The Mech Touch

by Stayrr

Humanity has conquered half the galaxy and the Age of Mechs reigns supreme! Ves Larkinson lacked the genetic aptitude to become a famed mech pilot. Fighting against his fate, he studied mech design in order to express his love for mechs as a builder instead of a soldier. When Ves graduated from college, he returned to a new but empty boutique. Left with a small, newly founded mec

12. 272

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Out of the three mech manufacturers in consideration, Ves had already picked his favorite. Vaun Industrial and Vikaris Mechs both had their benefits, but Andar Neverland's Elemental Mech Engineering took the cake.

Unfortunately, his board didn't think so. When Ves returned to Marcella's conference room next day, he encountered a bunch of bewildering stares as he laid out his choice.

Even Marcella seemed dumbfounded. "Ves, EME is the least attractive partner by far. They have the least amount of production lines and they pay out the least in terms of credits. It doesn't make any economic sense to go with the worst offer."

According to the licensing terms they negotiated up to this point, EME promised to pay the LMC only 2.5 million credits per Blackbeak. This contrasted sharply with the 3.5 million credits per mech offered by Vaun and a whopping 5 million credits per mech offered by Vikaris.

"If you've visited all of their production facilities with your own eyes, you'll know that EME is better than the rest. Mr. Neverland's company offers a number of benefits that the other two manufacturers won't be able to realize."

"Let's hear it then, Ves."

"First, and most importantly, quality control." Ves raised his finger to emphasize this priority. "Even though the bronze label Blackbeaks are our lowest tier products, they will still sell for at least 50 million credits per copy. Such a price demands we ensure that every mech is up to snuff."

The director from Bentheim shook his head. "That's not a sufficient reason to choose EME over Vaun. Certainly, the Haston-based Vikaris Mechs has a spotty track record in terms of quality, but Vaun has a lengthy track record of producing high quality mechs at an extremely fast rate of production. Right now, the spike in demand for the Blackbeak won't last, so it's imperative we push as many Blackbeaks into their hands before the hype runs out."

Most of the other directors agreed with his reasoning. Vaun Industrial possessed the scale and professionalism to meet any of their client's demands. With a seemingly endless amount of production lines spread over three massive complexes, they could increase their production on a dime if the Blackbeak turns out to be an enduringly popular model.

Ves shook his head. "Is Vaun able to maintain a consistent output? No doubt. Yet their production lines aren't configured in a way that brings out the best qualities of the Blackbeak. I designed my knight to be assembled one by one, which is the production method that EME used for their own mechs. It's a bit slower, I can admit that, but it preserves some of the craftsmanship the Blackbeak is intended to convey."

Nobody really understood his point. The goal of mass producing the Blackbeak was to produce as many copies as possible at the lowest price for a given level of quality. That Vaun used a matrix of production equipment to assemble their mechs should be to their benefit.

Marcella tried to explain the rationale to Ves. "The bronze label is meant to present accessibility and cost savings. It's okay if a couple of parts don't perform as expected. They also won't care about the craftsmanship put into their products. They simply want the best performance without going bankrupt."

"Vaun Industrial is a massive manufacturer as well." Someone else said. "If our most optimistic projections of the Blackbeak's demand turn out to be true, then EME will be hard-pressed to squeeze out more mechs than they are already pumping out. Four production lines don't amount to much."

"We can always contract a second manufacturer if needed." Ves waved away the excuse. "If the Blackbeak turns out to be a bestseller, then our negotiating power will obviously be higher than now. We'll easily be able to impose a higher licensing fee on our next partners."

His grandfather added a rare word of support. "Ves is correct. Right now, nobody is able to determine for certain whether the Blackbeak possesses any mass appeal. It's a mech that sells for a premium price, so even with all of the heightened interest in the model, we won't be selling thousands of copies at an instant."

Someone with a marketing background echoed those words. "A high level of attention doesn't automatically translate to a high number of sales. A new model like the Blackbeak still has to prove its worth in the field. The duel was a good start, but it's only a single incident. At this price level, many buyers will be reticent on purchasing an expensive mech without a substantial track record."

Not everyone agreed with that assessment. The board split in half whether the Blackbeak would sell the most at the start or down the line.

Marcella turned back to Ves. "You haven't finished laying out your reasons for choosing EME."

"Thank you, Marcella. Let me tell you the second reason."

He activated a projector and showed them all a summary of Andar Neverland's biography. At first glance, it didn't contain anything of interest, mainly due to the mech designer's continuous obsession with improving his Klemson striker design. He had never expanded his catalog with anything other than variants of the original Klemson.

"What are we supposed to look at?"

"When I visited EME and talked to Mr. Neverland, I noticed that he doesn't spend much time talking about his roots. He only briefly mentioned that he got his passion for Striker mechs from his mentor. Look at this biography. Can you spot who his mentor might be?"

"It's the Honorable Alazar Crux!"

"The Senior Mech Designer?"

"It's him!"

Everyone took notice of the illustrious name. Officially, the Bright Republic didn't retain any Master Mech Designers, so those at the rank of Senior pretty much called the shots. In the hierarchy of Bentheim mech designers, Alastar Crux pretty much sat near or at the top.

In turn, it was a big deal if the Honorable Mr. Crux mentored Andar Neverland.

"To be honest, I got the feeling that Mr. Neverland is only a passing student of Mr. Crux. A mentorship isn't as intimate as an apprenticeship." Ves cautioned them all. "Still, a definite link exists between the two. I can feel the subconscious pride radiating from Neverland whenever we spoke."

"If Neverland only possesses a loose relationship with Crux, then how does that affect us?"

"The reason why Mr. Neverland is rather stubborn about the licensing fees is because he doesn't actually feel much urgency to go into bed with us. If worst comes to worst, he can go back to his mentor and beg for a bailout. The only reason he hasn't done so yet is because it would be a humiliating stain on his record."

"And that matters because…?"

Ves raised his palm. "It matters because if we're able to tide the EME past their liquidity crisis, we'll be doing both Mr. Neverland and the Honorable Mr. Crux a favor. Don't forget that a failing former student also reflects badly on Crux. After all, couldn't he have brought up Mr. Neverland in a better fashion?"

The mech industry judged mech designers who started their own businesses with a different standard than eccentrics that only pumped out designs all day.

The success of a mech company reflected well on a mech designer. After all, if his designs generated a lot of sales, then that meant the mech designer must be good. Vice versa, if sales plummeted for some reason, then the mech designer must be awful.

In a sense, Andar Neverland wasn't a good mech designer because his Klemson design couldn't compete against the mainstream models in the same class. Ves took what happened to Neverland as a cautionary tale of depending too much on a single design line.

Someone asked the critical question. "Will the Honorable Mr. Crux actually acknowledge our efforts if we aid Mr. Neverland?"

Nobody truly knew the answer. Perhaps the old man never took notice of the troubles his former student accrued. Still, Ves believed that Crux cared a lot about his reputation, especially since he had reached the zenith of what a mech designer could achieve in the Republic.

"Don't forget that Mr. Crux is highly influential in the upper echelons of the mech industry." His grandfather added. "He's not only a professor emeritus of the Ansel University of Mech Design, but he also sits on the Bentheim Mech Court."

A couple of people nodded seriously. Even though the MTA oppressively interfered with the trade and use of mechs, the Bright Republic also maintained their own regulatory systems. The Bentheim Mech Court was the ultimate arbiter of disputes between mech designers and mech pilots in the Bentheim region.

Beyond issuing rulings between quarreling parties, the Bentheim Mech Court also worked closely with the government and the Mech Corps in other matters.

Most importantly, the Mech Court decided who to draft and where to allocate them in the event of war. Thus, having Crux owe Ves a favor might contribute to a cushy assignment once the latest Bright-Vesia War broke out.

Even if the board didn't care about his posting, they did care a lot about the future of the LMC in the event of war. The Mech Court also worked closely with administration to determine which mech manufacturers deserved support and which companies should be left out in the lurch.

The discussion basically ended at that point. Opportunities to establish a connection with a Senior Mech Designer didn't come very often. Ves wanted to seize the moment and sign a contract before anyone else heard about the hole the EME had fallen into. They lucked out that Neverland approached them first.

Certainly, not everyone agreed to the decision to rule out Vaun Industrial, but the board could squawk all they wanted. Even without his grandfather's support, he could make whatever decisions he wished as long as he held a majority of the LMC's shares.

Ves left the conference room with an upbeat pace. Marcella followed him out with an expression of doubt.

"I'm not sure you made the right choice there, Ves." She said. "It's rather optimistic to expect gratitude from Crux. The man can be a bit of a codger. It's doubtful whether he'll bother to return the favor at some later point in the future at all."

"You're right, but remember that's only one of the reasons why I chose to go with EME. Out of all the manufacturers in consideration, only EME has the heart to appreciate mechs. The other two manufacturers merely see their production as a means to an end. That's not compatible with the LMC's philosophy."

Marcella blew out her lungs in exasperation. "Philosophy doesn't mean anything compared to cold hard cash. Don't get caught up too much in your marketing speak. Make sure your company is able to earn a profit before you chase after unicorns."

Her words reflected a vast amount of experience seeing many mech designers fail due to trying to fulfill a fanciful goal, to the point of running their businesses to the ground. Ves was aware of those examples, but he had his own principles to uphold.

"A mech designer has to flexible sometimes, but those who go too far and abandon all propriety end up as outcasts. I don't want to become a person who mindlessly chases after profits."

He bid goodbye to Marcella and left the brokerage with Gavin. He relayed a number of instructions through his assistant. The LMC had to conclude its negotiations with EME and finalize a contract at the end of the week. Ves wanted production to start as fast as possible and he didn't see any point in dancing around the issue any longer.

"I'll deliver my design for the bronze label Blackbeak as well. I want every formalities to be done by the time we sign the contract."

The LMC had a lot to do. Ves still needed to fabricate nineteen gold label Blackbeaks in order to fulfill the orders he received during his debut. Ves hoped to proliferate his best mechs as widely as possible so that more people would hear about its strengths.

"The war also isn't very far away from breaking out. The Vesians can begin their invasion at any time."

Once the Vesians pulled the trigger, all hell would break loose.

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The LMC moved quickly in the next couple of days. They hammered out an agreement with Elemental Mech Engineering while Ves finished deriving the silver label and bronze label versions of the original Blackbeak design.

Both of the mechs featured near-identical specs to the gold label version. Ves mainly simplified the complicated sculptured exterior into straight, smooth surfaces that wouldn't be as much of a challenge to produce.

More specifically, he tweaked the silver label Blackbeak to go well with the Dortmund printer. He knew the capabilities of his equipment best, so he could easily retain any features that his company could still achieve on their own.

On the other hand, the bronze label Blackbeak truly represented a simplification of the original design. He not simplified the exterior even further, he also adjusted the internals to reduce the rate of errors.

For both designs, Ves did his best to retain their original X-Factor. Even though they'd lose much of their strength during the fabrication process, Ves still saw hope of some spark of survival in his products.

That was also an important factor why he went with EME. They offered the best hope of keeping the X-Factor alive.

He did his work on the flight back to Cloudy Curtain. Ves saw no need to remain at Bentheim. He wanted to get back to the workshop and start on processing his latest orders as soon as possible.

Three days later, the Barracuda landed at his home planet's spaceport. Ves and his entourage entered an armored shuttle that brought him back to home.

He idly played with Lucky while Melkor stared out of the viewscreen. Meanwhile, Gavin quietly corresponded with the office the LMC recently established in Bentheim.

For now, the branch in Bentheim focused on marketing and liaising with EME. Ves expected the branch to hire a lot of people to manage all of the responsibilities on its shoulders.

That reminded Ves of Raella's lengthy absence. "Where is Raella now?"

"She's having the time of her life, I bet." Melkor sighed, rubbing his visor with his palm. "Her parents won't approve of her boyfriend. Dietrich isn't exactly an upstanding citizen."

Ves shared his cousin's concerns. "I don't get what Raella sees in him. She can do much better."

Neither of them really understood girls, so they merely scratched their heads and remained clueless.

At least they understood mechs. Ves turned his attention back to his designs. The silver label and bronze label designs acquired the code names BP-B-01 and BP-C-01 respectively, making it clear where they placed in the hierarchy of the Blackbeak product line.

"Melkor, you've been keeping touch with the other Larkinsons in our generation, right?"

"I am. What do you want to know?"

"What do they think about the upcoming war?"

"It's an opportunity to make their mark." Melkor stated, as if the horrors of war meant nothing to him. "We've been raised on the stories of our parents and grandparents about the glory they earned from the battlefields of yesterday."

"So you think it's your turn now. Aren't you all afraid of losing your lives along the way?"

"If we die, we die. No Larkinson has shied away from death." Melkor stiffly declared. "It's our greatest responsibility to fight on behalf of the family and the Republic. No matter how tough it gets, we will never falter."

Ves had never underwent the kind of training that the potentates in his family had received. He found the blind devotion a little disconcerting.

It reminded him of Barley's unyielding loyalty to the Exilis Domain.

Sometimes, it was easy to forget that mechs depended on their human pilots. It didn't matter if a state boasted huge numbers of high quality mechs. Without a motivated fighting force, all of those mechs would collapse at the first blow.

In the endless wars that had been fought during the Age of Mechs, plenty of upsets had occurred. There were even times when a loose alliance of third-rate states had turned the tables against a technologically and numerically superior second-rate state.

These examples showcased the importance of raising everyone's morale. Ves realized for the first time how deep his family had committed to the Republic, and how much he missed out due to his inability to pilot mechs.

The shuttle eventually arrived at the workshop. Ves strode straight to the workshop with Lucky in his grasp.

"The boss is back!"

"Congratulations for your win, boss!"

The mech technicians laid down their work and applauded Ves like a hero who achieved glory on the battlefield. Ves considered these men and women to be his closest employees, so he took his time to smile and speak some words about his experience.

Eventually, he sent them back to work called over Carlos and and Chief Cyril.

"I heard about the licensing thing from administration." Chief Cyril spoke first. "Are you truly willing to let the Blackbeak be produced by someone else?"

"Missing out on those potential sales is even worse. It's best if we can do everything in-house, but if not then there's nothing wrong with leaning on a third-party manufacturer. These kinds of arrangements happen all the time."

Chief Cyril shook his head. "They happen all the time, alright, but they don't always end well. Mechs are highly complicated products that require the right equipment and the right people to produce. I can tell you a dozen horror stories at the top of my head where mech designers got duped by unscrupulous manufacturers."

"We've done our due diligence." Ves replied. "The contract we signed with EME is also fairly strict about these matters. They won't get away if they decide to pull the wool over our eyes."

EME's persisted in keeping their licensing fees as low as possible. Perhaps aware that their offer wouldn't be attractive, their negotiators relented on everything else, so long as it didn't lower their potential earnings.

"About those contract terms, I'm going to need a senior hand to keep an eye on their production." Ves pointed at Carlos. "You're it."

"Why me?!"

"Because Chief Cyril is indispensable. I need him to watch over my workshop. As for the other mech technicians, they're too junior to be of any value. That leaves only you. You're my best man. I won't have any concerns about EME if I know you're there."

Carlos slumped in defeat. "Okay, you're right. I'll do it then, but I don't want to be stuck there forever. I already did a stint at quality control, I don't want to end up doing the same job again."

Ves weighed the matter for a bit. "Two months should be long enough. By that time, they'll have gotten used to the standards I've imposed. We can set a regular rotation where some of our local mech technicians get to go on an extended trip to Bentheim to take over your duties."

"I'm not sure whether they're seasoned enough to spot any funny business, but that sounds like a good idea." Chief Cyril nodded in agreement. "Our mech technicians haven't seen much of how far mech manufacturing can go. Allowing them to experience a bigger company's production facilities will do wonders in broadening their perspectives."

Even though EME had idled all of their production, Ves still got a good impression of their work methods. Andar Neverland cared a lot about his mechs, to the point of going deep in depth to upgrade and expand his fabrication equipment. Unable to come up with something better than his Klemson design, he instead focused on improving his production lines.

"Hopefully, everyone will be able to get a turn. I hope the LMC will be able to expand its production lines in the same manner as the EME."

Chief Cyril bumped Ves on the head. "Mr. Neverland is how many years old now? He's in the business for at least thirty years. You've got a lot more potential than him when he was your age. Aim for something higher."

