their transmissions, they didn't do any further damage. They actually looped around solid objects as if they followed some kind of astral wind.

One good consequence of holding all of those meetings to discuss all kinds of contingency plans was that they already formed a plan for this sort of eventuality.

Each Vandal ship should be deploying all of their spaceborn mechs. They kept their heavier mechs on perimeter guard should any threats emergence from the astral winds. More importantly, they should be deploying their lighter mechs into expanding circles and spheres in order to reconnect with the rest of the fleet, should they be near.

Half an hour went by as the expanding chain of light mechs encountered their counterparts from a random selection of Vandal and Swordmaiden combat carriers and supply ships. It quickly became evident that the Flagrant Swordmaidens emerged out of FTL in a muddled soup that bore no resemblance to their previous formation.

What they feared the most right now was missing out on a couple of ships because they fell just outside the detection envelope of their search parties.

Right now, the Vandals prioritized the search for the Gorgon's Gaze, the Beggar's Bounty and the Linnever Swan.

It would hurt if they lost their other ships, but they couldn't lose their expert pilot and their logistics ships!

Fortunately, it didn't appear they landed in the vicinity of an enemy force that had arrived beforehand. The engineers and science officers slowly figured out what happened as the Flagrant Swordmaidens slowly converged together after coming across a friendly patrol.

"As best as we can tell, sir, is that we should have arrived in the Aeon Corona System sooner, but due to entering a field of distorted gravity, time and space appeared to have stretched out for a few days. This caused us to experience more time inside the region of affected than outside, essentially speeding up our perspective. This stretch in spacetime suddenly sprang back to normal, causing us to be gently thrown forward and into the Aeon Corona System ahead of schedule."

"What are the consequences?"

"Our transition coordinates may deviate depending on the strength of the push. Heavier ships are less affected than lighter vessels, so our lighter transports should be the farthest flung away while the heaviest logistics ships shouldn't be too far away from our original formation. Once we find the logistics ships, we should be able to figure out the center of our spread-out emergency pattern, sir."

Major Verle furrowed his brows. He understood the implications. Find the logistics ships and they had the potential to gather everyone back together again. The problem was that half an hour had gone by and they still hadn't found the big and lumbering vessels. It meant that their spread was wide enough that they stood a real chance of getting cut off from the rest.

"What can you tell about our emergence zone."

The science officer consulted a data pad. "According to Chief Avanaeon, we have emerged at a different angle than anticipated. The spacetime storm has flung us minutely off-course, but not to the extent of missing the Aeon Corona System entirely. He did state that any other fleet who jumped to the Aeon Corona System from the same dwarf system we departed earlier will likely be flung in an entirely different angle relative to the trinary stars. Chances are low that we will encounter ships that have jumped to the same System due to the constantly changing ripple effects of the spacetime storm."

"So in short, our own fleet may be scrambled across tens of thousands of kilometers while enemy fleets may have been flung several light-hours away, is that right?"

"Correct, but there's more, sir. We have modeled the streams of particles and have discovered that they are being funneled into space from a central location in the star system. The source is situated at a large terrestrial planet that we have tentatively identified as Aeon Corona VII."

Aeon Corona VII! The source of all of these astral winds came from a single planet instead of one of the stars! What's more, the science officer mentioned that the seventh planet from the trinary stars consisted of a terrestrial, rock-like planet!

"Does Aeon Corona VII match our expected parameters?"

"We are still unsure, sir. Several terrestrial planets that are distinguishable on our gravitic sensors may also be the Super Earth we are looking for. Due to the pervasive astral winds, every observation we make is distorted."

Their priorities were clear. Before they moved to investigate Aeon Corona VII, they first needed to gather their forces and regroup into a cohesive force. "Please send a coded message the Jaded Sword via our quantum entanglement node. Tell them we have reached the system and seek to rendez-vous."

"Uhm, sir, that won't be possible." The communications officer replied.

"Explain."

"Our quantum entanglement node is permanently rendered inoperative. The entangled particles have lost their entanglement! All of them are decoupled!"

"Are you joking?!"

Upon further questioning, the communications officer and the specialists in charge of the quantum entanglement node concluded that the spacetime storm essentially isolated them from the rest of the galaxy at some fundamental level.

After a brief consultation with the science officer, they developed a theory. The head geek explained the situation to Major Verle in simple terms.

"Sir, imagine that before we jumped into the Aeon Corona System, our ships were located anchored in space and time. When we transitioned into FTL, our ships were lifted up in the higher dimensions where the laws of nature operate among slightly different principles. When we emerged into this star system, we haven't actually returned to the familiar confines of realspace. Instead, this entire star system is enveloped in a bubble of spacetime that is neither realspace or higher dimensional space."

Major Verle's expression grew difficult. As a mech officer who rose up from the ranks through excelling in combat, administration and command, his literacy in the sciences fell far behind. "How does that impact our quantum entanglement node."

"Well, it shouldn't, really." The science officer expressed his doubts. "The particles at the heart of our nodes should have remained entangled with their counterparts at the Comm Consortium. However, we hypothesize the Aeon Corona System is situated in an anomalous phase of existence that is anchored at the edge of realspace and some of the higher dimensional spaces. You can consider it to be in an alternate phase of existence where distances and the passage of time may be warped. This distortion is strong enough that the entanglement of our particles can't endure the deviances. Simply put, they got angry and quit their jobs."

The lengthy explanation implied more than just a snapped communication line with the outside galaxy. It implied that the star system and everyone inside of it may be experiencing vastly accelerated or decelerated time! Perhaps a single day inside the Aeon Corona System corresponded to ten days outside!

Nobody knew, because they were all trapped in the bubble. Trying to observe the condition of the rest of the galaxy was impossible because of all the astral winds blocking their long-ranged sensors.

Right now, the complicated explanation hammered home the fact that they couldn't come crying for mommy in this screwed up star system. Not that anyone would send help anyway, but it was the thought that counted.

In the end, they needed to wait. A tense couple of hours went by as the newly formed fleet centered around the Shield of Hispania gathered an increasing amount of stray vessels.

Four hours after entering the Aeon Corona System, they finally met up with their missing logistics ships. The Jaded Sword found them first and took charge of their own growing fleet.

Once the two collections of ships found each other, they immediately converged and merged into a single whole.

After twelve hours since their unexpected emergence, almost every vessel had been accounted for. They even tracked down the Gorgon's Gaze after homing in on the faint resonance emissions transmitted by the Parallax Star.

The return of their expert pilot led to a small celebration among the Vandals and even the Swordmaidens. Venerable Xie's prestige had only grown in his brief absence as the Vandals and Swordmaidens lacked an anchor that could put them at ease.

Just as they accounted for every ship, including the smallest and most far-flung transports, they failed to discover the whereabouts of two different vessels.

"Where is the Finmoth Regal?" Major Verle asked with an increasingly dour face.

After twenty hours of reconstituting their combined fleet, both the Vandals and the Swordmaidens still missed one ship each. The Vandals sent out mechs on increasingly wider spiral orbits in an attempt to track down their errant combat carrier, while the Swordmaidens did the same for the Goombal Chelsea, one of their recently-captured light carriers!

Both ships carried a considerable amount of mechs, and losing them at this juncture weakened their forces considerably!

As best their engineers and science officers could tell, the spacetime undulations that threw them into the Aeon Corona System ahead of schedule affected the missing ships a little more different!

"They can be anywhere, sir." The science officer explained after an exhausting period of performing calculations and making educated guesses. "There is a small probability that the Finmoth Regal and the Goombal Chelsea have missed the Aeon Corona System entirely. A more likely possibility is that they are flung to a different emergence zone that is up to several light-hours away from our position."

At some point, their chances of finding their missing ships became increasingly less likely. Their light mechs ranged so far ahead of the reorganized fleet that they risked straying off course.

Apparently, space didn't exactly remain stable.

The ripples in the astral winds induced a small but fairly noticeable amount of distortion that made it far too risky to split up. A mech that flew straight ahead for a while and then turned a hundred-and-eighty degrees and went back might miss the fleet by several hundred kilometers!

These oddities forced Major Verle to implement a policy stating that mechs on patrols should never stray fifty kilometers away from each other. This severely shrank their scouting and patrol range. If they bumped into something dangerous, they only had a brief period of time to come up with a response!

"It's been thirty hours. Stop the search and set course to Aeon Corona VII." Major Verle finally ordered after consultation with Commander Lydia. Neither of them could afford to be delayed while other pirates might have already reached the seventh planet and perhaps the source of the spacetime anomaly.

The fleet moved in unison, falling into an altered formation that left them closer and tighter than they were comfortable with. Their condensed formation flew against the currents of the astral winds blasting the entire star system.

The bright and blinding particles that changed from yellow to orange in a random pattern parted neatly in front of their ships and mechs, only to converge again after their passing.

Besides their visibility, the Flagrant Swordmaidens failed to figure out the nature of the moving particles. The most predominant theory they came up with was that it consisted of matter or energy native to the higher dimensions.

Such particles had been observed before, but most of the research had been conducted in the galactic heartland and the galactic center. A backwater state like the Bright Republic shouldn't even be messing with these kind of exotic particles in the first place. Therefore, every science-minded Vandal in the fleet were basically starting from scratch.

One thing was for sure, though. Something extremely drastic must have happened on Aeon Corona VII to flood the surrounding space with so much astral wind!

The only way the Flagrant Swordmaidens could obtain answers was to travel to the eye of the storm.

Hopefully, they might meet the missing Finmoth Regal and the Goombal Chelsea along the way. In the event a ship became isolated from the fleet, they received orders to converge at the mission site.

Chapter 767

As the Flagrant Swordmaiden fleet made their way to Aeon Corona VII, it became clear that they were moving far slower than they ought to. After continuous calculations and estimations, they figured out that it might take thirty percent longer to reach orbit.

Worse, the time and space distortion only grew stronger the more they approached the deviant planet!

According to some calculations, time in the vicinity of the Super Earth-like planet may run several times slower than normal, perhaps by as much as ten times on the very surface of the planet.

Despite the alarming phenomena surrounding Aeon Corona VII, neither Major Verle nor Commander Lydia showed any hesitation. They expected the Flagrant Swordmaidens to charge straight ahead regardless of what the abnormal planet threw at them. They were finally about to commence their mission!

Due to the extra time needed to reach the Super Earth, Ves figured Ketis and him wouldn't be needed at the command center. The Vandals maintained a yellow alert condition, but other than that they didn't expect to bump into anyone. The odds of meeting a rival force during transit under these blinding conditions was almost nil.

The astral winds both hindered them as well as shielded them from encountering other forces.

Ves tallied their current conditions from the records he had access to and made a log. "Fuel supply has been dipping, but we have a healthy reserve remaining. We have enough supplies to sustain a months-long campaign on the ground, though if our conditions are difficult we'll need to supplement them with supplies produced on site."

The Vandals prepared plenty of production equipment that enabled them to produce ammunition and recharge energy cells from locally-sourced resources.

"Crew morale is somewhat shaken due to the strange phenomena caused by the spacetime anomaly originating from Aeon Corona VII. However, now that we are finally nearing our mission site, all of the Vandals are fired up and ready to fight. So long as the Vandals are focused on what is straight ahead of them, they won't think too hard on the myriad of dangers involved with approaching such a dangerous planet."

The science officers issued various reports that indicated that the strange astral winds and all of the spacetime distortions wouldn't have any effect on their health other than to accelerate their aging relative the rest of the galaxy. Nonetheless, not everyone trusted their judgement.

It was hard to trust anyone when it came to this strange and mystical planet. What few details they gathered of the seventh planet already drove the exogeology specialists nuts.

"Some of our starships are still recovering from the sabotage attempts by the cultists, and the absence of the Finmoth Regal and the Goombal Chelsea isn't helping matters. Both of our spaceborn and landbound mechs are in their best state yet if the mech complement of the aforementioned ships are taken out of the equation. Even Venerable Xie has shown he feels more at ease when piloting the Parallax Star."

Ves had no doubt that some of the addictive qualities started to make their mark on the expert pilot's psyche. Addiction played a key role in the cocktail of positive reinforcement mechanisms that slowly associated contentment, safety, fulfillment and other positive emotions to serving the Vandals.

The expert pilot regularly deployed into space in order to gain some valuable experience in piloting the actual Parallax Star.

Early indications already showed that the brainwashing tentatively started to shift the expert pilot's mentality. The Venerable still insisted on calling Prince Hixt-Klaaster, but paid less and less attention to the conversations. It became easier for the AI pretending to be the Fourth Prince to maintain the facade.

"As for the cooperation between the Vandals and the Swordmaidens, our relations have grown back to normal since before we've picked up the survivors of Chopra Interstellar Security. A healthy separation still exists to guard against contingencies, but it's hard not to grow on the women since they are rather adept at diplomacy."

Every Vandal spoke positively when they organized joint patrols or collaborated in other matters. Ves was no exception to this phenomenon as he found Ketis quite adorable under her tough girl exterior.

All-in-all, after crossing through Vesian space, mucking about in Harkensen and Mancroft, crossing from one end of the Faris Star Region to the other end, most Vandals expressed relief at finally coming within a stone's throw of their mission.

Once they reached the Starlight Megalodon and looted it with whatever their bosses wanted to retrieve, they could make a straight shot towards home!

Ves snorted at the thought. How naive. "Treasure attracts danger. Besides, I don't think Aeon Corona VII will relinquish its bounty without a fight."

He could feel it in his restless gut. A deep sense of anxiety mixed with anticipation ran across his body whenever he studied the increasingly more detailed model of the seventh planet.

"One giant Super Earth. Five medium-sized moons. Extremely likely to possess a thin atmosphere with a sufficient amount of oxygen to allow baseline humans to breathe, though with great difficulty."

In fact, besides estimating the planet's gravity at six times the gravity of Old Earth, the planet seemed suspiciously livable to humans.

The exobiologists all concluded that the planet likely used to be a lot more hostile to human life, but that centuries of faint but focused terraforming changed all of that. Due to the time acceleration on the surface of the planet, the change may have only taken a couple of decades in the perspective of the outside galaxy.

Aeon Corona VII tentatively hit all the boxes when it came to the requirements to sustain human life. Water, air and temperature all fell within a moderate range, while its strong magnetic field protected it against the harmful radiation against the combined output of three stars in the center of the system.

The biggest question of all was whether any humans actually lived down there. So far, clones piloting FTL-capable shuttles managed to escape the planet and star system and leak out word of the Starlight Megalodon's existence.

Yet who grew those clones? It didn't have to be other humans. It could be aliens or some automated cloning system at work.

The journey to the planet progressed quietly. The Vandals kept up constant patrols and tried to study the glowing particles as best they could, but none of their attempts at capturing them succeeded. It was like they truly existed out of phase, yet somehow cast their reflection into a few dimensions down.

All of the science talk went over Ves' head. He recognized a few terms related to FTL drive technology, but he lacked the foundation to understand or participate in a discussion of that level.

"The best way to put it is like this." Chief Avanaeon said when Ves paid a visit to engineering. "Imagine you take some clothes out of your closet and place them neatly on top of each other. You'll end up with a mostly-flat pile of clothes consisting of multiple layers of fabric, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then one day you take your palm and press down right into the middle of the pile of clothes. Your arm sinks down and the layers of clothes get squeezed. Right now, Aeon Corona VII is kind of in such a situation. Imagine the pile of clothes as a stack of dimensions. Normally, there's plenty of space and separation between the layers. Pressing down our palm on them has changed the equilibrium and caused them to press against each other. As far as we can tell, the dimensions are so compressed that they are partially overlapping into each other."

"What the hell does that mean?" Ves frowned.

"It means we start to see things but we can't touch them. It isn't correct to say that interaction between matter and energy in different dimensions is impossible, but we don't have the knowledge nor the theory to do something like that. However, we did manage to develop some hypotheses on what is going on. We haven't been sitting on our butts all this time."

"Can you tell me what is going on?"

"Our first guess is that the Starlight Megalodon's FTL drives are most likely responsible or at least involved in this persistent spacetime anomaly. I won't bore you with the specifics but when highly advanced FTL drives fail in a certain way, they essentially cause an effect on the dimensions similar to how you press down your arm on the pile of clothes. From what little we can manage to extrapolate from our long-ranged sensors pointed to Aeon Corona VII, the origin point of all of the astral wind is very likely to be her crash site!"

This was a bold and frankly ridiculous-sounding revelation! Even if battleships possessed enough firepower to destroy a planet, to flood an entire star system with all of this spacetime distortion for decades or centuries sounded far too ludicrous!

"How can that be possible?" Ves expressed his disbelief. "Pressing down on the layer of dimensions and keeping them compressed requires you to expend an enormous amount of energy to maintain this state! Battleship or not, the Starlight Megalodon's energy reserves shouldn't have lasted that long!"

Chief Avanaeon shook his head. "Are you certain about that? We know that humanity has mastered the means to create endlessly renewable energy sources, and CFA battleships are known to incorporate the best and greatest technology of humanity. As long as the battleship hasn't incurred too much damage, it is not out of the realm of probability that her malfunctioning FTL drives are perpetually sustaining an abnormal dimension compression effect."

"You have no proof that this is going on, right?"

"It is the simplest answer we can think of right now. Occam's Razor, Ves. If your understanding of FTL drives has reached my level, then you wouldn't be so dismissive of my words. The greater the capabilities of an FTL drive, the more we are tangling with dangers we don't fully understand. An active FTL drive is a wild beast that seeks to tear a hole through the dimensions and subject everything around it to chaos if left to its own devices."

"Will it be dangerous for us to get close to such an anomaly? I used to be part of the Glowing Planet campaign, and the forces there borrowed dimensional smoother devices that could forcibly suppress wrinkles in spacetime."

"We're not talking about a couple of wrinkles here, Ves." Avanaeon shook his head again. "Whatever is at the center of the Starlight Megalodon is at least a hundred times worse. It's a massive pit. However, it is a remarkably smooth and stable one as well. The danger with dimensional wrinkles is that ships tend to get crumpled into the folds of spacetime when they come across a wrinkle. That problem won't happen here because the distortions are smooth and gradual enough that we won't get folded in ourself or something."

That sounded reassuring. Not.

"What if we slip and slide all the way to the bottom of the pit?"

"Nobody knows. We might get pulled into a singularity for all I know, but as long as we maintain some distance we won't be at risk. Considering that the battleship is very likely to be intact enough to sustain a perpetually active FTL drive, we don't believe it's all that bad down there."

Ves couldn't comprehend the chief's dismissive attitude towards the potential dangers. It was like the chief telling everybody that taking a dip into the corona of the sun would just leave them with a bit of sunburn on their skin!

Just as Ves was about to express his skepticism, the yellow alert suddenly turned to red alert!

"OUR PATROLS HAVE MADE CONTACT WITH SANDMEN ESCORT VESSELS! ALL HANDS TO ACTION STATIONS!"

Both Ves and Avanaeon cursed.

"Go!"

Ves hustled to the command center as best he could with the Earth Ant. After a long period of avoiding the aliens, they suddenly bumped into the silicate life forms all of a sudden in the middle of interplanetary space. How did they even manage to enter the Aeon Corona System?

Chapter 768

When the Flagrant Swordmaidens understood how difficult it would be to penetrate the astral wind, they treated it as both a benefit and a detriment to their survival.

The higher-dimensional particles never physically touched anything material, but they blocked any form of scans or signals from penetrating past a hundred kilometers. On land this distance spanned a small province, but in space it might as well be a couple of footsteps away.

This condition benefited the Flagrant Swordmaidens because it would be exceptionally difficult for the other forces that entered the Aeon Corona System to band up and track them down.

The disadvantage was that if an enemy force ever succeeded in bumping into the Flagrant Swordmaidens, the fight started right off the bat at close range in spaceborn combat terms!

Certain types of enemies fared better or worse in close-ranged combat.

The Flagrant Vandals for example fielded a relatively balanced spaceborn mech roster, though they slightly put more emphasis melee mechs.

Lydia's Swordmaidens on the other hand leaned heavily on melee mechs. Though each swordsman mech had the ability to sheathe their swords and wield spare ballistic rifles when they encountered sandmen, they usually chose to flee if they ever encountered a whiff of the aliens.

Unfortunately, the sandmen almost literally bumping into their patrols had left that choice off the table! Their forces approached far too close to each other to contemplate a withdrawal!

"The sandman escort vessel has entangled two of our Inheritors! One pilot has ejected in time but the other cockpit has been caught!"

Anyone caught by the sandmen would get crushed by the sentient sand particles as they sought to absorb as much energy as possible. Getting into melee range against any sandmen conglomeration was a recipe for disaster!

"Inform Captain Rakeshir to shift our formation away from the trajectory of the sandmen!"

The fleet turned around a moment later, every ship trying to curve to starboard in order to evade the lone sandmen escort that had very likely informed the rest of its buddies that it had encountered human machines to snack upon!

Major Verle quickly issued a set of orders that basically amounted to following a modified contingency plan in the event a sandmen force ambushed the fleet. All melee mechs had to withdraw and if possible exchange their melee weapons for simplified ballistic and kinetic rifles!

In the meantime, half of the Akkara heavy cannoneers started readying their physical cannons while shutting off power to their laser cannons.

Laser weapons generally inflicted limited damage against the sandmen due to their excellent heat conductivity. Dealing localized spot damage was nearly impossible as the individual sandmen constantly shifted around and diverted heat away!

Even the Parallax Star gave up its lance in exchange for a customized railgun that Miss Lisbeth once fabricated as an emergency option.

Ves didn't want to admit it, but for once, Miss Lisbeth's insane drive towards fabricating as many spare parts and options as possible actually turned out to be useful. The railgun packed a lot of punch, though the energy it expended and the high degree of wear and tear incurred in its use made it a very expensive weapon to deploy.

Right now, every single credit put into its construction and payment would be worth it if it gave Venerable Xie a powerful means of fighting back against the sandmen.

Sandmen vessels fared poorly against single powerful physical attacks. Though their fluid amalgamations were capable of absorbing a lot of shock, the energy constructs that animated them could only sustain so much shock before they fractured, essentially killing the consciousness that animated the sandmen.

"The Parallax Star will be ready to deploy in three minutes!"

"Clear the firing lines for our Akkara mechs! Tell the laggards to move their metal butts out of the way!"

The sandman escort ship had moved quickly in chasing after the fleeing Inheritor mechs. Armed with double knives or daggers, the light skirmishers fared exceptionally poorly against a sandmen vessel that engulfed anything that strayed close enough as their main means of attack!

Although the Inheritors moved fast, the sandman ship somehow managed to move even faster through their reactionless sublight propulsion! Two more mechs almost got caught, but managed to confuse the sandman ship by splitting up in diametrically opposite directions, causing its reigning intelligence to pause in indecision.

"Detecting several new sandmen signatures! Sir, we have made positive identification of their fleet type! It's a low-intelligence sandmen fleet based around a single cruiser-sized mothership and twelve frigate-sized escort vessels!"

The sandmen for some reason loved the number six, and their more basic fleets often deployed escort vessels in multiples of six. A twelve escort fleet posed a significant threat to the Flagrant Swordmaidens, especially if all twelve ships as well as the massive mothership managed to get into point-blank range!

Whatever Flagrant Swordmaidens did, they had to stop the sandmen ships from going any closer!

"Order the Akkara mechs to lay down suppressive fire. I want all of the sandmen frigates facing a storm of firepower!"

Half of the Akkara mechs immediately received new targeting orders, prompting their mech pilots to unleash their ballistic and kinetic cannons. Around a quarter of the rounds hit their mark, causing the sandmen frigates to encounter difficulties in closing in on the fleet that desperately tried to turn aside.

An increasing amount of Akkara mechs came online and started to add to the soundless barrage. Half of the mech pilots had remained on standby in their cockpits so could immediately jump into action, but the other half had to be roused from their sleep, causing them to be delayed for a critical moment!

A few other ranged mechs already deployed on patrol added their firepower, with mixed success. The fast and agile sandmen frigates moved as nimbly as a light mech despite massing much more than them. They zigged and zagged towards the Flagrant Swordmaiden fleet in an inexorable advance even as the frequent hits chipped away globs of lifeless sand.

The sandmen ships were undeterred!

One of the most annoying things about the sandmen was that they knew no fear, at least not the way other sentients experienced. Damaging them caused their amalgamations to grow smaller, but that only made them faster and more agile. They were like mechs outfitted with modular armor in that sense. Only by crushing them down until they reached the size of a melon did they finally become inert.

By now, the Misty Slashers, the Inheritors, the Hellcats and many other mechs launched out of the combat carriers as fast as possible armed with cheap backup rifles. While they packed less of a punch than anyone would want, they were cheap to procure and did not require too much complexity to operate.

Any humanoid mech could make use of them, even melee mechs. Their accuracy left a lot to be desired, but the large sandmen ships were easy to hit at medium range.

"Sir, the sandmen escort ships are forced to slow down under the weight of fire." The tactical officer said. "However, their mothership is advancing unopposed!"

"Assign Venerable Xie to the task of halting the mothership." Major Verle instructed. "Maintain our current targeting priorities. Right now, we need to whittle down the sandmen frigates."

The Flagrant Swordmaidens expended a large amount of ammunition by having hundreds of mechs fire their rifles and cannons at the twelve ominously agile sandmen escorts. Over three-fourths of the projectiles missed their mark, but enough hit their mark to physically hinder their forward momentum, buying precious time for more mechs to take up rifles.

"Sir, the Parallax Star has deployed! It's firing its railgun!"

The Parallax Star armed itself with a large railgun that outgunned the cannons of the Akkara mechs by a significant margin. Just the length of the weapon alone surpassed the height of the mech that wielded it! Its mass and size already made it clear that this was a weapon meant to be deployed in space. A mech on the ground wouldn't be able to hold this weapon properly under standard gravity!

The expert pilot already received permission to fire at will, so as soon as Venerable Xie drew a bead on the large sandman mothership, he pulled the trigger.

The firing sequence almost passed without any notice. If Ves hadn't glued his eyes to the stream depicting the Parallax Star, he wouldn't have noticed much. The mech's flight system and the railgun's inertial dampeners did an excellent job in compensating for the recoil upon firing.

The slug the formidable weapon fired impacted the mothership fairly hard! A small crater marred its smooth sphere-like surface. What must have been several tons worth of individual sandmen separated from the greater mass, the kinetic impact causing their energy constructs to be overwhelmed!

"The sandman mothership has sustained significant damage!"

The only downside to the artillery-scale railgun was that it required a significant amount of time to safely fire it again. An agonizing amount of seconds passed as the railgun finally shifted enough heat and energy as well as load in a new slug to fire again.

"The second railgun impact dealt less damage! The mothership is adjusting its structure into a hollow cage structure! It's adjusting its composition in response to the heavy impacts!"

Major Verle cursed. "It appears the sandman admiral isn't a total rookie. Divert ten percent of our Akkara mechs to suppressing the mothership. Don't let it get away with its latest shapechange!"

A small amount of high-volume firepower assisted Venerable Xie as his railgun accurately hit the hollowed-out mothership that had changed its structure into a multitude of hexagonal-shaped cages. Its overall volume ballooned in size but most of it consisted of empty space.

Each time a railgun hit the hexagonal cages, the constructions broke easily, but the lack of interconnectedness also limited the spread of damage. The mothership could last four times longer when it adopted this hollow structure!

This was why Major Verle insisted on adding some of the Akkara mechs to the equation. The thinner hexagonal structures didn't need a railgun to shatter apart, so adding the high-volume firepower of the heavy cannoneers on top of the railgun fire put the mothership under a lot of pressure.

The sandmen admiral decided to respond.

"Sir, the sandman mothership is accumulating energy for an attack!"

"What is it targeting?!"

"Seventy percent certainty the mothership is targeting the Parallax Star, sir! There's a seventeen percent chance that it's targeting the Gorgon's Gaze behind the expert mech!"

"Order Venerable Xie to evade!"

A few seconds later, the communications officer reporting something alarming.

"Sir, the Venerable has refused to follow your last order! He believes the Parallax Star can take the energy attack!"

"Damnit! Who does he think he is?! Tell him to pull back now!"

Too late! Just as the Parallax Star tossed aside its railgun to get it out of the way, an energy field formed around the unarmed lancer mech.

A bright yellow beam struck the Parallax Star with unerring machine-like accuracy! The sandman mothership only sustained the beam for 0.026 seconds, but it had transferred enough energy to bore through the armor belt of a combat carrier!

"The mothership has exhausted its attack. It is accumulating energy for a second energy attack!"

"What is the status of the Parallax Star!?" Major Verle demanded.

"The Parallax Star sustained light damage. Its energy field has largely negated the damage to its frame." Ves responded. He had kept an eye on its telemetry throughout the entire event. "Some of its energy field emitters have overstressed themselves. They won't stand up to repeated punishments."

"How many more attacks can it take?"

"If Venerable Xie is able to maintain the same strength of energy fields, then at around four to six full-powered blasts."

"Reckless!"

It was indeed a reckless move to tank the sandman energy beam without any attempts at dodging. The Parallax Star may not be the most agile mechs, but turning a head-on attack into a glancing attack would have saved it and its maintenance crew a lot of grief!

Venerable Xie, evidently satisfied with this test of his capabilities with his new mech, flew out to grab the spinning railgun and fired at the mothership yet again.

The battle was far from over, but the Flagrant Swordmaidens at least managed to stem the tide!

Chapter 769

"We need a victory here, not a stalemate! I need options!" Major Verle called.

The tactical officer regretfully shook his head. "Sir, we can't afford to divert more firepower to focus down the sandmen escorts one by one. All twelve escort vessels won't hesitate to accelerate and catch up to our slower supply train if we reduce the pressure on any of them! With the absence of the Finmoth Regal's complement of mechs, we don't have the mechs to spare!"

A twelve-escort sandmen fleet was a significant force to be reckoned with to any force. The Flagrant Swordmaidens only managed to hold on due to arming their melee mechs with spare ranged rifles, but those mechs quickly started to run out of ammunition.

"Sir, the average ammunition levels of the mechs has dipped below thirty percent." Ves reported. This was an urgent matter that needed to come to the attention of Major Verle. "Some of the more trigger-happy mech pilots are already turning back to their carriers to pick up their next batch of ammunition."

"Our total output of fire is declining! The sandmen escorts are inching forward again!"

"Instruct the mech pilots to bring their fire rate under control! I don't want all of our mechs to run out of rounds at the same time!" Major Verle thundered. "Initiate an immediate rotation of our mechs regardless of their ammunition reserves. Plan out a continuous rotation so that our weigh of fire never dips below the amount that is necessary to keep pushing back the sandmen!"

The voracious and relentless sandmen loved nothing more than to gulp down human mechs and ships. They never stopped pursuit once they obtained the whereabouts of a human fleet.

Even if they were losing a battle, most of the sandmen admirals were too inflexible to consider retreat!

Therefore, fighting back against the sandmen required a concerted effort over a long period of time. Sandmen had no concept of morale as the vast majority of their race exhibited too little cognition to even understand such a concept.

The sandman admiral at the heart of the mothership ruled over every aspect of the sandmen fleet with an iron fist. This was an advantage when it wasn't too old and hadn't experienced too much to develop countermeasures against prior attacks.

However, the sandman admiral the Flagrant Swordmaidens were facing right now was young enough to fight to the death but old enough to form various countermeasures.

"The sandmen escorts are breaking apart, sir! They're forming into fluid sandstorm formations!"

For example, at some point, the sandman escort vessels stopped maintaining their solid shapes. Instead, they exploded into sandstorms that spread out their structure over a huge stretch of space. The sandstorms swept forward, slower but more all-encompassing, and no matter how much firepower the Flagrant Swordmaidens threw at them, they ceased to be able to push them back!

This was one of the responses the Vandals dreaded the most! It was easier to stop a ship than a storm! Through the sandstorm formation exposed the escorts to an increasing amount of damage, the lack of rigidity in its structure meant that nothing could stop it from employing its superior acceleration to advance!

Major Verle paused for a few seconds before issuing new orders. "Pull back our mechs! Instruct Captain Rakeshir to scatter the fleet."

The battle turned against the Flagrant Swordmaidens. Even though the mechs steadily gave ground, some of their starships couldn't run away fast enough to escape the incoming sandstorms!

Ves looked at the plot that automatically calculated how much time it took for the living sandstorms to catch up to the slowest cargo haulers. Six minutes.

That was way too little time!

However, unlike the sandmen who let a single entity do all of the thinking for them, the Flagrant Swordmaidens relied on an extensive staff to come up with solutions. The tactical officer presented a new plan that sounded very viable.

"Sir, now that the sandmen escorts have formed into sandstorms, there's no use in spreading our firepower. I suggest we deploy at least half of our mechs into focusing their fire on one sandstorm at a time. Their sandstorm shapes makes them more susceptible to massed light attacks!"

"Agreed." Major Verle issued his approval. "Implement the plan!"

Half of the mechs kept up their barrage of firepower to discourage the sandmen from pulling off anything else, while the other half chose to whittle down the sandstorm furthest to their starboard side.

The dispersed sandstorm sustained massive damage over time. All the explosive shells disrupting and kinetic rounds disrupting the sand flows took their toll on the fluid amalgamation. Around sixty seconds later, the sandstorm lost integrity and turned into lifeless grains of sand!

"Target the second sandstorm in the list."

By concentrating half of their firepower one sandstorm at a time, the Flagrant Swordmaidens managed to really dish out the hurt to the sandmen. The second sandstorm fell a little bit faster, and the third one already came under fire!

Each time a sandstorm got killed, the mechs assigned to put them under pressure suddenly became free. They immediately received new assignments to add their fire to the mechs assigned to focus the sandstorm down.

It was like a snowball rolling down a snowy mountain. Each sandstorm lost integrity a little faster, and with each takedown the next sandstorm being targeted endured even heavier fire!

While the regular mechs tentatively handled the sandstorms, the mothership appeared to grow agitated and shifted its structure to one that optimized its speed.

The sandmen admiral grew frustrated and wanted to reverse the battle by going into action itself!

"Sir, the sandman mothership is accelerating! It is attempting to overtake the Gorgon's Gaze! It will be able to catch up in four minutes!"

"What is Venerable Xie doing?!"

"He's.. he's returning to the Gorgon's Gaze to exchange the Parallax Star's railgun for its lance. He says he intends to charge the mothership!"

"Call him back!"

"He refuses to comply, sir! He has shut down all of his active communication channels!"

Major Verle very pointedly threw a gaze at Ves. Even without uttering any words, the mech designer understood the mech officer's dissatisfaction.

For someone who had undergone a fair amount of brainwashing, the expert pilot did not appear to behave in an obedient manner!

Ves rapidly analyzed the expert pilot's behavior pattern. According to his judgement, with the amount of practice hours the Venerable put into the Parallax Star, its tampered neural interface had plenty of time to build up associations in the expert pilot's brains.

Why then would Xie refuse direct orders from the highest-ranking Vandal on the field not once, but several times now?

He remembered that Venerable Xie had been trained as a bodyguard, and not as a serviceman in some kind of mech military. Prince Hixt-Klaaster did not struck Ves as an imaginative and capable leader, so he must have depended heavily on his pet expert pilot to pull him out of trouble.

"Major, Venerable Xie is trained as a bodyguard first and foremost. His primary duty is to protect whatever he is assigned to cover, and as the Fourth Prince of the Royal House of Talk is rather.. prone to hysteria, Xie likely developed a habit of taking the initiative whenever there is a crisis."

"Why then must he exchange his perfectly functioning railgun for a lance that he has hated from the start?"

Ves didn't immediately understand why Xie opted for a lance either, until he recalled footage of Venerable O'Callahan's amazing charges. It was possible that Xie wished to emulate his predecessor.

"A charging attack in the vein of what Venerable O'Callahan used to accomplish is a much more deadlier attack to the mothership." He explained. "A melee mech that is statically attacking the sandman mothership will no doubt become engulfed, expert mech or not, so Xie won't be able to employ his spear. Employing a charging attack with a lance however allows him to make repeated attacks that may hurt just as much if not more than a railgun discharge!"

The Parallax Star was in essence a melee mech and featured no enhancements that empowered its ranged attacks. Venerable Xie's personal landbound Pale Dancer mech could have inflicted a lot more ranged damage, but it couldn't be deployed in space at all.

It took a precious minute for the Parallax Star to reenter its private hangar bay and quickly put aside its railgun to pick up its lance. It took another minute for the mech to return to its old position in front of the lumbering Gorgon's Gaze.

"The Parallax Star is initiating a charge!" Ves immediately called as he saw several resonance indicators light up. "Its target is the sandman mothership!"

The Parallax Star's powerful custom flight system visibly lit up as it pushed the lancer mech forward in a straight and stable charge. Though its acceleration paled in comparison to what Venerable O'Callahan used to accomplish, Venerable Xie nonetheless was no slouch!

"His performance with the Parallax Star is at least twenty percent better than expected. His charge is actually gaining momentum!"

Ves was pleasantly surprised by this development. The change he made to expend Xie's potential in exchange for a temporary boost in performance turned out to be a prudent change. His resonance strength even surpassed twelve laveres for a brief moment of time as the expert pilot summoned up more strength.

The Parallax Star was built for speed, and Venerable Xie activated the resonance patterns embedded in the flight system to boost his mech's acceleration by a considerable amount.

Just a brief period of time had already caused the Parallax Star to turn into a comet with all of the light being dispersed by its energy field! A second energy field formed around its lance, one that looked sharper and more destructive than the field protecting the mech itself. The two fields overlapped a bit causing a few glitches to occur, but the Venerable quickly compensated for them on the spot.

"The Parallax Star will impact the mothership in twenty seconds!"

Both the expert mech and the mothership flew in a collision course against each other. That meant that any impact would hurt far more for each side.

"Ten seconds until impact!"

The mothership fired off another energy beam, but this time the Parallax Star rolled out of the path of energy and light, enabling it to escape at least two-thirds of the damage!

With that last hurrah, the Parallax Star charged into the partially hollow mothership with its lance held forward in an impeccably sharp intrusion!

Gouts of sand flew apart as the Parallax Star pierced through multiple sand structures until it came out from the other side. The mech performed a short loop before it initiated its charge again, the energy fields in front of the mech and lance battering aside all of the sand in its way!

The expert mech repeated this feat several times as Venerable Xie was unwilling to let the mothership advance towards the Gorgon's Gaze unimpeded. However, these repeated attacks took their toll on the expert mech as its energy field emitters kept sustaining more damage and its momentum continued to bleed away!

"Sir, the Parallax Star is losing speed with every successful charging pass." Ves alerted Major Verle. "After two more charges the expert mech has lost so much relative velocity that the mothership may succeed in its attempt to trap the mech!"

The mothership already caught on to the expert mech's tactics and attempted to throw gouts of sand in its way to halt the Parallax Star and captured it in its grasp! However, each time it did so, the mech's forward momentum and its increasingly ragged energy field saved it from getting munched.

Yet how long would the expert mech be able to persist?

Good news arrived by then. "Sir, we have focused down all of the sandmen escort vessels! We direct our firepower to the mothership, but we risk inflicting friendly fire!"

"Dammit!" Major Verle slammed his fist against his seatrest. His command chair had endured a lot of abuse over the months. "Keep ringing Venerable Xie and tell him to abort his reckless attack! We don't need him to occupy the mothership anymore!"

Sadly, the expert pilot appeared to be deaf and blind to the tactical situation. The expert pilot had developed a severe case of tunnel vision as he kept charging at the mothership like a bull that only saw red!

Chapter 770

With only seconds left to make a decision, Major Verle made the right if difficult choice.

"All mechs, fire upon the mothership!"

"B-But sir! Venerable Xie is still in the line of fire!"

"The Parallax Star can take care of itself!" Major Verle immediately bulled over everyone's objections. "Target the bottom port side of the mothership! If Venerable Xie has any sense, he will move his mech to the upper starboard side."

A direct command from Major Verle should have been obeyed at all costs. However, neither the Swordmaidens nor the Vandals followed their latest order with much enthusiasm.

In fact, some of them dithered and didn't do anything at all!

Just a fourth of the Swordmaidens and a third of the Vandal mech pilots opened fire on the sandman mothership! While the vessel incurred significant damage from the weight of fire, the incoming rounds hadn't been enough to deter the sandman vessel from focusing all of its efforts into trapping the charging Parallax Star!

"What are the slackers doing?! Open fire, damnit!"

The other mechs that refrained from shooting only reluctantly added their rifle and cannon shots to the ongoing barrage. Their aim wasn't even that accurate, as they missed far beyond what should have been possible against a large and fairly preoccupied sandman mothership.

No one wanted to be responsible for harming an expert pilot!

The Swordmaidens revered strength, and their regard for Venerable Xie far surpassed that of any other Vandal including Major Verle and any of their mech captains.

As for the Vandals, their hero worship for an authentic expert pilot and the pervasive cultural norm of respecting expert pilot vastly overpowered their ingrained sense of duty of following orders.

The martial tradition of the Flagrant Vandals placed more emphasis on initiative and free expression than discipline and an absolute compulsion to follow orders. This enabled them to integrate a wide variety of misfit mech pilots relatively smoothly without causing any of them to feel caged or oppressed.

The downside to this loose and casual regimental culture was that at important junctures, the Vandals may outright decide to ignore their orders!

Managing a rowdy bunch like the Vandals required a rare human touch. One of the reasons why Major Verle had been promoted ahead of the other mech captains was because he possessed this touch! His ability to read and manipulate the general mood among the Vandals impressed Ves the most.

Yet at this critical moment, even the major's vaunted command abilities fell short against the men and women's sheer regard for the prestige of an expert pilot!

Despite his origins as a foreigner formerly in the service of a royal prince of a far-away kingdom that vaguely resembled the Vesians, Karol Xie already commanded everyone's respect by sheer dint of ability.

Each and every mech pilot, whether they were pirates or servicemen, both dreamt of becoming expert pilots, and therefore worshipped those that have already reached this exalted rank as mech pilots elevated to the first steps of becoming a god!

No mortal was allowed to sully a demigod! Especially if that demigod fought on the same side!

Ves saw that Major Verle's face grew increasingly ugly. Although enough mech pilots managed to gain enough sense to fire their weapons earnestly against the sandmen mothership, the delay had been long enough to cause their tunnel-visioned expert pilot to get caught by a net of sandmen tendrils!