Ves appreciated the vote of confidence. The chief also reminded him that he shouldn't get too caught up in the present. The Blackbeak was merely the first of many amazing products coming from his hand.

"Alright, enough dilly-dallying around!" He clapped. "Let's get to work with fabricating those gold label mechs!"

Everyone released a minor cheer. Even though most of the mech technicians wouldn't be doing anything important, they would still get to witness their boss at work. Ves also hoped his mech technicians paid attention because he planned to sell only silver label Blackbeaks under his own company's auspices from this point onwards.

While Ves started pulling up his sleeves, light-years away from Cloudy Curtain, something momentous occurred in the depths of interstellar space.

A small convoy of trade vessels escorted by a trio of mercenary carriers quietly plied the trade routes between the Bright Republic and its neighbors. Trading directly between the Republic and the Kingdom was prohibited, but a lot of traders got around that restriction by stopping by a couple of neutral states before they reached their destination.

The convoy transitioned into FTL a couple of days ago, and had reached the midpoint of their final leg of their journey to the port system of Bentheim. At the head of the convoy flew the biggest carrier, the Calcardon.

The carrier owed her size due to her origins as a decommissioned cargo hauler. A Republican mercenary corps called the Barbed Lynxes bought the old vessel at a bargain and converted her interior to hold a mix of landbound and spaceborn mechs.

The Barbed Lynxes did well for themselves after they acquired the larger vessel. Although the Calcardon's speed left a lot to be desired, she excelled in convoy missions where she escorted fully-laden trade vessels as sluggish as the converted carrier.

Inside the bridge, the captain of the ship yawned in boredom. "Nothing ever happens on this trade route. Where have all the pirates gone to?"

"Knock it off, Captain Spencer. You're tempting fate with your talk. I'd rather we finish our mission without a fight."

"Oh, come on Commander Leife, I was just joking. It's just that you hear about the pirates stalking the trade routes and ambushing anyone who emerges into a remote system. It makes my hair stand on ends for months now."

The old grey-haired commander crossed her arms. "I'm close to retirement already. I'd like to get out of this business by the end of the year and leave the Komodo Star Sector before everything sinks into chaos. I'd appreciate it if you don't test our luck."

"Aye aye, commander!" The captain saluted her in a lazy manner.

Not a lot of officers manned the bridge right now. Nothing ever happened to the Calcardon during FTL unless the crew messed something up. Half the consoles faced empty seats.

An alert sounded out from one of the consoles. The officer in charge of sensors and communications woke up from his daze and blearily looked at the alert the Calcardon sent out. "Skipper, the gravitic sensors are glitching out again. They're telling me that we're about to enter a planet's gravity well!"

Captain Spencer adjusted his captain's hat and sat up straight from his seat. He pulled up a projections of the sensor readings in front of him. "Goddamn those yard monkeys. I told them to replace the sensor modules! They must have polished up the old ones while billing us the cost of installing some new ones! Those scam artists!"

"Uhm, skipper? What do I do about the sensor readings? Should we drop out of FTL as a precaution?"

"Out of the question! We'll have to halt the entire convoy as a result, and we have to wait for hours until our FTL drives go through their cycles. We'll also waste an enormous amount of fuel in the process. Remain in FTL. There aren't any planets or star systems on this route.."

The junior officer reluctantly dropped his caution, but his console suddenly lit up as the Calcardon received a number of messages from the other ships in the convoy.

"Skipper! The other ships report that they're detecting a gravity well in front of us too! We're getting dangerously close now!"

This finally woke the captain up. "Damn it! Some kind of stellar mass must have wandered into our route! Commander Leife, our FTL drives aren't calibrated to swing past that gravity well!"

"Then stop the convoy! Pull us out of FTL!"

After the commander passed the word, the entire convoy lurched out of FTL and transitioned into realspace. They drifted about aimlessly, half-clueless why they had to interrupt their sleepy journey.

Inside the bridge of the Calcardon, the captain called the entire crew to battle stations. Officers poured in from the hatch and hopped behind the empty consoles. They all furiously worked to figure out what happened.

"Skipper!" An officer called. "We've analyzed the sensor readings. According to our calculations, we're five light-hours away from a rogue planet!"

The captain cursed for a bit. Rogue planets basically consisted of planets that had been knocked away from their solar systems for some reason or another and traversed a wandering path, sometimes interfering with FTL travel. Most of the time, these rogue planets consisted of frozen rocks of gas giants.

"Sir… new readings have come in! The planet is glowing! If our analysis is correct, the entire planet is riddled with exotics!"

That single announcement changed everything.

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The entire convoy went up in arms about the sudden discovery.

Cargo ships and carriers converted from cargo ships generally didn't possess great sensors. If they all detected strong readings of exotics at a distance of five light-hours, then the planet up ahead must be riddled with highly active exotic substances.

So high, in fact, that it must be worth as much as the gross domestic product of an average third-rate state like the Bright Republic.

Commander Leife, the woman in charge of the convoy, convened a hasty conference among the ship captains and senior mercenary officers.

She gazed at the eyes of Captain Spencer before glancing at the various projections of the other men and women. Almost every ship belonged to a different owner, complicating her efforts to rein in their impulses.

She reserved the most wary looks to the other two mercenary commanders in the convoy. Both of them rode in medium-sized carriers that would be able to overwhelm the Calcardon if they teamed up against the Barbed Lynxes.

"First things first. You all shut off your quantum entanglement nodes, right? It's not enough to flip a switch. I hope you all disconnected the hardware from the rest of your ships."

All of the captains nodded seriously. They all knew that as soon as they discovered something valuable, the first thing they had to do was to prevent it from spreading all over the galactic net.

Turning off their quantum entanglement nodes had been their first or second actions upon receiving word of the momentous discovery.

"Alright folks, we all know why we're here. Let's talk about the Glowing Planet."

They called it the Glowing Planet, for its very visible luminescence that lit up the planet like a star. At this distance, it could be spotted from the naked eye, which was very rare for a rogue planet drifting in the middle of interstellar space with no nearby star to reflect its surface.

It was as if a juicy pheasant decided to put on a coat of bright lights to make it more attractive to another predators that wanted a taste of its flesh.

Captain Spencer began to summarize the estimates the entire convoy had made so far. "The Glowing Planet is about the size of a small planet or a large moon. We're not quite sure if it started off as the former or the latter before it got pushed out of its star system. Whatever the case, the trauma of the event has warped the planet to the point of tearing up its entire shape."

A projection appeared of the Glowing Planet in question. The planet took on a slight egg-like shape as if it had been stretched by a pair of god-sized hands. The stretching caused the entire crust of the planet to crack, which inadvertently revealed rich deposits of exotics.

A mercenary officer rudely interrupted the briefing. "Let's skip all of the nerdy stuff and get to the real question that matters. How valuable are those deposits?"

"Not as much as you'd think." Captain Spencer cautioned. "The planet likely originated from the galactic heartland instead of the galactic center, so it mostly contains junk exotics."

Everyone's faces started to fall. So-called junk exotics referred to valuable materials that ranked at the bottom of the hierarchy of exotic materials. While they held significant value in even smaller quantities, they couldn't be relied on to construct a quality mech without pairing them up with other, more valuable exotics.

That said, the planet still represented a floating mound of cash in space. Captain Spencer passed around a list of exotics they detected so far. "There isn't anything exciting in this list, but what's notable is that all of these exotics are getting harder to import from the other Star Sectors. This means that the Friday Coalition and the Hexadric Hegemony will be sending out a massive fleet to secure the Glowing Planet as soon as they hear about its existence."

That sent much of the people present in a tizzy. The two dominant second-rate states of the Komodo Star Sector often took what it wanted by force.

Commander Leife already made her decision. "Considering the spotty history of those two states, I suggest we don't sell the coordinates of the planet to either of them. The planet is valuable, yes, but not so much that they will feel obliged to thank us for the tip."

None of them objected to her decision. The Hexadric Hegemony was famously hostile to outsiders while the Coalition was too fractured to present a united front. Some of the more despotic partners might even decide to kill them all off in order to keep the coordinates under wraps.

"Who can we turn to then to sell the coordinates of the Glowing Planet?"

The question resulted in a brief tug-of-war as the captains and mercenary officers proposed various possible powers. Complicating the matter was that nearly every ship in the convoy came from different states. This allowed them to cross various borders without problem, but it also complicated the decision on who to approach.

Commander Leife personally preferred to sell the coordinates to the Bright Republic, but another captain who hailed from the Vesia Kingdom insisted on approaching them instead. Various rivalries came to the fore as each captain wanted to take this opportunity to earn kudos from their home states.

"This is getting nowhere." Captain Spencer slammed the table with his fist. "I don't think we'll be able to sell it to a single state without pissing someone off. Who can tell if any disgruntled captain won't go behind our backs and reconnect their quantum entanglement nodes again?"

"Then who should we sell it then?"

"Maybe someone neutral, like the MTA or CFA. They maintain a standard policy concerning these kinds of discoveries. They always keep their word."

"Yeah, but the rewards they hand out amount to nothing more than a pittance!"

Spencer nodded in a grave manner. "It's just a flat finder's fee instead of a percentage of the gains."

Nobody could hide the greed in their eyes. Who hadn't heard of stories where entire crews grew rich overnight by discovering a lucky find and negotiating a share of the profits of the resulting venture?

It was one of the stories that always perpetuated into legends. Every space farer hoped to stumble onto a find like the Glowing Planet.

Some of the more conservative captains expressed support at the idea of approaching the MTA or CFA, but others who wanted a bigger payout clung on to alternatives. The entire discussion reached a deadlock, with no possible compromise in sight.

Commander Leife tiredly rubbed her eyes. She knew as well as anyone present that if they tried to impose a decision, that there'd be rebels who would secretly try to sell the information behind their backs. None of the mercenary corps in the convoy maintained any significant security officers aboard the cargo transports to maintain sufficient control.

"Alright, this is clearly getting nowhere." She said, interrupting the latest argument between two rival ship captains. "Instead of picking one state over the other, why not sell the coordinates to as many states as we can? Heck, it doesn't even have to be a state. Sell it to a major corporation or a pirate group, I don't care."

"That's a great idea." A rival mercenary commander remarked. "We can all earn our paydays because the people who we are trading with won't want to let the other states know about the coordinates."

"We can't keep selling the same coordinates over and over to anyone we approach. The people who are negotiating on behalf of their states aren't stupid. They'll force us to sign a non-disclosure agreement."

"Then make it clear that you're only selling the coordinates on behalf of your own ship or mercenary corps! That will surely hasten their urgency, since the longer they try to stall, the sooner their rivals will send out a fleet."

That last bit proved to be a little bit controversial, but eventually everyone adopted the idea. Without a central leader to impose total control, it was best to let the individual leaders try to earn their own paydays.

As soon as the meeting ended, every captain scrambled to reconnect their quantum entanglement nodes. Aboard the Calcardon, Captain Spencer already left the conference room in order to race down the decks to supervise the procedure.

As for Commander Leife, sent a mental apology to her home state. The Glowing Planet had currently drifted into the nominal borders of the Bright Republic, and would only depart from their territory a couple of years later.

With the heightened state of tension between the Republic and the Kingdom, she suspected that this discovery might end up being the spark that blew up the tentative peace between the two. She felt as if she betrayed her home.

"I'm sorry, but I just want to earn a fair share."

While the convoy started to sell the valuable coordinates of the Glowing Planet, back at Cloudy Curtain, Ves proceeded to reduce his backlog of orders.

He wiped the sweat from his brow as he left the cockpit of his latest Blackbeak. He fabricated it in record time, having managed to reduce the time needed to complete a copy down to two days instead of the three he needed from the start.

Of the entire fabrication process, Ves always loved the very end, where he entered the cockpit in order to affix the gold labels underneath the center console and affix one of Lucky's gems in place.

He could have left the job to a simple bot, but Ves enjoyed the personal interaction between himself and his mechs. Every machine he completed in this manner solidified the direction of his nascent design philosophy.

Slowly but surely, Ves began to lean towards a lifelong quest to maximize the value out of every single mech produced from his hand.

"How many mechs have I made so far?"

"This is the tenth copy out of the current batch." Chief Cyril answered as he arranged to transport the newly completed mech from the workshop. "You've got nine more to go before you're done."

Less than a month had passed since the duel. Much had changed since that time. The outcome of the duel had far-reaching effects for the LMC.

First, the Blackbeak proved to be an enduring success. When mech portals managed to get their hands of the rare and exclusive gold label Blackbeaks, they gave out universally positive reviews. Even if their price leaned on the higher side, the gold label mechs remained consistently in reasonably high demand.

Unfortunately for Ves, the bronze label versions received a mixed reception. The first copies of the Blackbeaks fresh off the EME's production lines proved to be rather rough. Neverland's company faced a stiffer learning curve than they expected due to the difficulty of working with the alloys used to form the Veltrex armor system.

EME actually lost more money than they gained due to being forced to replace the defective armor plating after they already sold the mechs.

Ves silently cursed the greedy Mr. Neverland. If the third-party manufacturer had caught the defects before they sold the mechs, they would have been able to recycle the faulty plating and recoup the majority of the costs. But no, Mr. Neverland skimmed on the quality control in order to cash in as quickly as possible.

"How is Carlos doing at EME? Has he finally managed to get a grip on their quality control?"

"He's been trying." Chief Cyril replied. He regularly kept in touch with Carlos in order to mentor him about how to enact changes without being too direct. "It's difficult to suggest any meaningful changes without stepping on their toes. Neverland is very self-absorbed for a mech designer, but what works for his Klemsons doesn't always fit with the Blackbeaks. Their armor systems are just too different from each other."

Ves considered laying down his work to take another trip to Bentheim. "Carlos has to find a way to get Mr. Neverland to listen."

"That's a tall order for Carlos. Neverland isn't inclined to listen to a failed mech designer."

"The man should know that Carlos speaks on my behalf. I expressly insisted in the contract that the EME should seriously consider any suggestions made by any liaisons we send out."

"Good luck trying to enforce those terms without pissing Mr. Neverland off."

Despite his grumbles, Ves was reasonably content with the arrangement. He already expected some hiccups at the start.

The EME already managed to produce a total of thirty mechs since the LMC extended the license to them. That was already far more than what the LMC could achieve at it best. The third-party manufacturer's four production lines pumped out enough mechs to satisfy the most urgent demand for now.

Quality went up with each additional mech they produced as well. Reviews started to turn positive again, to the point where demand for the model increased.

It would have been better if Dumont didn't come back from the dead.

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Ves took a small break after finishing up the latest mech. After that, he stopped by the office to speak with Gavin about the competition.

"How is Dumont doing these days?"

"He's very aggressive in trying to sell the Havalax." Gavin replied, and called up a projection of the ads that had popped up recently. "If you look closely, most of the ads emphasize the Havalax's amazing price-performance ratio. The standard price has dropped to 50 million credits, but a number of buyers are taking advantage of discounts that can go as deep as ten percent off."

The aggressive promotion coupled with the heavy discounts and price cuts served to slow the bleeding of Dumont's company. After losing a whole bunch of orders after losing the duel, the rival mech designer actually gained enough new orders to sell as much mechs as he could produce.

"I guess a month is long enough for memories of the duel to fade. If you leave out its recent history, the Havalax is a pretty decent design, so I shouldn't be surprised that its starting to sell again." Ves disgruntledly concluded. "Still, its production costs should be higher than the Blackbeak. I'm nearly certain that he's making a loss if he sells his mechs for 45 million credits."

"It's not about making a profit at this point. Dumont is trying to make everyone forget about the duel by putting as much copies of his Havalax in circulation as possible. All the stories his buyers spread as a result will slowly push away the past into obscurity."

Clearly, Dumont's strategy worked. He had essentially overwritten the collective memories of the public with a more positive message about his mechs.

The revitalized competition forced the LMC to up their game and boost their marketing. They already coordinated with Marcella to flood the Bentheim region in all kinds of promotions that raised the profile of the bronze label and silver label Blackbeaks.

The sad thing about it was that the LMC spent far more on these campaigns than what they got back from the EME in licensing fees.

"That's going to change in a couple of months." Gavin predicted. "The marketing is a bit heavy-handed because the public has only heard about your exclusive gold label mechs, which are very hard to obtain. We still have to let the market know that there are cheaper and more abundant alternatives available."