Strong streams of stand-like material continued to flow around the slowed and hindered energy field surrounding the Parallax Star! Ves studied the telemetry in detail and found out that the protective energy field could only last a short time before the emitters reached their limits and cracked!

"Sir! The Parallax Star's energy field can only last less than thirty seconds at this rate!" He reported.

"How soon until the mothership loses integrity?"

"Two to three minutes, sir!"

In other words, the status quo didn't favor them at all. With the lackluster performance of their mechs, they would never be able to rescue their trapped expert pilot in time!

Major Verle could order the mech pilots to reinvigorate their attack and put some actual effort in their marksmanship. Yet would the outcome be any different? They already showed a disregard against his orders despite their necessity, because from their perspective the accusation of inflicting friendly fire on an expert pilot on their own side was enough to tarnish their honor and career!

"What are our options?"

No one responded. Mechs weren't bots that could be taken over or shut off from remote. Each of them carried a mech pilot that functioned as the true intelligence behind their actions. When a mech pilot didn't want to do something or did so half-heartedly, then those behind the scenes had little recourse in affecting any change.

Ves learned another important lesson here. Sometimes, official authority broke down when they clashed with the fundamental values ingrained within their subordinates. Mech pilots especially belonged to a class on their own, enjoying a sufficient amount of reverence and respect from others that they felt less compelled to follow every order to the letter.

In the end, even a mech major who served with the Flagrant Vandals for decades earned less respect than a foreign expert pilot!

No matter how much merit Major Verle had earned or how much he reinforced his authority, when the mech pilots had to choose between the two of them, they respected godly authority over mortal authority!

Ves discreetly shook his head in disappointment. "Expert pilots are both an asset and a liability to a force. Those who hire them have to make sure they command enough respect, or else they may find the expert pilot taking over the hearts and minds of their own subordinates!

Even the expert pilot's actions unconsciously increased everyone's respect for his martial prowess!

Instead of dodging the sandman mothership's powerful energy beam that possessed enough strength to bore through a combat carrier, Venerable Xie opted to resist it head-on at first!

Instead of continuing to bombard the frightening sandman mothership with a slow but powerful railgun from a safe and healthy distance, the expert pilot instead abandoned his gun for the lance, a weapon that he never excelled in unlike the previous pilot of his mech!

Instead of making a few half-hearted charging passes, Venerable Xie fought with all his might, not even considering his own safety in his efforts to destroy the mothership from up close!

All of his actions exemplified the courage, honor and valiance of an ideal mech pilot! While the expert pilot may be fighting hard on behalf of the Flagrant Vandals, in actual fact each of his reckless heroics undermined Major Verle's authority and threatened to undermine the Vandals' original command structure!

If Ves didn't know any better, he would have suspected that Venerable Xie intended to plot against the existing leadership!

"That's not possible, however."

He recognized that the tampering he performed on the neural interfaces may have affected the expert pilot's judgement. Ultimately, Karol Xie should have remained loyal to the Flagrant Vandals. The only flaw that Ves had overlooked was that loyalty to the Flagrant Vandals was an open-ended question that could be answered in many different ways!

For example, if Venerable Xie thought that Major Verle was no longer qualified to lead the task force, then he may feel just in attempting to take it over!

Ves knew he'd be getting a lot of flack from their commanding officer after this battle.. but first, they had to win it! Right now, the Parallax Star had less than fifteen seconds left before its emitters reached their limits!

Fortunately, salvation came from an unexpected angle. The sensor officer immediately stood up! "Sir! My men and I have identified the probable location of the sandman admiral on the mothership's structure! It's oriented near the top of the hollow structure!"

Major Verle didn't even glance at it when he issued his next order. "All mechs, fire at the sandman admiral!"

The mech pilots started to become clued in to the fact that their expert pilot had landed in a lot of trouble. Thus, when the order came to fire upon the sandman admiral's suspected location, not a lot of Vandal and Swordmaiden mech pilots showed any reluctance this time.

Over eighty percent of all available guns fired at the top of the sandman mothership. Though the vessel adjusted its structure quickly after being targeted by so much mech, it reacted far too late! Huge gouts of sand the size of mechs chunked away from the main amalgamation.

The mothership visibly shrank and became filled with holes as the rounds kept impacting the vessel. A volley of missiles impacted the mothership from the top, causing a rumble of explosions that cut off an extremely hard portion of the mothership from the rest of the structure.

The mothership immediately lost cohesion!

"Sir, we've separated the sandman admiral from the mothership's structure! It's currently attempting to flee!"

"Send in the Inheritors and finish off the admiral!" Major Verle immediately ordered with a swipe of his palm. "Don't let it hide within the astral winds! Once it has been rendered inert, send in a specialist retrieval party to recover the crystallized remains of the sandman admiral. What is the status of the Parallax Star?"

"It's in a bad shape." Ves reported. "When the sandman admiral became separated from the main mothership, it turned into an independent entity without strong control. While Venerable Xie has managed to extract the Parallax Star from the belly of the ship, its energy field failed at the end. Some of the sand has managed to inflict material damage on the exterior of the expert mech, but its armor held up long enough for the machine to escape intact."

Some expressed relief at the expert pilot's successful escape, but neither Ves nor Major Verle smiled. Ves already estimated the repair bill and it wasn't cheap, while Major Verle still glowered over his inability to control the expert pilot.

Both of them needed to reflect after the battle, but right now they still needed to take care of the aftermath.

Verle maintained a confident expression as he issued a series of orders. "Order our mechs to continue to pound on the leaderless mothership until it's completely rendered inert. Tell our near-perimeter patrols to be vigilant against any approaching streams of sand. Dead or not, fire upon them and force them to disperse. I don't want to risk any surviving sandmen slipping into our vessels."

Small detachments of sandmen had a tendency to burrow into ships or mechs unnoticed. They could do a lot of damage if left unattended. This was why the Vandals and the Swordmaidens inspected every mech returning to their berths.

Fortunately, not a lot of mechs came into close proximity to the sandmen escorts or motherships. None of the mechs came back with a hitchhiker so far, though checking out the Parallax Star was a very different matter.

The damaged mech looked as if it withstood a lot of sanding. Streams of sand had rubbed away the original coating to reveal a silvery metallic tint intrinsic to the top layer of its armor. While the sand lacked the punching power to burrow through the extremely resilient compressed armor, they achieved a little more success when they attempted to bore through the softer joint sections.

All of that damage took both time and resources to repair, something which the Vandals were in short supply. Ves already planned to board a shuttle to the Gorgon's Gaze in order to assist in the repairs!

"Sir, our retrieval party has secured the crystallization of the sandman admiral. They are on their way back to the Shield of Hispania."

"I will meet them personally at the shuttle bay. Don't let the remains out of their sights until I arrive." Their commanding officer said before turning to Ves. "Mr. Larkinson, please join me at the shuttle bay. We have matters to discuss."

"Yes, sir." Ves almost sighed and stood up from the observer's seat.

After instructing Ketis to stay put, he followed after the armored form of the overburdened mech officer as they made their way out of the command center.

The battle against the sandmen fleet revealed a lot of deficiencies, ones they needed to address before they bumped into larger threats.

Chapter 771

Major Verle and Ves moved quietly through the corridor. Owing to the mech officer's rank, all of the Vandals passing through the corridors all acknowledged the major in some manner.

Ves studied the minor rituals from the side. Each Vandal, no matter how crisp or sloppy they behaved, expressed their respect to Major Verle in some manner. The man had earned their genuine respect.

Yet did all of his efforts mean nothing compared to the prestige of an expert pilot?

Neither of them knew quite what to make of the last battle. While they survived against a sandman onslaught at close range with fairly light casualties, Venerable Xie threw his Parallax Star under an unnecessary amount of risk.

Right now, the Flagrant Swordmaidens began to process the aftermath of the battle. Some mechs managed to get eaten by the sandmen, but most managed to survive by staying out of melee range.

The only downside was that arming so many mechs with spare ballistic rifles expended huge amounts of ammunition. Their logistics ships already started churning out more shells and kinetic projectiles to make up for the unexpected shortfall.

If they met the sandmen once, they might very well encounter them again! Ves didn't think it was a coincidence that the sandmen managed to intercept them in the middle of interplanetary space. The odds of bumping into each other when visibility was down to a hundred kilometers was too miniscule to count.

The sandmen must have possessed some other means of detecting a fleet at longer ranges!

"Mr. Larkinson."

"Yes, sir?"

"What do you think about the sandmen presence in the Aeon Corona System?" The major idly asked. As they walked through the passageways, they obviously couldn't discuss anything sensitive.

"I'm not an exobiologist or an astrophysicist, sir." Ves immediately responded with a disclaimer. "That said, in my inexpert opinion, we are knee-deep inside the core territory of the sandmen empire. They must have lived beside the Aeon Corona System for decades probably. I think that even if the spacetime storm that surrounds the system manages to block a million attempts at forcing an entry, the sandmen may have succeeded on the millionth-and-first try through sheer luck. I think that's one of the ways in which they can force an entry without possessing a key."

"If that's true, the sandmen may have thrown away enough fleets to conquer the Komodo Star Sector and more. That's not the most efficient allocation of resources."

"That's why I don't take much stock in this theory, sir. Perhaps the sandmen have calculated a way to enter the system without being thrown off course. Perhaps they utilize a different means of FTL that doesn't subject them to the vagaries of gravitic turbulence. I don't know, though I think we should be prepared to face more sandmen as we get nearer to Aeon Corona VII. Something must have attracted them to this star system, and I think the planet and the Starlight Megalodon may seem attractive to the sandmen as well."

Just the endlessly renewable power reactor should be enough to make the sandmen ruling caste release their race's equivalent of drool, not to mention the other wondrous technologies the battleship may have utilized.

Verle grunted in a dissatisfied manner. "Our performance against a twelve-escort sandman fleet has been exceptionally poor. In your opinion, is our spaceborn mech roster adequately equipped to defend our fleet?"

Ves didn't know why the major asked such an open-ended question to him. "Sir, with regards to our mechs, they are more than adequate to repel a sandmen fleet of the same strength. The only reasons why we dropped the ball in the last battle was that despite our drills and contingency plans, no one really expected the sandmen to actually show up out of the blue. In addition, we haven't fully adjusted our strategy and tactics to cope with the properties of the astral winds. These strenuous environmental conditions massively favor the sandmen."

A twelve-escort sandmen fleet may be an absolute menace to the average pirate gang or mercenary corps, but the Flagrant Vandals could have easily chewed them if they encountered the aliens under normal circumstances.

In regular spaceborn combat, the great distances involved usually gave a force plenty of warning once a sandman fleet moved to intercept them. This enabled the human defenders to make plenty of preparations and bombard the sandmen from a distance, chewing them up before they ever reached close enough to engulf the yummy ships and mechs!

All of this became impossible when their sensors could barely peer through the higher-dimensional particles. Like a mist or smokescreen engulfing a terrestrial battlefield, those who entered such a region devolved into savages.

"You are correct." Verle finally replied. "I have been hesitant in deploying our patrols further away from the main fleet in fear of losing touch of them, but it has become clear that such a cautious approach will only render us vulnerable to a repeat of the last battle. It is not your fault nor the fault of the mechs that we have been pushed to the brink of defeat. The way we employ our gear is more important than their properties."

"Major, if I may ask. Why are you telling me this?" Ves asked. "I'm not a Vandal nor a military officer."

The man smiled sardonically. "It is exactly because you're an outsider that I feel at ease with my rambles. You aren't restrained in expressing your opinions. Besides, I feel you are a man of ambition. As a leader in your own right in the civilian world, there is a kinship between you and me. You possess an awareness of matters that is far above the other Vandals. Do you think Captain Orfan is as contemplative and "

"Definitely not, sir." Ves immediately replied. He felt no compulsion in demonstrating his contempt to the female mech captain. "The good captain may be a great warrior, but she is not as attentive when it comes to her other responsibilities."

The mech officer snorted. "I know what you mean. However, the reality of running a large mech regiment that easily numbers in the tens of thousands is that there are way too many leadership positions but not enough talents to fill them up. Compromises have to be made."

The mech officer proceeded to ramble a bit about how to select good leaders and how to deal with an absence of capable leaders. Ves felt as if Major Verle wanted to vent but couldn't really let down his guard to anyone but him. He particularly took note of the use of the word kinship.

The Skull Architect once mentioned several times that they were kindred. For Major Verle to tie them together in a similar fashion with the word kinship meant that the man saw Ves as a person of the same vein.

Ves felt flattered, though he recognized that he would never have as good of a human touch as the likes of Major Verle or Chief Haine. His failure to integrate with the Flagrant Vandals and his preference for delegation showed that Ves naturally gravitated to a more imperious style of leadership.

The pair reached the shuttle bay before he could contemplate the matter further, and Ves threw the issue of leadership out of his mind for the moment. Right now, he looked forward to obtaining a close glimpse at the remains of a high-class sandman leader!

"Are you familiar with sandmen crystallizations, Mr. Larkinson?"

"I've studied the sandmen before, sir." Ves nodded. "The sandmen bodies consist of sandgrain-sized substances that are animated through an energy construct that is either the source or an effect of their consciousness. When an individual sandman dies, the energy construct disappears but their physical bodies remain. The lowest caste of sandmen often utilize literal grains of sand, hence their name, but the higher castes adopt higher-quality materials as their base. Their leaders often blend a variety of precious exotics into a single solid crystal."

"Correct. These crystallized remains are the only objects of value that we can retrieve from a sandman force. Most of the time, the earnings from selling them won't compensate for the losses incurred by fighting the sandmen. Fighting them is a thankless job."

The two finally reached the shuttle that had recently gone out to pick up the sandman admiral's crystallization. Two security officers escorted a pair of exobiologists followed by a floating protective case. The transparent sides of the case showed off a small, finger-sized crystal shaded in red.

This tiny crystal used to be the center of a governing intelligence of a spaceborn sandman fleet! Ves stared at the strangely reflective crystal with great fascination. Though he sensed nothing spiritual or anything else that signified the crystal used to be alive, it nevertheless possessed an attractive luster that made for a great jewel.

To be honest, the red remains reminded him of Lucky's crystals. Did they share the same properties?

"The sources I've consulted never mention the use of these crystallization." Ves remarked as he stood up after having his fill of staring at the curiosity. "All the articles only tell their readers that the CFA pay a good price for the intact crystallizations of the sandmen ruling castes."

"It's no surprise they do so." The male exobiologist garbed in a hazard suit replied. "The sandmen ruling caste are born to lead. They are more intelligent on their own and have the ability to strengthen their cognition by drawing upon the spare thinking capacity of their subjects. You can say that they exhibit traits of both sentients and processors at the same time."

The other exobiologist, a woman, piped in as well. "The reason why the CFA is eager to acquire the crystals while the MTA show no interest is because of one of their philosophical disagreements. The Common Fleet Alliance mainly operate warships, which are huge, complex vessels that are run by huge crews. However, these warships are far too large and complex to be directed by human crew alone. By necessity, they rely highly on automation in order to help keep their ships running without relying on an excessive amount of spacers."

Ves frowned at that. "What does that have to do with the sandmen?"

"Well, a potential sandman leader has the ability to think similar to a human while possessing the ability to connect to as much hardware as possible to increase their raw capabilities. Don't you think that makes for a great AI core?"

"That's only a rumor." The male exobiologist retorted. "I doubt that the mighty Common Fleet Alliance will deign to repurpose the remains of a marginal alien race as an AI core of all things. Perhaps they are studying the crystallizations to advance their automation technology, but it's crazy to say that they are putting literal alien carcasses to use as the center of their operating systems!"

Verle held out his armored hand, halting the argument between the two exobiologists. "Inspect the crystallization for any lingering threats and learn what you can out of it. Once you are done, stow the remains in our vault. Don't scratch it. We can still earn a decent amount of money once we pass it over to the CFA."

Once the exobiologists and their escorts brought their encased loot out of the shuttle bay, Ves and Major Verle returned all the way to his stateroom. After they arrived, Ves activated his signal jammer before they began their long-awaited discussion.

"Alright, Mr. Larkinson, enough dilly-dallying around. Tell me what is going on with our good expert pilot. His insubordination is far outside the pale. According to the personality profiles my men have constructed, Venerable Xie would never dare to disobey a direct order from the Fourth Prince. Are the changes working or not?"

"I don't know." Ves simply replied. "I'm not a neuroscientist or a psychologist. My expertise lies in mechs. I think you are able to tell me more about mech pilots than myself. All I can say is that according to the telemetry I've observed from the Parallax Star in action, the changes I've made should have caught on. Venerable Xie may not have lost his loyalty to the Fourth Prince, but his newfound adoration for the Flagrant Vandals should have surpassed his prior feelings."

This was the most insidious part about the code that Ves had cribbed from Farund Inc. The company's much-maligned programming enabled them to subvert their victims with almost no resistance!

It should have worked perfectly if Ves understood the entire code and copied more than a couple of fragments, but alas he didn't have the time or capability to do so. His haste and sloppiness in the implementation had bitten him back this time!

Chapter 772

After twenty minutes of exchanging half-baked theories, unsupported arguments and baseless speculation, they came no closer to explaining what went on with Venerable Xie and his cavalier behavior in the last battle.

"Enough!" Major Verle let out an outburst. "It is obvious that neither of us lack the expertise to judge the actual outcome of your work. I will have my men keep an eye on the subordinate and make an attempt to read his thoughts from his actions. For what is worth, I believe you when you state your changes has achieved at least something. Venerable Xie has not made a single attempt to contact the Fourth Prince, thereby continuing the ruse where he's still alive."

The death of Prince Hixt-Klaaster was a very regrettable matter to them both. If that Acolyte in the service of the Church of Haatumak hadn't been shrewd enough to target the prince, then Ves wouldn't have been compelled to break a great taboo and tamper the neural interfaces of an expert pilot.

"There is a chance that Venerable Xie is merely pretending that he has lost interest in catching up to the Fourth Prince." Ves couldn't help but add.

"There you go again." Major Verle shook his head in a tired manner. "You are full of guesses, but what is the point of answering so many questions? Without proof, none of your assertions can be taken as the truth. Still, I'll assign more men as a precaution."

After discussing a few other matters, Ves left the stateroom and went to his office to take care of paperwork that piled up after every major battle. The fleet stood down from red alert but maintained yellow alert in case the sandmen fleet brought friends.

Sand and sand-like particles drifted into the astral winds as soon as the battle had ended. Nothing remained of their enemies and the handful of mechs they managed to engulfed. Any mech that ended in their clutches would have been broken down as the sand pressed down on their frames from all sides until they finally broke into fragments.

Unless a mech was rescued in the first couple of seconds, they never came back intact. Despite the somewhat primitive way the sandmen fought, they utilized their unique properties to great advantage.

Ves looked at the final tally and saw that the Flagrant Vandals lost another ten mechs due to the initial ambush and various mishaps during the spontaneous battle. Most of their mech pilots ejected in time and survived, fortunately, but the fleet didn't carry enough spare mechs to put them to use.

For now, the mech pilots who lost their own mechs had to be benched and put on reserve.

He contemplated whether to request the logistics ships to fabricate a bunch of cheap mechs to put these pilots back into action, but he rejected this option in the end.

"It's going to take way too many resources to fabricate completely new mechs. We need those resources for repairs and other purposes."

He processed other matters that came to his desk. Some of the combat carriers almost emptied out their ammunition reserves, prompting Ves to place an order to replenish them. The logistics ships already had their hands full for the next week as they accessed their store of bulk materials to fabricate cheap, low-quality rounds and shells to replenish their ammunition stockpile.

The low-quality rounds wouldn't be as damaging or reliable than the commercially-manufactured ammunition, but Vse would rather have an abundance of low-quality rounds than a limited selection of higher-quality ammunition.

"At this rate, our stores of bulk materials will be consumed. We really have to seek out some asteroid or moons to mine or else our guns don't have anything to fire anymore after winning a couple of skirmishes against the sandmen."

The presence of the sandmen hung over everyone's head like the Sword of Damocles. No one knew another sword took the place of the old one and threatened to hack off their heads.

Such a nightmare scenario frightened Ves quite badly because he was more aware of the state of the fleet than the average Vandal.

Even though the Flagrant Vandals dragged a considerable supply train long, most of them consisted of transports and cargo haulers that carried a large but finite amount of resources. Once they tapped out their stockpile, their supply situation would really start to crater.

Naturally, this only applied to the Vandals. Lydia's Swordmaidens may have brought their own supply train, but their depth and breath of resources couldn't match the preparations of their allies.

While Ves did not have exact figures in possession, his casual interrogation of Ketis revealed that they would likely run out of bulk resources when the Vandals only expended a third of their own bulk stockpiles.

In short, if the Vandals really needed to find an asteroid field or a moon to stabilize their increasingly precarious supply situation.

"Fortunately, physical ammunition is only useful for our spaceborn situation."

The Vandals did not plan on deploying any mechs that relied solely on ballistic weapons on the ground. Even Venerable Xie's Pale Dancer would have to exchange its trusty ballistic rifle with a customized laser rifle that Miss Lisbeth and Chief Keys originally fabricated for the Parallax Star. The weapon had collected dust for years, and would finally see some use after undergoing modifications to make it more compatible to the Pale Dancer.

A few hours went by as the Flagrant Swordmaidens finally recovered from their previous ordeal. After a brief round of servicing, the mechs assigned to patrol the fleet launched into space and began to form a single chain of mechs that extended outwards in each direction.

The detection envelope reached as much as eight-hundred kilometers from each direction! Such a distance granted the fleet a lot more minutes of vital preparation time.

The daisy-chain of mechs also allowed them to transmit targeting data for the artillery mechs safely ensconced in the bunkers along the hulls of the combat carriers they rode with. The Akkaras possessed the heaviest weight of fire and therefore played a principal role in the defence against any other sandmen fleet that might emerge.

Despite their caution and their heightened vigilance, the Flagrant Swordmaidens encountered neither sandmen or pirates as they took an astonishing amount of time to reach the vicinity of Aeon Corona VII.

As the fleet arrived in high orbit above the massive Super Earth, more details emerged from their observations. Major Verle called for a conference meeting in order to discuss their findings.

Ves sat in the side alongside Chief Haine and Chief Avanaeon while the mech officers sat on the other side of the compartment. Projections of Vandals stationed on the other ships emerged and filled up the conference room to bursting.

Yet despite the potential hubbub that could have emerged from gathering so many Vandals together, no one spoke a word. Now that they finally came within reach of their mission, everyone wanted to get it over with. Everyone had already heard scattered snippets of disturbing information on Aeon Corona VII, so each of them desired clarity at this point!

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'll skip the pleasantries in order to tell you the facts. The longer we spend on discussions, the longer our potential rivals can implement their own plans. In the interest of time, please keep your questions short."

With that out of the way, Major Verle made a gesture in the air that caused the central projection to flare to life. A live, scaled-down projection of Aeon Corona VII spun in front of everyone attending the meeting.

"Aeon Corona VII. The preliminary information we have obtained largely checks out. This planet is a Super Earth that is several times the size and mass of Old Earth. However, it is also significantly less dense, so its average gravity on the ground amounts to six times the gravity of Old Earth."

That caused many of the mech officers and support staff assigned on the ground to become a little discomforted. The difference between five and six g's was fairly significant.

"Now, let us discuss the first major observation we have made on our most sensitive sensors." The major gestured to the massive globe. "Aeon Corona VII used to be a life-bearing exoplanet with its own fully-developed biodiversity that has adapted to its heavy gravity. However, the arrival of the Starlight Megalodon changed all of that. The signs of light terraforming is very evident to us. Not only has the planet's atmosphere been adjusted to allow humans to breathe the air without filters or air cyclers, much of the lush flora consists of Old Earth strains modified to withstand heavy gravity."

The projection zoomed in on a particular location on the planet. Through the heavy distortion and interference, those present spotted a definite pattern to the astral winds.

"The astral winds are spreading from those coordinates! Is that... the Starlight Megalodon?"

"We have a forty percent certainty that this is indeed the crash site of the Starlight Megalodon." Major Verle confirmed, causing a wave of awe and gasps to ripple throughout the Vandal officers. "However, the high concentration of astral winds make it impossible for our sensors to reach the ground level and confirm our suspicions. For now, we will presume that the Starlight Megalodon can be found at these coordinates unless proven wrong."

"Sir, what about the survivors?" Captain Orfan spoke up. Her projection dithered a tiny bit due to the astral wind flowing between their ships. "We heard there are human settlements on the planet! Are the rumors true?!"

The major threw an annoyed glance at the brash mech captain. Trust her to speak out of turn just to satisfy her curiosity.

"The rumors have some merit behind them for once." The Major coughed. The projection zoomed back out of the blinding volcano of yellow-orange particles and zoomed towards the other side of the planet. The astral winds and the interference wasn't nearly as bad here, enabling the Vandals to take snapshots of the surface. Interspersed between the lush green arboreal regions, deep blue oceans and arid desert terrain, a handful of points lit up. As the projection of the planet zoomed in, they identified a vague but distinctive shape of artificial construction!"

"That's... a city!"

It wasn't the only city. The projection panned from city to city, eventually putting the total count of identified settlements past twenty.

The projection then halted on the biggest city, which was coincidentally situated on the opposite side of the planet to the presumed crash site of the Starlight Megalodon.

"All of these cities are surrounded by an energy field that makes it hard to identify their properties. However, our specialists have derived a lot of conclusions from their studies. First, they are definitely of human construction. The technology and architecture that we have managed to glean from our observations has given us a high confidence that the inhabitants of the city are the descendents of the original crew of the Starlight Megalodon."

Due to earlier revelations, this didn't prompt a lot of shock from the Vandals. One of them raised his hand though.

"How are they able to live on Aeon Corona VII without getting crushed by the gravity, sir? I would think that most babies will get crushed before they finish developing!"

"That is why we believe the energy field that surrounds the cities is somehow able to mitigate the heavy gravity. Within the range of this field, the gravity experienced by those inside is likely to be close to standard gravity!" The major exclaimed.

That was a very significant technological achievement if that were true!

"Second, might I remind you that time passes faster on the surface of the planet than in the outside galaxy." He continued. "The humans stranded on Aeon Corona VII have lived through several thousand years of trying to eke out an existence on this unfriendly planet! That is more than enough time for them to undergo radical adjustments in their culture and society! For all we know, they have completely forgotten their roots and gone native!"

If that was true, then this represented a shocking outcome! After several thousands of years of isolation, would the survivors even be aware of the majesty of what their ancestors were once part of? Or had they devolved into a fractured, tribal society where the CFA had faded into myth and legend?

Chapter 773

How could human life develop on a Super Earth?

The exobiologists present in the meeting provided two of the simplest answers.

"The most prevalent case among humanity is through the use of technology." One of them explained. "Artificial gravity and antigrav is well-understood by our race. The Common Fleet Alliance utilize this branch of technology widely in their warships, from providing a constant source of artificial gravity to incorporating inertial dampeners to prevent every spacer from splattering against the bulkheads if the battleship accelerates or decelerates. While I am not an expert in this field, I understand that many engineers are highly proficient in this area."

Chief Avanaeon nodded. "That is true. Mastering grav tech is one of the basic achievements along with understanding FTL drive tech that enabled our race to thrive among the stars. The basics of grav tech isn't very complicated, and any seasoned engineer can build an antigrav module that's strong enough to resist a few g's of force. I can imagine that the CFA's galaxy-class engineers aboard one of their prestigious battleships can do more with grav tech than every engineer in the Mech Corps combined."

This likely explained the invisible field that emanated around the cities vaguely visible from orbit. If the descendants of the survivors of the Starlight Megalodon inherited anything from the original crew, learning how to deal with the crushing gravity was probably on the top of their list!

Another exobiologist took over. "The other, more permanent possibility is through genetic modification. Humans optimized to live on planets exhibiting different gravity conditions aren't anything new. While terraforming may allow us to transform a planet's air and ecosystem to be more compatible to our race, there are no easy solutions when it comes to compensating for the gravity. Spreading antigrav modules is a costly and uneconomic solution. Rather than sustain an extensive network of antigrav fields, why not modify a baseline human into a variant that is capable of surviving crushing gravity without any further maintenance?"

"Would the Starlight Megalodon be capable of genetically modifying their existing crew into high-g humans?" Someone asked.

"Absolutely. A CFA battleship is one of our most mightiest weapons. They are built like cities and offer almost every range of service. Gene labs will certainly be present. The question is whether they have survived intact upon the crash and whether the genetically modified humans are limited in some other ways. High-g variant humans gain an enormous amount of strength, but their appetite for calories has increased in the same proportion. If the survivors and descendants aren't able to obtain enough food, I doubt they can sustain more than a small community at a time."

These days, a wealthy human could find a grey or black market gene lab and undergo cheap procedures to increase their attributes. They could choose to become stronger, faster, more intelligent and more, all by undergoing simple gene treatments.

Of course, these accessible, largely unregulated gene treatments often led to drastic changes in appearance in addition to other severe side effects. The price always surpassed the benefits.

The gene patterns for high-g variant humans had been developed and popularized long ago, making them fairly well-understood and accepted. While they did in fact produce physically strong variant humans, they always turned out to eat at least five to ten times more than baseline humans!

If every baseline human in the galaxy changed into variant species, humanity would starve!

"Which of the two cases apply?" Major Verle asked.

"Certainly the first one, sir. The cities may not be numerous and are separated from each other by thousands of kilometers, but their size and apparent development show that they are permanent and well-established fixtures, each of them large enough to host a self-sustaining population that won't lose out to a large city in the Bright Republic."

The other exobiologist added a caveat. "That does not rule out the other case as well. While we have detected no smaller settlements that aren't covered by an antigrav field, it may be possible that their settlements are camouflaged or hidden underground. There are limits to what we can observe in orbit, especially through the spacetime distortion that only grows worse at lower altitudes."

"Aeon Corona VII exists in a different phase of existence than our fleet in orbit, practically speaking." Chief Avanaeon explained. "The turbulent astral winds are not quite constant, which means that not only is our means of observation above here limited to identifying large cities and major landmarks, we also can't provide much orbital support or provide reinforcements quickly."

"What does that mean for us on the ground?" The projection of a mech captain asked.

The chief engineer loaded in a data chip which contained a presentation of a model of the hugely complex astral winds surrounding a wireframe model of Aeon Corona VII. The suspected crash site of the Starlight Megalodon played host to a huge volcano-like pattern. Most of the winds flew out into space, but a significant portion curled back and spread across the rest of the planet, suffusing its entire atmosphere with its distortive properties.

"The implications are numerous. First, it means that we won't be able to launch artificial meteorites with any degree of accuracy. It's like playing golf during a hurricane. The golf ball you're launching can end up anywhere and it's virtually impossible to calculate an accurate trajectory. By the time you've finished your calculations, the winds have already changed, rendering those calculations useless."

The chief engineer gazed at the unsettled expressions of the mech pilots expected to be deployed on the ground. "Second, it is extremely difficult to land our shuttles and transports on the ground, and even harder to get them to lift off. We have prepared modified shuttles and transports that can tentatively load troops, mechs, machinery and supplies from orbit to land, but it will be slow-going because we only have a few of them. In addition, it isn't safe to land our transports close to the epicenter of the anomaly. We have to land on the far side of the planet, close to some of the regions settled by the descendants of the original crew."

That caused an explosion of conversation to occur. The planet was massive! Trying to traverse thousands of kilometers on a planet with six times the gravity of Old Earth would strain their logistics!

"That might take months!" Another mech officer exclaimed. "The war will long be over by the time we complete the trek!"

"Do not forget the time distortion that is taking place on the surface of the planet." A science officer remarked. "With time running faster by at least ten times the galactic standard, your experience of the passage of time won't change, but to those outside of this star system we are running at superspeed."

This caused a lot of the mech officers to feel discomfited. Just getting their minds wrapped around the effects of the anomaly already made their heads hurt. They weren't cut out for this science stuff.

Major Verle decided to refocus the briefing. "Make no mistake, Vandals. We are in it for the long haul. This will be a lengthy campaign of which most of your time will be spent on long days of travel. Those on the ground will largely have to fend for ourselves. While those of us who remain in orbit will attempt to provide you with as much support as possible, you've already heard how difficult it is to drop additional supplies on you, especially once you are getting close to the Starlight Megalodon."

Chief Avanaeon proceeded to summarize the many limitations they faced in transporting goods and mechs from orbit to land and vica versa.

Combat carriers obviously couldn't land on a Super Earth. They would fall with so much force that most of them may not be able to arrest their fall in time. Launching themselves back to orbit even with completely empty hangar bays and cargo holds required several times more power which they plainly didn't have.

As for the shuttles and transports, the limited number that had been modified could not handle the increasingly turbulent astral winds blowing near the epicenter of the anomaly. They could only land at the far side of the planet.

As for takeoff, most of the transports could only do so with a half or a third of their usual capacity. Trying to launch into orbit from a planet with six times the gravity required at least six times the force, and loading their cargo holds to the brim simply weighed them down too much.

"This means that evacuating our assets on the ground will be excruciatingly slow." Chief Avanaeon concluded. "If we ever need to extract our forces on the ground with haste, we will need to be prepared to discard all of our mechs and supplies and load up our transports with as many of our men and women as possible."

It would mean abandoning pricey landbound mechs collectively worth billions of credits along with other valuables. Still, as much as the Vandals valued their assets, they valued their lives more.

As long as they completed the mission, abandoning all of their landbound assets in a hurry could easily be justified.

"You know your limitations now." Major Verle took over again. "No matter how many complications we have met, the mission remains the same. Head to the Starlight Megalodon as fast as possible and loot the things we want before getting out as fast as possible. Since it is unsafe to land and lift off our transports in the same hemisphere as the anomaly, you will just have to march in and out on land. The only question is whether it is even possible and safe for you to approach the Starlight Megalodon on land."

"The astral winds and the distortion they cause grow incredibly strong in the vicinity of the source of the anomaly." The science officer cautioned. "To be frank, it is likely that a mech or person will be shredded or folded across space and time if they come within visual range of the battleship. We are working on a potential solution as fast as possible, but to be frank our research capabilities are limited."

"So what?" Captain Orfan asked. "If we want to loot the battleship, we have to sacrifice our lives and mechs?"

"Nothing so drastic." Major Verle quickly replied. "We are newcomers here. We have barely been in orbit for a day, and we know nothing about how to cope with the distortion. The descendants on the other hand have lived through several thousands of years. Even if they appear as if they have regressed in many ways, they have lived so long under these conditions that they may have developed some ingenious tricks to mitigate the negative effects of the astral winds."

"What? We have to make nice with the savages, sir?"

Their commanding officer nodded. "If possible. The natives are the successors of the Common Fleet Alliance. Please do not regard them as savages. Treat them with the utmost respect, because sooner or later, the CFA will catch wind of this and come to rescue these trapped descendants. If they hear that we treated them like dirt or killed them unjustly, the entire Bright Republic will suffer!"

That caused every Vandal including Captain Orfan to lose their contempt for the inhabitants of Aeon Corona VII. No matter how far they strayed from the CFA, they still carried the blood of genuine spacers.

"Who's in charge on the ground?" Captain Orfan asked.

Her eager eyes betrayed her expectation. As one of their best landbound mech pilots, she earned the respect of every Vandal.

To the relief of Ves and some of the other mech officers, Major Verle instead turned towards another mech captain who had always been rather quiet and unremarkable.

"Captain Casey Byrd will be the ranking officer of our groundside forces. Captain Byrd is a steady leader who has taken classes in diplomacy and managing relations in the past. Her abilities will be essential in maintaining friendly ties to both the Swordmaidens and descendants."

The projection of Captain Orfan immediately stood up. "Sir, that's the wrong choice! Captain Byrd is a slowpoke, a cautious turtle! If she's in charge, we'll practically be crawling towards the Starlight Megalodon! Aren't we competing against pirates and the Vesians to reach the battleship first? Speed is of the essence here!"

Major Verle looked undeterred. "My choice is final, captain. Not only are Captain Byrd's talents more suited to these circumstances, she also enjoys seniority over you. Make no mistake. This is not a sprint. This is a marathon."

Captain Byrd smiled provocatively at Captain Orfan, causing the brash mech officer to hold out her anger. Steam practically flew from her ears!

Evidently, the two mech captains weren't the best of friends!

Chapter 774

Once the long and complicated briefing came to an end, the projections of the other Vandal officers winked out. Major Verle immediately left the conference room while the others also returned to their stations.

They had a lot of work ahead of themselves! As soon as the planners selected a landing site, they would need to spend several days just to transport all of their landbound assets to the ground. This slow and delicate operation required a lot of planning in order to proceed smoothly.

Ves slowed down a bit to catch up to the suited form of Chief Haine.

"Chief! Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, Ves."

"What can you tell me about Captain Byrd? I don't think I've met her on Detemen IV or any of the other groundside operations, though I've seen her during the briefings."

Most of the battles and incidents the Flagrant Vandals went through lately all happened in space. This left landbound mech pilots like Captain Orfan impotent and relegated to a spectator role.

The chief smirked at Ves. "Captain Byrd is an old salt among us Vandals. She may not be in her prime anymore, but she's still a good and dependance knight mech pilot. She's one of our steadier and older mech captains. If Colonel Lowenfield or Major Verle want to accomplish something hard and fast, they go for Captain Orfan. If they want to accomplish something carefully and with absolute certainty, they go for Captain Byrd. The reason why you never heard of her is because she's usually assigned to hold the rear guard or perform some of the more boring assignments."

Ves understood the difference between the two captains now. "I would have thought that Major Verle or the mission planners have already decided the ranking officer beforehand. Or just go with seniority in the first place."

"We don't do that with the Vandals." The chief shook her head. "The mech officers we promote come from a mixed bunch. If we let the ones who promoted the earliest to take charge all the time, our mech regiment might not exist today. The brass always picks the officer who is most suited to the mission to take the lead. Before we arrived at Aeon Corona VII, we didn't know if we could get to the Starlight Megalodon instantly or not. If the distortion wasn't so bad, I bet that Major Verle would have picked Captain Orfan or one of the other aggressive officers to be in charge."

That made sense. Still, Ves recognized the contention in some of the Vandals when Major Verle announced the leader for the forces on the ground. Not everyone liked Captain Byrd for some reason.

"It would have been nice if Major Verle could come with us and take charge down on the surface." He sighed. "Too bad he's needed with the fleet."

"Without a good commander to keep our ships intact, there's no way we can exit this star system. In addition, our spaceborn forces will have to establish mines on one of the moons in order to supplement our supplies. All of that needs protecting."

A defeat in space could instantly negate any successes on the ground. Ves learned that lesson during the Groening mission. As long as Major Verle remained in charge of their spaceborn assets, the Vandals on the ground didn't have to worry too much about their escape route being cut off all of a sudden.

Keeping the Flagrant Swordmaiden fleet intact was a big job. Not only did they have to secure their starships and mine the moons for resources, they also had to fend off potential attacks from the pirates, Vesians, sandmen any whatever else the star system threw at them during these months.

Furthermore, they also needed to safeguard the key that allowed them to configure their FTL drives to avoid the gravitic storms on their way out. If they ever lost the key, they'd be trapped inside the Aeon Corona System!

Therefore, both in space and on the ground, the Flagrant Vandals and Lydia's Swordmaidens needed to put their best leaders in charge.

While Major Verle would remain in space to lead the fleet, Commander Lydia would be joining the bulk of her Swordmaidens on the ground. Her rich frontier experience and proven leadership ability ensured that she would have most to say on the ground.

Due to the considerable amount of challenges their landbound mechs likely faced on the Super Earth, both Ves and Mayra were obliged to accompany the mechs sent down from orbit.

Though Ves did not like to admit it, the older Mayra would likely do a better job than him in keeping the mechs up and running under challenging circumstances. Deferring to her suggestions on major decisions may not be a bad idea. After all, this was exactly why the Swordmaidens became involved in the first place.

As they reached the juncture in the passageways where they split up, Ves asked one more question. "Do you have any advice for me when I'm deployed to the ground?"

"Yeah, plenty. This will be a lengthy campaign, so differences between the Vandals will flare up. The rivalry between our mech captains can be really fierce. Don't get caught up in their turf wars and pissing matches. Some of the more savvier mech officers will try to get in your good books. As head designer, you're above these stupid fights. Captain Byrd is in charge on the ground. If you have to listen to anyone, defer to her. Other than that, keep your head down and focus on doing your job."

"Thanks for the advice." Ves said appreciatively. If Chief Haine hadn't reminded him of this, he might have fallen into someone's camp without knowing it. "Hope to see you again in a few months. Until then!"

"Take care!"

When Ves returned to his office, he called his student forward. "Ketis. I'm not sure where you should go, to be honest. Mayra and I will be deployed to the surface, but you haven't received any assignments. You won't be able to stay on the Shield of Hispania unaccompanied, so you need to make a decision. Do you want to return to the Jaded Sword and remain in space, or do you want to follow us on the ground?"

"Of course I want to follow you down there!" She enthusiastically replied. "I heard there's lots of dangerous creatures down there, and I also get to meet the folks who managed to survive for thousands of years. Why shouldn't I go with you all?"

"It'll be dangerous. Besides the risks of approaching the spacetime distortion, the planet itself may throw lots of hazards at us. The fact that the descendants have only managed to settle a handful of large cities after millenia of development already shows how hard it is to survive on the Super Earth."

Ketis grinned even wider. The threats that Ves listed out only stoked her eagerness to join the ground forces. "That sounds like music to my ears! Do you think a Swordmaiden like me wants to turn away from such an adventure? Count me in! Besides, Mayra is going down there as well."

"Alright, I'll add you to the list. Just don't regret your choice."

The Flagrant Vandals and the Swordmaidens engaged in a flurry of work to prepare their landing operation. Sending transports loaded with mechs and heavy equipment onto a Super Earth wracked with astral winds forced them to adjust their original deployment plan. For one, they needed to make a lot more trips and carry less with each trip.

It may take days before the allied force finished conveying all of their landbound assets on the ground.

He spent the next hours adjusting the schedule so that all of the most battle ready mechs went down first. Wherever the Flagrant Swordmaidens decided to land, they might end up in the midst of hostile territory. From some of the rumors that started circulating, the exobiologists threw out the possibility that some monstrously strong and powerful creatures had emerged.