Ves didn't argue about the need to invest in marketing. He simply found it disconcerting to be throwing millions of credits away each day.

Still, unlike Dumont's company, the LMC earned far more money than they spent. Much of it could also be attributed to their new contract with Marcella. She kept her word and devoted a lot of her own money in helping to promote the Blackbeak.

"By the way, Calsie's been wanting to meet with you. A lot has changed on this planet as well."

Ah. With all of his attention directed to Bentheim, Ves forgot about his backyard. He did hear a few things from his employees on how Cloudy Curtain felt a lot of pride for his recent achievements. Still, he didn't hear too much beyond that considering he holed himself up in his workshop trying to finish his batch of orders as quickly as possible.

He nodded to Gavin. "Send her to my office. It's about time I received an update on the situation on the ground."

Ves took care of a couple of other matters, like feeding an increasingly radiant Lucky. He could clearly feel his pet had almost reached the point of saturation before he triggered another evolution.

"Eat well, but not too much, okay? I'd still like to cuddle you in my arms once in a while."

"Meow!"

Lately, there hadn't been many threats for Lucky to take care of. The security detachment from Sanyal-Ablin easily took care of the occasional fans and crazies trying to sneak into the workshop. They also caught and disabled most of the microscoping spy drones sent in their way.

Fortunately, Lucky possessed keen enough senses to sniff out the remainder that proved to be too advanced for the workshop's current security suite to detect. Ves held off on upgrading his security package until the company moved to a larger site.

Ves winked at his pet before heading to his office. The cramped office attached to the workshop building became increasingly more crowded lately as the company started to do more than making and selling mechs.

It gladdened him to see he built his company up to the point where it could be called a genuine medium mech manufacturer. If Ves factored in the EME, then the goal of selling more than a thousand mechs in the LMC's second fiscal year would definitely be met.

"Ves! It's been some time since I last saw you."

"Haha, my apologies for that. I've been busy, as you know. Have you finished your studies yet?"

"Yup. I wasn't able to rush my courses as fast as Gavin, but I'm all done now!"

"That's great to hear. Even if Maisie Duval has taken over much of your duties, I still prefer to deal with someone I trust like you. I'll be depending on you to keep an eye on our home planet."

Ves rarely talked to his managers these days. Jake and Primrose kept everything running smoothly without his input, just as he intended. He didn't wish to be bothered by trivial minutiae that his underlings could take care of by themselves. He was far more comfortable in the workshop than the conference room.

He only made an exception for Gavin and Calsie. They were around the same age and they had been with him from the start, so Ves didn't feel the need to watch his words around the two.

"Let me brief you on what's happening on the streets."

Calsie handed him a data pad that contained a mix of local news articles. They all profiled the the shift in public opinion with regards to Ves and the LMC.

"THE LIVING MECH CORPORATION: A HOMEGROWN SENSATION - PUTTING CLOUDY CURTAIN ON THE MAP."

"TOTAL MECH MANIA AS ENGULFED THE YOUNGER GENERATION! MECH HATERS MUST GET LOST!"

"FRESLIN HAS OVERTAKEN ORINOCO AS CLOUDY CURTAIN'S TRENDIEST CITY - MECH FANATICS FLOCK TO THE HOMETOWN OF VES."

"THE POLITICAL WINDS HAVE TURNED! THE GREENS AND THE WHITE DOVES ARE AT WIT'S END!"

That last headline seemed especially important. "Tell me about the people at the top. Is the ruling coalition still thinking about raising taxes?"

"They shelved those plans for an indefinite time right after you won your duel." Calsie reported. "You don't have to worry about any new threats on that front. You and your company have pretty much become the public mascots of our planet. It's political suicide to propose any bill that hinders the growth of the LMC."

The LMC didn't pay much taxes to the local government, so it didn't actually benefit the local citizens directly. Maybe a couple of years from now, the LMC's profits might reach the point where it represented a significant chunk of Cloudy Curtain's GDP.

Still, the citizens mainly cared about pride. The LMC became the planet's standard bearer in a way the two major farming consortiums achieved. Calsie showed him plenty of indicators that noted this change of heart among the public.

"That's good to hear." Ves nodded. While he didn't need the public's love, it certainly didn't hurt to benefit from it. "What about the Pioneers? I've only been hearing good things from them lately."

Calsie had a strong connection to the Pioneers, so she should know best what went on with them these days. "The Pioneers recently became embroiled in a power struggle. The old guard wanted to stay aloof while the younger members supported more proactive policies."

"I take it the latter won the power struggle?"

"Yup. Most of those stubborn old goats got booted out of the member rolls by the new leadership that swept into power. Some of them retired, but a significant chunk defected to the White Doves."

"Is that bad?"

"Not really." Calsie dismissed any worries. "Sure, they know a lot of secrets, but by now most of what they know is obsolete. The Pioneers have transformed into a dynamic young movement now. And you can bet their main priorities is to see the LMC grow, thereby dragging the rest of the planet out of its squalor."

"That's a bit strong, don't you think? People are hardly starving on the streets."

"Neither are they finding any better opportunities. Lots of farmers are doing the same work their parents did, who in turn have taken over the work of their own parents. Social mobility is practically glacial compared to the glitzy Bentheim!"

Ves became a little worried at Calsie's enthusiasm. "Bentheim isn't the best role model for a planet you want to live on. The best cities like Dorum and Ansel cost a fortune to live in. Some time ago, I promised my cousin Melinda a penthouse in downtown Dorum. Do you know how much money I ended up spending? 15 million credits!"

"Still, the suburbs are-"

"It's even worse there. Places like Haston have become notorious for the breakdown in society there. It's not a coincidence the Bentheim Liberation Movement initially rose up from that town."

"Look, Ves, that all sounds worrisome, but Cloudy Curtain is not about to turn into a second Bentheim. With smart leadership at the helm, we'll surely be able to swim past the rocks in the river."

"Aspirations like that have a tendency to be derailed." He shook his head. "Anyway, it's not my business to meddle with the Pioneers. They have nothing to do with me."

"Your relations department doesn't think so. They've been cautiously discussing some cooperative initiatives with the Pioneers."

Ves forgot about that. He ordered the relations department to maintain friendly ties with the local power players. Mrs. Duval must have taken that as an order to move towards an informal alliance with whoever was willing to play ball.

"Look, no offense, Calsie, but I don't trust the Pioneers, even if they have a new coat of paint. It's not in the LMC's interests to get in bed with someone who can have a change of heart the next day."

"If you say so, sir."

This discussion went nowhere as well, so they quickly changed the topic. Still, Ves reminded himself to check with his chief relations officer and make it clear he wanted the LMC to remain neutral.

"What else is on the agenda?"

"There's the plans to expand to a new site. Several architects in collaboration with Sanyal-Ablin have selected a suitable site further away from Freslin and drew up a final architectural plan."

Calsie handed out another data pad, this time a thicker one with more enhanced security features. Ves actually had to authenticate his identity before he got to look at the drawings of the new manufacturing complex.

If Ves had to describe it, he'd call it ambitious. The schematics of the exterior defenses

reminded him of the star-shaped walls of the forward base on Groening IV. Sanyal-Ablin's influence could be felt throughout the architectural drawings. Everything had been designed to survive and repel a minor planetary raid.

"I see that much of the most important production occurs underground."

"That's correct." Calsie nodded. "As per your wishes, the surveyors have scanned and tested the terrain and found a site that provides a decent amount of buffer against limited orbital bombardment. It will hold out for a week at least."

Much of the construction above the ground consisted of gleaming office buildings that Ves intended to serve as the LMC's headquarters. Ves wouldn't have to deal with cramped corridors anymore by the time they moved into this new place.

Ves nodded in satisfaction after a couple of minutes. "I'm fairly satisfied with these plans. Still, it's obvious that I'll be paying a premium for all of this safety. What's the price tag?"

"Well, the architects have loosely estimated that it will take at least 500 million credits to construct the barebones version of the plans."

"Half a billion credits!"

His teeth already started to ache when he heard that sum. Just when he thought he could catch a break and rake in the profits, it turned out that he had to give the money away again if he wanted to prepare for the future. The LMC desperately needed to move out of their increasingly crowded location.

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A pair of light mechs matched blows against each other in a grungy underground mech arena. The skirmisher mech wielded a pair of knives while the swordsman mech wielded a single blade.

A rowdy crowd exulted in the reverberations of the high speed impacts between the dueling mechs. Only the thick but cracked and worn out transparent panels protected them from the splintering shards of plating that the mechs shaved off from each other.

One thing to note about the people was that they all wore similar color motifs. The lower ranked crowd wore shirts of red striped with diagonal black lines. The ranks above that made do with armbands of the same look, while the handful of leaders at the top wore exotic alloy rings that glistened in alternating red and black.

More interestingly, the mechs, which featured the same coating of red with diagonal black stripes, consisted of outdated models. Neither their armor nor their speed could keep up with currentgen mechs, but that also made them cheap and easy to fabricate on the fly.

From the reckless way in which they dueled, neither pilots gave a damn about conserving their machines. They danced at the edge of death in their reckless attempts to overpower their opposition.

"Come on Raella!" Dietrich hollered. "Go for Mackarel's left! He's half-blind in that direction!"

Like the others, he wore an armband bearing the colors of the Blood Claws, one of the most infamous gangs in Bentheim. Even though his main affiliation lay with Walter's Whalers, he answered to the same boss as the rest.

The skirmisher mech pulled out of the melee after leaving behind a criss cross of knife marks on the enemy mech. Raella's voice emerged from the speakers. "You're getting rather slow, aren't you?"

"I got much more in store for you than that, lassie!" The man inside the swordman mech broadcasted as he urged his mech to pursue his opponent.

The swordsman mech hadn't fared very well so far. Its pilot was older and more experienced than Raella, but he couldn't match her in terms of technical skill.

Raella deftly swerved her borrowed skirmisher mech to dodge the incoming hack. Her mech went in to leave behind another nick, only for her mech to receive a punch that pushed it back.

"Get her, Mack! You can do it!"

"Watch out for the legs as well, girlie!"

That advice proved to be telling as Mackarel's mech lashed out in a dangerous flurry of kicks. Raella's mech barely dashed out of reach, and swiped its weapons forward to slice some layers off the extended leg before it drew back.

That last attack had bit a little deep, causing the swordsman mech to suffer from unsteady footing. Raella took advantage of her opponent's preoccupation and went all-in, shoving the unsteady sword aside before surgically stabbing the weak points of the vulnerable mech before it could recover.

A huge cheer sounded out as the swordsman mech practically lost all of its connections to its limbs. The hapless mech collapsed onto its back like a puppet with its strings cut off.

The ringleader enthusiastically announced the end of the duel. "And the winner is Raella Larkinson! She's shown herself to be as capable as her famous cousin Melinda, but prettier by far!"

The battered skirmisher mech opened its cockpit, allowing Raella to jump out and float down with her anti-grav clothes. She approached the cockpit of the fallen mech and waited for its cockpit to open up as well.

A grizzled man wearing an armband and covered in tribal tattoos climbed out of his immobilized mech. He shook his head, trying to recover from the trauma of being inside a mech that fell onto its back. "If all the Larkinsons are like you, no wonder your family's so renowned."

"If you think I'm a big deal, you should see my uncle Ark."

They shook hands, showing no hard feelings for each other. The hierarchy of the Blood Claws largely revolved around strength. They respected any man or woman who had the skills to back up their talk, and Raella proved herself in spades.

The young woman quietly shook her head. Even though she trounced a cadre of the Blood Claws, she'd still be known as Melinda's relative. Her cousin in the Planetary Guard had become a planet-wide phenomenon recently after she somehow made it through a grueling duel against a captain of the Mech Corps.

Raella returned to the stands while the arena operators hauled away the mechs. Once she reached Dietrich's side, he held out her hand. "Gimme my cut."

Even as he handed over a credit chip, Dietrich swept the woman in his arms and engulfed her in a kiss.

"Get off! I'm sweaty!" Raella punched her handsome boyfriend away with her strong physique.

"I don't care, babe. The more sweat, the better."

Dietrich kept grinning at her as he attempted to keep the feisty woman in his embrace. Raella didn't appreciate being treated like a doll and forcefully punched his stomach until he finally let go.

The Blood Claw members sitting besides them laughed at the spectacle. "Can't control your woman, Dietrich?"

"Oh shot up Tumra. I don't see you with a girl anywhere."

"That's because I have a different one in my bed every night!"

Despite the crude talk and occasional roughhousing, Raella enjoyed her time with the Blood Claws. Even though she knew the Blood Claws did a lot of shady stuff out of sight, Dietrich's presence opened up a lot of doors, while her strength earned her a lot of respect.

The pair remained in the arena and watched the other fights that followed.

Not all of the pilots consisted of Blood Claw members. A fair amount used to be mercenaries or mech athletes who fell into debt. The only way they could earn back their pay was to fight in an arena without rules.

Sometimes, the pilots played rough to the point of targeting the cockpits of their opponent's mech. The underground arena operated by the Blood Claws didn't care about fatalities as long as it didn't involve their own members.

In fact, Raella already witnessed three fatalities so far. Compared to her initial revulsion at the sight of death when she accompanied Ves to Moira's Paradise, this time she had grown hardened enough to shrug off any sympathies.

As the night went on into the wee hours, Raella started getting sleepy. She stood up and wanted to drag Dietrich back to their accommodation, but a sudden broadcast stopped her in her tracks.

The ongoing duel between a pair of fist fighting light mechs halted abruptly. Everyone dropped their conversations and no one moved a muscle as they recognized the voice.

The gruff, hoary voice of Monty the Beheader himself broadcasted in the arena and everywhere else the Blood Claws reigned over. "Are you having a good time? Are you enjoying yourselves? Then cut your vacation short, because we have a job to do. There's word out on the streets that there's a fabled rogue planet is coasting along near the border of the Republic. They call it the Glowing Planet, and it's named that way because it's filled with so much riches that we can dine like kings until the heat death of the universe if we harvest it all."

The sudden news landed like a bomb. Like any gang, the Blood Claws loved nothing more than to acquire more wealth, by any means possible.

"The only downside is that every power in the Komodo Star Sector got their hands on the coordinates of the Glowing Planet. The Bright Republic, The Vesia Kingdom, hell, even the uptight Coalition and Hegemony are aware of its location!"

Could they even compete if that had been the case?

"You might be thinking what the Glowing Planet has to do with us. Well, even if it's glowing like a bulb in space, it's hardly a pinprick compared to brown dwarfs. The lack of a star also makes it hard to zero in an FTL drive to the planet unless you get within a dozen light-years or so. Do you know what that means?"

Most of the Blood Claws scratched their heads. Stellar navigation had never been their strengths.

"It means we're closest, and therefore get to be there first! Sure, the Mech Corps and the other gangs will be sending out their fleets as well, but the Glowing Planet is big enough to let everyone grab a piece of the pie!"

Now they understood what an opportunity this represented. Raella felt excited as well, even though she hadn't formally joined the Blood Claws. She looked to Dietrich, hoping to join in on the action, only to receive a stern gaze.

"This is far above our league, Raella." He whispered. "Something like this… there's going to be a lot of fighting."

"I've never shied away from a fight!"

"This is different from a duel! The entire planet will be engulfed with greedy mech pilots who won't be playing fair."

The voice of Monty resumed speaking. "Since everyone that matters already know about the Glowing Planet, the big boys upstairs have hashed out an agreement. The Coalition and the Hegemony will both be preparing fleets of mech carriers to fight over the Glowing Planet. Since they're far away and need some time to mobilize their forces, they've given everyone else a carte blanche to mine away for seventy days."

A lot could be done in seventy days. Depending on the value of the exotic ores and how easy they could be extracted, a substantial mining expedition could easily harvest billions of credits worth of materials out of the ground.

The people in the arena grew stoked at the idea of picking up a fortune off the ground.

"Sharpen your claws and ready your mechs, because the Blood Claws will be grabbing a piece of the action! We set off in three days!"

As the broadcast ended, everyone went wild at the prospect of taking part in this enormous venture.

In the meantime, a lot had to be arranged. Monty's organization had to decide who to send and who to hold back to defend their territories. They had to prepare their carriers and acquire other ones to accomodate all of the mechs and mining equipment they intended to bring along.

The leaders already buzzed about as they received their own instructions. As for Raella, her eyes turned into swirls as she imagined the adventure of it all. She wanted to be part of the expedition. She stood up and climbed up the stands, heading straight towards the circle of leaders.