There was a chance that continued proximity and exposure to the higher-dimensional particles that made up of the astral wind had affected both the wildlife and the stranded humans in unpredictable ways!

No one could tell whether the astral winds prompted an adaptation or a mutation to the organisms. Aside from that, the Super Earth also contained exotics concentrated in various deposits scattered here and there. Just like Groening IV, the presence of deposits may have guided the evolution of the indigenous life forms in an unpredictable and dangerous direction.

That was how life on exotic planets usually turned out.

After more than half a day of extra preparation and delay, the Flagrant Swordmaidens finally moved on to the next phase! The fleet went to lower orbit and specialized transports and shuttles modified with stronger propulsion and antigrav fields started to load up the initial mechs.

The first ones to go received the job of securing their landing site.

After a lot of discussion, the Vandals and the Swordmaidens decided to land in a barren, hilly terrain. Vandal geological scanners already detected a significant deposit of junk exotics in the hills which they could mine and use to produce more supplies or barter for goods and services with the descendants.

One thing was for sure. The supplies the Flagrant Swordmaidens prepared for this mission likely wouldn't last them for the entire duration! As the earlier briefing already made it clear that the forces on the ground couldn't expect much replenishment from orbit, the ground forces needed to be self-sufficient!

"That's going to be too difficult!" Ves observed as he studied the final plans. "We're sending down way too much heavy equipment. Just dragging all of that stuff with us as we march towards the Starlight Megalodon will be a huge burden."

On a planet with a gravity that multiplied everything's weight by six, the consequences to everyone deployed to the ground was drastic.

A serviceman wearing a hazard suit weighed something like a hundred kilograms in standard gravity. Once that person landed on the surface of Aeon Corona VII, they suddenly weighed more than half a metric ton!

Without any servos or mechanical assistance, an average human wouldn't be able to move under those circumstances!

This only applied to their personnel, but it was far worse for their mechs and transport vehicles. Mechs would move as if they carried five extra copies of its model on its shoulders, while the Vandals were forced to deploy legged versions of transports in order to carry around their supplies!

The large number of antigrav modules incorporated in all of the mechs, vehicles and other equipment helped mitigate the crushing gravity. However, working non-stop to counteract at least five g's at all times drained a lot of energy.

The number one priority of the Vandals and the Swordmaidens on the ground was to protect their portable power reactors and to figure out a way to increase their power generation! Without enough energy to feed their antigrav modules, their mechs would slow to a crawl and their personnel would be forced to lie flat on the ground in order to avoid blacking out!

Solving such problems became the responsibility of the logistics officers and the various technical staff accompanying the mech pilots deployed to the surface.

In fact, Ves predicted that people like him would play a leading role. The challenges the Flagrant Swordmaidens faced on the ground were predominantly technical in nature.

"The first transports have reached the surface. Our vanguard has secured the landing zone. Prepare the second wave for departure!"

Ves currently wore his Earth Ant and all of the gear he could carry on his armor. Ketis sat next to him brimming with excitement. They both sat among the Vandals assigned to join their comrades on the surface in the third wave.

An entire hour passed before the second wave finished making landfall.

"Send in the third wave! Go!"

The shuttle flew out of the shuttle bay of the Shield of Hispania and oriented towards the storm-wracked globe that dominated their view. With a careful spurt, the shuttle began to descend at an angle. Already, the errant distortions caused the shuttle to rattle.

"Woohoo! Here we go!" Someone shouted.

"Get ready boys and girls, because this is going to be a wild ride!"

Chapter 775

The projection that showed the front view of the shuttle conveyed a marvelous image of Aeon Corona VII. The strong astral winds caused the massive planet to resemble a sun in its own right. Beneath the turbulent streams of higher-dimensional particles, a beautiful and largely untamed planet beckoned them all to step foot on its surface.

As the shuttle descended gradually into the planet's formidable gravity well, it started to fight against the forces that wanted to plummet it straight towards the ground.

The shuttle began to make contact with the Super Earth's atmosphere. As the vehicle continued its descent, it began to compress the air in its path. This caused the immediate surroundings to heat up until flames finally emerged around the shuttle.

The shuttle's descent caused so much compression of air over such rapid speeds that plasma started to burn around its hull as it continued its way downwards!

While the vehicle was well-protected against the heat, none of the shuttle's occupants felt comfortable about it. The increasingly stronger rattling as well as the strengthening spacetime distortion caused a lot of weaker Vandals to feel nauseous.

While someone as fit and strong as Ketis held up fine, some of the logistics officers such as Lieutenant Commander Soapstone started to barf inside their hazard suits or suits of combat armor.

Fortunately, every modern suit these days came with a ready response to a vomiting wearer. A thin sack emerged out of a slot from the inside of her collar and neatly captured the vomit spewing out of Soapstone's mouth.

Once she emptied her stomach, the sack of vomit automatically detached from her suit, only to be picked up by a shakily hovering cleaning bot hidden inside the shuttle.

Over a third of the Vandals aboard the shuttle ended up emptying the contents of their stomachs.

Ves felt uneasy as well, but his strengthened body firmly managed to keep the lid on his stomach. Ketis glanced at Ves with some respect for not being a part of the losers who couldn't handle a slightly rough atmospheric entry.

"Did you land on a wild planet before?" She yelled. The rush of the descent along with the overstrained propulsion fighting against the planet's gravity threw up a lot of noise, making it hard to hear what she said. "You look like this isn't your first time!"

"I've been on some adventures!" He yelled back. "Though I've never set foot on a Super Earth before!"

"Me neither!" She grinned at him. "It's usually more trouble than it's worth to land on a heavy gravity planet, but I'm glad we have the chance this time! Who knows we'll experience down there! I can't wait!"

Though Ves did not share her enthusiasm, a small part of his body thrummed in anticipation. To say he dreaded this deployment was an understatement. He was frightened out of his mind.

Yet the more he feared his next destination, the more he anticipated it as well!

A large, rich and livable planet like Aeon Corona VII potentially hid a lot of rare and unique treasures. From the remnants of advanced technology they could barter from the regressed descendants, to the deposits of rare exotics that the exogeologists believe was present, Ves and the Vandals potentially stood to gain an unimaginable amount of riches.

Of course, the Vandals didn't go through the trouble of entering the deep frontier for such meager gains. Recovering the treasures of the Starlight Megalodon remained their overarching priority. Nothing else mattered if they failed to reach the Starlight Megalodon and made it off with the bounty locked inside her bosom!

The rattling eventually subsided after a lengthy fall. The shuttle stabilized a bit, though the noises emanated by its antigrav modules and its sublight propulsion grew even stronger.

The closer the shuttle approached the surface, the harder it had to fight against its heavy gravity!

In addition, its propulsion also fought hard to arrest the shuttle's downward momentum. It wouldn't do to reach the surface quickly only to end up in a crash!

The rumbling actually started to grow stronger as the shuttle fought as hard as possible to shed its terminal velocity.

Once the shuttle reached the final kilometer of altitude, the vehicle still descended like a rock, but at least this time it wouldn't splatter its parts all over the landing zone.

With deft control, the shuttle pilot guided the hot but intact shuttle to the designated landing pad nestled in between some barren hills.

The Vandals chose to make landfall in this region because of the apparent scarcity of flora and fauna. If any exobeasts decided to attack the strangers from the stars, at least the Vandals and the Swordmaidens would see the attackers coming from their defensible position.

After the long and arduous descent, the crispy shuttle finally touched down on the makeshift landing pad made out of prefab material. Once the exterior of the shuttle cooled down a bit, the hatch opened up, allowing the discomfited and nauseous Vandals to exit first.

Not that the fresh air was any better. Though technically the terraforming of the first human visitors made it safe to breathe by baseline humans, the unfamiliar mix of gasses as well as the tangy smell caused Lieutenant Commander Soapstone to dry heave.

Ves and Ketis exited the shuttle a minute later. Ves breathed deep and frowned a bit. Though his modified lungs could breathe through certain types of toxic air, that didn't mean he liked the smell and taste of alien air.

The atmosphere of Aeon Corona VII had already been extensively tested by the scientists sent as part of the first and second waves. They detected neither toxins or germs dangerous to baseline humans in the air, so the prevailing policy was to conserve their oxygen reserves as much as possible unless new proof emerged that said otherwise.

The temperature was also remarkably temperate, though the Vandals deliberately chose to land at one of the most comfortable areas in the northern hemisphere terms of climate.

"What is this tangy smell in the air?" Ves puzzled over it. "It smells familiar, but not quite."

"Smells like metal." Ketis remarked. "Didn't you say this landing zone is next to a large deposit of ores and junk exotics?"

"Ah."

The current plan called for establishing a foothold and to construct a temporary base at their landing site. Hopefully, the deposits provided them with enough resources to mass-produce extra legged transports to expand the size of their supply train and pump out scores of cheap turrets to guard their base against raiding pirates or Vesians.

Though the Flagrant Swordmaidens hadn't detected the presence of their rivals, they knew for certain that they would be around somewhere. The planet and its orbit was too big right now for them to bump into each other right now, but that would certainly change once they got closer to the Starlight Megalodon.

As for the sandmen, there was a large probability that they might be present on this planet as well, though for some reason the Vandals hadn't spotted any sandmen colonies from orbit.

Aeon Corona VII wasn't actually an ideal planet to the silicate life forms. While the huge planet's abundant resource deposits might have interested the sandmen, the heavy gravity was simply hell to the race.

They wouldn't be able to move so fast and fluid without expending at least six times more energy. For a race that largely resembled bots, the logical choice would be to avoid settling on heavy gravity planets. The energy expenditure in settling them and maintaining a colony on them simply wasn't worth it unless the value of its bounty surpassed the extra effort.

While the exobiologists and the other analysts in the employ of the Vandals didn't claim to be able to read the sandmen's minds, they didn't rule out their presence on the surface of the planet.

A battleship or the origin of the ongoing anomaly should be more than enough to attract their interest!

Once the Vandals who came off the shuttle acclimatized a bit, a guide garbed in a hazard suit approach the newcomers. "Alright, folks, welcome to Aeon Corona VII, or as we like to call it, Seven! By now, we've transmitted your next orders along with a map of our expanding base into your comms. Don't be surprised if the map changes every hour. This place will look twice as big twenty-four hours later. By the way, one day on Seven lasts for forty-three hours, so don't judge the time by the three glowing dots in the sky!"

One of the Vandals raised their hand. "Did you catch any critters yet that we can eat?"

All of the Vandals laughed at that. Their guide grinned as well. "If we do, then we'll be sure to cook it up and have you take the first bite. Don't blame us if you drop dead the next second!"

The joke livened up the mood and made them forget about the discomforts of their new environment.

Their guide pointed an armored thumb behind his shoulder. "One more warning. Do you see all of the paved and plated ground we've laid out? All of those areas are safe to traverse. Active antigrav modules make sure that all of the paved areas fall within their antigrav field, which means that if your mass is seventy kilograms, your weight is seventy kilograms as well, give or take a few k's. If you stray too far outside the paved ground though, don't be surprised if you suddenly weigh as much as your fat mother!"

That caused another burst of laughter to escape from everyone's mouths. Still, every Vandal present took the warning to heart. Nobody wanted to become imprisoned in their own bodies when they landed outside one of the active antigrav fields.

"What are you standing around here for? Get a move on!"

Ves consulted the map and found that the base had actually been split up into two. One half hosted the Vandals while the other half hosted the Swordmaidens.

Though he wanted to pay a visit to see how the Swordmaidens set themselves up, he knew that his current duties compelled him to remain with the Vandals first. He turned to Ketis and gestured in the vague direction of the Swordmaiden side of the base.

"Right now, I have to take care of a lot of paperwork and other boring stuff. If you want, feel free to return to the Swordmaidens. I'm sure Mayra will be glad to see you again. You can even show off your new accomplishments."

"Good idea!" She nodded her head like a chipmunk. "I've already told her about finding my design philosophy, but I haven't showed it off to her yet! I bet she'll be really proud of me when I tell her how amazing I am right now!"

Ketis quickly scampered off to the Swordmaiden side of the base, though at least she made sure to stay firmly on the paved paths. Ves shook his head and followed the directions to the only mech workshop set up so far, though it wouldn't be the only one up for long.

"We've finally reached this planet, huh." Ves idly remarked.

He almost couldn't believe their long journey had reached this point. He somewhat missed the idle days of travel in space interspersed with occasional battle, but he figured their situation on the ground wouldn't be much different.

As Ves glanced at the construction machines setting up prefab structures to the sides, he wondered how the descendants managed to survive on this planet for so long.

Obviously, they managed to employ a form of antigrav technology that shielded their cities from the crushing gravity.

Yet did they master this tech from the start, or was it starting to become a lost art? This was one of the possible reasons the analysts put forward as an explanation as to why the descendants hadn't expanded their presence on the planet after thousands of years.

If they truly mastered the planet, their population should have ballooned into the billions by now. However, current estimates on their population put them at no more than a few million humans.

What limited their growth?

Chapter 776

Ves supervised the intake of mechs sent down to the surface of Aeon Corona VII from a prefab bunker that functioned as a temporary headquarters for Captain Byrd and all of the staff.

Due to screw ups in the loading order and the irregular streams of astral winds that made it unsafe to fly to at some times, plenty of mixups happened that needed to be untangled.

The wrong mechs got sent down first. The transports brought down spare parts for spaceborn mechs instead of landbound mechs. They brought down too much shuttle-grade fuel and too little mech-grade fuel. A handful of landbound mechs collided against each other and incurred some awful dents when a transport almost lost control during the descent.

Because the Flagrant Vandals sent down almost two-hundred-and-fifty mechs and enough supplies and equipment to make them mostly self-sufficient, logistical matters became the number one concern for the allied forces.

While Captain Byrd assigned mechs on patrols and scouting missions and prepared her entire available force of mechs against any possible attacks, nothing threatening showed up so far. Only bacteria and perhaps some errant bushes lived in these arid parts.

The barren, ore-rich region they landed in never hosted any life from what they could gather. This sounded perfect for the Flagrant Swordmaidens as they sorted out their various problems in peace.

Both the Swordmaidens and the Vandals also needed to become acclimatized to the foreign environment. Anytime someone looked up their heads, the sky became dominated by the constant flows of astral winds. It reminded Ves of Cloudy Curtain, but only much more cheerful.

One peculiarity about the astral winds was that they did not obscure any stellar objects. The small dots that signified one of the five moons or the three suns radiated through the higher-dimensional particles as if they resonated with each other in some way.

Not even the astrophysicists had come up with an explanation for that phenomenon. They were all hard at work trying to make sense of the astral winds themselves and how a battleship with a malfunctioning FTL drive could even release so much of the stuff.

From an engineering standpoint, Ves had some questions as well. For example, how could that leaky FTL drive remain operative after three-thousand years of continuous operation?!

Any machine this complex would have broken down after a couple of months of continuous operation due to sheer wear and tear. In the longer term, corrosion and other possible influences became greater concerns.

"Is there someone or something maintaining the operation of the malfunctioning FTL drive?" Ves wondered.

No matter what the deal was with the Starlight Megalodon, the truth would be revealed once they reached it. They just needed to get there, and that was a massive operation in itself.

The Flagrant Swordmaidens needed to cross tens of thousands of kilometers through hostile terrain and unknown threats. In the meantime, they continually had to fight against Seven itself, its crushing gravity continuing to loom over them and only staved off by their technological countermeasures.

Besides logistics, Ves worried deeply about the performance of the landbound mechs outside the base's antigrav field envelope.

The Vandals tested each of their landbound mechs. Each of them underwent a raft of modifications to prepare them for their deployment on a planet like Seven. Through the preceding months, Ves had inspected each landbound mech's individual design and put his stamp on them, assured that they'd be able to hold up against six times normal gravity.

Yet calculations and simulations only went so far. The true test came when the actual mechs subjected them to the planet's gravity in all its glory.

Fortunately, the mechs held up. Mostly.

As Ves switched his console to a feed that depicted various mechs stepping inside and outside the base, he noticed that most of them did so under the influence of their heavy-duty gravitic backpack modules.

The backpacks the Vandals and the Swordmaidens procured on Harkensen III did their jobs as advertised. They lighted up the influence of gravity just enough to make them able to move and fight as if they moved on a planet close to standard gravity.

Of course, all of this performance came at the cost of expending huge amounts of energy. The backpacks barely lasted an hour of normal operation. The energy expenditure of running close to five-hundred landbound mechs by both the Vandals and the Swordmaidens would drain them dry of energy after a month!

In the meantime, continuous long-term operation wore out some of its components quickly, so it was essential for the Flagrant Swordmaidens to set up a dedicated department that serviced the backpacks as they slowly degraded in performance.

"Still, that's not as interesting as seeing mechs attempting to move with the backpacks turned off."

He switched to another feed where the Vandals conducted a test with an average spearman mech. The machine in question fell within the middle of the medium weight class, and therefore served as a good guide to how the other mechs might fare under the same circumstances.

The test area in which the mech stood suddenly lost its antigrav field, subjecting the spearman mech to the full might of Seven's gravity. The mech's weight suddenly multiplied by six, causing the machine that was as tall as a small office building to falter and strain as its mech pilot frantically tried to adjust.

The antigrav fields came back online after a few minutes had passed.

The test ended early because the mech pilot risked blacking out!

Ves dove into the logs and the preliminary results of the test. It turned out that while the mech barely possessed the power to move, it largely held up against the strain. Most of the modifications that Ves had pushed through safeguarded its delicate components against the persistent effects of heavy gravity.

The weak point turned out to be the mech pilot. The heavy gravity curtailed the mech pilot's heart from pumping a sufficient amount of blood to the head, thereby starving it of the oxygen it desperately needed to operate the mech!

As the act of piloting a mech essentially centered around interfacing the mind of the mech pilot with the mech in question, a starved mind wouldn't have the energy to effectively control a mech!

"Damn." Ves cursed. "These upright piloting seats may be ergonomically optimal, but they're fatal when it comes to heavy gravity environments."

While the cockpit and the piloting suit incorporated smaller antigrav modules that lightened the gravity the mech pilot was subjected to, they hadn't been activated during this test. It appeared that a mech which turned off its gravitic backpack really couldn't do without any gravity compensation for the pilot!

"I can't believe I overlooked this fault." He grumbled. He should have implemented a modification that allowed the mech pilot to recline on his back while piloting.

While this would be an easy change to implement for some mechs that make use of less rigid neural interfaces, others required a lot more effort in order to implement such a change.

It would be especially challenging to push through such a change for light mechs as their cockpits sometimes didn't have enough space to accommodate a fully reclining mech pilot.

"I'll have to discuss this idea first with the other mech designers and chiefs." He decided. "Maybe I can discuss this further with Mayra as well."

They definitely needed to do something. Ves wouldn't contemplate such a change if the Flagrant Swordmaidens only intended to stay for a week or so. That wasn't the case though, as a trek involving tens of thousands of kilometers took them at least half a month to a year according to most estimates.

"There's going to be times when running an antigrav field may not be possible or advisable."

Antigrav fields didn't mix well with strong spacetime distortions. In addition, they functioned like beacons in the night on gravitic sensors. While the astral winds limited their long-ranged detection range, they would have no trouble finding mechs over the horizon if they ran a sufficiently strong antigrav field!

Therefore, trying to find ways to cope with the heavy gravity became everyone's overarching concern. There were too many chances of equipment failure and they plainly lacked the energy budget to keep all of the backpacks running.

"Even deploying less mechs won't help that much, because how are we going to move them in the first place?"

Right now, the Vandals and the Swordmaidens focused much of their limited industrial capacity on expanding the base and constructing cheap legged transports.

These huge machines that resembled six-legged hexapods could carry a mech or two or a handful of containers on their backs.

While they boasted a lot of carrying capacity and the ability to move without under the influence of an antigrav field, they came with their own downsides. For one, they progressed forward at a snail's pace, and expended enormous amounts of energy or fuel by doing so.

Fortunately, these legged transports didn't require any high-quality fuel to run. The Vandals brought down plenty of cheaply synthesized fuel to run these crawlers as the Vandals called them in an efficient manner.

Still, their fuel ran out eventually, so the Vandals needed to secure another source of fuel eventually. Everyone involved with logistics wracked their heads over the deficiencies in their energy budget. In the headquarters, Ves heard Lieutenant Commander Soapstone talking to everyone about this issue.

For now, nobody came up with a viable solution except to abandon the transports one by one as their supplies slowly dwindled over time.

"This journey isn't going to be easy." Ves shook his head.

After a long stretch of work, Ves ended his shift by scheduling a meeting for the next standard day. He wanted to meet every mech designer and chief technicians sent to the surface and discuss the various issues that have cropped up during this time.

Ves knew that if they wanted to last the entire journey to the Starlight Megalodon, he needed to keep a tight lid on the mech designers while making sure the chief technicians were all on the same page.

The chief technicians might not necessarily fall in line with Ves. They were part of a separate hierarchy and technically Ves was merely an advisor to them. He did not intend to let the chiefs do whatever they wanted, especially since some of them had recently been elevated to their ranks after the Acolytes of Haatumak assassinated their predecessors.

Ves was determined not to tolerate any screw ups under his domain. Advisor or not, Ves wanted the chiefs to be firmly under his thumb by the end of the week. Nobody except him was more capable to lead the complex maintenance department of the Vandal groundside forces.

The actual chain of command be damned, this was his kingdom!

Ves was absolutely certain that nobody else among the Vandals understood mechs more than him. Without Major Verle looking over his shoulders, he felt less constrained in his actions. Taking on a bit more authority than he officially had been granted with may not be very kosher, but he doubted anyone among the Vandals cared.

"I'll have to sound out Captain Byrd and see what I can get away with under her." He cautioned himself. "From all accounts, she's a conservative leader. I shouldn't rock the boat too much at first."

Ves already heard some grumbling from the servicemen about her elevation to the commander of the Vandal groundside forces. With the astral winds preventing any direct communication between the landed troops and the fleet orbiting far above the glowing sky, Captain Byrd wielded sole authority over every aspect of their unit.

The Vandal ground force lived and died by her decisions.

That concerned Ves a bit, because unlike someone such as Captain Orfan, he had never come into contact with Captain Byrd nor experienced how she exercised her commands. Was she a careful, meticulous thinker and diplomat as the rumors had said, or was there something more to this quiet mech captain that somehow gained Major Verle's appreciation?

"I should have a meeting with her as well."

Chapter 777

Properly speaking, Aeon Corona VII did not have nights in the traditional sense. Its forty-three hour days subjected one hemisphere to the light of the trinary stars while denying it to the other side of the planet.

Yet what role could sunlight play on a planet lit by the glow of higher-dimensional particles? It not only cast the entire planet in a decidedly golden tint, there wasn't any real night to speak of. The only change in the sky when 'night' finally fell was that the trio of suns dipped below the horizon.

Strangely enough, the lack of true night unsettled the Vandals far more than the heavy gravity. They already had months to prepare for deployment on a heavy gravity planet, so they hardly became fazed when they finally stepped foot on Seven.

The astral winds that raged above the skies came extra, though. The distortion running through their bodies and constant brightness shining down from above made it feel as if they had intruded into some hallowed godly domain where mortals like them simply didn't belong.

How could anyone live on this planet? Its properties differed too far from the human norm that the excitement the Vandals gained from embarking on their mission firmly faded from their minds.

All they felt now was a faint dread for all the surprises this strange and alien planet had in store for them. Terraformed or not, many Vandals could hardly stomach the thought of enduring months under these bright and blinding skies.

Ves coped a little better. The bright astral winds may look a bit unsettling to the average person, but as someone who grew up on Cloudy Curtain, he never needed any clear skies to lift up his mood.

As the standard clock the Vandals and Swordmaidens have adopted turned to evening, Ves decided to take a break after he addressed all of the acute problems. As he stepped outside the temporary headquarters, he saw that the base looked a lot livelier now.

The Vandals set up a lot of prefab structures that could be deployed and folded back into a compact container on a jiffy. This would be important because the ground forces intended to bring them along and set them up each time they needed to halt.

Therefore, the prefab structures didn't look particularly impressive. Consisting of thin, bare metal plates, what they gained in modularity and ease of handling, they gave up in sturdiness and reliability.

Compared to mech armor, the structures were only as tough as the armor of a cheap light mech. While this would be sufficient to keep the structures somewhat stable, it didn't turn them into any defensive fortifications. They could withstand infantry-grade firepower easily enough, but when it came to mech-grade weapons, even a single round would be able to blast a huge hole in the walls.

This didn't matter too much as the bases were only intended as mobile stopover points to service mechs and process any resources that they might gather.

The landbound mechs at their disposal formed their true defense. With their mechs on patrol, nothing should be able to sneak up close to the base to have a clear shot at them, if any enemies on the planet even used any ranged weapons.

Due to the heavy gravity that had a tendency to drag any projectiles down the ground before they reached far enough to hit their target, neither the Vandals nor the Swordmaidens brought any ballistic rifles. Every ranged mech either already made use of a laser rifle or had been forced to adopt one over their primary weapons.

Melee mechs would still be able to move quickly with their gravitic backpacks active. Of course, melee combat in general needed a whole new revision as the Vandal and Swordmaiden mech pilots figured out they could hit a lot harder if they struck from above and deactivated their antigrav modules at the same time.

Any mech that tipped over or lost their balance while outside the influence of any antigrav fields pretty much had no chance to recover during a battle. Falling under six times gravity was the worst thing that could happen to any mech or person on foot.

As Ves headed over to the Swordmaiden side of the camp, he saw a few off-duty Vandals goofing off. They experimented with trying to see if they could remain functional as they deactivated a nearby antigrav module.

"C'mon, hurry up, Suze! Turn it off already"

"I've got it! Three, two, one, it's off!"

The Vandal standing in the middle of a clearing suddenly buckled and screamed a bit. The man remained upright solely due to the virtue of his light combat armor which locked up his legs and automatically adjusted his balance.

"Turn.. it.. on!"

Once the Vandal in control of the system switched the antigrav module back online, the man who tested his body sighed in relief. "That was far too sudden! I became so heavy that my bones started creaking! I can't imagine surviving outside this field."

Several more Vandals curiously tested out how their bodies would fare under heavy gravity. Having learned their lesson, this time Suzie dialed down the power of the antigrav module gradually until it stopped exerting anything against the prevailing gravity.

Without exception, many of the Vandals serving as technicians, machinists or some other support capacity simply couldn't handle the strain. None of them could cope with remaining upright, but they lasted a bit longer if they laid down flat on the ground.

Those in less rigid outfits such as hazard suits fared the worst. The lack of structure in them combined with the fact that only the weakest Vandals wore them meant they crumbled into a heap pretty quickly even as the gravity ramped up slowly.

Those with combat training, greater fitness and perhaps enjoyed some genetic tune-ups fared better. Even without relying on the servos of their combat armor, they possessed enough strength to remain upright, though moving forward was a significant challenge in itself. If their combat armor ever ran out of energy, its weight turned into a burden instead of a boon.

Just as Ves planned to walk past by the experimenting Vandals, he halted in his steps. "This is a good time as any to test out my own ability to cope with the gravity."

He turned around and approached the group. The Vandals looked up at him and some of them even recognized him. "Mr. Larkinson!"

The low-ranking Vandals attempted to stand at attention as if he was an officer.

"Relax, folks. Let me give it a try as well."

"Uh, you sure? The gravity is no joke, sir."

"Don't worry about me. I'm not as weak as my profession suggests."

After a bit of reassurance, Ves stepped in the middle of the testing zone. Once he gave the signal, Suzie carefully dialed down the effects of the antigrav module.

As the gravity steadily reassured itself around Ves, he felt the pressure adding up to his body.

It felt less like hauling a huge boulder over his shoulder and more like his own flesh and blood started to war against him. It was like taking a dive underneath the ocean, but instead of the pressure coming from all directions, it primarily pointed down to the ground.

Ves experimentally lifted his arm and found it took quite a bit of exertion from him to do so. He continued to make a couple of movements, each of them slow enough to suggest to the onlookers that he had been engaging his armor servos.

He didn't.

Nobody knew about his body enhancements he gained from a past expedition to the frontier except for Major Verle, Doctor Cuscar and perhaps a couple of other medical personnel.

He even hid his strength from Ketis, who probably thought of him as a frail nerd who didn't belong in the frontier.

It didn't matter anyway. Even if his Jutland organ transformed his genes and his body into the foundation of a warrior, he lacked the training to be able to beat someone like Ketis.

As a mech designer, Ves had no use for a large amount of physical strength. The incredible amount of endurance that came along as well was a lot more useful, though. It let him survive situations that would have killed a skinny mech designer ten times over.

Right now though, his physical enhancements played a greater role than before. Ves pleasantly found out that not only did he possess the strength to move normally without keeling over, his endurance also provided him with the staying power to cope with the increased exertion.

It was as if his body already possessed the essential qualities of a heavy gravity variant human.

"This can come in handy in the future." He noted before he turned to the onlookers. "Thanks, I've tested enough."

Ves also briefly tested the functionality of his Earth Ant, though his light combat armor exhibited no unexpected surprises. The customized armor held up marvelously, and according to the telemetry, his servos never suffered undue strain.

As he crossed over into the Swordmaiden side of the camp, he witnessed the differences immediately. Both the layout and the general conduct of the Swordmaidens differed drastically from the Vandals.

Prefab structures had been placed without any care for alignment, Swordmaidens ran all over the place and their thralls did much of the actual work in the background.

Oh yes, the Swordmaidens brought their slaves.

Ves frowned as he stared at the robotic men in distinctly lesser hazard suits as they performed all of the menial tasks the Swordmaidens disdained to do. He felt as if he had traveled right back to the Age of Stars where humanity often faced the threat of enslavement from vastly more powerful alien neighbors.

"If this is what Ketis is surrounded by every day, no wonder she doesn't think too well of mech technicians."

Well, Ves was no crusader, nor did he aspire to become a saint. The fate of the slaves had nothing to do with him so he resolutely ignored the men as they followed the orders of their Swordmaiden supervisors without any hint of resistance due to their brainwashing.

If Ves ignored the slaves, he found that the Swordmaidens possessed their own charm. Their mechs moved with grace under the antigrav fields, while the Swordmaidens on foot kept up their vigilance.

Ves attracted plenty of stares, and as he asked for directions to the mech workshop, Ketis showed up again.

"Ves!" She ran up to him in her heavy combat armor, causing the tiles beneath his feet to transmit the vibrations. "You're here! Mayra told me you just crossed over in our base, so she ordered me to fetch you and show you around. Come!"

As she dragged Ves to the mech workshops, she started babbling about the various sights.

"Look at this mech with the red stripe running down the center of the frame. You'll see this mech a lot with us. It's the Devil Razor, one of Mayra's most popular designs among my sisters. It's as plentiful as your Vandal Inheritor mechs but of better quality."

Ves did see a lot of Swordmaiden mechs with a red stripe on top of their regular coating. Different from the Vandals, the Swordmaidens personalized their mechs with adding patterns, exobeast bones and other decorative measures.

No two Devil Razor looked the same. Some used a lighter coating scheme, others loaded up some extra backup knives, while one oddball mech coated her mech in pink of all colors.

The only thing they had in common was that they all retained the thick stripe in the center.

"The Devil Razor does look impressive." He said sincerely. As someone more comfortable with designing landbound mechs, he possessed a keen eye in judging their quality. Ves mentally pegged the mech as a product that could be sold for 30 million credits, around the same as one of his old Marc Antony models.

This didn't sound impressive at first, but Mayra managed to design and fabricate large numbers of this mech through her own efforts!

Chapter 778

"The Devil Razors are the mainstay of our mech force." Ketis explained as she led Ves to the Swordmaiden mech workshops via the scenic route. "Mayra designed them as dependable work horses that can be deployed on most planets without malfunctioning."

The medium swordsman mechs with their broad, flat swords and their iconic red stripe running down the center of their front lifted up the hearts of every Swordmaiden that spotted them. They made for an inspiring sight.

"What are the properties of its design?" He asked. While he formed his own impression from observing them in person, he was curious whether they tallied up with the truth. "I take it these are designed to be versatile?"

"Yup!" Ketis nodded. "Mayra told me that her biggest priorities for the Devil Razors is to design a mech that can last the Swordmaidens for a while. Therefore, she hasn't added too many bells and whistles to its design. It's a basic medium swordsman mech with a reliable and robust internal architecture. Only after she completed that did she thought about increasing its other capabilities."

"That is a good starting point, especially if Mayra is designing a mech that is supposed to be a mainstay for a pirate force."

"Ordinarily, the Devil Razors are rather light and quick on their feet. Mobility is one of their strong suits. That and they can add a lot of force to their strikes even with just a little momentum built up."

"They don't look very tough, though." Ves remarked. He knew that pirates generally didn't make use of mechs with compressed armor. It took a lot of expertise to work with the complicated armor formulas and fabricate compressed armor without any cracks or imperfections dragging down their defensive capabilities. "Since they're quicker and lighter on their feet than other swordsman mech, I take it they can't take much of a beating."

"That's true." Ketis admitted. "Adding better armor would slow down its other advantages, and we have knight mechs and other mechs that can focus on defense on their stead. Most of our Swordmaidens prefer to go on the attack rather than remain on the defense."

"Another advantage that is probably relevant here is that because they are lighter than average, their gravitic backpacks won't have to strain themselves as much. They'll certainly last longer than any of the heavier mechs."

"Yeah, I forgot to mention that. The Devil Razors aren't the most efficient mechs, but they don't guzzle them up as much as the heavier mechs."

"Still, as remarkable as the Devil Razor sounds, I doubt it serves as the signature mech of the Swordmaidens."

"We also have the Silver Valencia." She mentioned. "We don't have a lot of them, but some of our best mech pilots have earned the right to pilot them. It's a swordsman mech that has all of the advantages of the Devil Razor but also makes up for their weaknesses by incorporating compressed armor. While we can't fabricate them on our own, we had them made at Malligan's Pitstop."

"Are there any Silver Valencias nearby that I can observe?"

Ketis shook her head. "Not at the moment. Right now, we're working on tweaking them to make sure they can run smoothly on this planet. Since they're our most expensive mechs, we don't want them to fail in the middle of a battle. Mayra and I were working on the final tweaks just earlier. I'll show you how they look like!"

They reached the sloppy row of prefab workshops and brushed past the slaves who had been conditions to stand aside at the approach of each Swordmaiden. Ves felt very uncomfortable passing by what should have been kin to him. These poor sods didn't look like they deserved to be brainwashed and turning into human-shaped bots for the Swordmaidens.

"Have you Swordmaidens ever tried to make do without the slaves?"

Ketis looked at him with an expression that told him he didn't know anything about the frontier. "Are you kidding me? I thought we had gone over this. There's way too many technicians or people trained to service mechs and ships for us to rely on volunteers. I know the slaves bother you civilized people a lot, but don't try to pretend we have any other choice. I don't like them more than you do."

Her tone brokered no argument on this matter. To be fair, Ves knew a lost cause when he saw one. Trying to divest the Swordmaidens of their slaves when they really needed on this mission would be to cripple one of their limbs just as they were about to step into the arena.

He would only do more harm if he harped on this point, not that the Swordmaidens would listen to him in the first place.

Once they walked past the entrance, the entire interior darkened up as the bare metal prefab walls blocked out all of the radiance from the astral winds. His eyes adjusted quickly, though at some points he found the workshop to be too dark.

"Here they are. The Silver Valencias!"

The handful of mounts in this workshop currently lifted up four largely identical mechs. To say that they were upgraded Devil Razors was to do them a disservice. Due to their partially disassembled states, Ves caught a good glimpse of their insides.

Visually, their appearance and profile resembled the Devil Razors like how cousins resembled each other. He could definitely tell that both designs had been developed by the same mech designer, and all by herself to boot!

Their internal architecture looked a lot more sophisticated than that of what a simpler mech like the Devil Razor made use of. Premium materials along with a focused design towards combining power and flexibility turned these Silver Valencias into offensive powerhouses that could lop off the limb of any mech with a single heavy chop!

If the Devil Razors focused on mobility, reliability and endurance, the Silver Valencias focused less on the latter two in exchange for a greater amount of raw power and a bit more protection.

While it was true that the Silver Valencias incorporated compressed armor, both their thickness and their quality didn't appear to be of good quality.

The thinness of their plates cut down the weight, allowing the Silver Valencias to maintain their advantage in mobility, while the average quality of its composition pushed down the costs and made it possible for them to be produced in the frontier.

Ves liked to estimate the selling price of a mech even if they had never been commercially sold, but he found it difficult to pin down the exact value of the Silver Valencia. They looked deceptively simple, so simple in fact that he couldn't believe that this was all a Journeyman Mech Designer was capable of designing.

If he judged their value solely through his observations, he pinned their value at around 50 million credits. Both his Blackbeak and his Crystal Lord designs sold for more than that, so Ves felt very skeptical about his latest judgement.

A seasoned Journeyman like Mayra would never design something so simple as the signature mech of the Swordmaidens.

"There's something more about these Silver Valencias." He mused. "Otherwise, you Swordmaidens wouldn't value them so much."

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Ketis teased with a naughty grin. "The Silver Valencias are our trump cards. It won't do for us to reveal what they are capable of. There's nothing around us right now that warrants showing them off. Anyway, Mayra is just ahead. Let's go!"

The pair picked up the pace, though that was mostly due to Ketis' boundless enthusiasm. Ever since she defined her design philosophy, she became a lot more cheerful at times. It was like she was a little girl surrounded by toys.

"Mayra! Look who's come to visit!"

"Ves. Good to see you in the flesh once again."

"Mayra." He simply greeted her as he observed their surroundings.

The Journeyman appeared to be designing a handful of optimizations for her Silver Valencias. Because of the sensitive nature of its full design, she quickly swiped her arm, causing the projections wink out of sight.

Ves found it regretful to lose sight of the full design schematics, but he respected her desire for privacy. It was bad form for a mech designer to snoop on another mech designer's work without permission.

It was one thing to analyze a mech by observing their finished frames. It was another thing entirely to access their private design schematics and specifications.

"So, what brings you to Swordmaiden territory?"

"Oh, I wanted to talk shop with the only mech designer who is better than me. My subordinates over at the Vandals aren't exactly the brightest mech designers that I've ever met. I'd like to exchange some ideas on how we can better cope with the heavy gravity."

"Understandable." She said in an elegant fashion that belied her frontier origins. She patted an armored hand over one of the seats at her side. "Come. Let's sit down and discuss."

Ves did so even as he did a double take of Mayra. He had always found her a bit too talented and refined to be a daughter of the frontier. That reminded him that he had never dug too deep in her background before she accepted Commander Lydia's offer to join her Swordmaidens.

He beheld her straight posture. Even clad in a suit of medium combat armor decorated with the trophies of her own kills, her entire form possessed an indistinct quality that reminded him of nobility.

As Ketis was about to sit, Mayra interrupted her with a raised palm. "Ketis dear, could you fetch me the gift I prepared for your wonderful teacher?"

"Didn't you intend to hand it over after inviting him to a ceremony?"

"I did, but the difficult conditions of Aeon Corona VII doesn't leave us with a lot of opportunities to hold a ceremony. Since Ves is already here, I might as well hand it over now."

"If you say so."

Once Ketis scampered off to wherever Mayra stashed her gift, Ves turned to the older mech designer with an appraising eye. "You wanted to send Ketis away."

"I did. Now that she's off, we can discuss her upbringing under you. I must say, I am very impressed with your efforts. What you managed to accomplish is beyond my expectations. Not only have you enlightened her to the values and principles held by the prevailing institutions of mech design, you also did more than that."

"I enjoyed the teaching process." He replied with a proud smile. "I know what you wanted me to do, but I wasn't satisfied with that. While she's your protege, she's my student as well, and if I see something lacking, I won't hesitate to address those shortcomings."

"What you did was risky as well." Mayra pointedly said. Her eyes grew sharp and Ves somehow felt an indomitable amount of pressure build up around him. It even triggered his sixth sense! "As her teacher, you wielded an inordinate amount of influence in her future development. You had the power to point her in any direction you wanted. If you hadn't allowed her to choose her own direction, I would have taken offense at your initiative."

Ves awkwardly laughed in response. He knew that some of his actions had been a little too presumptive for his own good. "You placed Ketis under me, so obviously you wanted me to influence her in the first place. I won't deny that I have steered her closer to what an orthodox mech designer ought to think, but I think that it will eventually give her a leg up against other pirate designers."

"And her design philosophy?"

"I can promise you I did not nudge her in any direction with regards to her successful attempt to discover and define her own design philosophy." He said firmly, even under this formless pressure. "If I was in charge, I would have never limited her to focusing her entire mech career on swordsman mechs. She decided on her own to work with the type of mechs she loved the most, and to focus on pursuing the greatest degree of sharpness for their swords."

After a few seconds of silence, the pressure suddenly lifted. Mayra threw a small but satisfied smile at him. "Thank you for your honesty. I have already observed from Ketis that you haven't abused your power over her, but it is good to hear some confirmation from your own mouth."

Ves reciprocated her smile. He did not take offense at her probe. "If she was my protege, I would have been just as thorough."

Chapter 779

"There is one more topic I'd like to address before my protege returns." The purple-haired, purple-skinned mech designer said.

If not for her human heritage, Ves would have mistaken her as an alien.

"Speak." Ves gestured her to go ahead.

"I know you have been wondering why we are here. It is a question that is quietly weighing on everyone's minds."

Ves carefully nodded. "I have questions, yes, but no one seems willing to answer."

"That is because they don't know or are compelled to keep their mouths shut. Even I can't tell you what we are after, only that our efforts will be worth it if we manage to secure our objectives."

"That's exactly the kind of vague answer that everyone is regaling me with. They tell me it's worth it, that our sacrifices will be meaningful, that we are pursuing a great and important cause. I don't know what to believe anymore."

The momentous effort and the high degree of secrecy involved in this hunt made Ves more and more skeptical about its entire purpose. He even started questioning what Calabast said back then at Harkensen I.

Did everyone really pursue something as banal as high-grade life-prolonging treatment serum? Though its value indeed surpassed the GDP of several states like the Bright Republic put together, Ves did not have any proof to support this belief except for the word of a foreign, professional spy.

Someone like that wasn't exactly the most reliable source of information.

Over time, he realized that he had given in to his biases when Calabast initially made her revelation. Just because he favored one conspiracy theory over another didn't make it any more true.

So for now, Ves didn't know what to think.

For her part, Mayra appeared sympathetic. "These questions will be answered in due time, but you must have patience. Even I don't have the full picture. To be honest, before we received this mission, Commander Lydia has never revealed that her Swordmaidens belonged to someone else. As a dear friend, I thought I knew her. I was wrong."

"You mean you never thought the Swordmaidens had a backer?"

"Indeed. Strange, is it not? Commander Lydia is a force to be reckoned with. Every Swordmaiden of the first generation thought she was starting something great. She regaled us with dreams of elevating the status of women in the frontier by raising the strongest all-female pirate force in the Faris Star Region. For decades, we fought and bled for that dream, only to find out that a shadowy man from civilized space had been pulling our strings all along."

Ves started to feel that this conversation had taken a dangerous turn all of a sudden. His vigilance increased even as Mayra remained poised and elegant, as if she was discussing the weather.

"Are you dissatisfied with the Swordmaidens?"

"The Swordmaidens? Of course not!" She smiled briefly before frowning. "It is Commander Lydia who I am starting to get disillusioned with. How would you feel if the strong leader who we have all invested in turns out to be a puppet being pulled by someone else's strings? We all thought that founding and developing the Swordmaidens was an end in itself, only for us to find out that we are merely tools for someone else to use at their convenience."

"Well, if you put it that way, it doesn't look very good. Still, it's very hard to achieve anything in this galaxy by yourself. Almost every strong outfit is backed by someone. Do you think I voluntarily joined this wild goose chase? If I had a choice, I would have rather stayed home and quietly design more mechs to round out my mech catalog."

Well, Ves may not be entirely true just now. While he hated being dragged all the way up to the deep frontier and be forced to accompany the ground forces to the surface of a planet that by all accounts appeared to be as dangerous as Groening IV, a small part of him felt different.

He enjoyed the new sights. He enjoyed experiencing something wholly different. Ves felt pretty certain that he became a much better mech designer now than if he had never been dragged through this journey by the Flagrant Vandals.

So in a way, he felt blessed to be a part of this unique adventure, even as he inwardly screamed in fear at the threats he faced.

"We can wax about the nature of how the galaxy is run, but time is short and we have work to do." Mayra dismissively waved her armored hand. "Before Ketis returns, I want to ask another favor of you. As you know, this mission may turn out to be very perilous. If worse comes to worst, I'd like to arrange some contingencies before that happens."

"You want to arrange an escape plan?"

"Yes, but not for myself. I'm too old, and I'm too attached to Commander Lydia. Even if she is driving us to our deaths, I will accompany her in whatever hell she intrudes upon."

"That.. doesn't make sense."

"Even if Lydia's Swordmaidens is founded upon a lie, every Swordmaiden believes in the causes it espouses. If there is an opportunity to turn a lie into a truth, we are compelled to see the transformation through."

Ves heard the conviction in her voice, and the conflict hiding within. Mayra spent too much time with Commander Lydia that even if her mind recognized that the pirate leader intended to use them up, the Journeyman's heart didn't allow her to turn her back on her sisters.

He mentally applauded Commander Lydia's means of securing Mayra's loyalty. The shrewd founder of the Swordmaidens indoctrinated her subordinates so well that they couldn't betray her even if they all thought it was best to do so.

Ves wanted to dig into their history and learn from the commander's methods so he could apply them to his own subordinates once the war had ended!

"It sounds like you don't hold much confidence in your success." He remarked.

"If you know as much as I know, you wouldn't be so calm either, Ves. The risks are great and there is a chance the Swordmaidens may cease to exist at the end of this ride. If that happens... I want you to take care of Ketis."

Ah. Ves knew that Mayra didn't express her doubts without a reason. It all built up to this request.

"You want me to set her up elsewhere in the frontier? Bring her to Malligan's Pitstop so she can take refuge under the Skull Architect?"

"No." Mayra shook her head. "My mentor may care a little about me, but my protege is nothing to him. He is very particular in his treatment to those he finds worthy or not. Those who earned his respects are taken care of, while those he regards as lessers won't be able to earn even a scrap of his attention."

"Then where do you want me to put her? If I recall, the Omen of Misfortune owes us a lot of favors."

"They are indeed a viable choice, but I have a better idea. I want you to take her under your wing and assimilate her into civilized space."

"What? Are you sure about that? The frontier is her home!"

Of all the possible requests Mayra could utter, Ves had never thought she wanted to bring her protege out of the region she called her home.

"The frontier is her home, that is true, but it is a dangerous home." Mayra said. "If the Swordmaidens are ever wiped out from existence, most of our long-standing ties with the other pirates become as worthless as scrap paper. If Ketis is all alone without the protection of the rest of us Swordmaidens, she becomes easy prey to any pirate gang that needs a mech designer. As fierce as she is with her sword, it's impossible for her to fend off against an entire gang."

This illustrated the fate of those who possessed an abundant amount of skill but lacked the strength to safeguard their independence. Something like this would never happen in most parts of civilized space, but the frontier played by different rules.

"I can't give you a guarantee. My actual power and influence is limited. The Flagrant Vandals are part of the military, and they have rules they must abide to. Even so, I promise I'll do my best to setup a new life for her if the Swordmaidens are no more."

Mayra smiled in satisfaction. "I'm pleased to have your agreement. Here is something that you'll need in order to facilitate her potential entry into civilized space."

The Journeyman passed a secure data chip to Ves. He inserted it into the slot connected to his secure comm and briefly glanced at its contents.

"These are identity documents!"

The data chip contained a raft of forged documents purportedly from various institutions of the Reinald Republic. It presented a complete record of a fake individual, and ran from birth certificates to medical records to school diplomas.

Ves became extremely impressed at the thoroughness of the records, especially since many of them involved the cooperation of both government officials and purported witnesses. The medical records especially demanded tissue samples to be slipped into Reinald's highly-guarded vaults.

The amount of people that had to be bribed to construct such an elaborate background must have surpassed a hundred! Many of them must have demanded hundreds of thousands or even millions of Marks to obtain their cooperation!

The most impressive forgery among the fake documents was undoubtedly a diploma from the Harkensen Capital Institute on Harkensen II, which was a university equivalent to his own alma mater.

While it may not be the best school for mech design in the Reinald Republic, the HCI enjoyed a stellar reputation and a lot of influential government officials graduated from this storied place.

Mayra threw a weary smile at Ves as he tried to estimate how much it cost to put this all together. "I've spent a majority of my life savings on obtaining a nearly foolproof background for Ketis in civilized space. Anything can be bought for the right price, but if you want something done correctly, be prepared to bleed."

"This.. is really extravagant. Why not resort to a cheaper option and have Ketis assume the identity of someone who is lost or dead in the frontier?"

"Such measures are cheap, but they are hardly foolproof. Any individual has family, friends, colleagues and teachers. The moment one of them finds out that the person who impersonated the deceased is a fake, the entire charade will fall apart."

Basically, you got what you paid for. Even if Mayra must have spent an excess of hundreds of millions of bright credits worth of money, she managed to secure a virtually faultless future in civilized space for a daughter of the frontier.

Still, the huge effort Mayra had went through to secure this escape route for her protege baffled him. "Why spend so much for Ketis? Not that I disapprove. It's just..."

"Excessive? Nonsense. If she is just my student, then my preparations seem excessive. However, I don't see her that way anymore. To me, she is my daughter, if not in blood, then in spirit. As her adoptive parent, I won't hesitate to sacrifice my entire wealth to give her a good future."

Mayra's declaration warmed his heart and eased his suspicion. It figured that Mayra developed motherhood instincts for her favored student. He understood her willingness to go so far for an adoptive daughter because he was the recipient of such treatment himself from his father.

A parent's love for their offspring was one of the strongest forces in the galaxy. Both humans and aliens exhibited a strong degree of protectiveness to their later generation.

Ves carefully removed the data chip from his secure comm and inserted it into a customized slot in his Earth Ant that served as a dedicated storage compartment for small, high-value objects.

With that done, Ketis quickly returned with a rectangular case and presented it to Ves. "Here's your gift!"

He looked curiously at the box. What gift did Mayra prepare for him, and why did she prepare one in the first place?

"Go ahead, Ves." The older mech designer said. "Open it up. Consider it a little bonus for your efforts so far."

Chapter 780

When Ves opened the decorative box, he looked at the object resting on a bed of soft, folded fabric.

"Is that a knife?"

Ves picked up the plain but serviceable hilt of the knife and drew it out of hits sheathe. The gleam of its slender alloy blade shone in a similar luster as the greatswords wielded by most of the Swordmaidens.

"It's a curiosity crafted by the same swordsmith we commission all of our swords from. I don't know how he does it, but he crafts the sharpest bladed implements in the Faris Star Region." Mayra explained. "Be careful with the blade and tip! Don't run your fingers over the edge. It can cut right through most alloys with just a moderate application of force. Even your fancy armor won't survive against this weapon."

Ves hastily drew back his armored fingers from the edge of the knife. "Does it have a name?"

"Cadisis, the Backstabber. The stiletto design lends itself great for penetrating sturdy armor. As long as you maintain it well, it can pierce through thin sheets of compressed alloy. If nothing else, it's narrow and compact enough that you can slip it inside your custom armor."

"I'll have to expand one of the storage compartments to fit the Cadisis, but it is definitely worth it. If this blade is of the same nature as your famous swords, then this is a sumptuous gift!"

"To be honest, we received the Cadisis as a gift from the aforementioned swordsmith. While we appreciated the gesture, we have found no use for this weapon." The Journeyman admitted. "The Swordmaidens fight our opponents openly and try to make ourselves trustworthy in the eyes of our allies. Making use of the Cadisis clashes with the rest of our armaments and sends the wrong message."

"And you figured I'm enough of a bastard that the Cadisis is a good fit for me?"

"I imply no such thing." Mayra brushed away the accusation with a flick of her hand. "I am merely taking into consideration your lack of combat training. Even if I gift you with a combat knife, you're liable to cut yourself before you ever inflict a wound upon your opponent. Armed or not, you won't amount to anything against a trained warrior."

Ves studied the Cadisis carefully and sensed his Spirituality brushing against the faint concepts embedded within. As a weapon on the same tier as the iconic swords wielded by all of the graduated Swordmaidens, every aspect of its design screamed quality. The swordsmith that fashioned the Cadisis put a lot of care and effort into creating the perfect backstabbing implement.

The more he studied the weapon, the more he became puzzled why the Swordmaidens obtained this weapon. It truly wasn't a weapon suited to its former owners. Had the swordsmith attempted to convey a hidden message with this gift?

"Since this is a handcrafted weapon made with care and love, is there something special about it besides its sharpness?" He asked. "I don't quite recognize these alloys. They look similar to the ones incorporated in your swords, but they feel different."

Mayra clapped and smiled. "Good judgement. The entire Cadisis incorporates a small amount of exotics that renders it nearly undetectable from most sensors. While it isn't stealthed against optical sensors, you can sneak it past most forms of weapon detectors, metal detectors, mass detectors and etcetera. The Cadisis isn't called the Backstabber for nothing."

While Ves truly appreciated the craftsmanship of the Cadisis, he didn't know if he'd ever be able to make use of it. After all, he already possessed another named weapon that was already powerful enough to take care of most threats. He also couldn't quite figure out why Mayra chose to gift him a weapon that symbolized betrayal right after he made a promise to take care of Ketis.

He had a feeling the entire act of gifting was suffused with symbolism and hidden meanings. Was Mayra attempting to hint to him that the Swordmaidens planned to betray the Vandals down the line? Did she give him the weapon as a silent warning of what might happen to him if he failed to carry out his promises?

Whatever the case, Ves couldn't figure it out right now. He resheathed the weapon and placed it back in the box before closing it. He needed to make some adjustments to his Earth Ant in order to carry the Cadisis. He may not yet have figured out a use for this gift, but there was no harm in adding another tool to his toolbox.

"Ah, with all of this talk, I almost forgot about why I came to visit in the first place." Ves said. "I'd like to consult you on some of the technical issues that the Vandals have encountered. I'd like to ask for advice, is that alright?"

"Feel free to ask. The problems that you Vandals are suffering from are hardly unique." Mayra remarked while gesturing Ketis to come sit next to her. "Ketis, come over here. Perhaps you can provide some input as well."

Ves proceeded to explain some of the more difficult issues he encountered, such as how to modify the cockpits so that its pilots could stay conscious even without an active antigrav field.

For the most part, Mayra gave out sage advice. While she didn't have a solution for every problem, she at least pointed him in the right direction, or forced him to look at the problem from a different perspective.

Ketis for the most part stayed silent as she lacked the experience to provide suggestions on her own. The issues plaguing Ves went far beyond her capacity to solve. Still, at least she soaked up lots of knowledge from their mutual exchange.

After two hours of fruitful discussion, Ves bid the pair goodbye and exited the workshop. As he returned to the Vandal side of the camp, he continued to admire the various mechs employed by the Swordmaidens.

The Devil Razors and the Silver Valencias joined several other mech models that carried Mayra's distinctive mark. Compared to the mechs that the Swordmaidens must have procured elsewhere, Mayra's work all carried a common refrain that enabled Ves to puzzle out the woman's design philosophy.

"If I'm not mistaken, her design philosophy has something to do with making the best out of suboptimal materials. Mayra's mechs may not be the most impressive for a Journeyman mech Designer, but they are very efficient and cost-effective."

To Ves, her design philosophy echoed some of the design philosophies of both the Skull Architect and Master Katzenberg from the Leemar Institute of Technology. It was an extremely suitable design philosophy for a mech designer who operated in the frontier where many resources couldn't readily be obtained.

In general, design philosophies that focused on increasing efficiency and mitigating the scarcity of high-quality materials should be very common in the galactic rim.

As a region blessed with less stars and a much lower concentration of rare and energetic exotics, mech designers didn't so much focus on developing the strongest mech designs. They simply couldn't afford to. Instead, they focused on maximizing the performance of their mech designs with the resources at hand.

Some pursued this goal more directly, such as Master Katzenberg who actively pursued cheap substitutes for higher value exotics, or the Skull Architect who sought to square the circle by focusing on pure design.

Others approached this problem from an oblique angle. Master Olson's specialty in longevity, endurance and engine design allowed her to design mechs that lasted for days on the battlefield and lessened the logistical pressure of the forces that deployed her products.

Ves fell into this category as well. His design philosophy chased after the X-Factor, a largely unexplored source of power of mechs that amplified their performance without costing anything but a portion of his Spirituality.

"Each of us are pursuing methods of strengthening mechs without straight-up resorting to more expensive materials."

Personally, he felt that this approached the essence of good design. Any mech designer could produce a stellar-performing mech with materials worth billions of credits. It took an amazing mech designer to design a mech that performed just as well with a budget that was a hundred times smaller.

As Ves returned to the camp, he found his assigned bunk and tried to sleep over the issues.

He had a fitful sleep. While the prefab barracks blocked out all of the light shining from above, the constantly-flowing astral winds sometimes caused space and time in the vicinity to ripple a bit. By the time the ripples reached the rocky surface of the Super Earth, their effects had diminished, but every Vandal and Swordmaiden still felt their effects.

It felt like his body was getting blasted by invisible sound waves every two minutes or so. It took some time for Ves to fall to sleep under those conditions. Some of the other Vandals had to take sleeping pills to do so.

The next day, the same bright skies greeted him again as he went back to work. By now, the Vandals set up a series of workshops where mech technicians performed continuous repairs on mechs that they thought should have been able to withstand the heavy gravity but actually couldn't.

No one was to blame for the faults, but it reflected an unfortunate lack of competence in preparing them for deployment on a Super Earth. Too many of the work crews had been rather lackadaisical in implementing the full raft of modifications suggested by Ves.

The only reason why this hadn't grown into a bigger issue was that enough landbound mechs still worked as expected to be sent out on regular patrols and reconnaissance missions. Right now, the Vandals and the Swordmaidens still needed to finish their preparations before they could begin their trek.

As Ves applied some of the solutions suggested by Mayra in problems such as modifying the cockpits so that the piloting seats could recline, Captain Byrd finally scheduled her first staff meeting.

As Ves put down his work and entered the nearby headquarters bunker, he entered a cramped, underground conference room. A host of new and familiar Vandals entered the room, with the mech officers congregating on one side of the room while the various support personnel dominated the other side.

Captain Byrd entered last.

This was the first time Ves saw her in person. She was older than Captain Orfan, who glared at her fellow mech captain with jealous eyes. Captain Byrd took no notice of the brash captain's attention and walked to the front of the conference room in a steady gait.

"Alright Vandals. I've called you here today to discuss our immediate plans for the future. Our progress so far is slower than I like, but we should be ready to move within two or three weeks."

A couple of Vandals groaned. That was far too slow for the more aggressive Vandals such as Captain Orfan. If she was in charge, she would have exhorted them to move despite their lack of preparations.

Captain Byrd approached their circumstances from an entirely different angle. Some people thought that she went overboard.

Ves didn't agree with her critics. As someone who appreciated good preparation, he fully supported her slow and steady approach. He'd rather bring too much tools and not need most of them than to bring an empty toolbox and find himself helpless without any means to solve the problem.

"This meeting does not revolve around the plans that we've already made. They are set in stone and none of it is negotiable." The ranking officer said.

Though she didn't look at Captain Orfan and her buddies, the remark hadn't been pointed anywhere but to the aggressive faction.

"Instead, our scouts sent out to the nearest settlement have returned with detailed footage and sensor readings. Behold the ancient city that is situated six-hundred kilometers southwest from our camp."

A projection came to life, depicting an old and half-crumbling city surrounded by a massive rusting metal wall!

Chapter 781

The city displayed on the projection featured a fair amount of high rise structures. Most reached ten stories high though others reached as high as thirty stories.

Captain Byrd introduced the city to the Vandals attending the meeting. "Classified as A27 when our fleet scanned the surface of Seven from orbit, this city is one of the fifty-odd major settlements that is dotting the planet's more stable hemisphere. There are no outward farms or sources of water in the vicinity, but we believe they cultivate their food in underground farms and derive their water from an underground stream."

Someone already raised her hand. "Won't that take a lot of energy, ma'am? Where are they getting their juice from?"

Captain Byrd raised her hand, causing another projection to appear. This one showed sensor readings of possible energy sources in the city.

"Despite the decrepit state of the city, it is very much an active one. While the age of the structures and the lack of expansion and growth suggests that the inhabitants have regressed, it is not to the point where they have forgotten how to build power reactors."

Chief Engineer Leslie Dakkon, one of the more experienced ones who survived the assassination attempts, analyzed the sensor readings made a tentative conclusion.

"The output of those power reactors don't look too high. The emissions they release also don't suggest any sophisticated reactions are taking place. They are definitely not making use of any of the high technology that the CFA is known to master. I think the total energy output is just enough to power the outdated antigrav modules that is protecting the city from Seven's gravity."

"Interesting observation." Captain Byrd tipped her head towards the chief engineer in appreciation. "A modern city that houses at least a hundred-thousand men and women consumes a lot more energy than the estimated output of these reactors. It is possible that A27 have developed other means of generating energy, but so far our scouts have been unable to observe any, though they are significantly hampered by the massive walls that surrounds the entire perimeter."

"Look at those old walls." Captain Orfan spoke up. "They're built for a reason. Look at how defensive it is. Look at the ditch they dug up, and the dents and scratches against its surface. The locals here are afraid of something. This is a city that has experienced many sieges."

The walls surrounding the city followed the shape of a circle instead of a pointed star. Nevertheless, it looked grand and formidable enough to withstand a mech raiding force, though there didn't appear to be any active defenses in view.

"Ma'am, have the scouts spotted any mechs or turrets?" Ves asked. "These walls don't look like they are meant to accommodate mechs taking cover behind them. The walls themselves don't look as if they are built to withstand mech-like attackers."

It looked like something a layman would design rather than something a modern fortification specialist might conjure up. The descendants of the crew of the Starlight Megalodon had truly regressed in many ways. Hundreds, maybe thousands of years may have passed since the crash before someone founded A27.

"None of our scouts have picked up any readings that match either mechs or any form of mechanized war machines such as tanks. This doesn't necessarily mean the inhabitants don't have them, but it is difficult for us to peer past the wall and the many dense structures to detect inactive vehicles."

"Have the scouts picked up any humans, ma'am?"

"None so far. We have picked up large quantities of heat signatures and other emissions that potentially match human bodies, but we have not been able to capture them on any of our optical sensors as of yet. We would need to fly over the city to make a visual confirmation, but we risk detection by the inhabitants if we do so. For now, the citizens of A27 remain ignorant of our presence."

A lot of other Vandals pitched in a word. Each of them derived various clues out of their observations. Though the sensors readings had been taken at long range in order to prevent the city from catching wind of the scouts, they possessed just enough detail to weave a story.

Captain Byrd looked satisfied at what the brainstorming session had come up with. "So far, we've derived a handful of possibilities from these observations. I think it is safe to say that the inhabitants are truly descended from the crew of the battleship, and that they have settled here in order to escape the pervasive influence of the battleship's ongoing catastrophe."

The projection flicked back to an aerial view of the less turbulent hemisphere of the planet.

"At least three-thousand years might have passed since the crash, but for some reason the amount of settlements haven't grown. The lack of growth and the emphasis on building high and thick walls around every settlement suggests that there is an outside threat that is keeping them locked within their cages."

"Uhm.. if there are beasts or something out there that poses a threat to these survivors, shouldn't we be worried about the threat as well?" A mech lieutenant asked. "We haven't set up any barriers around our base, and half of our mechs are pulled out of action because they are still waiting to be fixed."

"We can take them." Captain Orfan stated confidently. "We deployed enough mechs to cover every direction of attack. The ground is so hard and packed that anything attempting to burrow underneath us will face a nasty surprise."

Captain Byrd surprisingly backed up her rival's assertion. "I concur with that sentiment. Our defenses and alarm systems are more than adequate to anticipate any incoming threats. This is also an exceptionally barren region where no exobeasts should be able to survive. However, as soon as we move to the lusher regions of the planet, there is a significant chance of encountering the threats the settlements have been guarding against for millenia."

"So what do we do, ma'am?"

"We proceed cautiously until we gather a sufficient amount of intelligence to form a plan in response. Since the regressed descendants of a battleship are able to fend off the threats, so can we. To do so we need information, and I prefer to gather them before our journey brings us into the more populated regions of the planet."

The map of the planet centered back onto the base, though it also incorporated A27 along with a couple of other settlements in the vicinity.

"I've been in discussion with Commander Lydia over this issue and we have decided to take a joint approach at this problem. Our first thrust is to continue sending out scouts. They will be sent increasingly farther from the camp until they reach the edge of the forests and prairies. Once there, I expect them to find signs of more active life."

A series of arrows pointed outwards to the nearest regions in questions. All of them looked lush and bountiful enough that they might be able to support millions of dangerous exobeasts.

Another line emerged from the camp. This one traced a mostly-direct path to A27, only detouring when encountering difficult or impassable terrain.

In fact, Seven looked as if it once suffered a serious impact that cracked its entire surface. This made traveling in straight lines very difficult. Some of the trenches in the terrain reached an estimated depth of several kilometers.

"Besides sending out scouts, I also intend to obtain relevant information by making contact with the inhabitants of A27." Captain Byrd announced. No one looked too surprised by that, as they all knew they would have made contact with the locals eventually. "One of the reasons why we have decided to land close to A27 is because it is the largest and most normal-looking cities that we have been able to determine from orbit. We can only hope that the descendants are.. civilized enough to be able to establish peaceful first contact."

The ranking officer deliberately used the phrase 'first contact' to emphasize that they wouldn't be making contact with a normal group of humans. With how much time they spent in isolation on this planet, their culture and society must have diverged enormously from modern human standards.

The CFA used to pride itself as one of the pinnacle organizations of the human race. For their descendents to fall to the point where they eked out a potentially miserable existence behind high and sturdy walls signified that too much had changed.

The descendents may carry the blood of the CFA, but they likely forgot the essence of what it meant to serve one of the Big Two.

"Who will be part of the first contact team?"

"I will be going personally to establish first contact with the citizens of A27." The captain stated. "I am the only one among the Vandals with an inkling of diplomatic training, so there is no one else who can do a better job. I wish to bring a small number of experts along to observe the state of the city and its citizens and to provide consultation if necessary. Chief Dakkon, Mr. Larkinson, Dr. Tillman, the three of you shall be lending your expertise during first contact."

Ves feared such a request, but he half-expected it. Even if the inhabitants of A27 didn't appear to be making use of mechs, his depth of knowledge still made him a qualified general engineer who could provide an accurate assessment on many matters.

The same applied to Chief Engineer Dakkon. Even if it was unlikely that A27 operated any starships or shuttles, his expertise in large-scale machinery such as the industrial power reactors the scouts have recognized should be extremely relevant to their initial foray into the city.

Dr. Flosie Tillman on the other hand would be lending her expertise on the people and possible wildlife native to Seven. As a fairly young exobiologist, Dr. Tillman may not be the most competent researcher in her field, but she was one of the few the Flagrant Vandals managed to retain for whatever reason.

Since none of the experts in question objected to their assignment, Captain Byrd turned to Captain Orfan. "You and your assault company will be coming with me to provide some muscle. I think the sight of forty clean and deadly-looking mechs will be helpful in the negotiations to come."

"Why do I have to guard your wrinkly butt?! I'm not the only mech captain available here!"

"This 'wrinkly butt' of mine doesn't trust you to stay putt in camp. I'd feel much more reassured if you remain under my thumb. Besides, if first impressions have taken an awful turn, I am not above resorting to intimidation in order to force the locals into a dialogue. An aggressive boor like you speaks the same language as the primitives we might encounter if the initial meeting goes sour."

Some of the Vandals tried to keep in their laughter. Even if the mech regiment maintained a cruder culture, it would still be bad form to laugh in the presence of their current commanding officer.

Captain Orfan on her part looked as if she wanted to bark Captain Byrd's head off, but she painstakingly held in her irritation. She wouldn't be able to win a confrontation because Major Verle put Byrd in charge.

"Very well, ma'am. I'll play guard dog for you. Just don't expect me to smile while I'm at it. I'm not the kind of dog who plays tricks on command."

Byrd ignored Orfan's grumbling. "I have one more detail to add. I won't be making contact with the locals alone. The Swordmaidens have a lot of experience in making contact with indigenous settlers in the frontier who have lost contact with the greater galaxy, so they will be sending their own delegation along with a mech company as guards."

"Will Commander Lydia be joining the first contact delegation, ma'am?"

"No. The commander will remain behind in the camp in order to take charge of its defense should any threats emerge. She has pledged to send a diplomat from her own ranks."

That added up to around eighty mechs to escort the first contact delegation as they attempted to make contact with the inhabitants of A27. Ves hoped that would be enough to deter any trouble.

Chapter 782

Once the order had been given to establish first contact with the city with the temporary designation of A27, the entire camp went into a frenzy. Everyone received a couple of hours to prepare for the fairly lengthy trip.

Ves spent an hour checking over the forty mechs from Captain Orfan's assault company. Though some of the mechs deployed to the surface with various issues, most of them had been fixed by now, and the problems that remained required a lot of time to resolve.

The assault company's mech lineup lent itself well to a forceful assault where a combination of raw power and aggressive mobility enabled them to attack quickly and with considerable momentum.

True to the Vandals, all of the mechs consisted of Vesian-standard mechs looted from Vesian trade convoys and production facilities. In practice, this did not lead to too much inconvenience as long as the entire mech regiment stuck to the same standards.

Vesian mechs possessed their own idiosyncrasies that Ves became intimately aware of after months of having them under his supervision. He actually started to forget how a Brighter mech looked like.

Two controversies popped up at the end of the meeting earlier. One question was whether the first contact delegation would be joined by Venerable Karol Xie in his Pale Dancer.

Eventually, Captain Byrd denied the suggestion for various reasons. "From my understanding, the Pale Dancer still requires extensive tweaks to ready it for heavy gravity conditions, so will remain stuck in the workshop for the foreseeable time. In addition, I am not entirely reassured in leaving our portion of the camp without a champion that can deter Commander Lydia of the Swordmaidens. Besides, from the destitute state of their city, I don't think they are powerful enough to be able to match the strength of an expert pilot. This is a diplomatic mission, not a conquest mission."

Ves himself did not know what to make of Venerable Xie. He became a little less certain if his tampering on the neural interfaces produced the desired result. At the very least, it appeared the side effects turned out to be more severe than anyone had anticipated.

It had grown so bad that Ves sneakily isolated himself with the Pale Dancer, activated his signal jammer, and quickly accessed its neural interface's programming to dial down the effects of his tampering.

Hopefully, this would lessen the side effects while preventing Venerable Xie from regaining his clarity regarding his old loyalties. Most crucially, Ves also tamped down the destructive performance boost so that the expert pilot would last a little longer before keeling over from wearing out his nerves.

The second issue was whether any of the Akkara heavy cannoneers would be joining the escorts. Both Captain Byrd and Ves shook their heads.

The Vandals did not send down a lot of heavy mechs for various reasons. First, the fleet needed them more in order to give their combat carriers a leg up in terms of ranged firepower. Second, the crushing gravity amplified the weight of a heavy mech that already weighed five times more than a medium mech into a nearly immovable bounder that suddenly weighed six times more than that!

In other words, a single heavy mech expended thirty times as much energy as a regular mech under standard gravity to move!

The energy budget of the ground forces squealed like a tortured pig each time the Vandals sent down another Akkara mech. They were so heavy that their strongest transport could only bring them down one by one.

In the end, they decided to send down just ten heavy mechs, and employ them as nothing more than base turrets.

Sending them out with the first contact delegation not only lengthened the trip by several times, they also negated most of the assault company's advantages in mobility.

The heavy mechs moved so slowly and expended so much energy that the Vandals had to improvise and design specialized legged transports to carry them over a distance at a faster pace but without expending too much energy.

It would have been ideal if the ground forces could make use of tracked or wheeled transports for their efficiency, but unfortunately Seven exhibited a lot of rough and even terrain that made such means of transportation impractical.

Babysitting these heavy mechs consumed an inordinate amount of attention and resources. Fortunately, Ves didn't need to pay too much attention to them after issuing a couple of instructions. The most important work consisted of building their 'chariots', and that involved other disciplines which the Vandals could perform on their own.

"I don't even know if bringing along these heavy mechs are more trouble than they are worth."

While they could pump out a lot of firepower, the Vandals opted to bring only a limited amount of ammunition for their ballistic cannons. Not only did the shells weigh so much that they burdened their transport capacity, the mechs were simply not very cost-effective on a planet that amplified everything's gravity by six times.

They couldn't even move outside of the influence of strong antigrav fields!

Compared to the chariots that needed more time to be assembled, Ves expressed much more interest in the so-called fast transports. These lighter legged transports resembled narrow beetles in their overall shape. Dedicated to transporting troops and passengers, they moved a lot faster than any of the cargo transports, enough to keep up with a company of mechs with active gravitic backpacks on a swift jog.

Of course, they wouldn't be visiting without supplies. A cargo transport would be taking part of the first contact mission as well, as the mechs needed the extra batteries and energy cells to keep the gravitic backpacks mounted to the mechs fed.

Captain Byrd also ordered the cargo transport to be loaded with various valuables that they might be able to use to barter for goods or information from the natives. Data pads containing basic knowledge, small generators, anti-grav modules, junk exotics, nutrient packs and more had been stuffed in the cargo holds, just waiting to be traded away.

Out of respect for the CFA, Captain Byrd invested heavily in accomplishing a peaceful first contact. If the situation somehow devolved into violence, it was important for the Vandals and the Swordmaidens not to throw the first punch or provoke the locals into lashing out.

Ves found it kind of funny that the Vandals prioritized staying into the CFA's good graces even as they attempted to loot one of their crash-landed battleships. He wasn't even sure how they planned to get away with that deed, but then again a lot of shady dealings happened behind the scenes.

Before Ves boarded the fast transport which would be carrying Captain Byrd and her staff, he spent some time in incorporating his new present into his combat armor.

Compared to the small backup knives embedded into hidden compartments into his armor, the Cadisis was larger but infinitely more capable. Ves experimentally punched the tip through a spare piece of armor plating and managed to punch it through with only a moderate effort on his part.

After performing a few more tests in which the stiletto-style knife remained as sharp as ever, Ves expressed his admiration at its craftsmanship. "What an amazing weapon! This weapon is built to pierce through armor!"

A hunger for knowledge ignited in his heart. The techniques involved in forging this weapon was exquisite. The alloys utilized to make it so strong yet so sharp remained a mystery to Ves, because when he put it under a scanner, the device simply failed to register the object!

"How is it able to evade the scanning?"

Ves immediately understood that the swordsmith incorporated an entirely different form of stealth than the stealth tech that he painstakingly studied. The Six-Sided Dice that he built with Avanaeon relied entirely on active stealth systems that ran on power, while the unassuming-looking Cadicis evaded almost every form of detection due to its material composition alone!

"I'm going to need an industrial scanner tweaked to exacting settings if I ever want to figure out its composition." He sighed.

His private lab at the Mech Nursery contained such a rig, but out here on the field he had access to no such thing. For now, the Cadisis remained as inscrutable as the Amestendira.

"At least I figured out some more uses for this gift."

The Amastendira was his trump card that he didn't really wish to show off whenever he landed himself in a spot of trouble. As the previous incident with the Acolyte in the shuttle had shown him, the weapon was way too powerful for its own good, and dialing down its standard power setting took too long in emergencies.

The weapon also released too much emissions that made it impossible for Ves to employ the weapon with any degree of stealth.

The Cadisis on the other hand exemplified stealth, especially after Ves incorporated it into a hidden holster integrated in his Earth Ant's vambrace. Upon activating a hidden command, the Cadisis discreetly slid out into his armored palm, allowing him to wield the weapon in a stable grip out of sight and without throwing up any noise.

Of course, outwardly Ves maintained the illusion of being nothing more than a noncombatant with hardly any combat power. The Earth Ant had been designed to look as plain an non-threatening as powerful for a suit of light combat armor. While it looked a little thicker than the combat armor worn by other support personnel, an enemy would probably chalk it up to his insecurity.

The only weapon he deigned to carry outwardly was a standard-issue laser pistol. While he would have ordinarily chosen to carry a ballistic pistol to balance out the Amastendira's damage type, any form of projectile weapons simply performed like crap on this heavy gravity planet. They only maintained their effectiveness under the influence of antigrav fields, which didn't cover much terrain at all.

"Mr. Larkinson! It's time! Captain Byrd requests you to board the fast transport with immediate haste!"

"I'm coming!"

Ves waved away the messenger and quickly adorned his Earth Ant after he completed his jury-rigged modifications. The combat armor felt as responsive as ever, and a quick check to its systems showed that he didn't screw anything up.

Satisfied with his preparations, he grabbed a spare infantry-sized gravitic backpack and attached it to the standardized slot in the rear of his armor.

Everyone wore one by default. If they ever found themselves outside of the influence of an antigrav field, they needed to rely on it to see themselves to safety before its batteries expired.

Exiting the workshop, Ves crossed the base and walked to the edge of the camp where a full mech company stood in an impressive-looking column. The tall mechs made for an intimidating sight, and the Vandals hoped that the sight of them would be enough to deter any malicious thoughts from the natives they were about to contact.

As Ves walked up to the ramp extended from the fast transport, he entered its shuttle-like interior and found that heavily-armed security officers occupied most of the seats.

He tracked down the other experts at the very front of the passenger compartments. He plopped himself down on one of the oversized seats meant to accommodate exoskeleton soldiers and greeted the man sitting in the next chair over.

"Hey. You're Chief Dakkon, right?"

"Yep." The older man replied. "I've heard about you as well. You're the famously young head designer of our little club. When we first heard a squirt like you got field promoted to your current posting, none of us thought you'd be able to keep all of our mechs together. We all expected you to crash and burn in a couple of weeks."

Ves grinned. "Well, sorry to beat your expectations, but not a lot of mechs have blown up under my watch. So, which starship did you come from? I haven't seen you before."

"That's not a surprise because I'm one of the chief engineers of the Beggar's Bounty. While my main responsibility is to keep the fat logistics ship running, I'm also cross-trained in heavy industrial machinery. That makes me very suitable to help oversee the industrial activities the ground forces are engaged with. All of our mining activities and the production of the legged transports fall under my watch."

Ves looked very surprised at Dakkon. He hadn't expected to meet such a capable engineer among the Vandals. He suddenly grew very interested in the older man.

Chapter 783

As both a ship engineer and a mechanical engineer, Dakkon possessed a very broad base of knowledge.

While someone like Chief Avanaeon may be more in tune with the most complicated aspects of starships such as their FTL drives, Chief Dakkon was more of a jack-of-all-trades that made him suitable to take up a leadership post on a logistics ship.

"It sounds like you didn't start off as a ship engineer." Ves remarked.

"True. I never imagined I ended up in the Mech Corps." Chief Dakkon sighed as the fast transport and its escort of mechs started to get underway. The journey to A27 took roughly a standard day, so they had plenty of time to chat. "As you've no doubt noticed, I used to start off as a mechanical engineer with a specialty in heavy equipment. After I got my degree, I worked at several industrial manufacturers that manufactured everything from ore harvesters to space station components."

"Did you enjoy it?"

"Of course I did! I constantly participated in projects involving different machines. I became good at my job as well and received promotion after promotion."

"What about mechs? Did you ever get in touch with them?"

"Nope. I don't have any desire to work with mechs at all."

"How so?"

The chief turned to Ves. "This may sound like news to you, but not everyone is nuts for mechs. To be frank, they disgust me. The introduction of mechs to humanity hasn't curbed our race's destructive instincts at all. They merely channeled them in a more accessible format where the damage is limited to a level below where they are a threat to entire planets."

The sudden vehemence in the chief engineer's voice along with the familiar argument stoked Ves' recognition. "You sound like one of those peace advocates."

"Guilty as charged! I used to be a member of the Old Pacifists even. We used to believe we were one of the few people who believed that humanity is better than their murderous, infighting ways."

"What changed?"

"I screwed up on the job." Chief Dakkon averted his eyes from Ves and stared down at the deck. "I made an inexcusable error and earned the ire of my employer. The only way I escape retaliation without leaving the Bright Republic was to join the Mech Corps. When the Old Pacifists found out, they kicked me out of the club. I didn't miss them anyway. After spending a lot of time with the Vandals, I realized that humans are too greedy to put down their warring ways. Once I accepted that fact, I kept my head down and worked earnestly for my new home until I was promoted to chief engineer. That's my life's story in a nutshell. Boring, is it not?"

"I don't agree." Ves said gently. "The Flagrant Vandals are filled with interesting people who have made mistakes but are working to redeem themselves. Everyone has a unique story to tell."

"Well, don't pry so much if you know what's good for you, kid. Not everyone appreciates it if someone airs their secrets."

They strayed away from the chief's background and instead turned their discussion towards their work. Talking shop benefited them both as they exchanged new ideas and cast a different perspective on matters.

Ves quickly found out that while he mastered a lot more theory, Chief Dakkon possessed an advantage in both experience and problem solving capacity.

The man also turned out to be a font of handy little insights.

"So you designed these legged transports, right?"

"I wouldn't say that I'm the designer of the transports." Dakkon immediately pushed back. "I've merely borrowed a template design from the central database and spent a couple of months on refining its design to suit our circumstances. I didn't expect the terrain of Seven to be so difficult to traverse in many places, though, so I that's why it's taking longer than we anticipated to get the legged transports up and running. Their legs need to be longer in order to traverse most of the complex terrain."

"How fast can they run?"

"Not a lot. They're meant to move outside of the influence of an antigrav field in order to conserve energy. While those antigrav modules, it wastes a lot of energy, so its more efficient to design the legged transports with greater power than to lighten them up. The only downside that comes with this efficiency is that the transports can only run thirty to forty kilometers an hour at most, though I won't be surprised if that dips down to twenty kilometers an hour."

"At that pace, it's going to take us ages to traverse to the other side of the planet."

"We don't have any other choice. Our mechs can run faster as long as their gravitic backpacks are supplied with energy, but they are already running through them like they're sieves. Our engineers have to divert a lot of effort into finding means to generate more energy on our own in order to recharge our spent energy cells and batteries."

The root of their survival and longevity on the surface rested on their ability to manage their energy supply. Good energy management enabled them to go on longer without depending on outside help.

The ground forces initially touched down in the calmer hemisphere of the planet. Right now, there weren't too many barriers in place that prevented the Vandals and the Swordmaidens to be supplied from the fleet up in orbit.

All of this would change once the ground expedition crossed over into the turbulent hemisphere. The closer they got to the Starlight Megalodon, the harder it was to remain in contact with the fleet up in orbit. The increasing amount of turbulence eventually cut them off entirely, leaving the ground forces to fend for themselves.

So trying to start off on the right foot in terms of energy management immediately became their primary concern. Chief Dakkon and the other engineers, technicians and machinists all shouldered a huge burden. Without their constant efforts, the ground forces would never make it all the way to the Starlight Megalodon without running out of energy and supplies.

As time went by, the passengers started to get bored. As the fast transport moved towards A27 alongside another crawler from the Swordmaidens, people inside started taking naps and ate nutrient packs whenever they grew hungry.

By the time the delegation arrived at the city, the sky looked as bright as ever. In fact, the brightness of the astral winds annoyed so many Vandals and Swordmaidens that they started to wear protective visors or ocular augments in order to prevent their eyes from straining.

Others simply unfolded the helmets of their hazard suits or combat armor in order to save their eyes the trouble.

The fast transport halted five kilometers away from the walls of A27. Ves peered in the distance and admired its apparent. The patina and rust adorning the walls alluded to a rich history.

Captain Byrd collected the three experts together in an elevated compartment of the fast transport. The roof started to fold back while the deck rose into the air, placing them onto the upper surface of the vehicle.

"A27 stands before us." She began. "Right now, our main challenge is to initiate peaceful contact. To do so, we'll have to convince them that we don't have any hostile intentions to their city. I'm not sure whether they are familiar with mechs. It could be that they have lost the technology to field them into battle, so there is a risk that they'll mistake our mechs as giant monsters. Do you have any suggestions to facilitate peaceful contact?"