Dietrich hastily followed after his girlfriend. "Raella? Don't go up there! It's dangerous!"

The guards who stood in the way noticed her approach, but instead of halting her in her tracks, they wordlessly moved aside. Raella walked straight past their heavily-armored forms and drew attention from the older generation of Blood Claws.

A bald man wearing the biggest ring of red and black looked over her pilot-suited form. "Ah, we have a distinguished guest. Miss Raella Larkinson, what can we do for you?"

"I want in."

Dietrich finally reached her side and gripped her arm, but he didn't dare pull her back. He failed to stop her in time.

The bald man looked wordlessly at Raella while the other leaders waited for his decision. He only considered the matter for a couple of seconds before he nodded. "Why not? You're in."

The brief exchange of words had sealed her fate. Dietrich minutely shook his head as he drew her out of the circle. Once they gained some distance, he scolded her for a fair bit.

"That was dangerous as hell! Do you know who he is? He's the left hand of Monty the Beheader! He could have decided to cut your head off on a whim!"

"He wouldn't dare." Raella smirked. Being a Larkinson had its perks. "Besides, I just showed everyone that I can pull my own weight. The Blood Claws will thank me for saving their hides."

For the rest of the night, Dietrich remained concerned about Raella. He regretted taking her with him on a tour to Bentheim.

While Raella jumped into her bed and fell asleep, Dietrich hunched over the other side of the bed and held up his comm. His finger hovered over the name of Ves.

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Over the next two weeks, Ves quickly finished off the remainder of the orders. Twenty-four gold label Blackbeaks had been forged from his hands. The only one that remained unsold was the first production model which still awaited repairs.

He didn't even know whether he should restore it to its original condition. It might hold more value in its damaged state as a piece of mech history.

With each delivery they made, the money started rolling in. The LMC finally reached a state where they possessed a steady amount of liquidity, though much of the funds would soon be drained after they received approval to construct a new manufacturing complex.

"How much did the mech technicians progress in their studies?"

"They achieved a fair bit while you worked. Everyone has seen you do the same thing over and over." Chief Cyril reported as he supervised the preparation to shift over the production lines to fabricating the silver label Blackbeaks.

As for the Mark II? The LMC already retired the model from the catalog. Its cheap price and outdated components didn't fit in the company anymore.

"What's their success rate?"

"The average results hover around ninety-three percent in the simulations. Most of them stumble when they have to fabricate those finicky armor pieces. The margin of error is too slim, but it helps that you don't hide your methods. Lots of mech designers can be rather secretive. With the ample amount of recordings we've made, I don't think they'll have any excuses if they botch those parts."

The real secret that distinguished his gold label mechs from the cheaper labels was the X-Factor. The interaction between Ves and any of his mechs and designed occurred entirely within the mental planes. Unless someone stuck him in a neural interface, no one would be able to figure out what went on in his mind when he worked on a mech.

The gold label Blackbeaks in the hands of his customers already led to rave reviews. Even if few if any of his mechs had been tested in an actual battle, the piloting experience was almost unsurpassed. Both the X-Factor and the insights he applied from his Mastery led to a small but decisive advantage.

"Last I heard, your design is even up for nomination for some awards at the end of the standard year. The only problem is that most copies in the wild consists of bronze label Blackbeaks."

Ves pressed his lips. "I truly hope they don't take the bronze label version as the standard. Has the EME shored up its quality by now?"

"Carlos tells me that some of his lessons have penetrated through Mr. Neverland's thick skull. The quality of EME's latest output has reached the bare minimum, more or less."

"More or less?"

"It's good enough for the buyers, but you'll probably claw your eyes out if you take a deep look at the mechs."

"Then you'd better not let me see one in the flesh."

His obsession over quality and craftsmanship had grown more severe over time. It had been a conscious decision of Ves to fan the flames in this area because it had a measurable impact on his work.

He started to understand why design philosophy held the key to advancing to a higher grade of mech designer.

Ves hung around the workshop and kept an eye on the mech technicians, who started putting their learning into practice. Even if they did the simulations a hundred times, working with the real thing always went wrong one way or another.

The absence of Carlos had a significant effect on the productivity of his workers. Ves frequently mentored him, and he also continued to study on his free time. All of that added knowledge turned him into a qualified, if junior fabricator.

Perhaps Cyril could do a better job, but he had to supervise the entire workshop floor, so he couldn't do the work himself. The general lack of experience exhibited by the mech technicians disheartened Ves somewhat. It would take years to get them to the level of a trained technician of a major power.

His comm suddenly chirped. Ves bent down and saw it came from Dietrich of all people. Ves quickly left the workshop and entered his office before accepting the call.

Dietrich looked awfully tired from the projection that appeared over his comm. "Ves, I've got bad news for you."

"Is something wrong with Raella?"

"You could say that." The Little Boss said, and began to explain what happened at the arena yesterday.

Ordinarily, Ves would get angry if he heard that Raella ran off to engage in a series of highly dangerous underground duels. Yet what Dietrich said about the Glowing Planet turned all of that into something trivial.

"This Glowing Planet… you're saying it's valuable to the point where the Coalition and the Hegemony will come to duke it out?"

"Not immediately. It takes a lot of time to gather their forces and prepare them for a lengthy occupation. I reckon that the route where the Glowing Planet is zipping past will turn into a no man's land when they arrive."

That sounded very serious. A long occupation by the Friday Coalition or the Hexadric Hegemony or both meant that the war between the Bright Republic and the Vesia Kingdom could become collateral damage.

Complicating the matter was that both the Bright Republic and the Vesia Kingdom maintained some ties with the Coalition. That might be enough of an excuse for the Hexadric Kingdom to steamroll over both third-rate states if they believed the Coalition benefited from their continued existence.

"This is turning into a storm of epic proportions." Ves remarked while he rubbed his head. His brain threatened to overheat from all of the predictions he made. "Okay, have you tried to get Raella to change her mind?"

"That's the problem. She can't back off. She personally went up to a big shot and demanded to take part in the Blood Claw's expedition. In our line of work, once you do something like that, you always have to keep your word."

Ves closed his eyes. He didn't grow angry. He was already past that point. A sense of fatalistic helplessness emanated from his body as he thought about the huge numbers of mechs the Glowing Planet would host.

Each and every one of them would very likely fight to the death for riches and honor. Ves understood what it was like to fight over a portion of an untamed planet's vast mineral wealth. He already went through a harrowing ordeal at Groening IV.

"What will the Whalers do?"

"My father's been called up as well. Monty wants to bolster his numbers and our gang recently came into possession of a lot of carriers."

"That sounds dangerous."

"It is, but Monty's always been good to those who answer his call. We'll get rich, or die trying."

Ves had the sense those latter words applied to everyone else who set their sights on the Glowing Planet. Truly, the allure of an entire planet of exotics was sufficient to throw any star sector in the galactic rim into a tizzy.

"What should we do, Ves? I'm sure if you run up to your family, they can get something done."

"No. That won't work." He shook his head. "Raella always held dreams about going on an adventure in the stars. She won't agree to back out on embarking to one of the most hotly contested planets in this star sector."

A small part inside Ves faintly hoped that Raella would see for herself how awful actual war looked like. Once she disabused her romantic notions of what a treasure-hunting expedition should be, she'd surely return to her guard assignment without complaint.

Dietrich and Ves bandied about a few possible course of actions, but nothing seemed remotely helpful.

"I'll go with you guys."

"Say what?"

"Family should stick together." He said. Even though Ves hadn't been very close to his extended family, he still felt it was his duty as Raella's cousin to see her through the fighting that would continue until the end of the seventy-day grace period. "Besides, I'm sure the Whalers could use a mech designer. Planets with high concentration of exotics usually exert a destructive influence on machinery. Let me join up with you guys and I'll make sure your mech remain in tip-top shape."

The offer sounded very attractive, and Dietrich didn't hesitate to accept. "You're right. We could sure use your help. I figure my father planned to take up guard duty in space, but if we have you with us, then we can help the Blood Claws capture more territory. That will really increase our share of the profits."

The main issue with Raella was that she pledged to fight alongside the inner core of the Blood Claws. She basically turned into an honorary Blood Claw herself, which let her pilot a Blood Claw mech maintained by their own logistics.

Meanwhile, Ves lacked the familiarity to help out the Blood Claws directly. He hadn't proven himself in front of one of their leaders like Raella did. Therefore, Ves could only hitch a ride with Walter's Whalers.

"Tell your dad I'm joining their fleet with my Barracuda."

"I'll do that. He'll surely welcome you with open arms. In the meantime, I'll send you some files about the people we can expect to meet at the Glowing Planet."

They cut off the call after Ves received the files. He skimmed them over, but quickly became overwhelmed when the amount of local powers surpassed a hundred. "And that's not even factoring small fries like Walter's Whalers!"

The Glowing Planet attracted so much greed that the local states wouldn't be able to hold back their citizens from having any ideas. At the very least, both the Republic and the Kingdom didn't even attempt to rein in their gangs and mercenary corps.

"There must be over a thousand different outfits looking to fight over a bunch of rocks."

Ves predicted that the smaller outfits would seek refuge under the umbrella of a major power, such as the Bright Republic's Mech Corps or the Vesia Kindom's Mech Legion.

Larger outfits like the Blood Claws possessed enough strength to stand on their own. While they wouldn't fight directly against the military of another state, they'd surely attempt to occupy a less attractive piece of land.

Too bad that there were too many mechs and not enough land to go around. Conflict was bound to happen.

Before Ves prepared for his impromptu journey, he gathered his closest circle of friends and workers. Melkor, Cyril, Jake, Primrose, Gavin and Calsie all streamed into the conference room, which already projected the busts of Marcella and his grandfather.

"I've got something to announce." Ves began his meeting while holding onto Lucky. He proceeded to explain what happened and how Raella ended up in the thick of it. Once he reached the part where he said he'd participate as well, the entire room exploded.

"You're crazy, Ves!" Jake yelled. "You're a mech designer! You have no place on the battlefield!"

"I might not even be touching down on the planet. I can do most of my work aboard a carrier ship."

"Even then, there's going to be so many different fleets in orbit that your ship won't be any safer!"

The administrative types like Jake and Primrose simply didn't understand his decision to throw himself head-long into danger.

However, he received a surprising word of support from Marcella. "It's up to him whether he wants to participate or not. All I can say is that a mech designer can be a lot of help to the Whalers. His presence will save a lot of lives."

"They're just a bunch of half-criminals. It's not worth the risk!"

Ves turned to his grandfather. "What about you. You haven't spoken a word yet. What do you think?"

"I don't like to be put on the spot." Benjamin replied. As a retired expert pilot, he had gone through a lot of battles over the years. "As a man, and as a Larkinson, I applaud your decision. I would have done the same. Yet I also believe that your COO has a point. It's not fitting for you to volunteer yourself to an extremely treacherous free-for-all. I wish I can tell you more, but I'm not allowed to tell you anything."

His grandfather worked at the Ministry of Defense, so he knew best what might happen at the Glowing Planet. Ves didn't begrudge his grandfather for holding back the details. He guessed that the Republic must be monitoring this conference call right now.

"Do I have your blessing to take part?"

"You can have it, for what it's worth. Go forth and be a man, but remember that you don't have to hold yourself to the same standard as a mech pilot."

His grandfather's words reflected the conflicting set of values running through his mind. Every Larkinson had been raised with tales of daring, heroism and sacrifice. With every Larkinson able to pilot a mech being sent off to war, the family suffered a lot of casualties over the generations. That was why Benjamin didn't discourage his own grandson for taking part, even if he didn't really belong on the battlefield in the first place.

"Melkor, will you come with me?"

"Of course. What will the family think if I let you go without my protection?"

That settled it. At least three of the Larkinsons would set off for the Glowing Planet. Ves faintly predicted that even more of their family might end up at the battlefield. The Mech Corps was all but certain to play the main role in the coming campaign. Perhaps he might meet some of his other relatives who served in the divisions.

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While Ves decided to do head to the Glowing Planet to help out his cousin Raella, he might as well accomplish something more. However, he still faced considerable pushback from the company. How could they allow the founder, CEO and lead designer of the LMC to stroll into an active warzone?

"What's wrong with you?" Jake hissed at Ves as he cornered him. "Are you some kind of adrenaline junkie? Why do you throw yourself into danger at the first opportunity that knocks at your door?"

"It's not about chasing after a thrill! I'm doing it because I have to help my family."

"We both know damn well that's not the only thing on your mind. Haven't you always said that you had an awful time in your last adventure and never wanted to do anything like that again? Aren't you working so hard to become an established mech designer so that when the Republic drafts you, you'll be sent to some cozy lab away from the frontlines?"

"What's your point?"

"You're too much of a Larkinson. I've witnessed this behavior of yours plenty of times with the other Larkinsons who don't have the aptitude to pilot a mech. They're so inured in the warrior ethos of the family that they feel they have to prove their courage even more."

Jake should know what he was talking about, since he managed plenty of stores for the Larkinson Estate. He must have interacted with the business-minded side of the family for decades and gained a keen insight on their overall culture.

Ves fell silent for a moment. Did he feel the need to prove himself? Not particularly. His rapid advance in the mech industry already earned him enough respect that it didn't matter if others branded him a coward.

Was it about the thrill? Seeking fortune amid chaos and death? His heart started to beat faster at the thought. Despite being terrified at the prospect of battle, it enervated him as well. His eyes shook in anticipation. Fear and fright seemed to have conflicting effects on his body and mind.

"The blood runs too deep." Jake softly whispered as he shook his head. "You're made in the same mold as your grandfather. Did you know that Benjamin distinguished himself in the previous wars by volunteering for some of the most critical and dangerous missions? Just when you thought he'd meet his death, he'll crawl away with the skin of his teeth. It's the main reason why he advanced to expert pilot so young."

He knew the stories. Every Larkinson who reached the exalted rank of expert pilot possessed something remarkable to be able to break through the bottleneck that stopped countless pilots in their tracks.

Some had been gifted with exceptional neural aptitude. They easily pierced the bottleneck like a needle through cloth.

Some started off average, but grinded themselves past the barrier through relentless training.

Some, like his grandfather, fought at their best when they put their lives on the line. Benjamin Larkinson rose like a rocket, but a single incident late in his career had finally been the straw that broke the camel's back. The venerated war hero had been forced to put aside his profession when he sustained irreparable damage to his body.

So maybe the blood did run thick. Even though his father didn't inherit any of Benjamin's grit, perhaps it had to take another generation for another daredevil to emerge.

Ves began to smile. "All of what you said makes sense. I don't have to go to the Glowing Planet. It doesn't make any logical sense. Yet my heart and mind is urging me to seek my fortune there. Don't forget that this company had been built from the rewards I gained from exploring the stars."

He salvaged the highly productive Dortmund printer from an old facility. He obtained the rest of his equipment along with a slew of rare and valuable licenses by completing a mission from the Society.

That reminded him to check out their Mission Hall. They might have issued another set of missions concerning the Glowing Planet. Even if the entire Coalition moved in after seventy days, they might want to test the waters first.

He had a feeling that the two dominant second-rate states deliberately took their time in claiming the planet. Any stellar body with a huge number of exotic mineral deposits always played havoc with man and machine. Any number of unimaginable dangers might lurk beneath its glowing facade.

And that was where Ves planned to find his fortune.

Even though Jake tried to convince his boss to stay, Ves would have none of it. He was dead set on being among the Whalers as they attempted to obtain a slice of the Glowing Planet's many riches.

He moved quickly that day. Ves hurried up with loading the Barracuda with Melkor's packed Stanislaw along with a set of high quality tools and critical supplies. He also got in touch with Walter's Whalers and let them know he was coming.

Arranging all of that work took little time, since his workers did the actual work. Ves thought about what he brought to the table, and found it rather lacking. He wanted to bring one of his mechs as well and present it to the Whalers.

"The problem is that I don't have any spare mech on hand."

Ves had to complete his contractual obligations first. The LMC immediately shipped all of the gold label Blackbeaks that he fabricated up to this point. He didn't have any spare mechs left, and he couldn't fabricate a new one from scratch in time to join up with the Whalers.

"Still, I do have one frame collecting dust in my warehouse."

It was his first production model. As his very first Blackbeak, it the mech had special meaning to him. The MTA validated his very first original design based on that copy. Melinda also piloted it to victory in the duel against Captain Vicar.

Many mech designers treated their first production models like a piece of art. They cherished them like children and waited for the right time to auction them off for an incredible sum of money, perhaps multiplying its value by hundreds of times in case of extremely successful designs.

Ves didn't want to risk the loss or destruction of his first production model, but circumstances forced his hand. If he worked quickly, he'd be able to repair the damaged mech in less than a day, which gave him sufficient time to catch up to the Whalers.

"Let's do it."

Once he gave out the orders, the mech technicians went into action. Even if they never repaired an existing mech before, they all knew the basics, courtesy of Chief Cyril's training. They brought the damaged mech out of storage and placed it in the assembly system, which carefully cataloged and disassembled the damaged portions of the mech.

Meanwhile, Ves cleared the production line again and started fabricating replacement components. In order to save time, he decided not to replace the lightly damaged components, but handed them off to his mech technicians so that they could attempt to repair the parts themselves.

Not all of them proved capable of doing so, but he expected some fumbling. Any successes went right back in the mech. Parts that proved more difficult to restore passed on to Ves, who put it in the Dortmund and used some of its more advanced functions to restore the component.

Not everything could be recovered to their original state. The armor plating proved impossible to repair with the equipment that the workshop had on hand. Ves had no choice but to fabricate new ones from scratch.

At least they'd be able to sell the broken plating to a professional recycler, allowing them to recoup the majority of the costs.

As Ves started making progress in the repairs, he constantly focused on the image of the Black Phoenix. Even though the mech had already gained a solidified mental presence, Ves used some of the insights he learned before to overlap its existing traits with a higher emphasis on toughness and endurance.

From what little he learned, the battle for the Glowing Planet would be fought over many battles under extremely hostile terrain. Supplying the mechs on the ground would be a huge challenge since all kinds of carriers vied for orbital supremacy.

His Blackbeak had been designed to excel in wars stretching for years. This presented a problem for him because he initially assumed the Blackbeak would fight a lot of skirmishes but only a couple of full-blown battles over the course of its service.

Thus, Ves consciously deviated from his initial design in order to harden his mech against a succession of intensive battles. He didn't take the time to form a new design and test whether the changes introduced new flaws. He eagerly modified his mech on the fly, relying nothing on intuition and some invisible guidance from a changing black phoenix.

Ultimately, the changes only led to minor differences, but Ves found the experience to be worthwhile. Acting on another whim, Ves decided to coat the feather pauldrons in a shade of red. He also changed the settings of the cloud generators to emit red vapor instead of varying shades of grey.

The added color looked spectacular, and gifted his mech with character.

"It's a damn shame you're sending it off to battle." Chief Cyril whistled in appreciation at the newly enhanced mech. "It's practically an heirloom of the company, you know. It's a piece of living history."

Ves sighed with regret. "I know, but when I'm short on mechs, I'll grab the first thing that's available, living history or not. What it can earn us down the line is not as important as satisfying an immediate need."

He knew that despite his good relations with Dietrich, he never really built any ties with the rest of the Whalers. Ves wanted his first meeting with Walter to be on good terms, and nothing expressed his sincerity better by gifting him one of his company's pride and joy.

A hauler arrived at his workshop and picked up the mech. Ves entered an armored shuttle as well and rode it to the lair of the Whalers. He brought no one else along but Lucky.

A few hours later, the hauler and the shuttle and its escorts touched down an expansive but haphazard base on the outskirts of Orinoco. It looked like a half-abandoned shell of its former self, as the Whalers already shifted much of their mechs to the carriers orbiting above the planet.

Ves stepped outside with Lucky following close behind. The cat meowed in confusion as the smells bombarded their noses. The smell of rust, alcohol and urine blended together in a unique ensemble that forced Ves to pinch his nose.

He hurried forward and met with some guards, who guided him to a gathering of senior Whalers. They looked at him as he approached.

"Ves Larkinson, at your service."

A bushy white-bearded man with a barrel of a chest and kegs for arms stepped forward. Ves recognized him at an instant. This was nothing less than Walter himself, who reigned over the Whalers since before he was born.

The man eyed him with a critical eye. "You've got guts. At least you look tough enough. Good, but you need more than that to make it out alive."

"I came bearing gifts, Mr. Walter."

The hauler unloaded the recently modified Blackbeak at that point. All of the Whalers around Walter gasped in surprise and admiration at the sight of the striking mech.

"Is that your new mech?"

"It's the very first production model, in fact. It's the strongest and most finely tuned copy of my original Blackbeak design. It's the mech that Melinda Larkinson used to beat Captain Vicar."

The Whalers might not be fully aware of what the Blackbeak brought to the table, but they all knew about the duel. The veterans erupted in a flurry of whispers.

"And you're giving it to us?"

"It's all yours from this point onwards."

Walter's face cracked into a smile. "I can't say no to a free mech, especially one of this caliber. You're in, Ves. Welcome aboard."

Ves successfully cleared the first hurdle.

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As the leader of the biggest and only gang on Cloudy Curtain, Walter ruled over his men through strength and restraint.

Unlike most members, Walter grew up in Bentheim rather than Cloudy Curtain. Nobody knew about his background and what he experienced growing up, but it must have been a difficult childhood, seeing as Walter never showed any inclination for higher education.

From what Ves could gather from his initial meeting of the man, Walter exhibited a slight Haston accent. He imagined Walter as something of a bully who stole food and earned respect on account of his sturdy body and his ability to master the art of intimidation.

Whatever Walter had endured, he obviously did well enough to be noticed by the local gangs. Nobody knew which gangs he previously ran with, but at some point Walter got in touch with the Blood Claws.

History got a little spotty here. All the public knew was that at one point Walter split off to form his own gang called Walter's Whalers and tried to vie for territory.

They lost the battle.

Defeated and demoralized, the remnants of the newly established Whalers tucked their tails between their legs and departed from the port system in a hurry. They sought refuge at any hole they could find, and eventually ended up in Cloudy Curtain.

The previous gang that claimed the planet as their own turned out to be more pathethic than the Whalers. Their outdated, atrophied mechs didn't stand a chance against the Whalers and their dented arsenal of cheap but modern mass-produced frontline mechs.

Since then, he Whalers settled in and licked their wounds. Eventually, recovered to their former numbers, but Walter himself never considered going back to Bentheim. He would rather reign over cats than live like a dog among tigers.

"Good choice." Ves thought as he woke up the next morning on the Happy Jelly, the flagship of the Whalers.

As flagships went, the Happy Jelly didn't receive much care. Like most carriers, the ship had started out as a heavy hauler, and once she became too slow and worn out to make a profit, her owners sold her to a shipyard. There, the Happy Jelly received a second life as some of her most worn-out components had been replaced and her massive cargo space had been reconfigured to carry combat-ready mechs.

The only problem Ves had with the Jelly was that she was obviously pushing her age. The carrier audibly groaned as the Whaler fleet engaged their FTL drives.

Ves already missed his gleaming Barracuda. The sharp and nimble corvette always glided into FTL as if she dove into the water like a graceful athlete. The ship already went ahead of the main fleet to scout the star systems ahead.

The Happy Jelly on the other hand resembled an elephant being launched into the water with a mighty splash.

Occasionally, her entire hull groaned as if she was being stretched out like a noodle. One day, he thought, the Jelly would be the Jelly no more, leaving behind a debris field that stretches over light-years as they fell out of FTL in a haphazard order.

"You really need to tune your ship." Ves told Walter as he entered the main hangar. Rows upon rows of mechs sat dormant in their stables. Much of them looked like they had seen better days, but only a handful of technicians attempted to patch them up.

"My Jelly can take a few more trips. Don't worry about the old lady." Walter remarked as he stood in front of the red-shouldered Blackbeak. "Let's talk about business, shall we?"

Ves approached the boss as an equal but made sure to maintain a tone of respect. "As you know, I'm taking a lot of risks. I left behind a company valued at around ten billion credits in order to join your expedition. I've also gifted you with a priceless mech that's valuable not only for its history, but also its performance."

"What do you want in return?"

"A cut of whatever the Whalers manage to obtain. It doesn't have to be too much, and we can adjust the amount according to my contribution. Let's set the base at ten percent of total earnings."

That was a massive sum, but it also reflected the value Ves could bring to the table. A mech force without a mech designer watching over their machines would always be at a disadvantage compared to an opponent that did enjoy that advantage.

They bargained back and forth, but on account of his generous gift, Ves succeeded in setting the bar at ten percent.

"You look like you're eying something else. Get on with it." Walter spat, brandishing his massive arms in front of Ves.

"There are two more things I'm on a lookout for. First, if by some means the Whalers ever get their hands on something that originates from the core of the planet, I'd like to receive a hand-sized chunk."

"Fine." Not that Walter knew what something like that really meant.

"Second, I'd like to get a copy of all of the logs of the mechs on the field."

"For what reason?"

"A… client of mine wants to map out the environmental hazards your mechs might encounter in the field. It's for the Coalition."

"I see."

Walter obviously didn't appreciate sending off those logs to some stranger in the Coalition. Even if they'd never be able to use it against them, it still felt awful to air all of your dirty laundry.

In truth, Ves accepted the mission to submit the logs on his own accord at the Clifford Society. The mission dangled out a reward for 200 merits, which seemed too good to be true.

The mere mention of the Coalition had the desired effect, even if Ves played a trick on the boss. Walter acceded to the demand with gritted teeth.

In an effort to find something pleasant to talk about, Ves quickly moved past their discussion and walked over to the Blackbeak. "Have you decided whether you'll adopt this mech as your own?"

Walter shook his head. "My Urman has served me well so far. Only youngsters and fools chase after the latest toys. Your mech is a fine machine, but not a mech that's suited to lead the Whalers."

Ves glanced at the so-called Urman standing quietly to the stable up ahead. The mech turned out to be a brawler, an exotic archetype that basically fought with its fists.

Like its pilot, the brawler looked like it could withstand a lot of punishment. Ves estimated that all of its armor had actually pushed the mech over the medium weight class.

Normally, that was bad, as mechs like this didn't possess the level of protection enjoyed by genuine heavy mechs. However, some pilots simply made it work, and from Walter looked like he was one of them. Ves imagined their shared body types helped a lot with establishing a deeper connection between the two.

"I can see why you're attached to your mech. The Blackbeak is a mech that's suited for long-ranged patrols and lengthy battles of attrition. It can't deliver an immediate impact like your Urman."

Walter probably had ways to get around its sluggish speed and its subpar psuedo-heavy armor. If the Urman ever got close to a mech, it could punch a mech apart through sheer brute force with the help of its large powered gauntlets.

Another man stepped forth. He looked to be from the same generation as Walter, but thankfully his body wasn't so wide. "Walter! You called?"

"Come over here. Fadah, this is Ves. Ves, this is Fadah. He's my fourth-in-command of sorts."

Fadah snorted. "More like eight or ninth. You always change your mind. It's a wonder the Whalers are still in one shape."

"Hah! As long as everyone gets a taste of power, they'll know how much grief they have to deal with. That helps cut down the potential mutinies."

"As if we don't fear you." The skinnier Whaler shook his head. "Anyway, why did you call me over? I was in the middle of sorting out our roster. It's a real mess, you know."

"I called you here because you'll be piloting that black thing over there. You've always been nagging your ears about your piece of junk of a mech. Well, here's a brand new machine, and a unique one to boot. It's all yours!"

"But I'm a scout pilot! I pilot light mechs!"

"Light mechs, medium mechs, what's the difference! When you get down to it, they're both fast and hard to catch. They just differ in the amount of armor they're willing to carry. Besides, you're my most resourceful pilot. Only someone as hard to kill as you will fit this beast."

Walter didn't take no for an answer, and quickly walked away, leaving Ves and Fadah to stew by themselves.

"Is he always like that?"

"Yeah. He seems like he doesn't care, but he doesn't want to be bothered with managing anything."

"Then why do the Whalers stick with him?"

The older man grinned at him. "You wouldn't understand. The best I can describe it is… it's like a brotherhood. Walter's Whalers might not possess the ruthlessness to survive in a place like Bentheim, but that's because Walter never pushes us beyond our boundaries."

Ves didn't really understand what he meant. He shook his head and turned back to the matter at hand. "For better or worse, you're saddled with my pride and joy. The Blackbeak is a fine machine. It will run as smooth as butter, I can guarantee you."

"Whatever you say. It's not a scout. Far from it. It's a knight." Fadah didn't appear to be taken in by all the hype, but he tried to make the best of it. "Let's get to work, then."

Any mech pilot that adopted a new mech had to go through a period of training and adjustment. Normally, a couple of mech pilots would be sufficient to tweak the mech to the pilot's preferences. Allowing Ves to do the adjustments on a design he knew on an extremely deep level was an extravagant privilege.

Fadah came from a light mech background, so the man mainly demanded ways to enhance the Blackbeak's mobility. In particular, Fadah harped on improving its response time and its range of motion.

"A light mech relies on agility to survive up close. The more you shave off a mech's response time, the better it will be able to respond to an opponent's move."

Ves felt deeply reluctant to make any drastic changes to the Blackbeak, but Fadah insisted on a couple of modifications that severely impacted the effectiveness of its armor.

As Ves tried to follow Fadah's suggestions, he became a little conflicted about maintaining its ability to endure. Many of the things Fadah insisted upon set back the Blackbeak's ability to survive the entire campaign.

"You shouldn't be beating your head over my style." Fadah said. "The whole point of light mechs is that they survive by not taking a hit at all. I know it seems kind of reckless for me to demand you strip a knight of some of its armor, but I can tell you that I'll be much better off that way."

"I still think you're going too far with this! The Blackbeak is losing its identity as a knight!"

"I don't want to pilot a knight!"

They remained at an impasse. Ves felt more and more like he was butchering the Blackbeak until all he had left was bones. The conflicting vision for the mech sometimes caused him headaches that forced him to halt his adjustment work.

That was bad, as the Whaler fleet would soon arrive at the outskirts of the space around the Glowing Planet. The crew members of the Happy Jelly already called the five light-hours around the planet the Glowing Zone.

The Whaler fleet was scheduled to rendez-vous at a point around one light-hour into the Glowing Zone. Monty the Beheader issued a call to arms, and every outfit that pledged allegiance to him had to heed his words.

If all went well in space, the Whalers would be touching down in a couple of days. Ves had to finish the Blackbeak and inspect some of the other mechs before that happened. He urgently had to find a way to solve his current logjam.

"What will it take to reconcile my mech with its pilot?"

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His interaction with the crew of the Happy Jelly and exploring its compartments gave Ves a decent impression of Walter's Whalers.

Put simply, they lacked discipline and professionalism.

If Ves wanted to be blunt, he'd use the words lazy and stupid to describe their motley crew. While the Whalers at least invested a little in their mech crews in order to make sure they functioned normally, their ship crews left a lot to be desired.

Severely undermanned, the crew of the Happy Jelly only had the manpower to spare on maintaining the bare essentials of the ship.

They kept the atmospherics going so they wouldn't be freezing and choking from a lack of oxygen.

They kept the aging bridge and engineering running past their prime with a mix of ad-hoc solutions.

Sometimes, they replaced faulty parts with illegally fabricated copies of dubious quality.

It all looked ugly to Ves. Having seen a professional combat crew at work with his stint on Ark Horizon, the Whalers should be thanking their lucky stars the carrier hadn't blown up yet.

Even the aging complement of bots had been affected by the lethargy around them. All of them looked old enough to be present on the Jelly when she started off as a brand new cargo hauler. Lack of attention had degraded at least half of them into scrap, which forced the remainder of the bots to pull double duty to clean the ship and take care of smaller duties.

They obviously failed in that. Many low-priority corridors and compartments featured a build-up of grime and crusted vomit. If the Jelly had any cleaners on her crew, they obviously didn't bother cleaning these sections.

Right now, Ves had to pass by some of those filthy corridors in order to reach a rarely-used conference. Walter summoned everyone important on the ship to attend a briefing.

Around thirty old Whalers seated themselves on the hard, cheap chairs.

"I think everyone's here now, so let's get this started." Walter announced and turned on a flickering projection of the Glowing Zone. "The Blood Claws have been scouting ahead and made some plans. This is how it's going to look like."