The young female exobiologist spoke up first. "I've been studying the markings on the walls and they definitely show signs of being attacked by exobeasts that are even larger than most mechs. Most of them appear to have been inflicted by quadrupeds or multi-limbed exobeasts, so the sight of upright mechs should be sufficiently distinguishable from whatever it is they are fending off."

"Good point, Dr. Tillman. While it is impossible to predict how they will react to mechs, it is necessary for us to project a certain amount of strength as well, so I will bring at least four of them along to impress upon the rulers of the city that we mean business. Any other suggestions?"

Chief Dakkon raised an important point. "I know that wireless communication is kind of borked under all of this interference, but why not try to send a powerful transmission first? If they still operate functioning transceivers, it may be possible to start a discussion at a safe distance."

"No." Captain Byrd shook her head. "First impressions are important. They may not even believe who we are if we attempt to hail them from a distance."

After entertaining a bit more feedback, she eventually decided to just stand on top of the fast transport and slowly approach the walled city under a modest escort of four mechs.

As the small delegation detached itself from the rest of the mech company that would be staying behind in case they needed backup, the fast transport dictated their pace as it crawled into view of the city and vica versa.

Though the errant distortion made long-ranged detection rather hard, the large transports and mechs should have been visible long ago. Disconcertingly, the city exhibited no reaction at their approach.

As the range fell to a kilometer, the city seemed like a dead husk rather than a thriving settlement. However, the increasingly-detailed sensor readings revealed that A27 hosted at least a hundred-thousand people, all of them spread through every part of the city.

By the time the fast transport stood five-hundred meters away, Captain Byrd ordered a halt.

Silence dominated the plains before the city wall and its ditch. After several minutes of patient waiting, Byrd came to the decision that the inhabitants wouldn't be making the first move any time soon.

"Transmit my voice over the loudspeaker." She ordered one of the operators of the fast transport. "Amplify and project my voice towards the city. Let's see them ignoring us now."

Once the transport's 'mouth' opened up to reveal a shaped loudspeaker built just for this purpose, Captain Byrd started to greet the city in the simplest manner possible.

"TO THE PEOPLE INHABITING THE CITY BEFORE US! WE ARE VISITORS FROM BEYOND THE SKY. YOUR ANCESTORS FROM THE COMMON FLEET ALLIANCE ARE KNOWN TO US. WE GREET YOU IN THE NAME OF FRIENDSHIP AND TRADE."

Despite projecting Captain Byrd's booming voice over the entire city, not a single human showed up to give a reply. The mech captain waited for an entire minute before speaking again.

'WE HAVE COME FROM BEYOND THE STARS TO HELP YOU ESTABLISH CONTACT WITH THE OUTSIDE GALAXY. WE CAN HELP YOUR CITY BECOME STRONGER. WE HAVE BROUGHT FOOD AND TECHNOLOGY SUCH AS ADDITIONAL POWER REACTORS AND ANTIGRAV MODULES. WE ARE PREPARED TO TRADE ALL OF OUR GOODS IN EXCHANGE FOR FRIENDSHIP AND INFORMATION."

Another gnawing silence followed after those words. The city didn't appear to be rousing itself in response to Captain Byrd's enticement at all.

"Have the descendants gone deaf or something?" Chief Dakkon wondered.

"That's unlikely." Doctor Tillman rejected the suggestion. "The environmental conditions here does not give any reason for humans to decouple themselves from their hearing."

Ves threw out another guess. "Maybe their prevailing language has drifted so far from standard human language that they don't even understand what we're saying."

"That is a possibility, but it is unlikely if they have maintained a certain degree of technology from the CFA." Captain Byrd replied. "I believe that the inhabitants are simply flustered by encountering something entirely different from the threats that they have faced so far. We need to give them time to make sense of our presence and form a unified response."

"I have a bad feeling about this, though." Ves cautiously said. "They had plenty of time to see us coming, and they would have definitely heard your greeting by now. What if they are preparing something other than a peaceful response?"

An alarm suddenly rang from the transport.

"Detecting incoming ordnance from the city! Take cover!"

All of them directed their attention towards the city. Of all the possible responses they could muster, the Vandals never expected the city to launch aircar-sized boulders at them with great force and speed! Though the heavy gravity pulled them down the ground rather quickly, they still ranged far enough to crash in the vicinity of the fast transport!

"Retreat!"

A second volley of boulders slammed into the terrains next to the transport and its modest escort. Neither the transport nor the mechs possessed any armaments that could intercept the boulders, so they couldn't do anything against the rocks!

Chapter 784

The rocks stopped being able to reach the fleeing transport and mechs after passing roughly a kilometer of distance. Simple gravity prevented the rocks from flying any further, though they rolled forward at a considerable distance even when they landed.

Ves immediately recognized that the rocks had deliberately been chiseled into a rounded shape to facilitate the rolling motion.

Even though launching rocks seemed to be an incredibly primitive form of attack, the possible damage they could inflict was no joke! Their transport would have suffered a huge dent if hit!

The main problem with relying on throwing boulders was that they weren't very accurate. While the rocks launched under standard gravity conditions inside the city, once the projectiles left the antigrav field that surrounded the city, they almost literally started dropping like rocks.

That limited their eventual range to a kilometer away at best.

"Did the inhabitants of the city employ a catapult or trebuchet?" Dr. Tillman asked with a puzzled frown.

Nobody knew why the city launched rocks at them instead of firing shells or lasers at the delegation. Still, Captain Byrd did not take the hostile response to heart. The reaction of the city revealed much.

"They're still alive, that's for certain. Their technology level seems to have regressed beyond our what we have anticipated, and we're not certain if they still speak the same language as us. However, if they fear us enough to attack us with their boulder weapons, then we share at least one common language. The language of violence."

"Uhh.. what about the diplomatic approach, ma'am?" Ves asked.

"The time for the soft approach is over. If we continue to approach the city meekly after they launched rocks at us, they'll consider us as pushovers. Right now, we need to give them a good wakeup call in order to drag them to the negotiating table. For that, we'll need to coordinate with the Swordmaidens."

The Swordmaidens had been content to let Captain Byrd take the lead in the initial contact. The transport holding their representative and escorts on foot had remained behind with the rest of the mechs on standby.

As the fast transport approached its Swordmaiden counterpart and rested next to the other vehicle, a Swordmaiden crossed over to the Vandals.

"Captain Clarissa."

"Hah! Captain Byrd!" The savage-looking Swordmaiden greeted with a mocking grin. "I told you that those who are holed up in their settlements won't be happy to see you. To them, you're monsters or aliens that they haven't seen yet. A city as battered and stagnant as theirs will always lash out violently when visitors pop up out of the blue."

Captain Clarissa appeared to be a formidable Swordmaiden who exhibited several wild traits that made it seem she had spent much of her youth in a tribal settlement. The bones of her exobeast kill adorned her entire armor as proof of her individual prowess. The characteristic greatsword of the Swordmaidens rested comfortably behind her back.

The two captains started to huddle together in a corner to discuss what they derived from the initial contact. Ves tried to eavesdrop as best as possible without straying too close.

From their initial discussion, they agreed that while it may be possible to eventually convince the city of their peaceful intentions, it may take several days or weeks to build up an accord with the rulers of the city.

This was an unacceptable delay as the Flagrant Swordmaidens acutely needed to obtain more information about the possible threats they might encounter in their travels.

After an extensive discussion involving lots of speculation and guesswork, they decided to take the forceful approach in the next attempt. Both the Swordmaidens and the Vandals would be bringing their full mech companies into view. Perhaps the sight of eighty mechs might shock the inhabitants into resorting to other means than launching rocks at anything that came close to the walls.

Eighty mechs stepped forward in unison and marched in ranks as best they could on the slightly uneven terrain. A27's walls loomed closer and closer, though this time their transports crawled well behind the columns of mechs.

Once the mechs had reached a kilometer away from the city walls, they halted and spread out to make it harder for the city to target them all. Various melee mechs stood in front including all of their knights. The ranged mechs all readied their laser rifles in the event their services would be needed.

This time, Captain Byrd adopted a more forceful tone as the fast transport projected her voice towards the city. "INHABITANTS OF THE CITY BEFORE US. WE COME IN FRIENDSHIP AND PEACE. WE SEEK TO TRADE AND EXCHANGE INFORMATION. AT NO POINT DO WE WANT TO GO TO WAR OR ATTEMPT TO TAKE OVER YOUR CITY. HOWEVER, IF YOU CONTINUE TO IGNORE US OR LAUNCH AN ATTACK ON OUR FORCES, WE WON'T HESITATE TO TEACH YOU A LESSON!"

Ten seconds later, A27 sent out their response. They launched a volley of five rocks in the direction of the spread out mechs. None of them fell far enough to pose any direct threat to the mechs, though the rolling boulders forced some of the mechs to move aside in order to avoid a dent.

"ATTACKS ON OUR FORCES WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. IF YOU DO NOT CEASE YOUR ATTACKS IMMEDIATELY, WE WILL RESPOND IN KIND."

A second volley of rocks showed the inhabitants hadn't changed their minds. Captain Byrd continued to exhort the people of A27 to put down their hostilities using various arguments, but none of them really hit home. The city appeared to have stockpiled thousands of boulders from the way they continued to launch them towards the Vandals and Swordmaidens.

At some point, the fast transport hastily crawled to the side when one of the boulders rolled straight at the vehicle.

At that point, Captain Byrd accepted that verbal persuasion was unlikely to work. If the inhabitants got it in their heads that they could throw lethal rocks at the Flagrant Swordmaidens without suffering any retaliation, all their subsequent attempts at contact would be coming from a position of weakness.

"It's time to teach these yokels that we aren't as toothless as they think. Ranged mechs, open fire at your preselected targets! Begin at twenty-five percent strength!"

Half of their mechs started firing laser beams at only a quarter strength. Each of those laser beams lanced out towards the center of the walls. While the simultaneous discharge looked extremely impressive, the lasers hadn't actually inflicted a lot of surface damage to the thick and solid walls.

Not only did the laser beams possess only a fourth of their regular potency, the rifleman mechs all aimed at different portions of the wall. The initial salvo of laser beams was meant to wake the inhabitants up and to give them a good scare.

Half a minute went past before the city launched another volley of five rounded boulders in the direction of the Vandals and the Swordmaidens.

Ves was starting to think that these insular descendants needed a good smacking until they came to sense.

The mechs repeated their half-hearted laser discharges, which besides looking pretty really didn't do much more than to vaporize some of the surface layers while heating up the alloy wall at certain sections.

"Okay, it's time to stop handling them with kid gloves. Switch to the follow-up plan! Set power to a hundred percent, and focus your fire on the wall section next to the gates!"

The wall wasn't entirely uniform. Gates had been built in each cardinal direction, and they were large and tall enough to fit two mechs walking abreast.

Damaging the gates directly disincentivized the defenders from opening them up, while damaging a distant section of the wall might not alarm them as must. This was why the rifleman targeted the section just next to the western gate.

As the lasers burned brighter and hotter, forty of them instantly carved out a hole in the exact same spot.

A hole rapidly started forming on the thick alloy surface! Ves sat behind one of the consoles integrated in the fast transport and tracked the damage inflicted by the lasers. The intense heat caused the surrounding alloy to glow and blacken while the lasers continued to melt and vaporize anything in their way!

In just a couple of seconds, they already dug a couple of meters straight into the thick solid mass!

As the lasers encountered a new layer of alloy consisting out of more resistant material, the defenders started launching their rocks as fast as they could manage. In their evident panic, the launchers fell out of sync, causing some to launch their rocks faster than others.

The transports had already receded well beyond the effective range of the rocks, while the nimble rifleman mechs easily dodged the falling and rolling boulders as they continued to fire their lasers unerringly into the deepening hole their weapon carved out!

Even as the laser weapons started to accumulate a burst of heat, the Vandal and Swordmaiden rifleman mechs continued to persist until they finally bore straight through the other end of the wall!

All of the rifles immediately halted their fire. The visitors wanted to make a point, not to inflict any actual harm on the residents.

Silence emerged on the battlefield as the rocks stopped being launched in the direction of the mechs. Perhaps their thick skulls started to understand that they would continue to be sitting ducks if they kept hiding behind their walls to launch ineffective projectiles against the nimble mechs.

"At least they stopped launching rocks at us. That's good news, right?" Chief Dakkon asked.

"I won't be so sure of that. Whoever they are, I doubt they dropped their evident xenophobic stance at us." Ves replied. In situations like this, he always feared the worst.

"The west gate is opening!"

The thick double gates slowly shifted open at a snail's pace. The incredible weight and size of the gates made it difficult for anything to shift them open. The rifleman mechs could have easily interrupted the agonizingly slow process, but Captain Byrd ordered no such thing.

It was time for these mysterious inhabitants to reveal their faces to the visitors.

Three minutes later, the formerly-closed gates widened up to reveal a broad avenue. Just as Ves analyzed the glimpse they obtained of the interior of the city, a massive creature lumbered into sight.

"That's an exobeast!" Dr. Tillman called! "It's a warm-blooded, quadruped exobeast! I don't see any traces of Earth-based creatures in its appearance. This is an adaptive native exobeast!"

"Look at what's above!" Ves immediately identified a tiny presence on the top of the reptile-looking creature rocky, scaly hide. "There's a human mounted on a saddle above the creature's back!"

Ves, Chief Dakkon and Dr. Tillman rapidly derived the exobeast's properties as the creature slowly lumbered through the gates and parked itself in front of the city gates.

"The exobeast weighs as much as a heavy mech, if not more."

"The creature is an adult or an elder of its species. It's likely an apex species of this planet, as I can hardly imagine that this planet can support anything larger!"

"Strong readings are emanating from the large crystals embedded in the forehead, chest and various parts of its body. These are.. they're some kind of energy reservoirs! No, not only that, but they act as antigrav modules as well!"

Another mounted exobeast joined the first one. This one looked to be of an entirely different creature, though Dr. Tillman identified several similarities.

A third one appeared after the second one. A fourth one appeared after the third.

One by one, the city revealed their offensive might as the giant ridden exobeasts continued to step out of the gates until ten of them lined up in an intimidating row under the evident control of their riders!

At some command, the huge and deadly looking beasts opened up their maws and started to unleash an awful roar towards the Flagrant Swordmaidens!

"The savages are challenging us!"

Chapter 785

The biggest question in everyone's mind was whether the survivors of the Starlight Megalodon artificially cultivated these exobeasts. It seemed too preposterous to the Vandals and the Swordmaidens that the descendants managed to tame these powerful and savage exobeasts by relying on their charm.

Everyone paid a lot of attention to their local exobiologist Dr. Tillman, who endured a lot of pressure trying to figure out as much as possible from their appearances.

None of them expected the locals to use mounted exobeasts as war machines!

"Taming and mounting exobeasts is more common throughout the galaxy than you think." She remarked. "Those action dramas where exobeast riders are battling against each other somewhat reflect the truth. When people get stranded on a planet with giant exobeasts, their first thought is to defend against their aggression. Their second thought is to harness their power for their own uses. If they succeed, they have secured what is in all purposes a warbeast that can contend against mechs."

"So.. that makes it unlikely that the city fields any mechs?" Chief Dakkon asked.

"It isn't easy to keep an exobeast docile. Look at how big those creatures are. None of them appear to be herbivores either. These are apex predators who have grown close to the theoretical size limitations on unmodified organisms. I cannot tell whether the genes of the exobeasts in front of us are tampered with, but so far I have not detected any traces of human-directed optimizations."

That did not rule out that these reptilian-like exobeasts received some tune-ups. Those who tampered with their species had been very conservative in their intervention if someone did interfere in their evolution.

"Isn't this planet terraformed by the crew of the Starlight Megalodon?" Ves asked. "If that is true, then shouldn't these beasts be croaking or something?"

"It may be that the terraforming is less extensive than we initially expected. At the very least, the changes in the ecosystem and the change in air mixture may in fact have benefited these beasts more than others. Perhaps they are one of the few surviving apex predators that have survived the transition."

Too many explanations existed for them to make a solid conclusion. What mattered to the Vandals and the Swordmaidens was that A27 fielded ten formidable exobeasts, each of which massed more than a heavy mech!

While that did not necessarily mean they possessed the combat prowess of a heavy mech, their deadly appearances did not suggest that they grew to such a size because they enjoyed the heavy gravity.

On Aeon Corona VII, growing larger should have been a bad evolutionary path for most species! Those who evolved into larger creatures likely relied on something special to negate the drawbacks of enduring such a heavy gravity, and all of the clues so far pointed to the strange yellow crystalline growths embedded in their foreheads, limbs and other parts of their body!

Some only featured a couple of crystals while other creatures boasted more than a dozen of them! The center-most exobeast and the largest among them carried seventeen lustrous crystals.

"The big guy in the center must be the top dog of this bunch. It's the biggest creature by far and looks like it is keeping the other beasts in line."

"Those crystals serve as both energy reservoirs and antigrav modules." Chief Dakkon confirmed as he poured over the sensor readings directed at the exobeasts. "The crystals are holding a strange form of energy. I can't readily identify it. The antigravity effects they exert is almost identical to the field affected by an obsolete antigrav module. Those crystals are almost certainly designed by humans!"

"Are those crystals grown by the exobeasts or have humans embedded them into their flesh?"

"Implanted." Dr. Tillman stated after a few seconds. "I can see the remnants of crude surgery marks in the scales and hides surrounding the crystals. They've likely been implanted when these exobeasts were young or adolescent. However, I'm not sure how the crystals have grown to such a size. The readings suggests that the crystals have grown in tandem with the exobeasts."

This was the first definite clue that humans interfered with the growth of these exobeasts. For what purpose, though?

"The crystal closest to the rider is constantly emanating a small but concentrated field. It is shielding the riders from the brunt of the planet's gravity."

Well, that was one reason why humans went through the trouble embedding the crystals into the flesh of the exobeasts. Where did those crystals come from, and how had they been synthesized?

Even if Ves experimented with crystals before during his development of his Crystal Lord design, that did not mean he knew what was going on here. Each crystal possessed unique properties in the same way any metal different from each other.

Iron, lead, gold or titanium all fell under the category of metals, but they exhibited dramatically different attributes and applications.

While the experts conferred with each other and shared their observations, Captain Byrd conferred with Captain Clarissa of the Swordmaidens over short-ranged comms.

Both of them recognized that the exobeast riders issued a challenge against the Flagrant Swordmaidens!

Even though culture and language may have diverted over a span of thousands of years, some patterns of behavior remained constant throughout time. Not just humans, but many sentient alien species valued the concepts of duels.

Duels were basically the most primitive and direct way to establish superiority over others without resorting to a full-scale conflict. The leader or a champion put their life or honor on the line in a duel that would have far-reaching effects in the relations between the two parties.

The fact that the exobeast riders evidently demanded a duel showed even if the inhabitants had been largely uncommunicative towards the visitors, both sides still shared at least one common language!

The language of the biggest fist!

The contention between Captain Byrd and Captain Clarissa grew when they tried to decide how to respond.

Captain Byrd wanted to impress a message of absolute dominance by pitting all eighty of theour mechs against the ten formidable exobeasts. Though their combat prowess likely didn't match up to a heavy mechs, besting the natives through overwhelming numbers and firepower would hit home the disparity in power.

Captain Clarissa disagreed, though. Her voice came out loud and clear through the comm channel.

"We know how isolated settlers think and act. The riders who stepped out of the city gates are their leaders and champions. While they are uncertain of our intentions, the fact that they haven't stormed towards us means that there is still a way to gain their respect without walking over their pride. They demand a fair duel, and while it may be risky to send out our mechs to match the exobeasts in a duel, we must match their courage!"

To the Swordmaidens, accepting the challenge was a matter of honor. The Swordmaidens prided themselves on their combat prowess, and each of their adults survived a gruadation ceremony that compelled them to track down and slay a formidable exobeast on their own with nothing but some basic clothes and their swords!

The the Swordmaidens, these giant mech-sized exobeasts harkened back to the glory of forcing themselves to face off against an exobeast in open combat!

Eventually, Clarissa and Byrd agreed to send out one representative each. Captain Byrd gave the honor to Captain Orfan, who enthusiastically accepted the challenge.

"Don't you worry, old bird, I'll kick their scaly asses in a jiffy!" Captain Orfan boasted as she directed her spearman mech forward.

From the Swordmaiden ranks, a fairly typical Devil Razor stepped out from their ranks. This one appeared a little more ornate than most.

In fact, its tribal markings and the skeleton trophies adorning the Devil Razor caused the exobeasts to stamp their limbs and unsettle their exobeast riders. They may not be able to read the Devil Razor's tribal markings, but they recognized a champion when they saw one!

The spearman mech dyed in the same standard burgendy-and-black color scheme of all the other Vandal mechs seemed plain in comparison. Standing side-by-side with the Devil Razor, Captain Orfan's mech looked like a lackey rather than the machine of a mech officer.

Once they stepped at the midpoint about five-hundred meters away from the city walls, two of the exobeasts stepped forward. One of them appeared to be the king among their group while the other seemed to be of a different species.

They lumbered forward fairly quickly, though they appeared slower in every eyes due to their ponderous steps. Soon enough, they moved out of the citywide antigrav field, subjecting their entire bodies to six times the gravity.

The beasts hardly slowed down! The crystals largely remained dormant, with only the crystal closest to their riders emanating an active antigrav field.

"These exobeasts aren't built like runners." Dr. Tillman observed. "However, don't expect them to be slow to respond. Their musculature suggests that they can lunge and snap forward like a crocodile. Tell our duelists to watch out for lunging attacks."

"Every observation you make is being entered into our local database in addition to being shared with the Swordmaidens." Captain Byrd explained. "Keep up the good work. The more you figure out these exobeasts, the easier we can pull them off their pedestals."

Once the two exobeasts arrived at a certain distance from the two mechs, both sides stared at each other with wariness and anticipation.

The rider of the exobeast king then roused himself up his saddle and started to shout at the mechs. The two mechs at the front captured his voice and transmitted it back to the fast transport.

"You have approached Mulak, a territory of the sacred gods!" The man shouted in accented standard language. This confirmed that the descendants of the crew of the Starlight Megalodon hadn't lost all of their roots. "Hokaz, Tyrant of the Wastes, challenges one of your godless metal giants to sacred combat! If there is any honor among your heretical metal bones, then allow our sacred god to redeem you in battle!"

The reptilian exobeast unleashed a roar to emphasize the words issued by its rider!

"What the hell is a sacred god?" Chief Dakkon asked in puzzlement.

"I think the sacred gods refer to those exobeasts!" Ves supplied a possible response.

These descendants of the CFA actually revered these giant creatures! This was completely upside-down in the eyes of modern humanity. Alien species and beasts should be harnessed for their use, not the other way around! The thought that these seemingly brutish and primitive exobeasts actually ruled over the city sent a shudder through everyone's spines.

"That may not be necessarily true." Dr. Tillman quickly retorted. "Even if your words are factually true, their riders merely pay lip service to better corral the inhabitants of their cities. It is a lot harder to revolt against a heavy mech-sized beast than it is to rebel against a human leader."

Whether the exobeasts or their riders were actually in charge, nobody knew. The fact of the matter was that they were essentially acting as a single entity right now. The combination of an exobeast and its rider was equivalent to a mech and its mech pilot!

Captain Byrd sent an instruction to Captain Orfan. "These natives might not know that our mechs are piloted by humans. Go and pop your body out of your cockpit. They need to see that our so-called godless machines are ridden by humans."

A few seconds later, Captain Orfan and the Swordmaiden mech champion both emerged from their cockpits. They retracted the helmet of their piloting suits and revealed that they were humans just like the riders of the exobeasts!

The exobeasts and their riders reacted with considerable surprise. As expected, they had mistook the mechs for some kind of strange and aberrant giant creatures!

"I am Captain Rosa Orfan of the 6th Flagrant Vandals. On behalf of my mech regiment, I accept your challenge for single combat!"

"Good!" The lead rider laughed. "Then let us see if your godless machines can withstand the might of our sacred gods!"

The four champions didn't exchange a lot words. None of them were interested in talking. All of them acted like combat maniacs about to get their greatest fix!

Chapter 786

The Swordmaiden champion called dibs on dueling Hokaz, the Tyrant of the Wastes and presumably the ruler of Mulak, the city the Flagrant Swordmaidens once called A27!

Naturally, Captain Orfan strenuously objected. She wanted to hog the right to duel the formidable-looking Hokaz for herself!

Both Byrd and Clarrissa tried to hash the argument out among themselves.

"Captain Byrd, my champion is not only an experienced duelist, but also a hunter of many varied exobeasts." Captain Clarissa explained. "There are no other beast hunters among our ranks who have hunted down more exobeasts than Lieutenant Dise! While I respect you Vandals on your combat prowess, your forces are predominantly trained to fight against other mechs! Fighting an exobeast is another matter entirely than fighting a mech!"

Eventually, Byrd conceded against Clarissa's logic. She felt no guilt in ordering Captain Orfan to leave the job of dueling the biggest and baddest-looking exobeast to Lieutenant Dise!

"That's not fair!" Orfan complained. "She's just a pirate lieutenant! What gives her the qualifications to hog the big guy for herself! I should be the one to go toe-to-toe against Hokaz!"

Captain Byrd remained undeterred, however. "We know nothing about their species nor their combat prowess. Those embedded crystals possess an astonishing amount of power, and Hokaz exhibits the most of those strange crystals. Against these unknown species with unknown capabilities, it is best to reserve our best exobeast hunter against their biggest beast. Don't be too upset, Rosa. You have the honor of going first against their second-strongest creature."

Although Captain Orfan replied over the comm with a profanity-laden tirade, Byrd swiftly muted the comm channel as if it was an ingrained reflex. After ten or so seconds, she unmuted the channel again.

"Fine! Just fine! I'll go forward and serve up my mech as your guinea pig, but you better give me first dibs next time!"

The Vandal mech captain jumped back into her cockpit and directed her mech forward in a clear acceptance of the challenge.

Lieutenant Dise entered her own Devil Razor and took a step back to indicate that they agreed to a one-one-one duel.

That served the other side just right. The lead rider looked to the woman who piloted the second-strongest exobeast. They exchanged some words before Hokaz slowly lumbered backwards.

The other exobeast proceeded to hobble forward. While this creature was almost as large as Hokaz, it looked a bit more slender than the Tyrant of the Wastes, though it was also longer from head to tail. Its scales and hide took on a deep dark blue coloring, only to be broken up by a speckled pattern of shiny white scales.

The creature looked like it embodied a star-studded night. Ves wondered if the stranded descendants even knew what night really looked like. With the bright astral winds flowing constantly over their heads, Aeon Corona VII had never once experienced what it was like to be plunged into darkness since the Starlight Megalodon crash-landed onto its surface.

The female rider began to announce herself. "I am Pirisa, Gatekeeper of the River of Souls and chosen of Naeduvis, the Life Giver! I hereby challenge you and your sword-wielding machine to a sacred duel! If we win, you godless machine riders must depart from the territory of our god-king!"

Captain Orfan broadcasted her own reply, though she merely parroted Captain Byrd's words whispered into her ears. "I accept your duel! However, are not conquerors who have come to wrest control over your territory. We have no cause to fight to the death! Also, if my machine and I manage to win, you must treat our delegation as friendly guests and promise not to do them harm!"

Pirisa, the rider of Naeduvis, spoke something to the rider of Hokaz. The female rider eventually nodded in assent. "Your demands are acceptable! "

"Then it is agreed! We shall fight until one of us surrenders or is put in a position of submission! No one else may intervene in our duel!"

The spearman mech moved forward with its knees slightly bent in order to facilitate a dodge. The mech held out its shortspear in a steady, two-handed grip, and appeared ready to stab it forward whenever Orfan spotted an opportunity.

Naeduvis on its part stomped forward in a slow but momentous gait. Just its movements caused a lot of the Vandals and Swordmaidens present to feel intimidated.

Out of respect for their opponents and their own martial traditions, the Vandals and the Swordmaidens sent out a melee mech each.

While the two forces could have sent a nimble rifleman mech to kite these lumbering brutes to a death by a thousand cuts, such a victory would never feel as satisfying as achieving victory on their strongest aspect!

To Ves, all this emphasis on honor and fairness rankled him. Once a conflict led to a dual, it seemed that every mech pilot suddenly lost half of their intelligence! They became as rowdy and competitive as thirteen-year old kids in school!

If he was in charge of the Flagrant Swordmaidens, he would have gone for Captain Byrd's initial suggestion and just stomp all over the natives with their superior numbers and firepower.

Barring that, he would have at least presented the rifleman mechs so that they could grind the lumbering exobeasts while constantly on the move and out of reach.

It shouldn't be a crime to exploit an enemy's fatal flaw!

By now, Orfan's spearman mech reached a typical starting range from Naeduvis. The long and somewhat slender exobeast stared glowering with glowering eyes at what it considered to be a godless machine. A long tongue flickered in and out of its jaws lined with razor-sharp teeth.

The staring match stretched on for a minute before the Pirisa abruptly raised a clenched fist. "Naeduvis, the Life Giver, show these godless machines what a true sacred god can do! I call upon you to draw upon the vault of the gods!"

Inside the fast transport, Ves thought that such an announcement sounded fanciful but without substance, but Chief Dakkon suddenly cried out in alarm.

"The energy levels within the crystals embedded in its hide are being activated somehow! It's stirring something up!"

"Dr. Tillman, what is going on?!" Captain Byrd asked with an apprehensive voice.

"I don't have enough data, ma'am!" The frazzled doctor replied as the wind around Naeduvis started to revolve into some kind of funnel. "The exobeast's crystals aren't part of its biology. Their functioning falls outside of my expertise!"

Chief Dakkon couldn't say much either. Without studying these crystals extensively in a lab, they only had outside observations to go on, which didn't help them much. After all, the chief never detected that the crystals were capable of whipping up this kind of phenomenon!

On her part, Captain Orfan refrained from attacking, though she would be fully in her right to do so. In her judgement, Naeduvis was starting to wind itself up and accumulate more strength. So long it didn't behave to excessively, Orfan's honor dictated that she should let her opponent do so in order to face it at its strongest!

"Look at the astral winds!" Chief Dakkon called out. "Naeduvis is affecting the higher-dimensional particles somehow!"

Every Vandal and Swordmaiden looked on with their mouths gaped open as an invisible energy tornado formed above the dark blue exobeast. This funnel stretched out so far above the sky that it actually connected to the astral winds flowing turbulently above their heads.

The energy tornado siphoned a small but bright trickle of higher-dimensional particles. The glowing wind circled downwards from the skies until it slammed into the crystals adorning the exobeast.

"The crystals are releasing stronger emissions! The entire beast is being surrounded by a weak energy field as well as an antigrav field along its entire bulk! Heat signatures are also rising! The exobeast itself is siphoning some of the incoming energy!"

The scales of the creature known as Naeduvis started to take on an even deeper and shiner luster that overlapped with the energy field the brightly-glowing crystals had managed conjure out of nowhere. The sheer amount of higher-dimensional particles compressed into the crystal interfered with their sensor readings, causing the observers to be unable to figure out exactly what was happening!

Whatever the exobeast just did, it just performed a feat that the technologically-superior Flagrant Swordmaidens had never managed to do, and that was to manipulate the astral winds!

"How can this huge creature draw upon the astral winds?" Captain Byrd asked with astonishment. "Isn't that supposed to be higher-dimensional energy that is off-limits to the material dimensions?"

"The key lies in those crystals, ma'am. I don't know what they are and where they come from, but I bet that all of this is attributed to those amazing objects!"

As Chief Dakkon blabbed on about the value of those embedded crystals, Ves made a startling observation on his own. The sensor readings that he paid attention to started to emit a faint pattern that nonetheless shouldn't ordinarily be possible!

"Captain, our sensors have picked up signs of the equivalent of a man-machine connection between Naeduvis and Pirisa! The beast rider is neurally connected with the exobeast!"

"How?!"

"I don't know, ma'am! I haven't detected any neural interfaces or any other artificial constructs!"

"Is it the crystals?"

"I'm not sure, but the connection is linking their brains together directly!"

Even though Ves wasn't certain about his radical observation, Captain Byrd nonetheless chose to warn Captain Orfan about the possibility.

A beast that fought on instincts was entirely different from a beast that fought under human ingenuity. Such a scarily intelligent opponent would be ten times harder to put down!

Byrd instructed Orfan to make a move. "Don't wait any longer. The energy emissions coming out of Naeduvis surpasses your mech by a factor of ten, and it's rising by the second! Just attack already!"

With a wordless cry, the spearman mech leapt into action. It held out its spear like a lance and thundered forward in a seemingly straight charge. The mech's heavy-duty gravitic backpack strained to keep the mech's entire weights within a human norm, but it drained energy like a sieve, especially during combat!

As the mech thrust out its spear with its entire momentum behind the blow, Naeduvis swiftly moved its forepaw in position to block!

CLANG!

Blocked! Captain Orfan's mech swiftly bounced out of the way in fear of receiving a retaliation. Orfan had taken Dr. Tillman's warning to heart. Still, she released a frustrating grunt when she saw the exobeast suffered no apparent damage at all!

"Tell Captain Orfan that she is doing a good job." Ves spoke. "That piercing blow hasn't managed to pierce the exobeast's hide, but that is only because it is infused with some kind of energy field. That single blow struck off a few percentage points of the energy field's strength, and it's recovering fairly slowly. If Captain Orfan keeps up her aggression, you can overload the energy field!"

She followed his advice and began to make a series of hit-and-run attacks. She gave up on maximizing the strength of the blows in an attempt to pierce through the exobeast's unnaturally hardened scales and instead attempted to treat it like an energy screen. Any energy screen could be overloaded once its capacity of damage surpassed a certain point!

The fundamental differences between a mech and an exobeast came into play. Under the influence of its gravitic backpack, the spearman mech smartly darted in and out, attacking just enough to land a few quick blows before pulling back.

Naeduvis released an angry as it lunged in an attempt to swat the offending mech. At some points, its antigrav field pulsed as the weight of the entire exobeast suddenly lit up, allowing it to leap forward as if it was unwounding a spring!

Prepared for such an eventuality, Captain Orfan danced her mech to the side within the blink of an eye. Her mech possessed a definite advantage in mobility and she wasn't hesitant in leveraging it in her duel against this heavy mech-like creature!

Chapter 787

In her duel against Naeduvis, Captain Orfan adopted an approach that mech pilots typically employed against heavy mechs.

While a heavy mech possessed enough power to crunch a medium mech in a single, powerful blow, the crucial requirement was that they needed to land a blow in the first place!

Laymen often thought that heavy mechs were ordinarily strong due to their incredible amount of armor and offensive power. Certainly, their high production and maintenance costs suggested that they sat at the top of the totem pole.

The truth was a lot more nuanced than that. Heavy mechs can be employed to devastating effects, but only when directed in a strategically advantageous situation.

Employing heavy mechs was like making a leveraged bet. If a commander managed to put them in a good position where they could employ their strengths to their maximum, then they won big.

However, if their opponents exploited their fatal flaw of low mobility, then the heavy mechs risked taken out with far too much ease, thereby wasting the expensive machines!

Therefore, most of the times, the military forces that could afford to field heavy mechs typically opted to employ them in ranged combat. It was safer and more convenient to keep the heavy mechs back as a strategic weapon platform that could output a lot of firepower from a protected position.

Heavy mechs generally made for very poor duelists, especially if they lacked any form of ranged retaliation.

Only heavy knight mechs saw regular use. Their formidable defenses made up for their lackluster offense and their heavy shields allowed them to act as mobile shields for more vulnerable mechs.

However, this did not apply to the current duel. While Naeduvis boasted a defense that enveloped its hide and even its beast rider from any external sources of damage, its enhancements did little to speed its body up!

Even as the fifteen crystals emitted more energy and enveloped the exobeast's body in a powerful antigrav field that lessened the effects of gravity upon it, Naeduvis simply couldn't escape the consequences of its bulk!

"It's a pipe dream for that exobeast to match the mobility of a medium mech that is optimized for melee combat." Ves confidently stated. "The mass of that creature is seven or eight times the mass of Captain Orfan's mech. That's almost an order of magnitude apart. So long as Naeduvis doesn't possess a form of ranged attack, the odds are low it can turn around its predicament."

Perhaps their low mobility didn't matter as much if they dueled against the other lumbering exobeasts. While the ten exobeasts that stepped outside of the city all differed in size and mass, even the smallest among them still fell within the weight class of a heavy mech.

In addition, most of the other exobeasts hadn't been embedded as much crystals as Hokaz and Naeduvis. The natives had definitely put out their strongest two exobeasts.

"You annoying gnat!" Pirisa shouted as she remained strapped into her saddle. The beast rider didn't worry about being struck by Captain Orfan's spear at all as the protective energy field extended to her body. "Naeduvis, summon your might and show these godless interlopers the might of your godhood! Summon the waters of life!"

Naeduvis stopped its tactic of trying to swipe the darting spearman mech with its maw or limb. Instead, it focused its attention on something entirely different. A low thrum escaped from its throat as the dark blue luster of its scales started to shine even brighter!

"Energy levels are rising!"

"Press the attack! The beast is a sitting duck!"

"Seismic sensors are detecting irregularities! We're detecting something massive approaching underground! It's covering a massive range!"

"The other nine exobeasts are plodding backwards as fast as possible!"

"Withdraw this transport and every mech by at least three-hundred meters!"

A huge surge of water sprung from the previously arid soil! Though they didn't surge up with too much pressure, the sheer scope of the area meant that Naeduvis managed to lift up so much water that it could fill entire mech arena!

"The water is being held aloft by a different energy field! It's not very concentrated, but it is extremely wide-spread!"

Naeduvis roared in exaltation as it summoned a small lake's worth of water from an underground source! Pirisa chopped her hand towards her opponent.

"Naeduvis, show them your godly might! Life Cutter!"

A portion of water slowly began compressing into large water balls half the size of mechs. Then those water balls began to compress into flat circular saws.

Those ominous-looking saws then launched towards Captain Orfan's mech with the speed of a thrown weapon!

Ves issued out a warning. "Tell the captain to avoid those water saws at all costs! A single hit can cut through all of the armor layers of her mech!"

The spinning water saws that Naeduvis launched towards the spearman mech boxed in its target, leaving it with no possible angle to escape any damage. Captain Orfan gritted her teeth and decided to risk a blow to her frontal chest which boasted the thickest armor in exchange for dodging every other projectie.

Crack!

An awful sound occurred on impact! The spearman mech jerked back with an awful horizontal gash in its chest armor. It had mostly held up against the water saw, but it had lost all but one of the layers of armor plating adorning its chest!

If the water saw had struck somewhere less protected such as the arms or the rear armor, then the mech would have suffered a crippling hit!

As of now, the spearman mech really couldn't afford a second impact on the same area.

"The exobeast is expending a large amount of energy every second it keeps up this party trick." Chief Dakkon reported. "Calling upon and lifting up all of this water may look impressive, but nothing comes for free. Naeduvis won't be able to sustain this for long, especially if it tries to compress another set of water saws."

Pirisa screamed in satisfaction. "Hah! You metal cowards can be hurt! Naeduvis! Strike the godless machine again! Let us see whether it can bleed! Life Cutter!"

Another salvo of water saws launched into the spearman mech's direction. Having made the mistake of underestimating the water saws before, Captain Orfan grew wiser than before and already dodged away well before the water saws launched.

All of the deadly water saws missed! Captain Orfan leveraged her mech's superior mobility to maximum effect!

"Tell Captain Orfan to keep evading." Chief Dakkon suggested. "Attacking the exobeast removes a lot less energy from the beast than all of the water it is levitating. Her mech can simply keep dodging and wait for the beast to tire itself out!"

Once Naeduvis launched the third volley of water saws, Pirisa recognized that the Life Cutter attack wouldn't be enough to pin down this annoyingly agile opponent.

Her god needed a way to hamper this mech's mobility!

"Naeduvis, block the path of this swift and cowardly prey! Wall of Smothering Death!"

Huge sections of floating water started to form into walls that placed itself right in the spearman mech's path. Captain Orfan had to abort her original direction and force her mech to veer to the side, only to encounter another water wall!

The water walls quickly boxed the spearman mech in and attempted to close the machine into a box!

Ves found the entire display to be fascinating, especially since Ves felt a constant tingling from his sixth sense. The form of energy and control the exobeasts employed didn't appear to be spiritual energy, but some other form of energy that possessed some relations to it. "The water walls won't work. The mech and every aspect of it is waterproof, and it possesses enough strength to overcome the loose water pressure of the walls.

The trapped spearman mech realized that it couldn't escape cleanly, so Captain Orfan just decided to break through the envelopment through brute force.

The spearman mech succeeded! Despite the unsettling nature of the direction water walls, they didn't appear to possess any notable strength. Naeduvis appeared to be unable to compress so many large water walls into something more formidable.

Pirisa appeared a bit flustered at the abject failure. It was as if she expected the mech to short out or drown when surrounded by so much water.

Ves chuckled under his breath. "If a mech can be defeated by a splash of water, they're practically useless during the rain."

Although it still wouldn't be a good idea for a mech to stay submerged under an extended amount of time, a brief dive into a body of water wouldn't do any harm. Energetic mechs even sought out any large surfaces of water because they conducted heat away with a lot more efficiency than through air or through the soles of their feet!

A spearman mech didn't generate too much heat, so Captain Orfan hardly paid attention to such a potential boon. Instead, she tried to figure out a way to end this battle faster before the exobeast pulled another trick out of its hat.

"C'mon you eggheads, tell me how to kick this water magician's butt!"

Nobody came up with any better suggestions. The energy field that continued to envelop the exobeast was truly all-encompassing. In fact, if not for their clearly living nature, some of the Vandals might have even mistook Naeduvis for an expert mech!

Of course, even if the exobeast could sommon some of the powers of an expert mech, it didn't mean they gained the same combat effectiveness of one.

Having gone mad from her failures, Pirisa urged Naeduvis to shape the water into other shapes before attacking Captain Orfan's mechs.

Water trees, water whips, water beasts and more all attempted to tackle the spearman mech in their own ways, but each time the mech either avoided them or broke them apart with a strong sweep of the spear.

Four minutes went on while this energy-draining charade continued. The energy levels of the crystals steadily dropped, and Naeduvis exhibited clear signs of exhaustion.