The Whaler fleet would emerge at the edge of the Glowing Zone and make its way inwards until they reached the position of the Blood Claws. Once every outfit with a connection to Monty gathered in a massive fleet, they resumed their journey towards the deepest part of the Glowing Zone, eventually approaching the outer edge of an enormous armada made up out of several divisions of the Mech Corps.

"As you know, the Glowing Planet has landed within the borders of the Republic. The Mech Corps, in all of its wisdom, figured that since the Vesians and all kinds of scum will arrive in a couple of days, it's best to set aside our rivalries and form a common pact."

"Does that mean the Three Tyrants of Bentheim won't be duking it out?"

"Of course not, you dummy!"

The old chap wouldn't be blamed for thinking that Monty the Beheader might chose to attack his other rivals. They constantly warred against each other in the shadows.

"The Glowing Planet is big enough for everyone, at least in the first couple of days. The Mech Corps has mapped out the planet from orbit and carved a generous slice of territory for each of the major players to claim as their own."

A map of the planet showed up on the projection. Much of its intricate and dangerous terrain features remained unknown, but the Mech Corps somehow determined that the areas with the highest level of fluctuations probably contained deposits of the most valuable exotics the planet had on offer.

"These red areas are first-grade danger zones. They're extremely dangerous, as all of those wild exotic minerals are constantly changing the laws of physics around them. Time might stop, gravity might reverse, in short, all kinds of freaky stuff will happen around them. We can forget about mining those deposits ourselves. Only the Mech Corps has the means to extract those juicy exotics."

"What about us?"

"I'm getting to that. Around the red zones are the orange zones, which consists of the second-grade danger zones. The exotics there are much less destructive on their environment, but there's a lot of them so the entire area will be blanketed in a low level freaky effect. These are great places to mine junk exotics in bulk, and that's where the major powers of the Republic have divvied up for themselves."

The area allocated to Monty the Betrayer sat far away from any other claimed areas, and took up as much space as Dorum, Bentheim's capital city.

"That's kind of small. There's lots of free space on the planet."

"This is only the first phase. Do you really think the Blood Claws will be able to protect this stretch of territory once the Ducal Legions of the Vesians make landfall? Even a fraction of a legion is enough to wipe the floor with Monty and his men!"

The map changed now. Before, all of the Republican's powers had spread out over the planet. Now, they concentrated around the red zone occupied by the Mech Corps.

"In the second phase, every force from the Republic will work together to present a united front. Every major outfit like the Three Tyrants of Bentheim will be placed at the edge of the red zone occupied by the Mech Corps."

"It kind of looks like we'll be placed at the frontlines."

"They're using us as shields!"

"It's true." Walter said. "The Mech Corps isn't hiding the fact that they want us to be placed at the perimeter of their territory. Anyone who wants to attack the Mech Corps has to go through the Blood Claws or some other outfit depending on the direction of the attack."

"Seems like a crappy deal. What do we get out of it?"

"Protection, basically. The Mech Corps won't stand by if any of us gets attacked. They've promised to send out a relief force to repel the attack."

No one really took the Mech Corps at their word, but none of them had a say in the matter. Monty had already agreed to the deal. Ves strongly suspected that a couple of trades had been made on the side to secure everyone's agreement.

"Our precise role will vary. We brought plenty of mechs, but they're not really impressive, aside from my Urman and Fadah's new toy. The Blood Claws will likely put us on guard duty. It's going to get increasingly dangerous once the Vesians and the scum of the galaxy arrive."

Walter proceeded to assign his officers to various tasks. Ves took on the duty of leading a small team of mech technicians in charge of maintaining and repairing the so-called fast-reaction squad led by Fadah.

The fast-reaction squad acted as the troubleshooters of the Whalers. Walter basically gathered up some swift and mobile mechs and tasked them with rescuing any Whalers that had fallen into trouble.

"That's all we can plan for now. I still don't know if we'll actually be able to hold a chunk of territory of our own, but you can bet that we'll have to fight for every piece of ore the Blood Claws extract."

The Mech Corps made use of the Blood Claws, while the Blood Claws made use of the Whalers. Life was tough at the bottom of the totem pole.

Once everyone dispersed, Ves wandered back to the main hangar. While he hadn't figured out a way to reconcile the Blackbeak with a mech pilot eager to subvert the strengths of its design, Ves reflected on his previous choices.

"A mech won't always be matched with the right pilot. Its design might favor a defensive style of fighting, but if it's matched with an aggressive pilot, then something has to give."

He always assumed that his Blackbeaks would be matched by mech pilots that could bring out their brilliance. Yet this time, he gifted the Blackbeak out for free to a leader who never really stood out as a brilliant decision maker. In turn, that leader handed over the Blackbeak to a pilot who obviously desired to pilot something else.

All of this turned out to be a mess, and as the mech designer in charge of tweaking the Blackbeak to Fadah's tastes, it was up to him to untangle the knot.

Eventually, he made a decision.

"It's no good to hold on to my beliefs even if I think that Fadah is wrong. In a sense, he's my customer, and a mech designer should always be attentive to their customers."

If he reframed the situation into a relationship between a service provider and a customer, then the answer became clear. He had to set aside his narrow view of what was best in favor of accommodating the wishes of his client.

"Sticking to my guns obviously won't please Fadah."

Fadah wanted his mech to fit his style instead of the other way around. If the Blackbeak remained a sluggish semi-defensive bulwark, then the pilot would never be able to mesh with it as deeply as Ves and Fadah wished.

Even though Ves thought that Fadah made the wrong decision, it was better to follow his wishes, since at least the pilot had a chance of making it work.

In short, Ves had to believe in Fadah and his claims.

The realization came as a welcome relief to Ves. While the solution to the dilemma didn't truly eliminate every problem, the reasoning behind it gave Ves enough of an excuse to set aside his instincts.

With grudging acceptance, he worked together with Fadah to finish slimming down the Blackbeak. Ves let go of its original conception as an offensive knight and treated it as a fluid entity with no discernable role as of yet.

"Thinking in terms of categories is a trap in itself. Not all mechs have to fill into a single predetermined role."

That had been the other lesson he learned. The concept of roles and archetypes emerged after the first generations of mechs soon after the Age of Mechs came into being. It provided the nascent mech pilots and mech designers with a common understanding of what the new mechs had been designed to do.

It succeeded in bringing order to the mech industry. Both designers and pilots experimented with hundreds of different concepts, throwing away the more impractical ideas while embracing the most effective ones like knight mechs, rifleman mechs and more.

Yet sometimes those neat categories failed to adjust to the demands of the pilots. Walter's unusual Urman was but one example of a design that should not have worked according to contemporary standards. Yet Walter obviously managed, since he never lost a battle since he fled to Cloudy Curtain.

Ves had the sense that he was doing something similar to the Blackbeak. He shaved away a significant amount of armor, drastically reducing the mech's encumbrance until its weight reached a point below the minimum standard of a medium mech.

Now, the highly modified Blackbeak had become a mech that straddled the gap between a light and medium mech. In most people's eyes, such a mech would be an abomination. Yet Fadah found the result to be a marvel when he tested it out in a simulation.

"Fantastic! This is fantastic! The Blackbeak is so responsive now! It's still not as fast as I would like, but it's enough for me to pull off all of my moves!"

In the end, Ves had satisfied his client. Whether this ultra-skinny Blackbeak could actually put up a fight, he didn't dare to speculate any further. He just hoped that Fadah had been somewhat truthful about his supposedly awesome skills.

The work took way more time than he thought. Ves originally planned to make a pass at every mech on the Happy Jelly, but their impending emergence at the edge of the Glowing Zone cut that short.

Ves settled for taking a look at the other mechs of the fast-reaction squad.

When he finally visited their stables and looked at their frames, his mood tumbled to the bottom.

"How the hell do they still work?"

He'd seen junkyard scrap in better conditions than the light and medium mechs that consisted of the fast-reaction squad. Ves had a lot of work to do if he wanted to ensure they could survive the rigors they'd usually be going through on the surface of the Glowing Planet.

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Chapter 281: Convergence

Thousands, if not tens of thousands of ships converged upon the Glowing Planet. Much of them consisted of cheap converted transports, but some of them boasted enough tonnage to overrun a small planet in a day.

The Glowing Planet's fate was sealed as soon as the trade convoy led by the Calcardon had stumbled upon it. Even if every crew member aboard every ship swore an oath of silence, word of the miraculous planet's existence would have still been leaked.

Now, a horde of locusts descended upon its virgin lands, the trade convoy first among them. Driven by rapacious greed, all of the haulers and mercenary carriers ignored their contractual obligations in favor of descended upon the planet.

Even if they lacked the specialized mining equipment to get at the most valuable ores, they still thought they could get their hands on some valuable chunks.

"Even if we can't find any rocks, we can still use the weapons equipped on our mechs!"

The hasty approach didn't end well for them. They underestimated the anomalies such active planets induced upon their environments. Even their orbits suffered from its chaotic wrath.

It took only a single day for the Calcardon to fall. Her hull stretched to pieces as she suddenly fell into a swirling tide of gravitic pressure. None of her crew and mechs survived.

Some of the other vessels in the former trade convoy could have pulled away from the planet, if not leave its vicinity altogether. Yet in their haste to harvest the Glowing Planet's treasures, they ignored the Calcardon's fate and dismissed the incident as a low-probability occurrence.

"The Barbed Lynxes had it coming. There's no way the same thing will happen to us!"

They vastly underestimated the hazards.

By the second day, no more ships remained in orbit. Random spasms in the fabric of reality had rent most of them apart across time and space. Some pieces of debris had even crossed back into time, not that it mattered since they largely floated in the humongous void of interstellar space.

Meanwhile, the Glowing Planet continued to drift away in space. Soon its journey would bring it outside the borders of the Republic. At least, that would have happened if humanity hadn't gotten word of its existence.

Aboard the flagship of the Blood Claws, Raella relentlessly trained her physical body in preparation for the hard slog ahead. She had locked herself inside a hard light simulation cage, which presented a variety of projected thugs and beasts for her to dance around and knock them out with her arms and legs. She dexterously weaved between the savage imitations of life and dismantled them with ruthless efficiency.

Once the simulation ended, she exited the cage while letting a bot wipe away her sweat and freshen up her body. "Wooh! I broke my record!"

"Great job!" Dietrich said from the side. He already finished his daily marksmanship training. "Let's go eat some chow."

They walked over to the mess hall a few decks above the massive fleet carrier. Unlike Walter's Whalers, the Blood Claws knew how to keep their ship running. Hardly any spec of dust marred its gleaming corridors. That might soon change once the campaign heated up, but for now, the Blood Claws looked prime and ready to go to war.

Once they sat down at a table, a pair of bots automatically delivered a meal tailored to their tastes and their bodily needs. Raella eagerly grabbed her drink and gulped down half of it in an instant.

"I've been talking with Ves a few times. He's eager to meet you again once we make landfall."

Raella pressed her lips. "It's touching to hear he cares, but he didn't need to travel all the way here. He should have stayed back on your miserable little farm planet."

"Hey! Cloudy Curtain isn't bad once you get to appreciate its charm!"

"Whatever you say, farm boy."

They paused their discussion to eat. Both had become famished after finishing their training. The food easily slipped down their throats as they devoured their meals.

"You know, it's not going to be easy to survive down there." Dietrich started up again. "I've been hearing some news that the anomalies around the planet has already claimed the lives of an entire trade convoy. If it's already so bad up in orbit, it's surely going to be worse on the surface."

"Even if that's true, the Blood Claws or the Mech Corps will figure something out. They're not going to let a bunch of unruly special effects ruin the harvest of the century."

Dietrich hoped the people upstairs remained clueless. As long as they didn't figure out an answer to tackle the anomalies, Raella wouldn't get the opportunity to descend with the rest of the Blood Claws.

He discreetly shook his head. Since when did he care so much about a girl? He had plenty of flings in the past. Why did Raella catch his heart?

As he stared intently at she tackled her dessert, he figured he became attracted to her strength. A dump like Cloudy Curtain couldn't have produced a woman so skilled at piloting mechs.

Dietrich loved her exuberance, but did Raella love him back? Perhaps she treated him like he treated his former flings. It didn't help that her abrupt decision to join this expedition had introduced some friction in their relationship.

"Babe, I won't argue about your desire to make landfall. I know how much you crave action. Just let me be with you. I'll back you up as best I can."

"Awww, you're so sweet, Dietrich!" Raella laughed. "All of the boys at Rittersberg would have been too busy turning up their noses at the sky to think about protecting me. But really, I don't need your coddling. I can handle myself, no matter what the Glowing Planet throws at us."

"It's not the Glowing Planet I'm afraid of. Well, that's not true. I am afraid of it, but I'm more scared about the riff raff that will arrive in the next couple of days."

"I'm sure we'll be able to clean them all up. Trash will be trash. I've dealt with several of them when I fought in the underground arenas."

Dietrich grabbed her hands and clasped them in his own. "I still worry about you. All the real opponents you've faced so far are rejects compared to the pilots who joined the military."

"I know how good they are. I'm a Larkinson, remember? Even if they can kick my butt, I'll make sure to kick theirs in return, just like what Melinda did to Captain Vicar."

Her tone betrayed a hint of envy. Why did Melinda get to show off the Blackbeak in a crowded arena? That should have been Raella! Even if she didn't specialize in piloting mechs, she still would have managed to deal with the pressure.

In a way, she craved to prove her courage, to test whether she had what it took to be a Larkinson. She couldn't wait for the war to erupt and she didn't think she'd see any action anyway if she kept patrolling some stupid workshop.

The Blood Claws presented an opportunity for her to make her mark. Her biggest aim was to distinguish herself in battle.

While Raella dreamt about overshadowing Melinda, plenty of other people aspired to fulfill their goals in the upcoming campaign.

Over a third of the Bright Republic's mercenary corps had converged around a small number of charismatic mercenary leaders. While no single mercenary corps possessed the numbers to defend themselves against a major power, the balance of power changed if they managed to unite.

The emergence of the so-called mercenary lords allowed the smaller outfits to band together to form a temporary alliance. While none of them really trusted their colleagues to risk their lives for a couple of strangers, they still shared enough in common to let a lord order them around.

Of course, that only held if they got paid. An alliance would instantly disintegrate if the lord became incapable of delivering the goods.

Thus, the leaders faced a lot of pressure to succeed in their expeditions. They'd be ruined if they left with empty hands. The mercenaries that tentatively answered their calls could easily turn against the lords if they showed an inkling of weakness.

Interestingly enough, many of the mercenaries piloted mechs designed by Ves. For the first time in his career, a large number of his products would be tested in an actual combat situation.

And what a test it represented! The fight over the Glowing Planet would definitely spark more than a couple of cautious skirmishers. Wealth had a way of infecting the most prudent individuals with boundless greed. No one was in a mood to back off. Not at this stage.

The mercenaries brought two distinct models to the war zone. First, the Marc Antony Mark II's had become a staple in some mercenary corps. While the LMC never produced very much of them, they still brought a lot of value to the smaller and less financially capable outfits.

The only downside to the Mark II's was that they only functioned for a relatively short period of time. Much like the Havalax, the Mark II excelled at forcing a quick resolution of a battle. Fortunately, the hybrid mech possessed many tools to force such an outcome.

As for the Blackbeaks, many of their owners and mech pilots had barely gotten a grip on them. The design showed a lot of promise, but aside from a single publicised duel, the Blackbeak hadn't been tested for the role it had been designed to fulfill.

Still, the pilots believed in the machines. The Blackbeaks looked and felt impressive. Actually piloting the wondrously crafted machines proved to be a sublime experience, especially for the limited number of gold label mechs.

EME actually produced most of the Blackbeaks in the hands of the mercenaries going to war. The affordable and more easily available silver label mechs didn't match the quality of the original version, but that didn't lessen their value by much. The guts looked the same no matter their labels, and their pilots readily entrusted their lives to their impressive machines.

It could be said that a lot of eyes kept an eye on the Blackbeak. They wanted to see whether offensive knight had what it took to fight a war. Many professionals with money to spare eagerly awaited the final verdict on the design.

As for Ves, he faced a much more pressing priority. Getting the sad excuses of his mech technicians to work.

"Come on, Mr. Larkinson!" A sleazy-looking fellow whined. "I just checked the integrity of the armor like you told me to do. There aren't any cracks worth mentioning!"

"Lucky."

His mechanical cat jumped from its perch on his shoulder and jumped straight past the bewildered technician.