At some point, the crystals had grown dull. The exobeast stopped exerting its control over the elevated mass of water. The fluids immediately filtered through the arid soil and disappeared deep underground where it ultimately belonged to. The exobeast lost the energy to employ its water any further!

Captain Orfan's spearman mech stopped a fair distance away from the exhausted Naeduvis. It pointed its spear at the creature in a provocative gesture. "Is that all your water beast has got? I can take more! Show me your best attacks!"

Unfortunately, Naeduvis appeared to be unable to muster any further attacks. It didn't summon another energy tornado either, so it seemed that siphoning ability possessed some kind of limits as well.

"Naeduvis has lost interest in this little spar." Pirisa slowly said as she pulled her mind out of the wireless man-beast connection she maintained with the sacred god. "She has judged your strength to be worthy of acknowledgement."

"Pffff!"

Fortunately for everyone, Captain Orfan didn't express anything else than a disdainful snort. She had won the duel, but her animal opponent made it sound as if it did the mech captain a favor.

The Vandals ultimately accepted Pirisa's face-saving excuse and allowed Naeduvis to withdraw with some of its honor intact. Both sides knew that Naeduvis had actually lost fairly barely. Captain Orfan's mech only received a couple of heavy blows from the water saws and some of the more creative forms of water manipulation, but her mech could keep fighting even after accumulating so much serious damage!

The first duel ultimately served to reveal each other's battle capabilities. Both the visitors and the defenders learned a lot from the duel. It didn't really matter if neither side went for the kill, as they valued the information they obtained over the outcome.

If the initial duel was an appetizer, the second duel was the main course.

Hokaz, the Tyrant of the Wastes, crawled forward and released a majestic cry.

"Lieutenant Dise! You're up!"

Chapter 788

Though Naeduvis and Pirisa lost the duel against Captain Orfan with little recourse for doubt, the so-called sacred god's power impressed all of the Flagrant Swordmaidens.

Dr. Tillman and Chief Dakkon poured over the voluminous amount of sensor readings their mechs and transport had captured, but they were no closer to explaining the phenomenon than before. What Naeduvis had accomplished was impressive and could easily be placed on par with some of the stronger sentient alien races that humanity had fought!

Both of them made some important observations.

"The crystals embedded into their hides haven't started off at those sizes. They initially started off much smaller, but grew in size along with the slow growth of the exobeasts. I'm not sure how long it takes for this species to reach maturity, but it must be hundreds of years. They never really stop growing either."

"The crystals act as both energy siphons and energy reservoirs. While they aren't capable of storing energy for the long-term, it is remarkable that they are able to absorb the higher-dimensional energy. However, it is the exobeast itself that is responsible for digesting and transforming the higher-dimensional energy into a more malleable form that it used to manipulate all of that water."

"The manipulation process isn't very exact. Naeduvis possesses a very wide range but its application of its power is like a child wielding a sledgehammer. Turning those water balls into water saws took a noticeably long time."

"I think that the creature only managed to work the finer applications of its powers with the help of its beast rider." Ves added. "The connection that Pirisa shares with Naeduvis is akin to a mech pilot interfacing with a mech through a wireless interface. I'm not sure whether this connection is accomplished through natural or artificial means, but it is likely the latter considering how similar the readings are. I've even detected echoes of resonance. If I'm right, then Pirisa and all the other beast riders are expert candidates!"

Expert candidates! What did that mean? It meant that this city of an estimated 100,000 inhabitants or more somehow produced potential expert pilots at a rate of at least 1 to 10,000 people!

This was an insanely high proportion! If a state like the Bright Republic boasted such a conversion ratio, then they'd be able to field a million expert candidates!

Even if only ten percent of those candidates eventually advanced to expert pilots, that still amounted to 100,000 devastatingly skilled mech pilots who could sweep through all of the surrounding star sectors!

"Is that true?" Captain Byrd frowned. Perhaps they should have brought Venerable Xie on a spare mech after all. "Are you absolutely certain that they are expert candidates?"

Ves looked at the exobeasts in the distance and tried to feel out their spirituality. Sadly, the fast transport stood too far away, and the interference in the air didn't help much either.

"It's only a hypothesis, ma'am." He cautioned. "It is a potential explanation for how the exobeast and its beast rider is able to perform some of these resonance-like powers. The best way to look at their union is to regard them as a hybrid between a heavy mech and an expert mech. They're neither one or the other, but exhibit traits of both."

That caused every Vandal in the fast transport to grimace.

"Naeduvis lost against our mech because they have likely never fought against an opponent this fast and quick on its feet." Dr. Tillman explained her thoughts. "Looking at the lineup of exobeasts leads me to believe that all of the combat-capable members of its species exhibit like slow, heavy mech-like builds. Their combat methods may look powerful but clumsy to us, but against other exobeasts that are slow like them, their combat methods are considerably effective."

Ves added to that conclusion. "The widespread water manipulation and the slow windup of its attacks lend Naeduvis well to a role akin to an artillery mech. It's not only able to bombard exobeasts from range, its water manipulation can also hinder or even drown large hordes of smaller beasts or other natives on foot."

"From the title that Naeduvis has received, I think its role as a source of water is of even greater importance to the city of Mulak than its battle capabilities. There is no river in the vicinity and it's fairly hard to sustain a settlement of this size without a water source. However, if Naeduvis can summon up a large amount of water that can quench the thirst of all of the city's inhabitants as well as its farms, then it has definitely earned the title of Life Giver!"

"It's no wonder the natives worship them as sacred gods. It is not an empty title."

"Do you think that they are sentient?" Ves suddenly asked.

This caused every analyst to fall silent. Dr. Tillman shook her head, but she didn't seem confident. "Ordinarily, I would say no. Giant exobeasts with these particular traits throughout the galaxy typically don't evolve into intelligent species. However, I can't rule out the possibility of genetic modification performed in the past, nor am I able to account for the consequences of an exobeast interfacing with a human mind. It may be possible for a wild exobeast to gain some measure of self-awareness from frequent contact with a human mind. We know that mech pilots sometimes gains a measure of machine-like thinking from piloting mechs."

This phenomenon was well-known to both mech pilots and mech designers. Both of them looked at the slow transformation of a mech pilot's mind and neural system as the principal advancement process of their profession.

Those with a higher degree of genetic aptitude possessed more malleable minds, and therefore adjusted better to the conditions required to deepen their connections with mechs. Such a transformation eventually culminated into metamorphosis into experts which went beyond the understanding of human science.

"In other words, the connection can go both ways." Ves threw out. "In a theoretical man-beast connection, the beast in question is able to acquire some of the traits of human intelligence, while the man it is partnered with may have adopted some of the animal instincts that drive the beasts."

This possibility definitely discomfited Captain Byrd. If the beast riders who claimed to speak for the sacred gods had taken on some animalistic traits, then she would need to adopt a different approach to build up friendly relations.

"Hokaz is stepping up!"

The Flagrant Vandals and Lydia's Swordmaidens weren't the only ones to confer among themselves. The other side had learned a lot of lessons as well, and each of the ten exobeasts had huddled together in a crowded circle so that their beast riders could discuss among themselves.

Strangely enough, the exobeasts participated in the discussion themselves with their roars. Naeduvis in particular released a lot of aggrieved-sounding roars.

The fast transports deployed miniature listening bugs in an attempt to eavesdrop on their conversation, but the bugs suddenly shorted out when they came within several hundred meters to the formidable beasts.

The Vandals had more success with reading their lips from afar, but they only managed to pick up a fraction of the discussion.

It didn't matter. Right now, Lieutenant Dise in her Devil Razor was about to face the king of the gods in single combat!

The massive, bulky gait of Hokaz lumbered forward with incredible majesty. While it was a little shorter than Naeduvis, it possessed a lot more body mass appeared to be a nightmare to face in melee range. Different from its mate, Hokaz was covered in thicker scaled of striped yellow coloration.

If Naeduvis resembled a sea creature on land, then Hokaz exhibited the majesty of a tiger in lizard form!

Its strong limbs must be strong enough to demolish a section of the city wall in a couple of blows!

Its male beast rider with a long mane of wild blond hair began to announce himself. "You have the honor of facing Hokaz, the Tyrant of the Wastes! I am Karawin, the Lord of Grey and the chosen of Hokaz. You will find this sacred god to be a worthier opponent than its mate!"

Karawin's words suggested that the exobeasts consisted of a pack.

"Some of the smaller exobeasts among their ranks share a number of traits with Hokaz and Naeduvis." Dr. Tillman said. "If they are a breeding pair, then at least half of their ranks are part of their family. I don't believe the rest of the exobeasts share any familiar relations, though. They are of entirely different breeds."

The Devil Razor broadcasted back its own announcement. "I am Lieutent Dise, Swordmaiden and mech champion in the service of Commander Lydia! I have hunted over a hundred exobeasts on more than twenty planets!"

Both sides weren't interested in exchanging smack talk. Once they finished with their exchange, Hokaz immediately called up an energy tornado.

The sight of a narrow funnel reaching all the way up to the so-called vault of the gods and siphon away some of the astral winds impressed all of the visitors. Now that they knew what to look for, every applicable scanner had been employed in recording the phenomenon.

As a chivalrous Swordmaiden, Lieutenant Dise let the Tyrant of the Wastes gather its strength without interruption. Her swordsman mech held out its razor-like sword in an offensive posture. With how strong Hokaz appeared to be, she would be a fool to think that her Devil Razor would be able to block any of the sacred god's blows.

After a couple of minutes, all seventeen crystals embedded at various spots along the exobeast's body glowed as bright as the stars! Hokaz let loose a thunderous war cry that immediately released a ball of crackling electric fury!

"Dodge!"

Fortunately, Lieutenant Dise steered her mech away, jumping to the side well before the ball passed her former location.

The exobeast's glowing eyes narrowed at the mech as it began to build up speed. The creature took a deep breath and released another destructive electric ball! However, hitting a moving mech was easier said than done. The ball possessed no tracking abilities and harmlessly passed by the swordsman mech.

The Devil Razor even circled around to the rear of the lumbering exobeast and struck a handful of blows before pulling back! The mech had retreated just in time as well, because the tail had just started whipping its former position!

A repeat of the previous duel took place. Lieutenant Dise may have been honorable enough to allow Hokaz to charge up its energy, but she wasn't hesitant about exploiting its brutal deficiency in speed and reaction time.

Karawin, who rode atop the increasingly frustrated sacred god, narrowed his eyes. "Are all of your godless machines so annoying to fight against? No matter! Let me show you the reason why Hokaz is the Tyrant of the Wastes! Come, my old partner! Unleash the fury of the vault of heavens upon these lifeless automatons!"

Hokaz abruptly roared into the sky. Amazingly, the sky roared back! For some reason, the astral winds high above the skies developed into an incredibly turbulent pattern that threw the sensors of the fast transport into whack.

The turbulent astral winds suddenly unleashed a thunderstorm in a wide area around the dueling site! Some of them even came close to hitting the spectatic exobeasts and mechs, forcing them to back off even further!

The abnormal lightning bolts that rained down from the vault of the gods didn't appear like regular lightning bolts! The bright yellow bolts rained down in such frequency that many of the Vandals and Swordmaidens had trouble peering through the brightness even as they wore vision-compensating visors.

As for the Devil Razor in the middle of the storm, the lightning bolts falling in its vicinity behaved as if they were attracted to the metal machine, instantly diverting in order to strike the machine!

The mech managed to continue to function after being struck a couple of times, but by the time it suffered a dozen different strikes, the machine quickly started to smoke and jitter!

As the lightning strikes continued to bombard the hapless mech and a wide area around it, a sense of horror grew among the Flagrant Swordmaidens. If those storms managed to hit their camp, then it would immediately wipe out almost all of them, mechs not excepted!

The abnormal, supercharged lightning bolts cut off every single connection and threw every sensor into confusion. Despite the lack of sensor readings, Ves could see as plain as day that the Devil Razor's inbuilt electrical resistance had quickly reached the limits of its capacity.

Lieutenant Dise risked being fried to a crisp if this rain of lightning continued to persist!

"Call off the duel!" He shouted over the thunder and lightning! "Tell the Swordmaidens to concede before Lieutenant Dise loses her life!"

"We can't! We lost our communications to the Swordmaiden transport and mechs!"

Chapter 789

The Devil Razor in the middle of the lightning storm practically lost control as soon as more than a handful lightning bolts struck the machine in quick succession.

Ves knew that landbound mechs generally incorporated a decent amount of shielding against lightning attacks and EMP effects. They wouldn't croak the second they walked out in a regular thunderstorm and got hit by a few lightning strikes because the metallic machines essentially stood out like giant lightning rods.

Yet any safety system possessed a hard limit. The lightning storm raining down from the vault of the gods already exhibited an intensity that surpassed the buffers of a regular mech like the Devil Razor!

"These aren't regular lightning bolts!"

"The safeties built around the cockpit won't be able to last much longer!"

At some point, the Devil Razor lost control over its movement to such an extent that it lost its grip on its weapon. Its knees also lost stability, causing the mech to keep over on the flat of its back!

Ves winced as the weight of the swordman mech crushed the gravitic backpack with its weight. The backpack had already succumbed to the lightning strikes, causing the antigrav field it emitted to stop compensating for the Devil Razor's weight. This merely amplified the damage and caused the backpack to sustain so much fall and crush damage that its exterior broke and spilled out components everywhere!

Fortunately, Hokaz ceased to channel the massive lightning storm. With a victorious cry, it dispersed the storm and ended the lightning rain!

The victorious exobeast looked more majestic than ever as it raised its head in a proud angle. Its embedded crystals lost more than half of their glow, which indicated that the lightning storm attack had taken a lot out of the sacred god.

Still, this attack alone more than proved Hokaz's chops as the Tyrant of the Wastes! The exobeast unleashed so many empowered lightning bolts that they could ruin an entire mech regiment if it approached in a tight formation!

The only consolation to the Flagrant Swordmaidens was that the energy-draining attack likely didn't span more than a square kilometer at most.

If they ever fell into hostilities with the city of Mulak, then the Vandals and the Swordmaidens may be able to grind the defenders down by employing a dispersed formation adopting hit-and-run attacks.

"It took some time for the lightning storm to rain down." Chief Dakkon said. "Hokaz also hasn't shown any capability of exerting fine control over the storm. It definitely isn't able to avoid hitting its own allies."

That still left the Flagrant Swordmaidens with a lot of limitations in terms of possible tactics they could employ to defeat the exobeasts in a full-blown battle. It definitely wouldn't be a victory without sacrifices as they initially thought.

Savages they may be, their ingenious man-beast connection enabled these natives to exert strength akin to a mature expert mech!

As the storm receded and Hokaz wound down from its battle mode with a satisfied bestial grin, Ves refocused the sensors of the fast transport to the beast, paying particular attention to the sensors that measured resonance.

"The connection between Hokaz and Karawin is a lot stronger than the one between Naeduvis and Pirisa!" Ves reported with a growing sense of amazement. "If these readings are correct.. then the connection between the exobeast king and its beast rider has reached the expert level! It's strong enough to exhibit a similar degree of resonance to a genuine expert mech!"

Captain Byrd looked both amazed and horrified at the news. "What are you saying, Mr. Larkinson?!"

"Captain, I'm saying that Karawin is what passes for an expert pilot among their ranks and that Hokaz is his biological expert mech! No, in fact it surpasses normal conventions among expert pilots and their expert mechs! Hokaz is able to leverage as much power as an ace mech!"

Ace mech! That was one degree higher than an expert mech! If society regarded expert pilots as demigods, then ace pilots earned the distinction of half gods due to the destructive degree of resonance they could call upon!

"Will we need to regard Hokaz as an ace mech?"

"Not quite." Ves quickly tried to reassure the horrified Vandals. "All I'm saying is that while Hokaz exhibited power that has reached the threshold of an ace mech, it doesn't appear to have the control or the endurance to sustain this level of strength. I doubt that Karawin is as strong as an ace pilot. I think this is a case similar to how an expert pilot entering the cockpit of an ace mech. The expert pilot can't sustain the load of piloting such a powerful machine."

The theory that Ves spouted gave the Vandals a better perspective in the power dynamic between the beast riders and their exobeast partners. Dr. Tillman had already estimated the ages creatures like Hokaz and Naeduvis at several centuries old, with the exobeast king exceeding the second-oldest by a margin of at least two-hundred years!

To Ves, this realization fascinated him to no end, because he believed this man-beast connection may be one of the directions his design philosophy developed towards!

Was it not his desire to design mechs akin to these exobeasts? The thought of building mechs that lived and thought like these sacred gods and actively added their own prowess to the man-machine connection stimulated Ves to no end!

He needed to research the details of this man-beast connection!

He wanted so badly to storm off to Hokaz and bend down in worship to this awesome sacred god! This supremely majestic creature was like an organically grown ace mech, one that truly stood as an equal or even superior to their beast rider!

The quick and devastating victory achieved by Hokaz and Karawin put the score at 1 to 1. This wiped out Captain Orfan's gains and put both sides back to square one in terms of commitments.

If the Flagrant Swordmaidens and the defenders of Mulak wanted to force an outcome to this contest, then they had to fight a third duel.

Captain Byrd already conferred with Captain Clarissa of the Swordmaidens. If they needed to fight another duel, then Byrd insisted on deploying a rifleman mech.

Screw honor and fairness! If the natives rolled out the equivalent of an expert mech to one of the duels, then the Vandals would be just as shameless and teach these savages the despair of battling against a mech that peppered them with lasers at a distance of ten kilometers or more!

A laser rifleman mech would have no trouble hitting a target from this distance, especially when it employed its magnification and targeting systems. An exobeast and its rider on the other hand may not even have the means to retaliate that far!

"Hokaz is definitely the strongest sacred god among their ranks." Ves described their situation. "The rest of the exobeasts don't look nearly as formidable as their king. As long as the third exobeast is as slow as the rest and lacks a ridiculous ranged attack like the one employed by Hokaz, a third duel will certainly be an easy win for us."

However, the other side appeared to be unwilling to fight any further duels. Hokaz let out a couple of commanding roars, causing Karawin to issue out some quiet instructions to his fellow beast riders.

The natives continued to look at the Flagrant Swordmaidens with wary expressions. Hokaz may have kicked the butt of Lieutenant Dise's Devil Razor, but the visitors brought many more mechs. Half of them had already shown off their long-ranged laser capabilities when they burned a hole through their thick alloy city walls.

Captain Byrd ordered one of their rifleman mechs to step forward from the ranks. This unspoken message caused the native beast riders to intensify their discussion.

"Why did you reveal our next duelist, ma'am?" Ves asked.

"I can tell that they are hesitating. It takes a lot of effort for the exobeasts to fight a duel, and even Hokaz looks like it has spent half its fuel tank to summon up the lightning storm. I think they are worried that we are attempting to exhaust their sacred gods one by one. Now that I have signalled that our side is willing to send out a ranged mech, they should feel a lot less confident about achieving victory. Maintaining parity with us should prove more attractive than risking another loss, especially since they already sent out their two strongest exobeasts."

"Won't we gain an advantage if we win two out of three duels, ma'am?"

"Not necessarily." The older mech captain shook her head. "We'll only rub our superiority in their faces, but these natives look too proud to tolerate such indignity for long. If we want to establish truly friendly ties with this faction, then we need them to see us as strong but equal partners."

If the Flagrant Swordmaidens stuck around for months and years, then they would have time to work away the resentment the locals had accumulated from suffering a loss.

Yet according to their schedule, the ground forces would only be sticking around for two weeks at most. The visitors from the stars wouldn't be interacting with the inhabitants of Mulak on anything more than a superficial basis. Captain Clarissa managed to convince Captain Byrd that the natives would be more favorably disposed to the visitors if the Flagrant Swordmaidens didn't trample upon their pride.

"How would you feel if a complete stranger knocks at your door out of the blue and insists on barging into your home?" Captain Clarissa asked. "Then suppose the stranger proceeds to punch you in the face while threatening to be let inside. You'd never feel good about your new guest because if he can punch you once, he can punch you again."

The natives had come to a decision. They had fallen for the manipulations directed against them as they put down their hostile attitude!

A smaller exobeasts stepped forward and its younger beast rider began to announce their decision. "Hokaz, the Tyrant of the Wastes, the god-king of Mulak, the one who possesses the key to the vault of the gods, respects your battle prowess. In his infinite wisdom, our wisest sacred god has decided to be generous enough to extend Mulak's hospitality to those who claim to have come from beyond the vault of the gods! We permit entry to no more than ten humans!"

The natives attached a few more conditions and assurances to the Flagrant Swordmaidens. They promised not to harm the visitors granted entry into their city as long as they didn't do anything outrageous. The Flagrant Swordmaidens in turn needed to pull their mechs out of sight to the city, and weren't allowed to bring any of their 'godless machines' into the city.

Though risky, Captain Clarissa thought this was the best offer that the natives could stomach at the moment. "Insisting on bringing in a mech is not wise. It is a challenge to their exobeasts and may serve as a potential destabilizing factor in their rule over the city."

Captain Byrd did not seem so reassured, but she was willing to defer to the Swordmaidens as they possessed a lot more experience in interacting with isolated settlers in the frontier.

Eventually, the Vandals and the Swordmaidens each presented five representatives. Captain Byrd chose to bring Chief Dakkon, Dr. Tillman, Ves and Captain Orfan.

Byrd hesitated over the last addition. Without Orfan's presence, the mech company that remained behind lacked a strong leader and champion to take charge in case of emergences.

However, Captain Orfan managed to win a clean victory in her duel against Naeduvis and its beast rider Pirisa. As the victor of the first duel, Captain Orfan probably earned the respect of the natives, and bringing her along would help break the ice.

The Swordmaidens brought forth their own gaggle of experts and mech pilots, including a lightly-injured Lieutenant Dise.

Compared to the plain and functional suits of armor worn by the Vandals, the five Swordmaidens that stepped forward came in full pirate regalia. They all appeared ready to intimidate or chop up every obstacle in their way!

Chapter 790

Once the Flagrant Swordmaidens agreed to the invitation, nine of the exobeasts along with their beast riders plodded back into Mulak. The city gates winched open, allowing the large creatures with Hokaz at the lead to return to their seat of power.

Naeduvis and Pirisa stayed behind to accompany the two groups of five sent out by the Vandals and the Swordmaidens.

All of them grew more apprehensive as they approached the huge and tall exobeast. Its dark blue coloring had faded a little after the duel, but the creature still radiated a sense of formless pressure around its old and terribly powerful body.

Pirisa glanced at the armored forms of the visitors in fascination, paying a lot more attention to the Swordmaidens who adorned their armor with tribal trappings. Pirisa for her part wore a simple dress made out of woven fabric and decorated her appearance with various metal jewelry including an exquisitely crafted circlet over her head.

The beast rider for her part looked beautiful and acted like a queen. Her mixed heritage had given her a rich brown skin and her silky black hair had been put up in an elaborate bun that enhanced her stature.

"I am Pirisa, the Gatekeeper of the River of Souls. As a chosen of Naeduvis, we govern the life and death of every subject in Mulak. Within our domain, you must remember that you live at the pleasure of our sacred gods. If you offend Hokaz or Naeduvis, then nothing will save you from their wrath despite any assurances that we have made. Therefore, do not offend the dignity of our sacred gods!"

"We understand." Captain Clarissa replied smoothly. "We respect the sovereignty and dignity of your sacred gods, though please forgive us for worshipping other entities. We are strangers to these lands and your gods. Would you please provide us with an introduction?"

Naeduvis suddenly released a low roar. The low sound waves shook the ground and caused the Vandals and Swordmaidens to feel as if they ran through a malfunctioning sonic shower.

"Naeduvis is pleased with your interest! She is happy to allow me to regale you with the majesty of our pantheon!" Pirisa perked up.

Whether she understood the intentions of her exobeast through her roars or through an ongoing man-beast connection, nobody knew. Ves didn't exactly have a scanner active right now.

Considering the fate of every spy drone the Vandals attempted to send near the beasts or into the city, these natives didn't seem as helpless against advanced technology as everyone had initially thought. Activating any devices might get picked up by the scary creature who handedly outmassed a heavy mech. Ves did not want to find out what would happen if one of its limbs stomped down on his head.

"Let me start with the beginning." The beast rider said as they slowly walked towards the western gate of the city. Naeduvis turned out to be surprisingly thoughtful and matched its pace to the visitors on foot. "Mulak is an ancient city that was founded by our ancestors in a time before our sacred gods descended from the vault of the gods. It is the center of these wastes and home to several ancient treasures. Many gods and men covet what we have claimed for ourselves, but none have fought against our sacred gods and won!"

The group hardly made any progress towards the city gates. They probably could have reached it by now if the visitors stepped on top of Naeduvis, but the sacred god probably didn't appreciate being ridden by strangers.

"Hokaz is not the first sacred god who has ruled these wastes. Many cycles before the time of my birth, our majestic god-king has challenged the sacred god who used to claim these lands! He easily won against the old and decrepit god, claiming all of the fallen's god crystals as his spoils! After driving off the weak sacred gods that have pledged to serve old god, Hokaz has claimed the title of Tyrant of the Wastes and attracted other sacred gods under his godly domain."

The way Pirisa referred to the exobeasts as gods left little doubt of her belief in their divinity. She sounded genuinely respectful of them as entities beyond the reach of mortals!

Ves still couldn't figure out if the exobeasts like Hokaz or Naeduvis called the shots or not. Were they actually sentient to the point where they exerted total control over the city and the surrounding lands?

The Flagrant Swordmaidens preferred to believe that the beast riders only claimed to speak on behalf of the sacred gods, using their influence over the exobeasts as badges of authority. Such an alternative sounded a lot more reassuring than dealing with thinking exobeasts that exhibited the intelligence of humans but remained affected by the instincts of beasts!

"Naeduvis here pledged allegiance to Hokaz first after he bested her in ritual combat! Impressed with her godly powers, Hokaz also claimed Naeduvis as his mate more than ten cycles ago. Since then, Hokaz has ruled the wastes as its god-king while Naeduvis rules over the ancient city of Mulak as its god-matriarch! So has our pantheon thrived from then. The sacred union of Hokaz and Naeduvis has blessed us with three godly offspring, while five more gods have acknowledged Hokaz as their king and ruler!"

"How long is a cycle?" Captain Orfan asked. She hadn't quite bought into the entire tale.

To her, the exobeasts were anything but gods. They were merely overgrown lizards or creatures with a few extra tricks up their sleeves. Once the Flagrant Swordmaidens figured out how they performed their metaphysical abilities, she had nothing to fear from these giant animals.

"A cycle is a cycle. I cannot explain to you what a cycle is. All I can say that I have lived for four-and-a-half cycles."

"A cycle is probably a local year." Ves concluded and performed a quick calculation in his mind. "One year on Aeon Corona VII lasts for 3249 days. That's almost nine standard years. Therefore, Pirisa is thirty-five years old!"

The woman in question frowned at their use of unfamiliar terminology. She looked a little older than thirty-five years old actually, but the Vandals and Swordmaidens chalked it up to their harsher living conditions.

Pirisa picked up her story again. "These lands may seem desolate and devoid of life, but the ancient city has managed to stand aloft due to its many treasures. The coming of Naeduvis has invigorated Mulak and restored it to its prime! As the Life Giver, Naeduvis has generously enriched the city she rules over with the bounty of her godly powers. While our sacred god has taken plenty of life, she is primarily known for giving them to our grateful subjects."

Seeing that Pirisa acted amiable enough to answer questions, Captain Byrd tried to encourage their friendly exchange by asking another question. "Naeduvis provides Mulak with access to water?"

"Mulak has always been able to provide for its people, but only for a portion." The beast rider corrected. "Once Naeduvis lent her power, none of our subjects lack for water or food. Our surplus is the envy of these lands, as we are able to feed the appetite of ten sacred gods!"

It sounded like Hokaz was the warrior who kept their kingdom safe while Naeduvis served as the dutiful wife at home who caused their household to prosper. Both of them excelled at different aspects, and their synergy was a match made in heaven.

From the orbital mapping by their fleet, The Flagrant Swordmaidens knew that most ancient cities settled next to rivers or rich lands surrounded by farms. They expected these cities to be the most formidable ones to approach and perhaps the least friendly against visitors from the stars.

The Flagrant Swordmaidens thought that A27 or Mulak was one of the weakest settlements on Aeon Corona VII, but obviously they misjudged.

The arrival of a sacred god with the power to summon water from beneath the ground changed everything for Mulak, causing it to host a lot more people than it used to be able to provide!

"Has Naeduvis chosen other people before you?" Ves asked the question that had been budding in his mind for some time.

According to Pirisa, Naeduvis hooked up with Hokaz several hundred standard years before. The creature was so old that it was impossible for Pirisa to be alive back then!

"She has chosen many people before my time. I am part of a long line of supplicants who Naeduvis has found worthy to share some of her divinity in exchange for acting as her representative to her subjects!" The beast rider answered with pride. "The rest of the supplicants that Naeduvis has passed over have still earned the right to tend to her needs. It is an honor for them to wash her scales, bring over her food and clean up after her waste. If Naeduvis finds me unworthy to serve as her mortal representative, then she will select her next chosen among her many supplicants."

Ves wondered how many of those 'supplicants' turn out to be potentates, and if Naeduvis and the other sacred gods expressly seek out that potential. The natives might have lost the means to test for genetic aptitude, as detectors that looked out for those markers were fairly complex machines.

By now, they had finally reached the open gate. The double doors had been retracted by a large number of slaves in complicated mechanism that wouldn't look out of place in a historical drama!

The lack of powered motors suggested that the natives had slid back enormously during their isolation from the outside galaxy. Even after thousands of years had passed under accelerated time, they hadn't regained their old base of knowledge nor developed it on their own!

That was clearly abnormal!

Captain Clarissa quickly shushed the men and women from mentioning the backwardness of the ancient city. Telling Pirisa and her sacred god what a crappy place her city looked like would probably provoke the big beast.

The inhabitants of the city had come up to the wide streets to stare at the strange visitors and their outlandish-looking armor. None of the inhabitants or beast riders wore any form of armor. All of them wore a measure of basic clothes that could have been woven by simple low-tech textile machines.

In general, most of the locals didn't seem so different from the low-class laborers from planets like Bentheim. They looked poor but fairly content with their lot. Ves mainly distinguished them from the more affluent population by how fancy their clothes looked like and much jewelry they wore.

A small number of men and women stood apart and sometimes surrounded themselves with guards armed with sticks. Ves mentally classified them as part of the middle class of Mulak.

Unlike the lower class who regarded the visitors with fear and superstition, the middle class looked at them with cautious hope, as if the entry of the newcomers might lead to opportunities to enrich themselves.

The tall metal structures dominating the main avenue looked even more rusted and worn up close. Ves even spotted marks which used to be damaged but had been patched over with different sheets of metal. This city must have survived several attacks over the span of its long life.

Nobody knew for certain when this city had been founded. The most extreme estimates put its at almost three-thousand years, which was closely after the time the Starlight Megalodon had crashlanded on Aeon Corona VII.

Perhaps the initial survivors had been farsighted enough to recognize that they needed to settle this planet for the long term, and used their surviving vehicles and machines to settle the fifty-odd cities that existed to today.

That still didn't explain why the descendants of the initial survivors settled more lands outside of the cities. This planet was big enough to accommodate a thousand times more cities without any of them encroaching on each other's territories, so why did they remain so sparse all this time?

Ves and the rest hoped to hear the answer to this question soon.

Chapter 791

The ancient city of Mulak presented a contrast between permanence and adaptation. From his own observations and from Pirisa's narration of her spotty understanding of its history, Ves gathered that the city had been erected a long time ago.

Mulak used to look different. Tall structures covered in gleaming silver-like alloy, with every function supported by a bevy of electronics and machinery. The city used to be settled in this arid, mineral-rich region to extract valuable exotics before shipping them to other cities set up as industrial centers.

That happened a long time ago, when contact between the cities used to be frequent. The breakdown of transportation vehicles over the centuries made contact with other cities less and less viable, until each of the cities eventually wallowed in isolation amid rusting structures and decaying technology.

In fact, Pirisa showed a distinct measure of surprise when the Vandals idly mentioned that they knew the location of over fifty cities like Mulak! Most of the inhabitants today didn't even know the existence of other cities, while the cadre working directly for the chosen of the sacred gods only heard of a couple of other settlements ruled by other sacred gods.

"Are the other settlements that you know of ruled by their own sacred gods as well?" Captain Clarissa asked.

The Swordmaiden officer had been content to let the Vandal eggheads ask most of the questions, and only occasionally plied the exobeast rider with critical questions.

Pirisa scowled as she continued to ride on top of Naeduvis. "As far as I am aware of, every city is ruled by a pantheon of sacred gods. There is no way for a city to survive in these challenging times without the protection of a sacred god that has generously offered its protection to the population."

"What threatens the cities?"

"What else but other gods? The lands outside the walls of our hallowed cities are the domains of wild gods and their aberrant godlings cast out in the thousands. They hunger for flesh, and consider humans such as us as delicacies."

The fleet hadn't spotted any of such beasts from orbit, but then again the astral winds made it exceptionally difficult to identify any details smaller than a big city that spanned for at least a kilometer.

"Are these wild gods of the same kind as your sacred gods?"

"Absolutely not!" Pirisa thundered back with an indignant expression, and Naeduvis released a low roar as if the beast took offense as well. "The wild gods are degenerated spawn, squandering their godly gifts to satisfy their base urges. They are a menace that prowls the lands away from the cities, preying upon every traveler or people who attempt to found new cities. Only through the blessing of our sacred gods are we able to defend against the mindless aggression of the wild gods."

The Vandals and the Swordmaidens both looked horrified. If the rest of the surface of the planet had been claimed by exobeasts similar to the sacred gods but with no restraint, then it was no wonder that the descendants of the original crew hadn't been able to gain dominion over Aeon Ccorona VII.

"Do wild gods 'choose' humans as representatives?" Ves asked.

"Most do not. They are ignorant spawn, and prefer to eat our kind first. However, there are some wild gods who are older and more cunning than the average of its kind. They choose a representative among the wildlings that stalks the lands. They are twice as ferocious in combat, but are still no match for elder sacred gods such as Hokaz and Naeduvis."

Naeduvis roared her approval at her rider's statement.

"Wildlings?"

"They are like us, but not. They are cursed people, deformed by the gods and left to fend for themselves in the lands. Most end up in the bellies of the wild gods, but some have succeeded in tricking these brutes into becoming their lackeys. That is when the wildlings are at their most dangerous. When the wild gods band together with the cursed people, they cast their greedy eyes at the cities. The wild gods would love nothing but to gorge on the blessed people who possesses the purest blood, while the wildlings eagerly wish to take a city for themselves."

The amount of history and information that Pirisa had revealed stunned them all, so much in fact that they hardly took in the sights as they continued to walk along the broadest boulevard. The tall structures grew even taller, and some of the buildings appeared to have taken the place of other ones as their architecture looked distinctly different.

Most of the structures consisted of housing but not too many shops and workplaces. A city with a population of well over a 100,000 people all needed to do something, but the districts they passed looked a bit too small. They hadn't spotted any farms, but the existence of grocery stores and market stalls selling various Earth-derived foods proved that this city definitely got their food from somewhere.

One implication about the wildlings stood out to some of the Vandals. Dr. Tillman followed up with a question of her own.

"These wildlings.. are they human? How can they survive outside of the cities and their antigrav fields without getting crushed by this planet's heavy gravity?"

"Antigrav fields? Gravity? What are these words you speak of?"

"It's the effect that pulls your flesh, bones and blood down to the ground once you step outside the city." Chief Dakkon supplied a simple explanation.

"Ah! The pull of the soil!" Pirisa lit up in recognition. "The blessed people of Mulak and the other ancient cities are protected from this curse. On the other hand, the cursed revel in the curse, embracing its foul pain as the source of their strength. The curse has turned them into a parody of blessed people such as us, turning them short and squat but also making them broad and strong. They are slow to move but relentless in their cruelty against the blessed people. They hate us for our blessings and beauty. I pray the wildlings never capture you alive, because you will not enjoy what they have in store for you."

The Vandals and Swordmaidens looked at each other. They recognized the description of these so-called wildlings as the so-called dwarf strain of high gravity variants of the human race.

Though it wasn't polite to call them that in civilized space, dwarves underwent a rather extreme genetic treatment that tried to minimize their energy consumption. They possessed stronger muscles and exceptionally tough internal organs. However, they were also about half to two-thirds as tall as a baseline human as bigger bodies simply meant they required more energy to maintain.

Dwarves usually emerged when a state or faction wanted to colonize a heavy gravity planet on the cheap. After all, a full-sized heavy gravity variant of the human race required at least several times the calories per day to survive compared to a dwarf.

Though it cost quite a bit of money to modify the genes of an existing human into a dwarf, the biggest benefit to a colony owner was that the offspring of the dwarves carried the same genes. Therefore, over time the upfront costs paid for themselves as the population of dwarves continued to grow and expand.

"When the Starlight Megalodon crashed, the gene labs or the exobiologists who presided over them likely survived." Dr. Tillman whispered into the short-ranged comm built into their combat armor. "The legacy of their work is all around us. Perhaps every form of life on this planet carries their touch."

Though medium and long-ranged communications wouldn't be possible as the immense Naeduvis they walked next to emitted too much interference simply by existing, strong short-ranged comms could still pierce through the wall of noise.

"Aren't exobiologists supposed to show more restraint?" Ves asked. "Back when the Starlight Megalodon initially went missing, a different mood prevailed. The Age of Mechs was still young back then and the horrors of the Age of Conquest still scarred our race. The backlash against rampant genetic modification still ran its course."

The exobiologist tilted her head. "Baseline humans stand a very poor chance at survival on this planet, especially when it had just started to undergo terraforming that might not be completed in their lifetimes. It makes sense for them to tailor the genes of their crewman and survivors to adapt to the conditions of the planet. What I'm still uncertain of is whether the genes of the blessed people have been tampered as well. I'm discreetly attempting to take some DNA samples from the locals, but I'll have to return to the lab at our camp before I can analyse them thoroughly."

All in all, the exobiologists essentially split the crew or their descendants into two distinct subraces. This led to the predictable consequence of starting a life-long conflict between the related strains of humanity.

Ordinarily, the dwarves should have triumphed on this planet and proceeded to build a sprawling civilization of their own after thousands of years of isolated development. With all of their genetic enhancements, they should have become the favored masters of Aeon Corona VII.

Yet if Pirisa spoke the truth, they were some of the most worse off tribes of humans on the planet!

"It's these exobeasts that are worshipped as gods that are to blame." Captain Clarissa explained. "If the technology level of the inhabitants of Mulak is the same as in the other cities, then humans have no way to defend against the predation of the gods. An essential condition to mastering an entire planet is to become strong enough to fight back against the apex predators that lord it over to the other species."

The Swordmaiden captain made sense. While they didn't know how many of these wild gods stalked the lands, it was undeniable that any settlement that wasn't surrounded by a thick alloy wall would probably be defenseless against even a single giant creature.

"Enough about my people!" Pirisa said. "Naeduvis has expressed her curiosity of your people. You look blessed like us, but your bodies carry the scent of metals instead of gods such as ours. Do you not worship any gods like us?"

Uh oh. This was a sensitive topic. Answering this question demanded a lot of care, because the wrong answer might affront their beliefs and lead to a religious clash where flaring tempers could easily descend into violence.

Religious disagreements had always been one of the main causes of internal human conflict throughout the history of their race!

Captain Byrd supplied an answer that alluded to the truth. "Our gods are different than yours. As we have stated earlier, we have come from beyond the vault of the gods. Our lands are different and our customs are different."

"Is that truly so?" Pirisa mused. "Naeduvis cannot imagine that any of the blessed people is able to come from the skies. Are their lands floating above the vault of the gods as stated in the legends? Why would you ever descend upon these cursed lands? It is no paradise here. The Age of Gods is in full sway and mortals such as you and I must fight hard to continue our existence."

It sounded as if the descendants inherited almost nothing of the knowledge that the survivors should have passed on. Ves and the other Vandals and Swordmaidens no longer believed the ignorance of the locals was due to natural regression. Even if the descendants lacked the technological aids of their CFA forefathers, they still should have retained a lot more knowledge.

If nothing else, their society should have at least produced innovations of their own. Instead, all they encountered was proof of a long and continuous decline in knowledge, technology and advancement.

Why hadn't they invented new machines? Why hadn't they explored the sciences? For what reason had they slid so far backwards that they didn't even know about the existence of mechs?

What happened to the original CFA officers and crewmen when they initially emerged from the Starlight Megalodon?

Chapter 792

Naeduvis and Pirisa slowly led the delegation to a massive palace constructed out of salvaged metal situated in the center of the city. It looked obvious to Ves and the others that the palace emerged much later than the original city.

Irregular plates of metal had been welded together with the crudest of techniques. The irregular pieces likely came from the structures that used to occupy this expansive space. The architecture of the palace accommodated the size of the sacred gods by incorporating a huge hall in the very center where two or three of the beasts might fit in with room to spare for their human subjects.

The hosts held a banquet in the hall. Naeduvis took up the most space in the hall by far, and her proximity to the dining table exacted a lot of pressure on the delegation and the officials invited to attend the gathering.

Servants garbed in basic liveried uniforms served up simple dishes of Earth-derived foodstuffs. Pirisa and the city officials treated the bread, beans, rice along with simple vegetables such as lettuce and broccoli as sumptuous luxuries, and they became extremely delighted when the servants brought in tiny cuts of meats.

Pirisa enjoyed the biggest cut of meat of all, as hers was the size of a hand. The delegation along with the officials only got to enjoy a thumb-sized piece of what appeared to be chicken meat.

Naeduvis on the other hand enjoyed a wildly different treatment. The sacred god lounged in the center of the hall surrounded by tribalistic idols and decorations. Supplicants carted in whole roasted pigs by carts, and the exobeast crunched on them enthusiastically as they came in a fast and practiced pace.

It seemed as if most of the cooks in the employ of the palace were solely there to serve the sacred gods! Providing food for the other humans in the hall obviously became an afterthought. After all, serving food to a god was infinitely more prestigious than serving some mortals!

Despite the plainness of the dishes and the lack of seasoning except for a dash of salt, Dr. Tillman enthusiastically poked and prodded her food. When the hosts weren't looking at her, she quietly took minute samples and stored them in the storage compartments of her suit.