"OUCH! That hurt!"

Lucky only needed to mark their skins to provide an abject lesson on why they should listen to Ves.

"Don't try to fool my eyes. I know my mechs, and my judgement is telling me that this light mech needs another set of armor. So get off your lazy but and scan it again!"

"Yes, boss!"

Ves shook his head as the tech scurried back to the scanners. The main issue that plagued the mechs owned by the Whalers was that the mech technicians lacked supervision. They didn't hire a chief technicians to ride on their backs.

This left Ves with the tiresome job of hounding the awful technicians to do the work they should have been doing from the start.

"Really, they've cut so many corners that these mechs could have been round at this point. It's truly a wonder that the Whalers haven't collapsed from all the rust."

It truly vexed Ves to know how badly the Whalers handled their logistics. He wasn't even sure if a single whaler besides Dietrich even knew what that word meant.

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The Happy Jelly emerged at the edge of the Glowing Zone in a lurch. Its oft-repaired and barely functional FTL drive strained to bring the ship into realspace without breaking her apart.

Ves gripped the cushioned pod seat sight at the moment of transition, but everyone else simply shrugged off their nausea and went back to work. They had already become used to the violent transitions from the higher dimensions back to the lower ones.

"Damnit, this ship will really kill them all some day." He muttered as the seat automatically withdrew the straps that held him in the pod. "Tell me you didn't enjoy the ride, Lucky."

"Meow!"

Lucky didn't look too chipper either. The glowing blue lines of energy between the gaps of his elegant bronze plating burned bright now. Ves surmised that Lucky already accumulated enough energy to evolve from level 2 to level 3. For some reason, the gem cat held back, likely because Ves needed his help if he wanted to make it through the upcoming campaign.

It didn't help that many of the mechs the Whalers used enjoyed less than stellar maintenance. The lack of leadership, the shortage in manpower and the pervasive attitude of doing the bare minimum resulted in a lot of heavily degraded mechs.

The mech technicians often dismissed the minor problems that piled up in a mech, unaware that several unrelated errors could cascade into catastrophic faults down the line.

Ves had accessed some of the logs and noticed that the Whalers didn't fight very often. This had allowed the problems to fester, because the Whalers never really experienced a significant loss arising from a lack of maintenance.

Now they faced a reckoning. According to some of the contingency plans the Blood Claws passed to the Whalers, each mech might be facing an average of six intensive engagements. In these kinds of pitched battles, the mechanical state of any mech was of extreme importance.

Too bad none of the Whalers really listened to him. The few times he got hold of Walter, the burly man told him to piss off and bother someone else. When Ves approached the officers like Fadah, they'd tell him that he worried too much.

"Sure, our equipment is crap. That's a fact. They're cheap to get and cheap to use. We break things a lot, so we don't actually bother trying to keep our gear in shape."

Indeed, over seventy percent of the mechs aboard the Happy Jelly consisted of frontline mechs. In addition, the Whalers acquired at least half of them through the grey or black market, so their reliability was questionable.

Their only advantage to the gang was that they cost only several million credits a pop. The most basic frontline mech in the Bright Republic could be bought for five million credits. In comparison, Ves thought that some mechs looked like they'd been salvaged from a battlefield and refurbished up to a point where the Whalers snapped them up for half the minimum price.

Very obviously, the Whalers could put a lot of mechs on the field this way. Most of its members consisted of local recruits from Cloudy Curtain who hadn't been able to attend a fancy advanced academy offworld.

This meant that most of them lacked the training and skills to pilot anything more sophisticated than a barebones frontline mech. It would have been useless for them to pilot something as sophisticated as the Blackbleak as they wouldn't be able to control the mech efficiently.

"That's still no excuse to neglect the maintenance of their mechs!"

Ves wanted to tear his hair out. Even though he kicked the mech technicians assigned to his command into action, they quickly returned to old habits once he walked away. Discipline was nonexistent and playing games on their comms turned out to be their most frequent activity.

It also didn't help that Ves didn't quite fit in with the loose and casual brotherhood the Whalers fostered among themselves. His goodwill for gifting the Blackbeak quickly faded away, and his constant prodding of getting people to work quickly earned him a reputation for being uptight and serious.

He didn't care about what other people thought. Everything he accomplished now was one thing he didn't have to compensate for when the Whalers made landfall.

"That's not far away now. I've got to get the fast-reaction squad in decent shape before we touch down. I won't be able to overhaul these mechs on the surface of an active planet."

The Happy Jelly and the rest of the Whaler fleet slowly gathered in a protective formation and began to fly deeper into the Glowing Zone. On the bridge, a large amount of alerts sounded out as the Jelly's sensors strained to identify all of the active thruster emissions.

"At least five-hundred ships are already burning their way towards the inner zone! Over a third of them haven't activated their transponders!"

"Hah! Looks like the pirates are scrambling to get a piece of the action as well." Walter joked as he gazed upon the giant projection of the Glowing Zone and the ships they detected so far.

It did not look too good. While the Whalers brought around twelve functional mech carriers and four supply ships, much of those ships only carried a dozen or half-a-dozen mechs. Only the Happy Jelly was large enough to receive acknowledgement from the Blood Claws.

Over the next day, the Whaler fleet sluggishly brought their ships towards a random coordinate relative to the Glowing Planet. The Blood Claws along with a handful of smaller outfits already gathered there. The Whaler fleet turned out to be among the last who arrived, much to the consternation of the crew.

"You should have invested more in your ships, then." Ves pointed out to Fadah.

"Every extra credit spent on a ship is one credit less we can invest in our mechs."

Ves could have said that their entire budgeting rested upon a flimsy foundation. Sure, they might not have been able to do anything about the quality of their mech pilots, but they should have put more care in the quality of their mechs.

Right now, Ves had given up on changing their mindsets. They needed to experience the folly of their ways with their own eyes before they became more receptive to his ideas.

"When are the Blood Claws setting off?"

"I'm not sure." Fadah shrugged his shoulders as he patted the Blackbeak. He constantly came back to Ves to demand more adjustments. "Last I heard, all of the outfits that we know of have arrived. We've got over two-hundred ships by ourselves. That's got to be enough to put the Mech Corps to pause."

"I don't think so. The Mech Corps always goes for quality over quantity. The Republic doesn't have the mech pilots to spare for them to throw their lives away so easily. Just one of their carriers can accomplish the same things as your entire Whaler fleet."

"That's a lie!"

"Fadah, even a single fleet carrier outmasses your entire collection of ramshackle converted transports. I can tell, because I've been on one."

There was no getting through Fadah's thick skull. Practically all of the Whalers except Walter only possessed a limited perspective on how the galaxy truly looked like. Walter could have disabused them of their notions, but the gang leader didn't seem to bother.

The delays annoyed the Whalers and much of the other outfits that answered to Monty. Several other fleets such as those led by the mercenary leaders already flew past them as they made their way to the juicy planet. It galled the impatient gang members to see others getting ahead.

That was until one mercenary transport randomly erupted into pieces.

At first, the mercenaries aboard the ship around them thought that someone had sabotaged the vessel. The mercenary commanders quickly acted to stop any trigger-happy mercenaries from firing back.

It turned out the transport had fallen into an invisible curl in spacetime. That quickly halted the vanguard of the fleet. Who could tell if the space ahead hid something else?

The transport met its end at a fairly significant distance of three light-hours away from the Glowing Planet. Such a distance should have been more than enough to ignore any possible emissions from the active planet due to the inverse-square law.

"That's why the Blood Claws haven't gone ahead." Ves realized. "They're waiting for something that can mitigate the glowing planet's hazards."

"Do you reckon it's the Mech Corps we're waiting for?"

"I don't know of the Mech Corps even understands what is happening with the Glowing Planet. My gut tells me they'll borrow the technology from the Coalition or the CFA."

They only had to wait a couple of hours before their answer arrived. The 4th division of the Mech Corps arrived with massive splendor. Their large, specialized carriers had no trouble recovering from the transition and quickly formed into smaller elements before they soared into the Glowing Zone.

Hundreds of carriers built for war escorted a smaller number of essential transports. Ves estimated that the 4th division's fleet brought over ten-thousand mechs spread over five unique regiments.

All the pomp and circumstance succeeded in cowing the other powers. The 4th division boldly sped their way towards the inner zone without fear for falling into any inexplicable hazards.

Before everyone could scratch their heads and wonder whether the Mech Corps had lost their mind, a number of strange transports split up from the main fleet. Several transports moved to each major fleet, including the one centered around the Blood Claws.

News quickly passed on what they contained.

"Those transports are carrying the Republic's gifts! They're carrying something called a dimensional smoother! They emit some kind of field that anchors local realspace and makes it harder for the Glowing Planet to do its freaky stuff!"

The explanation barely satisfied Ves. The so-called dimensional smoother probably had a better name, but the Blood Claws or the Whalers probably couldn't wrap their heads around the original meaning, so they grasped for something simpler to describe its effects.

The name did its job, he supposed. Everyone had been able to imagine the implications of a dimensional smoother. They had to get close to it and hope that it emitted enough power to withstand the Glowing Planet's mood swings.

The Blood Claw fleet received three transports, which quickly took up a triangular formation. Naturally, the ships under Monty's the Betrayer's direct control received the privilege of flying alongside the transports carrying the dimensional smoothers.

The Whalers had been assigned at the furthest edge of the formation. That said a lot about their worth to the Blood Claws.

"They don't think much of us!"

"Worst mistake they ever made!"

"We'll show them what we're made of once we start fighting!"

Truly, the amount of delusion that had infected the Whalers reached a ridiculous level. No matter who he talked to, everyone seemed to think the campaign would be a walk in the park, or at worst a slog through a muddy road.

Only Ves thought that the road ahead resembled a treacherous cliff. Sometimes, he regretted joining the Whaler fleet. He hadn't imagined they'd be so incompetent. Then he thought about Raella and the missions he accepted from the Society and the System.

He had a feeling the System knew more about the Glowing Planet than anyone else in this star sector. When the System broke its silence and demanded him to seek out something from the planet's core, Ves received a massive fright.

"There's something about the Glowing Planet that nags me. If it only hold a huge amount of junk exotics, how come its emissions are so strong?"

It would have been explainable if a ship ended up dead if it wandered close to the Glowing Planet's orbit. Yet to be able to influence its surrounding space so much to the point of tearing apart a vessel light-hours away, it must be hiding something special.

"I guess we'll see in a day or two when we make landfall."

Once the Blood Claw fleet settled into place, the huge formation slowly swept forward. All the other fleet resumed their journey to the Glowing Planet as well once they gathered around the dimensional smoothers.

Everything seemed fine and dandy, until a large number of ships arrived from a different angle. Alarm swept throughout the ships which figured out the identity of the newcomers.

"It's the Vesians!"

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Everyone expected the Vesians to come to the Glowing Planet. How could they not, when its resources lay bare to their archrivals?

Anything the Bright Republic enjoyed, the Vesians always tried to ruin it. They'd been waging several wars against the Bright Republic for over a hundred years just to snatch the Bentheim System.

It was a matter of time before they came.

"They still arrived too quickly." Fadah muttered. "They must have sneaked past the border the moment they heard the news. Not that's it's hard to cross the border anyhow."

In the vast depths of space, borders served a symbolic purpose. The distances involved were simply too large to defend. Still, even if the Vesians strolled past the Republic's outposts, they shouldn't have reached the Glowing Planet for at least a couple more days.

Ves deducted a frightening reason why they showed up so early. "The Vesians already prepared their invasion forces. They finished their mobilization a while ago. It's not too much of a stretch to think they readied their mechs and ships for a short hop across the border."

The Vesians already primed their forces for an invasion. Upon obtaining word of the Glowing Planet, they merely had to gather some extra mining equipment and obtain a couple of dimensional smoothers before they could make their move.

"Damn! They deployed a jamming field! We can't get a good look at what they brought."

The Blood Claw fleet shared some telemetry with the other fleets in order to determine the fleet's makeup, but all they could figure out was that the Vesians numbered in the hundreds.

"It's not a huge fleet, but they can steamroll any other fleet in their way."

Despite their presence at the opposite side of the Glowing Zone, nobody truly panicked as of yet. Just because the Vesians arrived didn't mean they could destroy anything in its way. As long as any fleet built up enough relative velocity, they'd be able to evade any pursuit.

Still, that didn't help too much if a fleet wanted to support their mechs on the ground. Only the most powerful fleets possessed the strength to contest for orbital supremacy.

All of that remained a concern for the future, as the Vesians didn't appear to be in a hurry to move.

"I think the Vesians are waiting for reinforcements. They don't have the numbers to match the 4th Bentheim Division."

"It's likely the Vesians have spread out their forces along the border. The ones who came first just happened to be nearest to the Glowing Planet."

Despite the interruption, the Mech Corps and the other fleets aligned with the Republic resumed their burn to the Glowing Planet. Covered under the protective embrace of the dimensional smoother, none of the ships had to worry about being torn apart by a freak gravitic storm. Still, some of the ships at the edges occasionally shook, as if the Planet attempted to pound past the field emitted by the smoothers.

The Happy Jelly suffered three major impacts, in fact. Ves didn't know whether the transport was unlucky or offended the Glowing Planet in some way, because they all suffered from continuous turbulence.

"This is ridiculous! It's like the Glowing Planet has it out for us!"

Ves approached the lazy technician from behind and kicked him from his perch. "If you have enough free time to complain, then you have enough time to the reassembly. Get to it!"

According to the plan, they'd be making landfall in a day or two. Ves did the best he could with the limited amount of manpower and resources available, and he succeeded in increasing the longevity of the mechs under his purview.

"It's all band aids compared to what they really need. Half of the mechs in the fast-reaction squad are nearing the end of their service life."

At least learned a lot out of this experience. He witnessed many ways in which a mech started to degrade.

The most typical cause of failure was when a mech's processors and delicate components started to falter first.

Those were easy enough to replace. Unfortunately, when larger components showed some signs of giving up, the mech technicians simply shrugged and went back to sleep.

That left many mechs with a dangerous build-up of fragile components that could break as soon as something gave them a little push. Ves had already prepared himself for massive casualties among the Whalers if the Blood Claws didn't give them an easy assignment.

Over the next two days, the Whalers finally turned a little serious. More ships arrived. Hundreds more. Thousands more. An uncountable amount of ships had gathered in the Glowing Zone, and many of them had never been seen before. Very likely, the ships that tried their best to obscure their identities came from murky backgrounds.

The thought of competing against hordes of pirates and other scum forced the ships from the Republic to move quickly. The transports carrying the dimensional smoothers picked up the pace, forcing many outdated transports or converted transports to stress their thrusters to their limits.

All of this had been worth it, because the Blood Claws and their allies arrived over orbit with hardly any opposition as of yet. The 4th Bentheim Division arrived first, of course. Their modern, combat-hardened ships could muscle through anything, and the abundant number of dimensional smoothers in their fleet ensured the planet wouldn't be able to stop their approach.

A number of mechs had already been deployed to the surface. They scouted the terrain and made sure the dimensional smoothers sent alongside them worked as advertised.

The Blood Claws didn't wait for the tests to conclude. They sent down their own mechs to secure the juicy territories allocated to their fleet. Right now, not a lot of ships had neared the Glowing Planet as of yet, as none of the opportunists had access to a dimensional smoother that could grant them safe passage.

"While the pirates and lone wolves are figuring things out, we'll be on the surface picking up credits from the ground!" Walter announced at the main hangar. "Now, the gravity of the planet is only 0.7 g, which is enough for some of our lightest transports to shuttle our mechs down. That said, I'm not feeling confident they'll hold up very long if we do that, so we'll stick with our newest ships."

The Whalers acquired a decent amount of ships in the last couple of years, but none of them possessed clean histories. Walter tentatively picked out two reasonably intact transports to bring their mechs down to the surface.

Fada and the fast-reaction squad had been assigned to the second wave after Walter and his closest men arrived first. Ves had been assigned to the second wave as well along with some supplies and some technicians.

He stared at the projection of the Glowing Planet. Now that they arrived in orbit, Ves got to enjoy a beautiful picture of a planet in chaos.

For some reason, the planet predominately glowed green. Its scarred and broken land masses showed that it had suffered enormously from the event that threw it off into space. Further exotic activity had further damaged the continents until they became an ugly manifestation of the raw forces of the universe.