"What did you learn about the food?" Ves asked. "Are they of normal human stock?"

The exobiologist shook her head. "I'm very certain that they are not. While the CFA possesses a genetic database of almost every baseline earth species, most of them won't grow at all under heavy gravity. Even if the plants and animals are reared within the city somewhere, the environmental conditions are so different that they won't be able to yield as much without some genetic tailoring. I'll have to get back to the lab to be sure, but I'm already certain that the food we are being served with come from fast-growing, nutrient-enhanced stock."

Foodstuffs with added nutritional value became the favored crops of poor and struggling colonies that couldn't import or cultivate anything better. They often tasted bland and paler than the real thing, but at the very least they were a step up from nutrient packs.

They also demanded a lot less capital to produce. Even the simplest subsistence farms could easily cultivate these kinds of easy-to-deal-with crops. Nutrient packs on the other hand could only be economically produced in massive production complexes that employed a host of advanced machines.

The disparity in the food enjoyed by the sacred god and the humans hit home the status disparity between the two of them. Perhaps half or more of the city's total food production had been dedicated to feeding these voracious beasts!

During the banquet, the locals cautiously began to engage the delegation in conversation. Pirisa herself invited Captain Byrd and Captain Clarissa at the highest table and began to chat amiably about various matters.

The visitors did not dare to discuss too much serious topics, and neither did they wish to introduce too many strange concepts to the locals. They knew that they were dealing with ignorant people who bore little resemblance to their grand ancestors who once crewed a CFA battleship.

The disparity between their origins and their current existence couldn't be more stark.

The city officials mostly directed their questioning to the Swordmaidens. In comparison to the Vandals who looked rather plain, the Swordmaidens all looked impressive in their pirate getups. Each of their suits of armor incorporated beast bone trophies, and regaling the natives of their hunts earned them instant kudos.

Still, not every city official neglected the Vandals. Compared to the basic clothes worn by the locals, suits of armor was a distinct rarity to them. The fact that the visitors all wore some form of armor already impressed them a lot.

"How are you able to move under all of that weight? We once attempted to adorn our chosen with metal plates, but they were simply too heavy for them to bear!" A city guard commander asked.

Ves and Chief Dakkon looked at each other before the latter decided to answer. "Our studies into metallurgy is very advanced. We don't utilize the heavy metal plates that are used in the construction of the ancient city. We blend lighter metals into strong alloys that weighs several times less than the material that you used. In addition, the heavier suits incorporate small servos that act like extra muscles. These servos help us lift most of the weight."

The way the locals within earshot stared at the chief engineer was as if he was a wizard describing the profoundness of one of his magic spells. These yokels truly didn't know anything!

"What kind of a master craftsman is able to create such a magnificent equipment? This is truly a marvel of craftsmanship!"

The more the guard commander looked at the suits of armor, the more he became enamoured by their bulk and protective ability. Not even Pirisa refrained from throwing an admiring glance or two at their gear.

The Swordmaidens especially drew a lot of attention due to their greatswords. The big weapons made for an imposing sight, and Lieutenant Dise even showed off the considerable technological advancements incorporated in their forging by chopping down a thick metal chair in half with an effortless swing!

"This is not a weapon crafted by mortal means!" A priest-like figure uttered with shaking eyes. "I know what gods these visitors worship now! It all makes sense! Their giant metal golems and their magical weapons and armor are blessed by gods different from ours! These strangers from beyond must be worshipping gods related to craftsmanship!"

"Ah, I see! No wonder their ability to shape metal into form is so impressive!"

"We should petition Hokaz to invite one of these gods of craftsmanship to our pantheon!"

"That is not proper! We worship the sacred gods of the wastes for many cycles now. Inviting a foreign god from different lands will throw our people into turmoil!"

As the locals discussed the implications of their 'discovery', the Vandals and Swordmaidens all shared an awkward glance.

A discreet message whispered in their ears over their short-ranged comms. Captain Clarissa's clipped voice told them what to do. "Just roll with it. Let the natives believe we worship a god of craftsmanship if that is what it takes for them to accept our presence. Try not to lie or make something up about our supposed god. Defer to Captain Byrd and I if the locals persist."

The rest of the conversation took an awkward turn as the locals tried to prod the Vandals and Swordmaidens of their gods. To the locals, they couldn't imagine these visitors who resembled blessed people like them to be any different from them. Every person who resembled a baseline human must be blessed by one god or another! They simply couldn't fathom the idea that an entire galaxy of humans existed that didn't believe in any supreme supernatural being!

Ves found it tiring to interact with the locals without tripping on their sensibilities or revealing more than they ought to know right now. Their ignorance benefited the visitors because their lack of knowledge made them gullible. Their ignorance also made things difficult because the locals plainly couldn't handle some essential truths.

For instance, Captain Byrd and Captain Clarissa had an extremely hard time trying to close a trade deal. Pirisa constantly pushed off the decision, stating that it was something for the gods to decide. As a chosen of Naeduvis, she acted as the sacred god's voice, and did not have the right to decide on major matters by herself.

Pirisa claimed that the exobeasts called all the shots, and the two captains had no choice but to believe in that statement. It would take a significant amount of time for the exobeasts to come to a consensus on how to engage with the visitors who claimed to have come from beyond the vault of the gods.

"Hokaz and Naeduvis will call for a council of the gods in due time." Pirisa stated with mild regret. "Naeduvis has heard all of your offers and demands, and will present them to the council for our sacred gods to deliberate. Hokaz will make a final judgement on the matter, and his word is law in Mulak. The consideration of the gods is very different from mortals."

Pirisa couldn't even say when the sacred gods held their council of the gods. Time was a very imprecise concept among the locals. Timekeeping devices became another victim of the native society's technological decay.

It didn't help that Seven didn't exhibit a true day and night cycle, so the methods the locals used to count the time was based on ridiculous intervals such as the span of time a sacred god demanded to be fed!

At the end of the banquet, Pirisa ordered some city guards and officials to escort the visitors out. Mulak abided by the basic principles of hospitality, but obviously didn't appreciate their house guests to stay for what passed for a night among the locals.

Naeduvis herself snorted at the strangers after she finished gorging tons of meat, and lazily flicked her tail at them before falling asleep in the middle of the hall.

The city of Mulak was her domain! Her mate granted her complete discretion in how to handle the visitors. Right now, she wanted to do nothing more than to take a nap after exerting herself in battle earlier, so she succumbed to basic desires without paying too much attention to anything else.

A few hours later, the ten Vandals and Swordmaidens returned to their mechs and fast transports without much of a resolution. Despite the lack of progress in closing some kind of deal, the delegation already learned more than enough to make the visit worth it. Pirisa herself had been a font of information as she finally described the principal threats of the lands.

"Return to camp!"

Almost eighty mechs and two fast transports proceeded to march back to their camp. Before the sacred gods came to a decision, nothing could be gained from waiting outside the city walls.

A handful of Swordmaiden mechs carried Lieutenant Dise's Devil Razor. The mech lost all functionality when the lightning storm called down by the Tyrant of the Wastes fried most of its processors and delicate systems. When Ves inspected the mech, he immediately declared it a wreck. It required an extensive overhaul of its internal systems before it could be brought to life again!

Ves and the other experts quietly sat behind their consoles and processed some of the data that they gathered.

Dr. Tillman wrote preliminary reports on the exobeasts and the so-called blessed people that looked like baseline humans but exhibited minor physiological differences.

Chief Dakkon wrote about the city and primitive technology utilized by the descendants of this generation. He had much to say about the complete lack of technological progress!

As for Ves, he continued to think about the strange interaction between the sacred gods and their chosen. Who truly ruled the city? Were the sacred gods truly sentient beings?

What about the wild gods that had never partnered with a human before? Would they be as wild as animals, or were they born with inborn intelligence?

Chapter 793

It took a bit more than a standard day for the first contact delegation and its escorts to return to camp. Carrying Lieutenant Dise's electrically-fried mech back without damaging it further required a lot of coordination on the part of the mechs that carried the wreck. They had to slow down when they traversed difficult terrain in order to avoid jostling the damaged but restorable frame.

In the meantime, the Vandal and Swordmaiden experts all exchanged their data and observations among themselves and discussed some of the implications. The mutual exchange helped everyone out as everyone possessed a different perspective.

Frankly, Ves didn't play too much of a role this time because the inhabitants of Mulak didn't make use of any mechs at all. Instead, their principal form of defense came in the form of their exobeasts!

With their sacred gods acting as their main line of defense, was there any need for them to develop mechs? They could just grow a giant beast and proclaim it as a god to convince the dumb creature to defend their cities. It was a lot more convenient to maintain a tamed exobeast than a mech because the latter needed extensive logistical support in the long term.

"The entire city is geared first and foremost on supporting their pantheon of gods." Ves explained his thoughts. "With the amount of food they must be consuming at set intervals, the city can barely spare any infrastructure on anything big like mechs, shuttles or tanks. Research and development, production and maintenance all require hundreds of scientists, engineers, technicians, machinists and more to get an entire industry sector up and running. Nothing we've seen so far of Mulak suggests that the city possesses any significant industry."

"Mulak was never an industrial city in the first place." Chief Dakkon concurred. "According to the abbreviated history told by Pirisa, Mulak used to be the center of a resource harvesting operation. Ores and raw materials flowed to the city before being shipped elsewhere. If any cities have managed to retain some semblance of technology, it should be at those settlements geared towards industry."

All of this sounded interesting, and implied a means for the Flagrant Swordmaidens to come to some sort of mutually beneficial agreement with the locals.

Their mistaken impression that the visitors worshipped some sort of smithing or crafting god already laid down the road to further cooperation. Chief Dakkon already developed hundreds of potential suggestions to improve the defenses and the standard of living of Mulak.

"The city is an ancient relic." Dakkon said as he showed off projections of various images that his suit had taken. "Look at these portions. The metal sheets that are covering up these sections used to be occupied by various machines and electrical devices. They all wore down over hundreds or thousands of years due to lack of maintenance, so the city isn't functioning as it used to. I can easily restore some of the functionality of these machines with some basic supplies and the help of a crew of technicians."

"I'll take your suggestions under advisement." Captain Byrd replied as she had remained in thought throughout the journey back. "Mind you, we want to be as efficient as possible in our trades. Seeing that the cities are essentially independent city-states with no apparent contact with each other, it's fine for us to trade for basic knowledge. It doesn't cost us anything to hand over some data pads containing various manuals and technical specifications to every city open for trade."

Though they hadn't seen much of the city, what they already observed from the main boulevard that ran through the middle of the settlement already showed that the inhabitants lived in their own self-contained world.

The blessed people that lived in the cities never contemplated traveling to another city. The potential trade benefits simply didn't measure up to the massive risk of predation along the way.

Pirisa and the city officials already named the three most prominent threats.

The wildlings consisting of feral tribes of genetically engineered dwarves felt right at home under heavy gravity conditions.

It was a question how worse off their society had degenerated over the years of divergence. If the blessed people resembled a society that lived in medieval times, then the cursed people living in the wilds had likely gone back to the era of tribes!

In fact, the dwarves didn't sound very intimidating at all. The second threat that posed a potential danger to the ground forces was the offspring of the gods in the wild. As small and fast breeders, practically all of godlings perished before they reached their full potential. Still, different species and subraces sometimes traveled by the thousands, and they could easily overwhelm a city if it didn't put up a serious defense.

According to the locals, the godlings were a scourge upon the lands, preying on the native herbivores and the wildlings alike, sometimes to extinction. Their hordes constantly roamed across the planet for that reason. This also allowed newer populations of animals and wildlings to settle on the emptied lands.

This warped ecological cycle made it very unsafe for anything less than a sacred god to venture far outside a city.

Yet even a sacred god could be felled in the wilds. The culprits often comprised of the third and most serious threat someone could face on the planet, which were the wild gods.

Neither Ves nor anyone else could figure out from Pirisa's description whether the wild gods possessed any sentience. They also lacked the crystals implanted on their bodies shortly after their birth that enabled them to call upon an energy tornado to siphon away some higher-dimensional energy and temporarily store them in the reservoirs for later use.

This distinguished wild gods from their more civilized countersparts. Nonetheless, even a sacred god could be brought down by superior numbers that attempted to exhaust the grand exobeast of its godly powers.

Still, if the Flagrant Swordmaidens ever encountered packs of wild gods in their upcoming trek to the Starlight Megalodon, then they could easily take care of the big lumbering beasts by bombarding it with a bevy of lasers from a distance.

Even if the wild gods possessed the ability to summon an energy field, their mechs could quickly overwhelm its defenses after it endured a couple of hundred laser beams!

The only threat that truly concerned the Flagrant Swordmaidens was if a wild god acquired a wildling beast rider. The combination of raw animal intelligence with the sentient mind of a dwarf could accomplish a lot of awful things!

"Keep in mind that what Pirisa and her people has told us is colored by their perspectives." Captain Byrd cautioned as the experts tried to figure out how much of a threat a wild god posed when directed by a wildling. "She painted her own kind and us as blessed people while calling those who roam outside the cities as cursed people. Perhaps to the wildlings, they are true blessed subrace of humanity while the city folk are relics of a past age who won't be able to thrive on this planet after all of their antigrav modules slowly break down."

Chief Dakkon looked up at that. "Ma'am, I don't believe that the gravity in Mulak is being moderated by conventional antigrav modules. The sensor readings that I've managed to gather failed to spot any of the characteristic emissions released by antigrav modules. Something else is maintaining a stable antigrav field over the entire city, and it might be based off something else than technology."

"Do you have any clue, chief?"

"None so far, ma'am. However, I do want to state that if their technological mastery has fallen so far behind that they're unable to develop something like a steam engine, then it is simply impossible that they can keep an antigrav module up and running for more than a couple of decades since their last round of servicing. Considering how much time has passed since the founding of the city and which I've confirmed by dating some of the samples of its structures, the locals must have developed a non-technological alternative to maintaining a stable gravity."

"Could it be the sacred gods and those strange crystals embedded into their hides?" Ves suggested. Everyone gained a fascination for the crystals because they possessed the rare ability to interact with the astral winds. "They effectively keep their beast riders from getting crushed by the planet's gravity."

"Possible, but I can't say for sure. I doubt we can get our hands on those crystals so easy. The sacred gods seem to prize them a lot, even harvesting them from the carcasses of others of their species."

The speculation about the crystals ran for hours as everyone pitched in their theories. Chief Dakkon had the most to say of all, but even he only scratched the surface of its wonders. Despite the raft of raw sensor data their mechs and transports had captured, they had come no closer to understanding their workings from before!

Nonetheless, everyone already recognized their potential uses. Obtaining the crystals or achieving an understanding of their workings because the highest priorities of the Flagrant Swordmaidens!

If they ever unlocked the secrets and gained the ability to call down their own energy tornado and convert the higher-dimensional energy into electrical energy, then perhaps the ground forces would no longer have to worry about their energy budgets!

Still, the locals wouldn't give up such a prized advantage easily. Captain Byrd sighed in disappointment. "Captain Clarissa and I broached the topic of trading for one of those crystals. Pirisa refused to entertain such possibilities no matter how many carrots we dangled in front of her head. These crystals are extremely rare and even the sacred gods of Mulak can't obtain them in large numbers. Unless we offer something extremely substantial, they would never dream of trading away a valuable crystal."

If the Flagrant Swordmaidens really wanted to, they could come up with something extremely precious to exchange for one of those so-called god crystal. Right now though, the Flagrant Swordmaidens weren't interested in empowering the locals too much.

By the time the delegation returned to camp, the news of their experiences spread throughout the camp like wildfire.

Sacred gods! Wildlings! Godlings! And the dreaded wild gods! All of the tales the Vandals and the Swordmaidens released without reservations all came as a massive shock.

Tales of exobeasts interfacing with their chosen beast riders became an especially interesting story to those that had never witnessed such a thing. The Swordmaidens who value strength and often hunted exobeasts for sport became instantly enamored by such a possibilty! Some of the more aggressive Swordmaidens couldn't wait to run off into the wilds to find an isolated wild god to tame!

When Ves returned to one of the workshops of erected by the Vandals, Ketis instantly arrived and started to bug him for stories.

"C'mon Ves! Tell me more about the big gods and their beast riders! Are there any gods with wings? What are the powers of the other exobeasts? Were all of them bigger than a heavy mech or are you just pulling my leg?"

Ves chuckled a bit. "If you're so curious about how they look like and how they fight, you can help me analyze the footage and sensor readings we've captured."

He pushed her to a spare terminal and granted her access to a raft of raw footage and sensor data. "Just take a look at them and try and figure out what is going on. Any insights you can figure out will help us understand the sacred god and possibly even allow us to replicate the feat, though I don't really see why we need to. Our mechs are more than enough to defend our expedition."

"You don't know anything! Don't you see how cool it is to tame and ride those big majestic beasts? I wonder if we'll be allowed to take them aboard our ships after we complete our mission! It would be so great to add them to our roster so we can field the equivalent of a heavy mech in our future landbound deployments!"

Ves tried to imagine the Swordmaidens replacing some of their mechs with sacred gods and couldn't quite process the absurdity!

Chapter 794

The relations between the Flagrant Swordmaidens and the ancient city of Mulak started off frosty. Though the two duels fought between the champion mech pilots and the so-called sacred gods earned the visitors some respect, the primitive society that ruled over the city couldn't handle too much change at one time.

The sociologists and related experts in the service of the Flagrant Vandals collaborated together with the experienced Swordmaidens to formulate a plan of engagement with Mulak.

"We've stoked their interest with our technological prowess and what we can bring to the table." Captain Byrd said during a conference meeting shortly after the return of the delegation party. "On the other hand, we have sounded out their willingness to trade for information and goods such as their god crystals. The only problem is that they are rather reticent to an exchange. Pirisa claims the decision lies with the sacred gods."

Captain Orfan snorted. "They're big dumb beasts! What do they know about trade? I bet the reason why the city has slid so far backwards in technology is because those humans turned into their cattle!"

Some of the officers, experts and chiefs shifted in their armor. This theory gained prominence among the rank and file. They believed that the main reason why the blessed people lost touch with technology was because they turned into religious nuts that put the welfare of the exobeasts ahead of their own people.

Naturally, the Vandals would never admit that to the face of one of the blessed people.

"There is definitely a driving force behind the inability of the natives to maintain their past level of technology, but we are not here to enlighten them. We can leave that to the CFA who will inevitably send a follow-up fleet to the Aeon Corona System. Right now, we need to focus on gaining an advantage that will ease our journey to the Starlight Megalodon. Chief Dakkon, how soon can we begin to move?"

"Our preparations continue to proceed on schedule, ma'am." The chief engineer answered while he referenced a data pad. "If you want a fast start, we can begin to depart immediately within a standard week. However, I suggest we delay the departure date by another week so that we can make some preparations against the threats the natives have outlined."

"What do these extra preparations consist of?"

"The natives described three threats which fall into two categories, ma'am. Our mechs can handle the large exobeasts referred to as wild gods, but if a horde of more than a thousand wildlings or godlings storm our moving supply train, then we might not be able to eliminate them quickly enough before they reach our legged transports. They're like ants to our mechs. While our machines can kill them by the hundreds, once they reach our transports it becomes difficult to dislodge them without damaging our own vehicles. This is why we are augmenting the transports with various countermeasures."

The Vandals also beefed up their anti-infantry countermeasures and increased their vigilance against infiltrators.

As weapons of war, mechs could handle most types of opponents on the battlefield, but that did not mean they were applicable in every situation. Traditionally, they fared most poorly in urban environments where saboteurs avoided the mechs and sneaked on foot to assassinate important offers or sabotage critical supply depots.

Captain Byrd approved of the measures. Though they only had the word of the natives to go upon, it didn't hurt to be more prepared.

"Slowpokes!"

On the other hand, Captain Orfan chafed at the delay. The Flagrant Swordmaidens deployed around five-hundred landbound mechs in total! That was enough power to steamroll through every settlement on the planet! Why did they have to show any scruples to degenerated dwarves and stupid wildlife?

Everyone pretty much learned to ignore her frustrated outbursts, so the meeting proceeded smoothly as everyone chipped in to the meeting.

Ves reported on the progress of fixing up the mechs.

"The cockpit modifications have proceeded ahead of schedule. Now that the mech technicians are familiar with the procedure, they're able to convert the cockpits faster than before. Within a week, all of our mech pilots will be able to recline in their seats to some extent, helping them cope with the heavy gravity if the antigrav modules built in to the gravitic packpacks, cockpits and their piloting suits all fail for some reason."

"What about the light mechs, Mr. Larkinson?"

"Their situation isn't as good as the larger mechs, ma'am." He conceded. "The dimensions of the interior of a light mech cockpit is severely cramped. They're meant to be as small and light as possible for a given degree of combat effectiveness, so mech designers often opt for the smallest cockpits they can get away with. None of our light mechs are geared towards heavy gravity operations, so I've been forced to finagle improved solutions by ripping away non-essential cockpit parts in order to make room."

"Will that affect the functioning of the light mechs?"

"Not too much, ma'am. It is a worthwhile tradeoff, and most of the light mech pilots agree."

Ves sometimes pushed through changes without consulting the mech pilots, but this was one change which directly impacted the mech pilots. Overall, they gave out a positive response, because they did not want to end up stuck in a sitting position if the power to their antigrav modules somehow all cut off.

Once they blacked out, it was game over!

A few days went by after the meeting. While the Vandals and the Swordmaidens all worked as fast as possible to get their act together, they also attempted to increase their relations with the rulers of Mulak.

Each day, they sent out a squad of mechs to make contact with the city. At least this time the city didn't launch any boulders at the mechs, but neither did they open their gates.

Captain Clarissa expected such a response. The goal of sending the mechs into viewing distance was to build up familiarity and curiosity with the natives. They spent so long under isolation from the rest of the galaxy that they fell into considerable confusion about how to engage with the outsiders.

The Vandals and Swordmaidens fell outside of the wildlings, godlings, wild gods and the forces of the other city! As an entirely new category of people, the inhabitants needed to make up their own minds whether to treat the newcomers with a fist or an open palm.

Ketis surprisingly showed a lot of familiarity with the current actions advocated by Captain Clarissa. She had been a part of the Swordmaidens for over a decade, so she became familiar with their playbook in terms of engaging with isolated human settlements.

"It doesn't take a lot of time for a stranded group of people to devolve into savages." She spoke as if she had personal experience in the matter, which she did. "Without a functional starship, quantum entanglement node or even a way to escape the atmosphere of an alien planet, it's easy to forget your roots."

"I understand that. So what is the Swordmaiden way to approach these settlements?"

"Well, we take full advantage of their ignorance and rip them off as much as possible." She grinned. "It's so easy to show to dangle something worthless to us as a shiny bauble in exchange for something valuable that is unique to the planet. Rare exotics, strange plants, special beasts, the locals may have gathered countless treasures without even realizing their true value."

"What if they refuse to trade? Do you attempt to use force?"

Ketis surprisingly shook her head. "Some pirates do, but we generally don't. There are few settlements in the frontier as it is. If we destroy every settlement we find in order to rob them of their goods, we can only gain one big payoff at most. It's much better to milk them of their worth through multiple visits. Each time we close a trade, the locals are much more willing to provide us what we want, and they'll even look for the resources on their own initiative. It's a win-win situation for us both!"

Well, the Swordmaidens definitely won big, while the locals may have won much less than they thought.

"What kind of goods have you traded?"

"Generally, we trade basic weapons and machines. Think of pistols, air conditioners, ground vehicles, prefab housing and other trinkets like that. One of the best ways to get into a settlement leader's good graces is to gift them with a cheap low-level laser pistol that we've plated in gold and socketed with shiny synthesized gems. Lasers are like magic to them. Possessing the only laser weapon in the settlement strengthens their positions and makes them more open to further trades with us."

Ves snorted at such a shameless means of ensuring the cooperation of the settlement. "Ah, the good ol' bribery. As long as the leaders get ahead, they don't care how much the rest of their subjects are losing out. What if the settlement is advanced enough to retain some laser weapons?"

"Then we offer something else as shiny." Ketis waved her hand dismissively. "A gold-plated suit of combat armor, for example, or a pimped-up aircar with heavy restrictions. Just letting them fly fifty meters above the ground for ten minutes at a time is enough to turn them into megalomaniacs. The capabilities aren't too important as long as they are better than anything else a primitive settlement has left. The key is to make the association that the leaders can enhance their status if they engage in trade with outsiders."

"Does it work?"

"Hmm.. not all the time, but mostly. It works best if there's a single tyrant in charge of the settlement. It gets more complicated if the isolated settlement is ruled by some kind of council. The politics can get kind of messy. We have to play the council members against each other. Sometimes, the people from the settlements are so xenophobic to outsiders that it's impossible to have a cordial conversation with them. We usually leave them alone and move elsewhere."

The existence of isolated settlements was a lot more prevalent than most people thought. The spread of humans in the galaxy had not gone entirely without hitches. The invention of the quantum entanglement nodes helped keep the human race connected to each other, but it was impossible for their owners to repair these expensive devices once they sustained any damage!

Once a population of humans got cut off from the radiant civilization that governed half the galaxy, it was remarkable how fast they degenerated. No amount of preparation from the settlers could enable them to maintain their extremely advanced technology.

The price of greater advancement was that humans needed an ever greater base to maintain their technological development!

In fact, one of the doomsday scenarios bandied about on the galactic net was what might happen if every quantum entanglement node ceased working some day. Perhaps the Comm Consortium pulled the plug, perhaps some cosmic shockwave ran throughout the entire galaxy, perhaps some conspiracy by the aliens managed to succeed.

Whatever the cause, the sudden breakdown of all instant communication in human space would prove catastrophic. Many places would break out into riots, while others might manage to retain control, but only for a limited time.

The galactic net served an essential purpose in binding humans throughout the galaxy together no matter the distance. Its absence might make all of that come crashing down, turning states and star sectors into independent islands that developed in different directions at different speeds.

What happened to Aeon Corona VII may very well be repeated more than a billion times if such a disaster came to pass!

At this time, an alert popped up on his comm. Ves looked at the message and became stunned.

"What is it?" Ketis asked. As a lower-ranking mech designer, she usually didn't receive any important notices. "Is it the natives? Did they agree to open up to a trade?"

"No, it's not that. Our scouts sent to the nearest prairie region from the camp have encountered what they suspect to be a wild god!"

Ever since the delegation heard about the threats in the wild from Pirisa, they didn't just take her word for it. The Flagrant Swordmaidens wanted to confirm the information through first-hand encounters, and so issued long-ranged scouting missions to the nearest regions that supported life.

After a few days of searching, one of the Vandal light mechs spotted an exobeast similar to the sacred gods!

Chapter 795

Captain Byrd called for a briefing. Now that they encountered a wild god, they weren't about to let this opportunity go. Even though a wild god was purportedly not a match for a sacred god, it still allowed the Flagrant Swordmaidens to learn a lot about both once they got their hands on the exobeast.

"Alright. Everyone knows the drill." She began. "We've managed to locate a wild god that is two days away from the camp by our faster mechs. It's a feathered lizard that is closely related to the species of some of the sacred gods, and may even be a subrace. Dr. Tillman, please tell us about the region we have found the exobeast."

The exobiologist stood up and commanded the conference room to project footage of the lush green fields of grass and shrubs. Occasional trees dotted the lands, expansive herds of herbivores derived from earth stock such as sheep, horses and other familiar-looking animals grazed to their heart's delight.

Small groups of predators stalked the herds, preying upon the sick and old at their leisure.

All of the animals exhibited slow movements. Without the benefit of an antigrav field, the beasts moved slower and with more deliberation. Their builds were generally a bit smaller but their numbers made up for it. Each herd numbered from the low hundreds to tens of thousands!

In addition, a couple of species looked completely foreign from anything human. These must be the aboriginal species that somehow survived the drastic changes spurred by the terraforming process.

A couple of surviving species from the old biomes always manage to slip through the net during every terraforming process. As long as they were able to metabolize the Earth-compatible foods, they may be able to fit in with the intruders who have taken over their planet.

"As you can see, the prairie region it's located in is rather sparse in dense vegetation. However, don't underestimate these grasses. If they consist of the same nutritionally-fortified strains as the other flora we've sampled so far, then they can support more than enough life to keep a wild god fed."

The mech pilots frowned when they took in the sights. They didn't care so much for the animal herds, but focused on the uneven elevation of the terrain. Some of the hills angled rather steeply. This hampered the mobility of their mechs somewhat and forced them to be more mindful of their route.

"That terrain doesn't look like a great place to fight." A mech officer spoke aloud what his fellow mech pilots thought.

"We probably don't need to employ our mobility advantage against a wild god." Captain Byrd emphasized. "Unlike a sacred god, these wild gods aren't embedded with the so-called god crystals that have displayed the capability to interact with the astral winds. Without a way to accumulate higher-dimensional energies, they shouldn't be capable of calling down a lightning storm or the like."

The Vandals poured over the sensor data they captured during the duels and still haven't really figured out what went on. The interference in the air led reduced fidelity and a lot of scrambled data. Another part of the problem was that the Vandals didn't bring the right sensors, or ones that were good enough to capture the phenomena with precision.

Chief Dakkon and Ves hastily upgraded the sensor suites of some of the mechs and transports, but neither of them felt confident they installed the right sensors. The Vandals lacked the necessary technologies that allowed them to understand an interact with higher-dimensional energies.

To put it in a different way, it was like trying to observe gamma radiation with the naked eye. You simply couldn't, and trying to mess with things you didn't understand risked incurring radiation sickness!

This was why most of their sensors attempted to capture the spillover effects of any interaction with higher-dimensional energies. The light they threw out, the spacetime distortion they produced and the heat they generated during certain transformations allowed them to generate estimates of their potency and effects.

If the wild god possessed any means to harness higher-dimensional energy, then the Vandals would be ready for that this time!

"What is our objective?" Another mech officer asked. "Are we going to kill or capture the beast?"

Capturing a beast alive was a lot harder than killing it! None of the mech pilots wanted to tussle with the beast with one of their arms bound behind their backs.

Fortunately, Captain Byrd didn't express any interest in capturing a beast alive. "We don't know much about their biology and capabilities. It's irresponsible to capture it. Besides, even if we subdued it, it's far too heavy for us to transport safely. Unless we can keep it sedated, it can break through any cage we can build."

A lot of logistical problems emerged when trying to bring a captured wild god along with them. While they possessed a lot of research value, studying them and taming them was not part of their mission. The Vandals couldn't afford to be distracted by their existence.

Captain Byrd outlined a plan where they would attempt to slay the beast from a distance by peppering it with lasers. Under the heavy gravity, they didn't expect the beast to be able to close the distance before it succumbed. It was simply too slow for that!

"We'll bring out our best marksmen for this task, including Venerable Xie." Captain Byrd said. "If nothing else, it will be good practice for him and allow us to witness the Pale Dancer in live combat. Mr. Larkinson, is his mech ready to be deployed?"

"Well, the maintenance team hasn't worked out all the kinks, but if I help out personally I can rush it within a day." Ves simply stated. He knew that speed was of the essence right now. "As long as the expert mech's gravitic backpack remains functional, the Pale Dancer won't suffer any ill effects, ma'am."

"Good. Make sure to get the Pale Dancer and the assault company ready for an extended deployment. After we kill the beast, we need to maintain guard over the site to let Dr. Tillman and our other experts perform an autopsy. Several fast transports will tag along to bring in temporary labs as well as freezing containers to bring back large samples of meat."

Captain Orfan raised her own request. "Can we bring some cooks as well? I want a taste of that wild god meat! The yokals back at Mulak mentioned something about how it's the best tasting meat on the planet!"

A couple of Vandals laughed. Captain Byrd didn't seem so amused. "I'll allow it since we have the passenger capacity to spare. However, I'll only allow the cooks to process the meat once Dr. Tillman and her team declares the meat to be safe for consumption. Standard rules concerning the treatment of exobeasts apply."

Humans couldn't eat everything that looked like an animal in the galaxy. Just because the wild gods possessed enough similarities with Earth-based life to be able to eat and digest the wildlife spurred about by human terraforming didn't mean the same relation applied the other way.

Tales abounded in the galaxy of adventurous humans eating newly-discovered exobeast species only to drop dead because their bodies absorb poisonous substances that reacted badly to their physique!

Ves actually possessed a huge advantage in this matter. The drastic changes to his body that he gained from his misadventure on Groening IV allowed him to eat a lot of alien crap that would have poisoned a baseline human to death.

He wasn't exactly enthusiastic about taking advantage of it, though He'd rather eat nutrient packs instead.

After Captain Byrd finished getting everyone up to speed, they dispersed to make some quick preparations.

Ves assisted Lisbeth Eta-Denmersken in rushing the Pale Dancer to readiness. The half-crazy mech designer didn't like Ves very much and tried to hinder him as much as possible, but once he sicced Ketis on her, he managed to complete the work several times more smoothly.

The other Vandals prepped the assault company for a multi-day jaunt to the prairie region. The fast transports that could somewhat keep up with the mechs carried a plentiful amount of energy cells to keep their gravitic backbacks going while also carrying enough lab equipment to facilitate the autopsy of a giant exobeast.

Naturally, the Vandals also managed to stuff jumbo-sized barbecue equipment, because the idea of eating wild god meat turned into an incredibly appealing notion to the Vandals and the Swordmaidens.

All of them wanted to come away with a story they could brag to their friends about eating the flesh of a literal god!

The next day, the transports and mechs began to depart. Eighty mechs from both forces escorted four fast transports, of which only one of them belonged to the Swordmaidens. The pirates generally didn't bother with maintaining a science department, so the Vandals bore the responsibility of researching the remains.

Inside the somewhat more crowded passenger compartment of one of the transports, Ves sat behind a terminal attempting to figure something out from the garbled sensor readings they took last time they witnessed the might of a sacred god.

He developed a theory that had caught on with the Flagrant Swordmaidens, one which stated that the wild gods and sacred gods could be directed by their beast riders akin to how mechs pilots controlled their mechs.

Some of the more boastful Vandals even claimed that they could tame the wild god as long as they sat on their backs!

Safe to say, many of the saner Vandals immediately smacked some sense into these crazy mech pilots. Who would want to risk their lives by riding on the backs of those incredibly strong and deadly beasts?!

Many people remained fascinated however, including Ketis, who tagged along with Ves this time. Mayra remained behind in camp to ensure all of the Swordmaiden mechs would be ready to march in time.

Compared to all of that boring stuff, Ketis rather preferred to tag along with the hunting party!

Still, it took at least two days to reach the prairie, so she currently idled away her time by twirling her green hair around her finger.

"What are you looking at, Ves?" She asked in a bored tone.

He grimaced. "I'm trying to figure out the nature of the connection between the beast riders and the sacred gods. To be more specific, I'm keeping my eyes out for any clue that might suggest that this is a natural or engineered phenomenon."

"What does that matter?"

"The answer is extremely important. Most of us believe that it can't be a coincidence that the exobeasts are able to interface with a human mind. They all think that some crazy exobiologists from the Starlight Megalodon had spawned them out of nowhere or modified an existing alien species into the monsters they are today."

"Isn't it obvious?" She frowned. "There's no way a creature like that has evolved the ability to interface their minds with a different species out of the blue. And the tricks the sacred gods showed off are just like how expert mechs show off their resonance abilities. Do you think the exobiologists worked together with some really smart mech designers into designing these gods? It's like they are made to be living mechs!"

That phrase triggered Ves a bit. Over the preceding days, Ves tried to process the existence of exobeasts capable of interfacing with the human mind. Was this a potential direction for development?

Eventually, he rejected this approach. Although a final product already existed, these exobeasts truly couldn't be called mechs. Exobiology was very different from mech design!

He issued a firm correction to his former student. "Don't call them living mechs. That brings out a flawed association between mechs and exobeasts. The wild gods and sacred gods of Aeon Corona VII are living, thinking organic creatures. The biggest difference between mechs and these beasts are that the latter are already functional and dangerous on their own. Don't underestimate the threat they pose. I bet this wild god has some tricks up its sleeve in order to survive the harsh conditions of this planet."

The natives didn't call them wild gods for nothing. While they hadn't been entirely forthcoming about the capabilities of either types of gods, the fact that they considered them to be divine should be deeply concerning to the Vandals and Swordmaidens about to hunt one of them down.

Mortals weren't supposed to challenge the gods!

Chapter 796

The hunting party eventually crossed over into prairie terrain. The terrain became a little harder to navigate, and if the Vandals made use of wheeled or tracked vehicles, then they would have slowed down to a crawl.

Fortunately, the legged transports which derived some of their shape from insects possessed enough maneuverability to walk over most irregularities in the terrain. They didn't even slow down that much when they had to climb uphill.

To speed up their progress, every mech and transport maintained their own antigrav fields. Though costly in terms of energy, sustaining it for a day or two wouldn't break their energy budget.

Still, if they kept the antigrav modules running at all times, then eventually they would run out of energy after a month or two. That was way too fast and would put them at a huge disadvantage.

How could they compete for the treasures of the Starlight Megalodon if their mechs moved like snails and their melee mechs couldn't even lift up their weapons without taking seconds to do so?

Besides the occasional supply shipments sent down from the fleet that had begun mining operations on one of the moons, the only other way to supplement their energy was to find a local source.

This was why they put so much emphasis on their entreaties with the ancient city of Mulak. If the natives traded the means of siphoning some of the higher-dimensional energies for their own uses in exchange for something like a water purifier or a basic power reactor, then the Vandals wouldn't have to worry about this issue so much.

They didn't even know if it was possible to convert the higher-dimensional energies into electricity or some other form that the Vandals were capable of harnessing. For all they knew, only through the medium of a sacred god would they be able to secure an endless power source.

In any case, one of the reasons why the Flagrant Swordmaidens wanted to dissect a wild god was because they may be able to figure out this energy conversion process on their own. If they manage to obtain the god crystals from somewhere, then they could use the insights they gained to invent a makeshift renewable energy source that would last them for as long as the astral winds dominated the skies!

The hunting party took some time to navigate towards the site of the wild god. Vandals and Swordmaidens positioned scouts at a distance, making sure they remained downwind so that the creature wouldn't be able to smell their distinctive metallic scents and spook them off.

"Is that it?" Ketis remarked as the fast transports and mechs halted at least ten kilometers away from the big beast. "For a supposed god, it doesn't look as large as the sacred gods from the footage."

"These creatures grow extremely slow. According to Dr. Tillman, it takes a century or more for them to reach adulthood."

The wild god in question looked smaller and leaner than the fat and bulky sacred gods of Mulak. If Dr. Tillman was right, then this may be a younger adult specimen of its species. Perhaps the reason why it drifted off into the prairie was because it lacked the strength to claim a better territory.

During the time it remained under observation, the wild god mostly slept in the open. Occasionally it woke up to dig a small hole with its formidable rear limbs, only to use it as a makeshift toilet before covering it up with soil.

Other times, it hunted down the herd of animals by moving towards them in an agonizingly slow pace.

Though the wild god appeared to move as fast as a slow turtle, the bison-like creatures didn't move any faster either!

Looking at the footage of the wild god hunting down its prey was like watching a turtle trying to catch up to a snail. Both were slow creatures in their size category, but the wild god possessed an absolute speed advantage because its body and limbs were bigger!

In fact, the wild god didn't particularly exert itself too much whenever it wanted to snack. It merely sniffed the air and homed in on the strong smells of the large herds of animals.

The wild god didn't go too far either. It only nabbed half-a-dozen prey at a time at most, thereby preventing it from driving the animal herds to extinction.

Behavior like this increased everyone's impression that this animal had been engineered somehow.

Ves and the other expert huddled together with Captain Byrd to go over the final plans. They already formed one with the cooperation of the Swordmaidens but they wanted to look over it to see if they made any oversights.

"Have we detected the presence of a second wild god?" Chief Dakkon wondered. "I don't want to find out it has a mate that has stumbled upon us attempting to dissect its deceased partner."

"We're fairly certain the beast is on its own." Dr. Tillman replied. "We've analyzed the terrain extensively and the only traces of a giant beast belongs to this yellow wild god."

The creature in question resembled a feathered dinosaur covered with rich yellow feather interspersed with other patterns. It weighed significantly more than a heavy mech, but not as much as one of the sacred gods.

It never showed any signs of sentience or interaction with the elusive wildlings. The Flagrant Swordmaidens kept their eyes and ears peeled out for the dwarves, but so far they hadn't encountered any. They didn't adhere to the stereotype of miners who loved to claim mineral-rich deposits.

Mining ores didn't fill up their stomachs!

"Has the creature shown any sign of extraordinary abilities?"

"None so far, though that doesn't mean it doesn't have any trump cards." Dr. Tillman cautioned them all. "Our scanners and sensors can't penetrate past its feathery scales. Just like a sacred god, the wild god is emitting a natural interference field that also has a spacetime distortion component. This alone tells us that they may not be called gods in vain."

In short, they hadn't figured out more than what they already knew a few days ago. Though Captain Byrd wanted to treat the wild god as a potential opponent on par with a sacred god like Naeduvis, they couldn't afford to dither all day. Delaying the hunt by a few days wouldn't improve their chances of success.

They just needed to get on with the hunt.

The fast transports remained at the rear while the mechs stepped forward. The Vandals and Swordmaidens both brought two mech companies again. The Vandals brought more ranged mechs this time as they didn't anticipate their melee mechs to play any role.

Even if the wild god moved as slow as a snail, none of them underestimated the creature's burst capabilities! It could perform a quick snap if it wanted to! Taking them out at a distance so far that the mechs would barely be able to remain in visual range sounded like a much safer prospect.

"The Swordmaiden mechs are in position. Our own mechs are in position as well. The wild god is currently asleep and has not shown any indications of detecting our presence. We can commence the attack any any time, captain."

"Begin! Open fire!"

Around sixty laser beams impacted the obliviously slumbering wild god! The attack instantly struck its feathered limbs, causing its scales to start vaporizing from the combined firepower of several laser beams pinpointing their targeting on the exact same spot!

Unlike enemy mechs, these wild gods didn't possess any ECM or a form of mobility that allowed them to mess with the targeting of the rifleman mechs. Even the creature's natural interference field wasn't enough to divert most of the laser beams away from their target spots.

The wild god released a painful roar immediately upon waking. It turned its head towards the limbs and saw that it had acquired a new sete of shallow holes on its limbs!

"Fire again!"

A second salvo of lasers struck the previously-hit areas. The wild god roared in agony as most of the scales on those spots succumbed to blindingly bright beams of light that came from the blue!

The wild god swiveled its huge eyes towards the forms in the distance and began to lumber forward in a fury-crazed charge!

Of course, the creature's charge didn't look impressive to the hunters at all. The mechs easily took a few steps backwards in order to maintain a consistent distance between their frail mechs and the wild god's brute strength.

Ves stared at the footage and the sensor readings in rapt attention. He was waiting for something to happen. Was the wild god a simple creature, or did it possess any powers that was worthy of the mantle of a god?

"Energy levels within the beast is spiking!" Chief Dakkon called in alarm. "Spacetime distortion is strengthening as well!"

"Is it siphoning energy from the astral winds?!"

"Nothing of the sort. The wild god is drawing upon an inner reservoir of energy that we haven't detected before!"

"What is it doing?!"

"I don't know, but the emissions it is generating is spreading out over the terrain! It's similar to the ability shown off by Naeduvis, except it doesn't involve the ground water!"

Then what was this wild god up to?

"Our seismic sensors are reading an increasing level of tremors around the wild god! It's calling down an earthquake!"

The prairie soil in a wide area around the wild god trembled and shook! Some of the soil even cracked and split, causing the animals nearby to fall into the chasms that emerged beneath their limbs!

"Are our mechs and transports under threat?" Captain Byrd asked in concern.

"No ma'am! Our assets remain well outside the area of effect. We should only be experiencing some minor shakes at most."

The earthquake lasted around forty seconds before Chief Dakkon reported that the wild god's energy reservoir ran out of juice. Despite the wild god's incredible ferocity, it couldn't do anything to a distant opponent!

The wild god visibly looked exhausted. Unlike the sacred gods, these untamed exobeasts didn't appear to be optimised for war, though that might also be a function of its age.

"I think that's it." Dakkon remarked. "Without any way to supplement its energy quickly, I don't think it can pull off any more tricks."

Ves nodded in agreement as he watched the rifleman mechs disabling its limbs with their focused lasers before turning their firepower onto other sections of its body. Since they didn't expect the wild god to be able to pose a threat to their mechs, the hunters took their time by aiming to immobilize and kill the exobeast while leaving as many parts intact as possible.

"It's interesting that it is able to perform such a trick on its own." Ves observed. "This proves that the godly abilities they showed off doesn't have to involve a beast rider."

The feathered wild god's ability proved that the beast riders didn't bring as much to the table compared to expert pilots.

An expert mech without an expert pilot would never be able to muster up their resonance abilities.

This likely strengthened the impression of the giant exobeasts in the native population.

Speaking of experts, Ves diverted some attention to the performance of the pale dancer. Though it had been built as a customized ballistic rifleman mech, it could still wield laser rifles as long as it forewent some resonance abilities and specialized systems that only worked well with physical rounds.

The Pale Dancer wouldn't be able to employ any devastating tricks like infusing its rounds with penetrating or exploding energy, but Venerable Xie still had his excellent marksmanship to go on. Each of his lasers hit their assigned target without any deviation, even compensating for the minute amount of spacetime distortion that threw everyone's aim slightly off course!

The customized laser rifle in the Pale Dancer's hands barked out laser beams that were at least four times as powerful as the lasers released by normal rifles. No expense had been spared for the weapon which originally served as yet another backup weapon for the overgeared Parallax Star.

"The beast is starting to succumb!"

After more than five minutes of surgical bombardment, the wild god finally showed signs of croaking.

It was a rather ignoble end for such a majestic creature. For some reason, Ves didn't look very impressed at their successful act of deicide.

"They're not really gods, after all." He shook his head in disappointment. "They're merely mistaken as such."

Chapter 797

The wild god appeared just as majestic up close as a sacred god. They possessed the same bulk and formless aura of pressure. Though Dr. Tillman hadn't quite determined if the giant exobeasts consisted of one species with several subraces or multiple species, Ves leaned towards the former.

The wild gods had too much in common despite their somewhat divergent appearances. The diversity of their subraces resembled the diversity of dog breeds throughout the galaxy.

"Wow. This god truly does resemble an organic heavy mech." Ketis uttered with an awed expression. This was her first time she ever came close to one of the exobeasts. "How can they grow so large on a heavy gravity planet?"

"That's what the exobiologists are about to find out." Ves replied while flicking his head over to the exobiologists already starting to take tissue samples of the big brute.

Dr. Tillman and her team practically urged their fast transport to sprint towards the carcass as soon as the Flagrant Swordmaidens confirmed it bought the farm.

Chief Dakkon and score of technicians also started unloading prefab cold chamber parts. In order to preserve the corpse as best as possible, the Vandals planned to envelop the corpse in a giant chamber that lowered the temperature inside.

Of course, the cooks already started picking out their choice cuts of meat. A regular knife wouldn't be able to cut through the hard scales and thick hide, so they needed the assistance of the Swordmaidens to hack out a few small samples for them to experiment on at their mobile kitchen.

A lot of Vandals and Swordmaidens eagerly tracked the progress of the cooks, finding their work a lot more interesting than the science stuff performed by the exobiologists and other experts.

A small competition emerged as the mech pilots silently justled for the right to take the first bite. Everyone valued the bragging rights of partaking in the flesh of a god, but the person enjoyed a definite advantage over all the other braggers!

Ves silently shook his head as he witnessed their arguing behind the scenes. They had enough sense to remain alert inside their mechs in case the wild god had a mate or something, but the slight movements betrayed their vigorous arguing.

While the cold chamber slowly took shape, Ves and Ketis stood by the side along with the rest of the gawkers. As mech designers, their expertise left them with little to do. The only reason they tagged along was because they might be relevant if the exobiologists identified anything related to neural interfaces.

Ves had analyzed the previous sensor readings over and over again and couldn't help but conclude that the sacred gods definitely maintained a neural connection with their beast riders!

Whether the beasts accomplished this through an artificial implant or a natural organ, the Flagrant Swordmaidens would soon find out as the exobiologists began to cut the carcass apart.

Because the beast was so unimaginably huge and tough, the exobiologists started enlisting the aid of a Swordmaiden mech. The cutting had to be done with care and precision, but also with a substantial amount of force because the wild god possessed an immensely tough body.

While the exobiologists were expected to become absorbed in their studies for a couple of days, Ves brought Ketis over to the Pale Dancer, which had stood down from combat.

"That's your expert pilot's old mech, isn't it? It certainly looks the part!" Ketis remarked.

Ves nodded in agreement. The mech oozed quality to any mech designer who possessed a decent set of eyes. "Every part about an expert mech is a pinnacle design. With regular designs, you often have to make compromises in terms of cost due to diminishing returns. With expert mechs, your budget is a lot more generous. If you can improve an expert mech's performance by one percent at the cost of a heavy mech, then most expert mech designers will eagerly accept such a trade."

Ketis threw a glance at Ves as if she couldn't believe a mech designer would be so wasteful to give up an entire expert mech just to squeeze out an extra percentage of performance for a single mech. In most circumstances, the addition of a heavy mech often trumped over a marginal performance boost of a single mech.

Yet this rule didn't apply to expert mechs. These peak performance machines which possessed enough power to slaughter a hundred ordinary mechs in the right conditions didn't actually see that much use in such a fashion. As trump cards, they mostly deployed against other expert mechs.

In these intense clashes which pitted demigods against demigods, the difference a single percentage of performance could make might be able to tip the balance between the two elite mechs!

If a force commander had to make the choice to save a billion credits but lose an expert mech, or spend that billion credits and enable the expert mech to win the clash, most would make the second choice for sure!

This was also the principal reason why expert mechs rarely entered the private sector. Outfits without any backing of a state simply couldn't afford to make such costly tradeoffs and still be able to run a profit.

It was cheaper to raise a hundred regular mechs and provide for their supplies and transportation than to support a single expert mech!

As a ballistic rifleman mech, the Pale Dancer resembled some of his Crystal Lord's design choices by prioritizing speed and mobility while covering up its frame with a thin layer of extravagantly strong compressed armor plating.

The Pale Dancer made use of an armor system that completely surpassed the cost of the Veltrex armor system. Though the actual degree of strengthening wasn't as drastic, it nonetheless allowed the thin and nimble Pale Dancer to shrug off ordinary rifle rounds and laser beams with relative ease, though it fared less well against penetrating attacks such as kinetic projectiles launched by cannons or railguns.

As a custom mech, the mech designer of the Pale Dancer should have invested a lot of their emotions into the machine. Yet whenever Ves came close to the mech, his sixth sense only sensed a diminished sense of restraint, as if this mech's true potential had forcefully been shackled by other priorities.

Ves regaled his speculation concerning its design to Ketis. "Internal politics can be kind of messy. The Senior Mech Designer in the service of the Royal House of Talk had probably received an instruction from another prince to limit the effectiveness of the Pale Dancer. A mech designer can employ hundreds of tricks to sabotage their own designs without making it obvious."

"It must have been rather painful for that Senior to cripple his own design."

"That's why you should never work for nobles or another interest group. They only care about themselves, and never take your interests into consideration."

"What about Mayra and the Swordmaidens?" She frowned. "I can't imagine abandoning them for any reason. They're my sisters!"

"I'm not saying you should discard your bonds. They can be a strength and a reliable form of support for you. There's nothing wrong with respecting the mech designer who raised you, but you shouldn't stand still and do nothing if she ever leads you to the wrong path. Even if you are just a Novice right now, you already possess the qualifications to set out on your own."

Ves tried to ease Ketis into the idea of pursuing her career outside of the Swordmaidens for a while. He always thought she didn't have to remain stuck with the pirate gang for the entirety of her life.

When Mayra passed over a data chip with forged identity documents and gifted him with the Cadisis, Ves started to have a premonition that the future might be a lot more dire than he thought.

Though he didn't know what kind of disaster the Starlight Megalodon had in store for them all, it didn't hurt to prepare.

The more escape plans he arranged, the better his chances of surviving a crisis.

Speaking of plans, Venerable Xie emerged from somewhere and approached Ves with a determined gait.

"Mr. Larkinson."

"Venerable Xie." Ves bowed along with Ketis. Though expert pilots didn't necessarily merit a ritual greeting, it was customary to do so in order to indicate respect. No matter what he had done to the expert pilot's mind, he still had to observe the forms in front of him. "How has the Pale Dancer performed so far?"

"It is better, though I don't know why." The expert pilot frowned. The man spoke with such force and weight that the mech designers had to resist becoming entranced by his voice. "Some problems persist, particularly when the antigrav field is off. While my mech is strong enough to move under the planet's gravity, its balance profile requires some adjustments."

"I'll put it on the list and work on it now." Ves acknowledged the complaint. "Are there any other problems that require immediate attention?"

The expert pilot mentioned a couple of problems, most of them already known to the Vandals. It took time and ingenuity to solve those problems. Under field conditions, their ability to modify and rework the Pale Dancer received a large truncation. The basic prefab workshops erected at the camp only provided the bare minimum of facilities to service the mechs. More extensive overhauls could only be done back on the combat carriers or logistics ships.

In the meantime, Ketis basically stared at the expert pilot as if she met a hero in the flesh. Everyone possessed a fascination for expert pilots, and very few of them could shake off the hero worship ingrained by society.

Even pirates admired expert pilots!

Of course, Ves long shook off his mindless awe for expert pilots.

Once they finished going over the raft of issues, Ves decided to take a risk and ask about something more personal. "How are you fitting in with the Flagrant Vandals, sir?"

The expert pilot maintained a composed face, revealing little of his emotions. "I am grateful for the Vandals to rescue the remnants of our colonization fleet. A chapter of my life has ended. While the Vandals are far from what I am used to, they are a fine and courageous folk. Even if they do their duty with plenty of complaints, they don't back off. I admire that courage."

This harkened back to the man's background as a bodyguard for the former Fourth Prince. A cowardly bodyguard didn't exist!

"Have you made any friends?"

The man stared back without making any response. Of course, expert pilots didn't easily mingle with their lessers anymore.

Still, Ves found the lack of any friendly connections to be a tad bit concerning.

Had the tampered neural interfaces succeeded in influencing the expert pilot's mind? As Ves asked a few more casual questions, he couldn't read much from the expert pilot's terse answers.

For an expert pilot who was supposed to be loyal to the Flagrant Vandals, the man did not express that much enthusiasm for his new employer. At some point, Ves started to develop a creeping suspicion.

The mind of an expert pilot was incalculably more firm than that of a regular mech pilot. The main component of their advancement was their strong and unwavering willpower! Though this was an ephemeral quality that couldn't be expressed in numbers, everyone knew that expert pilots had reached a qualitative transformation on this aspect!

The suspicion disturbed Ves to such an extent that he quickly ended the conversation and guided Ketis away from the dangerous man.

"Awww!" She groaned. "Why didn't you introduce me to him? That's the first expert pilot I've seen up close! I wanted to shake his hand!"

Ves sighed. "Try and stay sober in front of expert pilots next time. Not all of them are good people."

And not all of them might be loyal to those they ostensibly served. Though Ves had been unable to obtain any proof of that, his interaction with Venerable Xie was so strange that Ves truly started doubting whether the mental tampering had truly set in. If it turned out that the expert pilot resisted the brainwashing, then the Vandals had a ticking time bomb on their hands!

Chapter 798

His realization concerning Venerable Xie's questionable loyalties spoiled his good mood. While the rest of the Flagrant Swordmaidens got caught up in a festive mood after killing the wild god, Ves lacked the interest to join the festive mood.

He instead spent his time on reviewing the Pale Dancer's performance logs. Unfortunately, his knowledge regarding neural interfaces and their effects on their pilots was too shallow for him to make any definite conclusions. Only a true specialist would be able to make sense of all the incomprehensible data.

"What a fine situation we're in." He sighed.

Right now, Ves started to think that accepting Major Verle's request may have been a huge mistake. The Fourth Prince died through no fault of their own, so if they fessed up to Venerable Xie, the expert pilot might have forgiven the Vandals for failing to protect the expert pilot's former employer.

Yet instead of opting for honesty, Major Verle instead insisted on deceiving the expert pilot with an AI that took the place of the deceased foreign prince. Such a solution would only work for a couple of days, therefore Ves had to implement a more permanent solution by tampering with the neural interfaces.

Recently, Ves contemplated the nature of the neural interface and its importance to mechs throughout the galaxy. Neural interface technology wasn't anything new, and existed long before the advent of the Age of Mechs.

The tech's implementation had been a lot more cruder back then, and researchers didn't understand too much about them. Only through the popularization of mechs did the study of neural interfaces advance past its rudimentary, neglected stage and matured into a safe and reliable product as long as they didn't go off the rails.

Ves had very much deliberately steered Venerable Xie's neural interfaces off the rails with his tampering. He had always thought that he succeeded, but now he wondered if the expert pilot kept his mind firmly on the rails through his sheer force of will.

He really shouldn't underestimate the metaphysical strength of an expert pilot's mind! Warriors beyond compare, expert pilots exhibited so much mental strength that their minds could process multiple times more input from a mech than an advanced pilot!

If someone like Venerable O'Callahan or Venerable Xie fought in the Redemption Duel held by the Church of Haatumak, then their nervous systems would have easily been capable of bearing the load of all of the raw input of data. Their nerves would definitely strain a little, but their minds had already taken on some of the traits of artificial processors, so they possessed the capability to filter and discard junk data before they flooded their minds.

This capability to withstand and resist harmful data applied to every kind of input. If the expert pilot suspected what went on, then it wasn't out of the blue for him to resist active brainwashing!

It wasn't as if expert pilots had never been brainwashed before, but the difficulties involved in making sure the new directives had set in required a lot of effort.

The tampering that Ves had rushed through mainly consisted of pirating old programming from the Farund Affair from a textbook. While he was pretty sure the code was authentic, the mechs sold by Farund Inc. back then all consisted of mass-market products.

None of the tampered neural interfaces the infamous mech manufacturer had included in their products ever aimed at expert pilots.

Expert pilots deserved special treatment. This applied to every aspect. Employers needed to spend lavishly on them. Enemies needed to sacrifice hundreds of mechs or send out their own trump card to stop them in battle. Mech designers had to tailor their expert mechs to their heightened capabilities.

It was that last point where Ves made a critical oversight. He applied a standard, mass-market solution to a problem that actually demanded the VIP treatment.

This was like serving the contents of a nutrient pack to a diner in a high-class restaurant!

"Damnit! I made a big mistake!"

Though he lacked definite proof, his dread only increased as his certainty became stronger. Perhaps Venerable Xie had maintained his clarity throughout this entire time, but acted dumb because he had no other choice!

"That's right." He calmed himself a bit. "No matter what grudge he has with us, for the time being we're both on the same boat."

If Venerable Xie possessed any survival instincts at all, then he wouldn't deliberately sabotage the mission.

If he raised a stink right now, he'd only be able to devastate the Flagrant Swordmaidens. What then? Remain stranded on the surface? Who would service his Pale Dancer and supply it with new energy cells? Even expert pilots didn't enjoy spending the rest of their lives under the influence of heavy gravity!

Perhaps he might be able to seek asylum with the natives, but what did they know about mechs? The thought of devolving into a savage whose mech quickly broke down from lack of maintenance probably didn't appeal to the expert pilot who spent most of his life in civilized space.

Only by completing the mission would the Flagrant Vandals pick him up from the surface and bring him out of the Aeon Corona System.

Once the fleet returned to the near frontier or crossed back into civilized space would the expert pilot be able to exact his revenge and make it out alive!

"Still, that's something I would do if faced with the same choice. That doesn't mean someone else will follow the same steps."

Ves had experienced many stupid and crazy decision-making in his career so far. The incident which struck him the most was the time he visited Mancroft Station and encountered lots of trouble because many pirate crewmembers squandered all of their life savings by betting on the wrong champion in a hyped-up arena duel!

Humans were emotional creatures who made decisions based on other factors besides their rational self-interests. Ves wasn't exempt from this human condition either.

He developed a second scenario in his mind. If Venerable Xie wanted to screw the Flagrant Vandals at the most inopportune time, then the moment to do so would be when they reached the Starlight Megalodon!

Not only would the betrayal make the Vandals vulnerable to their competitors, the expert would also be able to claim some of the spoils from the derelict battleship for himself. If he was lucky, he might also be able to defect to one of the other competitors that took part in the race to secure the Starlight Megalodon's bounty.

In any case, the longer this situation persisted, the greater the risk this might all blow up in their faces.

The main problem right now was that Ves couldn't confide in anyone about this problem! Major Verle should be the only person who knew what Ves had attempted to do, but the highest-ranking Vandal in the System was currently stuck with the fleet far above their heads.

Ves did not dare to relay a message to Major Verle. He couldn't confide in Captain Byrd either. Even if Ves believed she might be a part of the same Firestarters crew as Major Verle, some secrets shouldn't be spread around.

This was a problem that Ves had to address on his own. He started to contemplate certain alternatives.

Should he implement a killswitch on the mech? The more thought of it pained his design philosophy. Doing so directly contradicted his core principles regarding mech design. He already abused his design philosophy a short time before.

"I'll think of something. There is still some time."

As Ves turned his attention back to the Pale Dancer's design. An entire day passed while the exobiologists went to town on the wild god carcass. Nothing much happened during the intervening time, though the cooks impatiently waited for the exobiologists to declare the meat to be safe for consumption.

The clamoring for wild god barbecue grew ever wilder! If the exobiologists didn't make the pronouncement soon, the mech pilots would probably revolt and forcefully break into the cold chamber to appropriate the mountains of meat for themselves!

At some time, a Vandal security officer approached him and interrupted his work.

"Mr. Larkinson, Dr. Tillman has requested your presence in order to assist her with one of her findings. Please follow me to the cold chamber."

"Lead the way." Ves replied with an uncertain frown.

The exobiologist wouldn't involve a mech designer without a reason. Curious to why the exobiologist wanted him to be present, he eagerly followed after the security officer. Ketis silently followed along.

It wasn't as if their research on the wild god wouldn't be shared with the Swordmaidens anyway. The pirates exhibited just as much curiosity about the nature of the wild gods as everyone else.

Once the three passed through a rudimentary identity check, they entered the cold chamber and got hit by a blast of cold air. Their combat armor immediately unfolded their integrated helmets in order to protect their wearers from the chill.

"It's not that cold here." Ketis muttered and reversed the setting of her suit, causing her helmet to retract again. "It's only a couple of degrees below Celsius here."

Ves followed suit. He could take much more than a minor chill. "It just needs to be cold enough here to stall the decomposition of the carcass. Freezing this place any further will waste a lot of energy."

The carcass looked a lot more different than before. The Swordmaiden mech employed as an impromptu butcher had methodically cut through the carcass and retrieved many organs and other tissue samples to be loaded into frozen containers.

As the security officer led Ves and Ketis up to a ramp which maintained a commanding view over the increasingly diminishing carcass, Dr. Tillman immediately dragged them to a nearby console.

"So doc, have you figured out whether someone tampered with these exobeasts?"

"They're not natural." Dr. Tillman declared with a serious expression. "We've gathered fairly conclusive evidence that other exobiologists have engineered the wild god's genome. We've determined that it used to be a native species on this planet, but received so many genetic enhancements that it's clear to us that it's an engineered species."

"You mean someone designed these exobeast species to fulfill a specific role?"

"Exactly so. They are not a product of nature. Not only do these species lack any limiters on their body growth, they also contain many modifications that allow them to survive an Earth-like atmosphere while enhancing their metabolism so that they can digest Earth-derived foods. And these are only the basic tweaks."

The doctor opened up a research report that listed all of the changes she found so far. Practically every organ had been tampered with! In fact, their brains received the most extensive modifications by far!

"We have identified many new and unknown structures within the exobeast's brains that are definitely not the product of nature. The exobiologists have deliberately aimed to impose these changes on their brains. The problem is that we can't identify most of their functions."

"Do you know what the purpose is for all of these modifications? Why bother with modifying them? What makes a wild god different from its original species?"

If someone engineered this species, then they had to have a purpose in mind. It was the same as designing a mech. Nobody designed them out of a whim!

"We don't know for certain why they are engineered in this way, but there is one section of the brains that stands out to us. Please look at this protruding brain matter that is extending upwards.

The projector displayed a three-dimensional model of the exobeast's brains. Different from the brains of most other humans and beasts, a very distinct fork-like shape stood out. It was as if someone stuck a fork into someone's brains!

Of course, the shape only resembled a fork. In fact, its structure was a lot more complex than that once the projection zoomed in. Ves studied the model and flicked through the raw footage of this organ's appearance.

After three minutes of study, he came to a definite conclusion about this organ's purpose.

"It's different to see it in an organic form, but there's no doubt about it. This organ is a neural interface!"

An organic neural interface! Someone had actually managed to incorporate such a complex system into the genes of an exobeast. This meant that any mech pilot could potentially 'pilot' a wild god!

This only strengthened his impression that some exobiologists had designed these species to replace the role of mechs on this planet!

Chapter 799

Someone engineered an exobeast species that could replace the role of mechs!

There had to be a reason for this effort! Both Ves and Dr. Tillman determined that the wild god's genome had been a product of a cross-disciplinary team that consisted of both mech designers and exobiologists.

Those professions ordinarily never came into contact with each other. Their fields of expertise almost never intersected with each other.

In the rare cases that they did, their combined efforts usually produced atrocities such as organic mechs!

In a way, the god species of Aeon Corona VIII should be an offshoot to the early research to design an organic mech. Instead of starting from scratch and attempt to create a perverse form of life from nothing, the exobiologists and mech designers who presumably survived the Starlight Megalodon's crash had taken an existing species and messed with their genes so much that they didn't resemble their predecessors at all!

What Dr. Tillman couldn't wrap her head around was why the exobiologists and mech designers would be so bored to make such an effort. "It takes a lot of research, experimentation and iteration to implement so many modifications. The larger the species, the more resources and time you need to make sure the modifications haven't resulted in any adverse effects."

Ves couldn't supply her with any answers. Other than guesses, they had nothing to go on. All they knew was that it took decades to perfect the modifications. The god species that emerged from the fruit of their labor eventually went on to spread across the planet as the absolute apex predators of the changing ecosystem.

The engineered exobeasts dominated to such an extent that they even prevented the human descendants from taking over the entire planet!

The god species as well as the blessed and cursed people all came about through the intervention of the exobiologists stationed on the Starlight Megalodon. Over thousands of years of degeneration and decay, only their work withstood the test of time.

Where were the mechs?

Why hadn't the blessed people maintained the technological standards of their forefathers?

Why did the blessed people get to rule over the city while the cursed people had to fend for themselves in the wild?

All of these consequences sounded like a mad scientist's dream. It was as if the exobiologists who survived the crash worked for the Five Scrolls Compact instead of the CFA!

Ves could never imagine the sober scientists and researchers in the employ of one of the Big Two to be so unrestrained.

The worst part was that the captain or the admiral aboard the battleship must have approved such a drastic intervention. The exobiologists and mech designers could have never completed such a massive project without the full support of the rest of the survivors.

As Ves tentatively identified all of the aspects about the exobeast's biology related to mech design, it became clear that the wild god had been explicitly designed to facilitate control.

One strange gap in the center of the brains puzzled him however. "I don't know much about the brains, but shouldn't there something be inside this cavity?"

"About that.." Dr. Tillman said as she adopted a careful expression. "We've encountered the means to which a wild god supplied the energy to call down those tremors."

The doctor switched the projection to an image captured as a handful of men in hazard suits retrieved a murky crystal the size of a human child from the giant brains.

"Is that one of those fancy god crystals!?" Ketis uttered from behind.

Tillman shook her head. "Not quite. It's an inferior copy of the so-called god crystals. Chief Dakkon is researching it right now at the mobile labs, but so far we've been able to determine that it is a lot cruder than the god crystals embedded into the hides of the sacred gods. As far as we know, it doesn't have the ability to call down an energy tornado, nor is it able to store any pure higher-dimensional energies."

"Then what is it?" Ves asked.

"As far as we can tell, it stores an intermediary form of energy derived from the higher-dimensional energies when they devolve into something simpler when they spill over into the material dimensions. It's the process of accumulation that is particularly interesting."

"How so, doctor?"

"Chief Dakkon and I developed a theory about this as soon as we identified the properties of the murky crystals as we are referring them to. While the higher-dimensional energies are largely contained in the astral winds that blow at least a hundred kilometers over the surface of the planet, a miniscule amount of spillage still occurs. Nothing is ever perfect, and even the astral winds deviate from the rule from time to time."

"You believe that the higher-dimensional energy that escapes from the astral winds devolves into a lesser form of energy once it descends on the planet?"

"Exactly. More than that, the native wildlife is somehow capable of absorbing them into their bodies. The energy slowly lands on the grass, which gets grazed by herbivores. Those herbivores gets eaten by predators, who continue to eat prey who are contaminating with a miniscule amount of intermediary energy. The predators continue to accumulate more of this contaminant as time goes on until they die and get eaten by other predators."

What Dr. Tillman described was the process of bioaccumulation of substances. Even if the astral winds only release a minute amount of intermediate energy, they eventually concentrate into greater amounts as the plans and animals get eaten by other animals.

"And in this engineered ecosystem, the god species sit at the top of the food chain." Ves stated. "These wild gods and sacred gods grow so large and live such long lives that they are probably able to accumulate a scary amount of intermediate energy!"

Dr. Tillman mentioned another revelation. "The murky crystals themselves aren't exactly mundane either. According to Chief Dakkon, the crystals themselves are formed from intermediate energy! This is why we're experiencing many difficulties in analyzing them. Our equipment and scanners aren't able to cope with something so advanced!"

Both Ves and Ketis widened their eyes. They knew the implications of this revelation. Energy and mass were related to each other. In the right circumstances, mass turned into energy and vica versa. However, such a transformation often came pared with a huge release or consumption of energy!

The most typical example of this phenomenon was the ubiquitous nuclear weapon. Both nuclear fission and nuclear fusion involved tiny reactions that released a tiny amount of energy.

Their destructiveness came from the fact that such a reaction happened so many times at the same time that the tiny bit of energy being released built up to an enormous explosion!

Therefore, any phenomena that involved mass turning into energy or vica versa had to be handled with care.

Right now, Ves honed in on the fact that if the process of forming the murky crystals could be reversed. The Flagrant Swordmaidens might be able to solve their energy shortages in that case!

"Do you know if the murky crystals can be used as a source of energy?"

The exobiologist shrugged. "You'll have to ask Chief Dakkon for that. As far as I'm aware of, the murky crystals aren't very good at their jobs. They're filled with impurities that hamper their function."

Ves planned to do so later. Right now, he wanted to discuss the implications of discovering some mech-like traits in the carcass of the wild god. The influence of mech designers was actually fairly slight except for the inclusion of a biological neural interface. Incorporating this growth was so blatant that the exobeast's skull developed a deformity in order to accommodate this growth!

It was Dr. Tillman's turn to ask a question this time. "This isn't my field of expertise, but do you think that a mech pilot will be able to interface with a wild god without complications?"

"I'm barely knowledgeable about neural interfaces and neurology myself, so I can't answer that question. I do think that it would be reckless for a mech pilot to attempt an interface with a feral beast, especially if we annoyed it by taking it into captivity or something."

"Why do you believe this is the case? Haven't the natives managed to do so successfully?"

"Yes, but the blessed people have established a bond with those creatures. A wild god on the other hand is a wild beast that is certainly antagonistic to strange organisms like us. Have you ever heard about what has happened when neural interface technology initially came into being?"

The doctor grimaced. "Far too many accidents occurred. Many participants incurred permanent brain damage."

"It's not until fairly recently that our researchers refined the technology to the point where it's somewhat safe to interface with an animal mind. Before that, most attempts at connecting the mind of a human to the mind of an animal ended in failure. The few success stories happened when the animal in question is a loyal family dog or the like. Both of their minds needed to be in sync to some degree for the procedure to be safe."

"I've heard of this!" Ketis chirped from the background. "They say that some crazy dog enthusiast tried to overwrite the consciousness of his pet dog with his own mind! They never told us whether the procedure succeeded, but the authorities quickly came and shut the entire place down."

"Yes.. that happened a long time ago." Ves pressed his lips. "The final result was probably so gruesome that the authorities don't dare to publish the results. In any case, these incidents show that interfacing with the mind of an animal is a hugely risky affair. I'd say that the organic interface that has grown inside the heads of these exobeasts makes the process possible without employing any complicated machines. However, they probably don't do anything to reduce the inherent risks of such a procedure."

He would absolutely not agree to any experiment to let a mech pilot ride on the back of a random exobeast and attempt to interface his mind with it. The outcome wouldn't be any different from the countless failures and horror stories that littered the past.

Even if the natives managed to succeed in their attempts, the Flagrant Swordmaidens should at least learn how they managed to do so safely before making their own attempts.

After a couple of hour's worth of discussion, Ves and Ketis finally departed from the cold chamber. His expertise wouldn't be needed to analyze the rest of the wild god's carcass.

The mood outside had become a lot more cheerful during this time. The smell of charred meat started to proliferate in the air.

The barbecue had begun! The exobiologists finally pronounced some portions of meat to be safe for consumption!

Though the scientists declared that they weren't completely sure if eating the meat would harm their bodies or lead to any unintentional reactions, none of the Vandals and Swordmaidens cared.

All they wanted now was meat!

"C'mon, you've been cooking the same strip of meat for more than an hour now! Is it done yet?!" A Vandal yelled.

"Hold your horses, already!" An angry cook replied. "We're heating them as fast as we can, but this meat is resistant to heat! It takes a while to cook the insides thoroughly!"

An impatient Swordmaiden couldn't help but retort. "Who cares about that! I've eaten hundreds of exobeasts raw! My genetically-modified stomach can digest nearly anything!"

Under the exhortation of the Swordmaidens, the cooks buckled under the pressure and served a slightly underdone piece of god steak to the winner of the invisible competition.

From what Ves could gather from the men, Captain Orfan and Lieutenant Dise both claimed that they should be the ones who deserved to take the first bite.

Predictably, they hadn't been able to come to an agreement.

Captain Orfan may have won her duel against Naeduvis, but the sacred god hadn't exactly been the most stellar opponent.

Lieutenant Dise at least had the honor of surviving a duel against the Tyrant of the Wastes, an exobeast so powerful that its dreadful lightning abilities match those of an ace mech!

The two decided to resolve their argument in the simplest method possible: by stepping into the sparring ring and slugging it out against each other!

Predictably, the Swordmaiden officer won.

Once she took the very first bite, the Swordmaidens cheered while the Vandals sulked. Captain Orfan had to make do with the honor of taking the second bite.

That day, almost everyone filled their bellies to their heart's content.

Chapter 800

The hunting party eventually packed up their stuff and made their way back to the camp. Each meal they ate during the travels incorporated wild god meat to a degree. The carnivorous Vandals and Swordmaidens insisted on eating it with every meal while it lasted!

Once the cooks became accustomed to working with the tough and heat-resistant meat, they began to get creative with their recipes. The menu began to include items such as god meat hot dogs, god meat curry, god meat cheeseburgers and god meat filet mignon.

Some of the more adventurous Swordmaidens even ate the meat raw or in the form of sushi.

The only ones who didn't participate consisted of a handful of vegetarians and those with belief and dietary concerns. The Vandals took in all kinds of people, even those who should have belonged to other states.

Most people happily munched on the god meat every chance they got though. Nobody got tired of the taste of god meat. Chewy, filling and suffused with fat, the taste of meat from a creature that was hundreds of years old truly satiated their stomachs in a way that fake meat synthesized from nutrient packs could never match.

"We should turn Seven into a farm and rear these wild gods for the slaughter!"

"It's not worth the effort, idiot. It takes a hundred years for a wild god to grow to this size."

"Eh, haven't you forgotten about the timespace stuff? Time runs more than ten times faster on this planet!"

"That won't last forever! All of this crap is only happening because someone forgot to turn off the Starlight Megalodon's FTL drive when they left!"

When the hunting arrived back to the camp, Ves heard that the ancient city of Mulak eventually opened up to a substantial trade.

One of the ways the negotiators used to put some pressure on the city was to show them footage of their successful attempt at slaying one of the dreaded wild god at a distance.

Though the strength of a wild god without a beast rider paled in comparison to a sacred god, both creatures suffered from the same fatal flaw. If the Flagrant Swordmaidens ever came into hostilities with the sacred gods at Mulak, then they wouldn't be able to resist, because their lack of mobility and ranged firepower completely turned them into sitting ducks!

Though the Swordmaidens heavily favored melee mechs, they hadn't completely sworn off the use of rifleman mechs themselves because they faced many situations where a monopoly on ranged superiority proved decisive.

Besides, even if their rivals attempted to take advantage of their lack of ranged firepower, they would quickly find out that the Swordmaiden melee mechs made up for it by closing in quickly with the help of their superior mobility!

The wild gods and sacred gods completely lacked this capability. Perhaps the only sacred god that could inflict some losses to the mechs was Hokaz. The Tyrant of the Wastes possessed a formidable range with his lightning powers, but the problem was that the lightning storm only covered so much ground.

As long as the mechs dispersed and surrounded the city from all directions, even the king of the gods wouldn't be able to clean them all up. The sacred gods who plodded along for several days in indecision and willful ignorance began to realize that these strangers from beyond the vault of the gods might not take no for an answer.

Burying their heads in the sand wouldn't make the looming threat go away.

In fact, the Vandals possessed the ability to destroy the city of Mulak at an even further range than that. Having witnessed a small taste of the might in the hands of the ace mech-like Hokaz, the Vandals came up with a means to bombard the city of Mulak from a distance to break their will.

Though orbital bombardment from the fleet wasn't too feasible due to the tendency of the astral winds diverting all of the artificial meteorites off course, the Vandals could still construct a makeshift artillery cannon and have it fire shells so powerful that they flew far despite the influence of six times standard gravity!

Still, the Vandals would rather not resort to this means. They wanted to conclude a quick and painless trade so that they could quickly get moving. There was no point in trying to subjugate Mulak, and as descendants of spacers in the service of the CFA, they enjoyed a lot of rights, even if they seemed to have forgotten their roots!

Therefore, from what Ves had heard, Commander Lydia took charge of the negotiations herself and lightly coerced the ancient city into agreeing to a substantial trade.

It could have backfired on her. For all the threats she induced, the Flagrant Swordmaidens actually had no intention of following through with them. It was all smoke and mirrors in an attempt to bewilder the natives into choosing the least-bad options of placating the outsiders.

All of this happened over a span of a few days. Ves didn't particularly care about the methods, though he admired Commander Lydia's savvy. She exerted just enough pressure to force the city to acquiesce, but not enough to set off their pride and provoke repulsion.

"So what's the trade deal?" Ves asked Ketis.

"According to Mayra, we agreed to repair some of their ancient broken-down machinery. We're also supplying them with basic power reactors, antigrav modules, food synthesizers, water purifiers, luxury food stock as well as a library's worth of basic handbooks and manuals related to agriculture and mechanics."

"Sounds like a good mix of short-term and long-term benefits. Mulak will definitely be able to soar with these goods."

None of the items Ketis mentioned sounded particularly valuable to Ves. Their 3D printers could easily fabricate them from extremely basic materials such as iron, copper, titanium and the like. Their designs were so obsolete that even Ves could cobble them together by hand if need be.

Naturally, the yokals wouldn't be able to tell the difference. To them, all of these gifts had been machined so precisely that only a god of craftsmanship could build such divine products!

Ketis snorted contemptuously at the amazed natives. "In exchange for goods that's worth as much as a cheap third-hand mech, they've agreed to trade us with knowledge in the form of lore and history about the ancient cities, the wildlings, the wild gods, the godlings and some other stuff like that. However, their biggest concession by far is that they finally agreed to hand over a pure god crystal!"

"They really gave up on one?!" Ves looked amazed.

While the natives and the sacred gods didn't really care about sharing their folklore, they had always been extremely stubborn about the idea of trading away a god crystal.

These valuable crystallizations of higher-dimensional energies directly represented strength to the sacred gods! According to the lore the Flagrant Swordmaidens had already obtained, as long as they implanted them to one of their godling offspring, that creature would have a straight path to becoming a sacred god!

While it was possible for a wild god to be turned into a sacred god, the cost in god crystals made that expenditure too costly to contemplate.

A full-sized god crystal could be broken up into smaller pieces and be embedded into the hide of a newborn godling offspring. As the exobeast slowly grew, accumulated a bunch of intermediate energy through their diet, and through some unknown means contributed to the growth of the crystals implanted in their bodies.

This was in fact one of the main ways to create new god crystals! For some reason, calling down an energy tornado only filled the god crystals with higher-dimensional energy. However, this energy was extremely potent and unstable at their purest forms, so the sacred gods needed to make use of it quickly before their god crystals cracked!

"Maybe this is one of the main purposes of why the exobiologists engineered these god species." Ves speculated. "Maybe they tried and failed to interact with the astral winds through purely technological means. I don't know how they came across the so-called god crystals and how they thought that implanting them onto exobeasts was a good idea, but evidently it worked."

The successful trade with the natives had parted some of the mysteries of Aeon Corona VII's past! Now that they obtained another piece of the puzzle, the Flagrant Swordmaidens finally obtained some bit of hope of solving their energy budget deficit.

"Mayra told me that we're about to move out soon. Since we successfully completed the trade, we won't be able to squeeze anything more out of the city without spoiling our relations with them. It's much better to try our luck with other cities."

The natives of Mulak only traded away a single god crystal. While its potential was potentially infinite, they would rather have more.

"There's a handful of ancient cities along our route that may also be open to trade. Even if they aren't willing to hand out a god crystal, perhaps we can obtain some other goods from them instead." Ves mused.

In any case, the order had been given. Everyone needed to be ready to move out!

In the following couple of days, the support personnel rushed into action, eager to get a move on now that Captain Byrd. Mech technicians quickly serviced the mechs and performed some final tweaks, while machinists and other technicians constructed a considerable amount of legged transports.

Finally, the day had come. The Flagrant Swordmaidens tore down the camp and packed up the prefab structures onto the newly-constructed legged transports.

Only a handful consisted of the fast transports that could keep up with a mech on a jog. The majority instead consisted of heavy transports that possessed a much larger cargo capacity as well as stronger legs.

Due to design and energy constraints, Chief Dakkon didn't bother with incorporating antigrav modules onto the heavy transports. Even if they lightened up their weight, their means of locomotion emphasized power over speed. It couldn't move any faster even if it walked on the surface of the moon with only a sixth of the gravity of Old Earth.

When the legged transports started to walk, they did so at a crawl. Their six heavy legs moved up and down with considerable weight. Each time they dragged themselves forward, they used up a large amount of energy.

Ves looked at the hundreds of mechs and the scores of heavy transports and winced at the energy expenditure of it all. The periodic energy cells shipped from orbit helped stem the bleeding, but eventually the ground forces needed to come up with a way to generate their own portable energy source.

Conventional means wouldn't work in their case. The Vandals had already started building some energy generators that used up locally-sourced reactants that they dug up from the soil, but feeding the collective appetite of five-hundred mechs along with fifty legged transports that each bore a massive amount of cargo simply burned through their energy reserves like nothing else!

The Flagrant Swordmaidens pinned all of their hopes on unlocking the secrets of the god crystals.

At one of the heavy transports converted into a mobile lab, Ves and Ketis had come to take a visit. Chief Dakkon led a research team of science officers and experts in charge of figuring out how to make use of their new treasure. Right now, Ves stepped inside an observation chamber that separated the occupants from a highly isolated vault that contained the god crystal.

Nobody knew for sure if it was safe to come into close proximity to the crystal. Though the natives didn't show any fear, that didn't mean that other people would remain unharmed.

For now, the research had only reached a preliminary stage.

"What did you find out, chief?"

"Nothing much, Ves." The chief engineer shrugged. "The crystal isn't anything biological, so at least we don't have to call upon the exobiologists. Dr. Tillman took one good look at it before she returned to the biolabs to poke at her wild god tissue samples. Still, we found out several details after we compared the murky crystal we dug out of the wild god's brains with this purer god crystal that we obtained from the city."

"Well?"

"They react with each other."