"How rare are treasure troves like this?"

"Planets like these are come from the galactic heartland." Ves explained to Fadah as they boarded the passenger compartment of the transport. "They're not exactly common, but they're abundant enough that it won't alarm an entire star sector. It's just another tuesday for them as far as they're concerned."

"I guess that's why they use the work junk exotics. As if any exotic is as plain as sand."

The entire incident showcased the disparity between the galactic rim and the galactic heartland. Before the Age of Mechs, humanity had undergone a feverish expansion into the stars. As they travelled towards the galactic center, they came across increasingly more valuable and abundant exotics, to the point where most of the pioneers hardly looked back to Earth.

The galactic rim was the largest but most resource-depleted portion of the galaxy. Sometimes a treasure hunter scored a lucky find, but its value always amounted to a fraction of what someone from the galactic heartland earned in day.

The transport finished loading up the supplies and drifted away from the Happy Jelly. It turned towards the chaotic blackened landscape below and aimed for a spot near the landing site of the Blood Claws.

"Here we go, folks! I suggest you hold on to your crash seats, because we'll be going in fast!"

The transport shuddered severely as it dove towards the surface alongside a Mech Corps vessel that carried a dimensional smoother. The Whaler transport had to endure a punishing descent in order to keep up with the faster Mech Corps ship.

The Glowing Planet didn't possess an atmosphere, but spacetime didn't always work as expected up close. Even within the envelope of the dimensional smoother, the transport still encountered lots of turbulence.

Everyone's crash seats closed up around their bodies in protective pods. The systems governing the transport had judged the situation to be too dangerous.

Inside his seat, Ves quietly waited for the transport to make it through. He held Lucky in his grasp. The cat had grown scared of the intense fluctuations around them.

"It's okay Lucky, we're almost there."

Two agonizing hours later, the transport eased its turbulent flight. They successfully reached the surface of the Glowing Planet. It landed a moment later on a crude landing pad that the first wave prepared after their arrival.

Once the transport shut off its engines and opened up the hatch, everyone released a primal roar for making it out alive.

"Alright, enough hooting around!" Fadah yelled over their comm channel. "Get in your mechs and follow your assignments!"

Similar to Groening IV, the Glowing Planet wasn't able to support human life. Perhaps it might have featured its own alien ecosystem, but getting knocked away from a sun had a tendency to kill off everything living on the surface. Temperatures had reached far below freezing points as well, which forced everyone not inside a mech to wear a bulky hazard suit.

Even Ves didn't dare test his genetically modified body against the frightening chill that pervaded the planet. No sun rested in the sky to warm up its surface. No atmosphere allowed life to breathe any air or propagate any sounds.

When Ves stepped out to the surface, he admired the raw beauty of the broken landscape before him. Among the shards of broken rocks and the ominous glow of green, Ves enjoyed a sensation of wonder and purpose.

"Maybe I should have been a treasure hunter. Setting foot on the unknown always seems to buoy me up."

He let down Lucky on the rocky ground and looked whether he did anything special. The gem cat had already recovered from the harrowing descent, and began to sniff the nearby terrain.

His mouth opened up in a meow that couldn't be heard due to the lack of atmosphere. It didn't matter much as Lucky raced off towards a nearby hill of rocks. Lucky deftly clawed a couple of useless pieces apart until he came across a mineral vein that glowed in low green.

The mechanical cat sliced a generous portion from the rock with his energy claws and began to shop it into finer bits before beginning to gobble them all up.

Ves laughed at the sight. It figured that Lucky would be able to locate any nearby exotics. Lucky loved to eat exotics, though Ves never brought him much due to the expense involved. The LMC would have to go bankrupt in order to satisfy his pet's rapacious appetite.

"Looks like that isn't the case here. The minerals also aren't as tough and hard to find as those found in Groening IV."

While that made it easier for the Whalers to extract some extra wealth, it also presented an irresistible draw to unsavory people. The pirates wouldn't be content to watch on while the rest started pulling riches from the soil.

The Whalers could celebrate for now, but once the riffraff moved into action, they'd be hard-pressed to keep their lives.

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The first set of mining equipment went up within the hour. The Whalers didn't bring much gear, and much of what they acquired must have been third-hand equipment at best.

As predicted, the machines quickly broke down.

"Ves!" Someone called out over the local channel. "Come over and help us fix this piece of junk!"

With quiet resignation, Ves stopped his inspection of a mech that hadn't been able to start up and jogged over with his bulky hazard suit. The mining gear in question consisted of an anchored drill meant to dig its way into the ground in a slanted angle. It didn't cost very much due to its low-tech principles, but the drill bits often wore out quickly.

"What's the problem?"

"The machine crashed right as it was about to get past the top layer!" The techie in charge of the gear complained. "I kicked the control box a couple of times but it isn't doing anything!"

"Maybe it will help if you refrain from kicking the control circuits." Ves grumbled to the man. "Let me take a look at this rusted junk. My guess is this thing is already at its limit."

The amount of people who still believed they could fix a broken machine by slapping it around could form an entire first-rate superstate. Even mech technicians fell into this belief sometimes.

Contrary to his belief, the mining drill had been acquired relatively recently. Whoever sold it to the Whalers did a decent job at patching it up. Its endurance should have been sufficient to operate at these conditions.

"The machine is sound." Ves carefully scoured the exterior of the drill. "Nothing seems out of place. It's worn, but not broken. Maybe it's just run out of power."

"That's impossible! It just received a fresh energy cell!"

Ves called for a scanner while continuing to inspect the drill. It hadn't hit anything hard and it didn't look like it had been tampered with. Nothing had jammed the mechanisms eithers.

He wanted to check the programming of the machine as well, but the lack of power prevented him from doing so. He'd have to pull the processors from the mining gear in order to inspect the software, and that was a lot of hassle for a single broken drill.

Once someone brought over a man-sized scanner, Ves used it to inspect the innards of the machine. Even though he didn't specialize in designing mining equipment, the simple drill in front of him didn't pose any challenge to him. He easily identified most components and reasonably surmised they didn't look broken.

"I found nothing strange so far." Ves concluded after he finished scanning the entire drill. "The hardware looks okay. I'm inclined to say it's either the software or the power supply that's at fault."

"Maybe the Glowing Planet did something to the drill. You know, like overload its processors and stuff."

"There's no sign of any damage to the processors, but perhaps it's programming has been tampered with. I'll have to extract the chips and bring them back to the temporary workshop that's being set up right now."

Still, Ves had a suspicion that the power supply might be at fault. The drill did shut down completely as if its power had disappeared. Ves carefully called for some tools and began to expose the energy cell powering the drill. He carefully inspected the amount of energy.

"This doesn't make any sense. The energy cell is at two-hundred-and-thirteen percent capacity. That's impossible!"

Ves carefully placed the energy cell back into its slot and backed away quickly. An overloaded energy cell could easily blow up in his face. Even his hazard suit and strengthened body wouldn't survive the sheer amount of power released by the explosion.

"When did you last put this energy cell into the drill?"

"Just a couple of hours ago when the transport shipped the mining gear onto the surface! I swear the energy cell looked normal! The drill even said its cell had been charged up to seventy-three percent!"

Energy cells deteriorated over time and when people used them. It wouldn't be surprising for an energy cell as old as this to charge up to seventy-three percent.

"So how did it suddenly end up with more than triple its maximum charge?"

No one could answer that question. All of the technicians around Ves appeared clueless. They would have scratched their heads if their hazards suits weren't in the way.

"Okay, just set this energy cell aside and put another one in it. Better yet, just hook it up to something else and drain it. Just do it somewhere quiet."

No one wanted to deal with a potential bomb, so Ves assigned a random technician to deal with the problem.

Everyone thought that should have been the end of it, until two different mining equipment shut down at the same time. The Whalers placed more importance on their mining gear than their mechs at this point, so Ves had to pull away from a broken mech again to inspect the disabled machines.

Once might have been a coincidence, but twice and thrice should be a deliberate occurrence. "I'm going to make a guess and say that these diggers are suffering from the same problem."

Different from the drill, the diggers excelled at burrowing into terrain. They also strengthened the tunnels they carved out, allowing mechs to tread inside without risking a collapse.

Ves didn't approach the machines himself this time. He called for a couple of bots and carefully controlled them through his comm. They carefully exposed the energy cell and carried some tools to test their charge.

Both cells possessed way more charges than they should. "This cell is two-and-a-half times overcharged, while that other cell holds more than five times the amount of energy it should!"

Everyone backed off even further from the digging machine that held that remarkable energy cell. Not one of them possessed the courage to do something about it. Ves had to tackle the problem himself by using bots to extract the energy cells and throwing them far away.

Panic had a way of spreading quickly. Word of the faulty energy cells had reached the entire makeshift camp. No one wanted to operate the mining equipment in person. They all stepped away from the machines and tentatively controlled them by remote, which lowered their efficiency by half.

The problem had become so severe that Walter showed in person. "What's this nonsense about overcharged power cells?!"

"Sir, the energy cells aren't sound. Any cell that's put into a mining gear will randomly acquire several times the energy it should have been able to hold at its best. I've inspected some of the cells and even disassembled one after I drained its charge. Nothing points to any foul play. I even checked their logs. They've all been charged up to their safest maximum capacity."

That didn't say much to Ves, as the logs could have easily been tampered with by a malicious actor. Even Melkor with his limited training could have accomplished such a job on outdated hardware such at this. If only the Whalers brought some actual security experts on the expedition. He could have left the puzzling to them instead of relying on his limited computer skills.

Walter grumbled a bit underneath his strengthened piloting helm. "Whatever it is, it's affecting our earnings. We aren't getting much of a share from the Blood Claws, so we have to do our own digging to make the expedition worth it. We can't afford to let these machines go idle!"

"I really don't know what's going on. It could be sabotage or it could be the Glowing Planet acting up. I suggest you contact the Blood Claws and tell them about the problems we are having. Maybe they are dealing with something similar."

They briefly waited while Walter switched to another channel. All of the interference outputted by the Glowing Planet made wireless communications almost impossible, but the Blood Claws extended hardline connections to each peripheral group.

"The guy I spoke to wants us to send them all the relevant data." Walter gruffed after he switched back to the local channel. "He seems really pushy about it as well. Makes me think they're dealing with the same problem."

That ruled out sabotage as a possible cause. His hunch that the Glowing Planet might be responsible for the faulty energy cells grew stronger.

Ves wordlessly passed the logs and other files he gathered to Walter, who sent them on to the Blood Claws.

"He shut the channel!"

"I don't think the Blood Claws can give you answers at this time."

If the problem turned out to be widespread, then that changed the entire equation. Both mechs and mining equipment had to be used with care. Ves specifically included mechs into his consideration because they used the same type of energy cells that powered the mining equipment.

"What about fuel-based energy cells?" A tech suddenly spurted out. "They should still work fine, since they don't contain any pure energy."

The idea had a lot of merit. Ves couldn't believe a Whaler actually made such a keen observation before he came up with it himself. "That's a brilliant idea. Let me check something out. Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone."

He left Walter and the clueless technicians behind and raced off towards where the fast-reaction squad had holed up. "Fadah!"

"Yeah, Ves?" The old man yawned as he tried to sleep inside his bulky reinforced piloting suit. "What's the hurry?"

"Get inside the Blackbeak and do some exercises."

"Why the hell would I do that? My mech needs to be in tip-top shape in case any trouble arrives."

"We're already in trouble! Haven't you heard about the overcharged energy cells? It's not only affecting us, but the Blood Claws as well! I need you to get inside the Blackbeak and expend its fuel. We need to test whether fuel-based energy cells are affected by this phenomenon as well."

Even though Fadah grumbled about missing his routine afternoon nap, he knew that Walter would get on his back if he continued to refuse. He reluctantly climbed into the cockpit and activated the mech.

"Okay, just find a place where you won't be disturbed and try to drain its fuel as fast as possible."

"Hah! I can do fast!"

Once he stepped inside his mech, it was as if Fadah turned into an entirely different pilot. He enthusiastically brought the Blackbeak forward and found a nearby empty valley to practice some advanced techniques.

While the complicated movements should cause the fuel cell to drain faster than usual, Ves designed the Blackbeak to last for an extremely long time.

It's low-burning power reactor and highly efficient engine didn't give the Blackbeak any means to drain its power quickly, unlike a cannonneer mech that could easily drain its energy reserves as long as it paid attention to its heat management.

Ves didn't expect a result, and even if nothing happened to the Blackbeak's energy supply, it didn't mean that other fuel-based machines were immune. Ves tracked down several other fuel-based mechs and harried their pilots into draining their reserves.

As Ves watched the mechs go off on their jaunts, he sighed inside his helmet. "Even if these fuel-based mechs are immune, it won't help our mining equipment at all. They're all powered by pure energy."

He guessed that even the more sophisticated mining equipment in the hands of the Blood Claws and the Mech Corps operated on energy as well. It was safer, more compact and easy to slot into a variety of machines.

Right now, the entire Whaler mining operation had ground to a virtual halt. Hardly any operator pushed their machines. They feared setting off the energy cells inside of them should they draw a lot of power.

Ves figured that the best miner in their camp should be Lucky. His gem cat behaved like connoisseur who sneaked into a top-class banquet. Trash exotics didn't interest him anymore. Only the choicest of exotics deserved consumption.

Despite the massive power consumption of his energy claws, Lucky probably gained that back and more with each rare exotic broken down in his stomach. His energy reserves must be bulging with power.

"Wait a minute." Ves stood up in alarm. How could Lucky accumulate so much energy when he already reached the threshold of evolving to the next level? Only one thing could explain it. "Damn it! Lucky! Where are you?!"

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Lucky could take care of himself. Ves had no doubt about that. The gem cat gifted by the System possessed a keen mind and a lively personality. His bronze-like mechanical body also hid a number of cutting-edge technologies that should have been exclusive to the first-rate superstates.

Still, his cat worked like any other animated pet and ran on an extremely compact high-capacity energy source. Ves suspected that his shield generator, which was another source of consternation right now, utilized the same type of energy storage as well.

All of that energy pressed into a tiny battery made for a very volatile package. Who knew how much overcharge these super-advanced could actually take.

"The regular batteries haven't blown up yet so far. That should be a good sign."

Ves didn't want to contemplate the sight of scattered bronze-like parts. He quickly activated his comm and activated the tracker, only to come up with an error message that stated that it couldn't find a signal.

"Damn this interference!"

He ran around asking people if they saw his cat. Lucky became a known figure during their stay with the Whalers, so everyone recognized him on sight.

"Your fancy cat? Oh yeah, he just raced towards the right an hour ago."

"Lucky dug up something near the mining drill over there before turning around to go the other way."

"That little critter stole my shiny ore! I was holding on to it when he swiped it from my fingers and ran off over the hill over there!"

Hearing the stories about Lucky made it clear his cat didn't suffer any ill effects as of yet. In fact, he seemed downright exuberant. That could be good or bad. Good in that Lucky thought he wasn't in danger. Bad in that he continued to take in more energy, thereby ratcheting up his energy density to a catastrophic level.

"Where are you, Lucky?"

After spending more than an hour chasing spurious leads, Ves finally tracked Lucky down in a craggy obsidian valley. Ves found a little mound where Lucky had dug into the rocky ground until he reached a deposit of glowing green chunks.

As if he had no care in the world, Lucky lazily munched the pieces he dislodged with his claws. The cat winked his eyes and swished his tails like he enjoyed the best buffet in his entire life.

"Lucky! There you are!"

His cat turned around and gazed at him for a second before turning back to resume his never-ending eating spree. To Lucky, Ves didn't appear to be as important as highly energetic exotic minerals.

The lack of air on the Glowing Planet prevented any sounds from being propagated, but Lucky somehow found a way to transmit his voice through the local comm channel.

"Let me take a look at you. I need to see whether you're about to burst from all of your consumption."

Ves carefully took out a portable scanner and tried to look inside Lucky's innards. Unfortunately, Lucky's extraordinary exterior blocked any scans, not that Ves understood how Lucky worked in the first place.

He could only judge his cat's exterior for signs of any danger. Last Ves saw him, his cat featured glowing blue lines in the gaps between his outer plates. The stronger the glow, the more energy his cat had accumulated.

Right now, the glow had turned into a shade of green, the same shade emitted by the Glowing Planet in fact. Lucky might have acquired some of the traits endemic to the planet.

"What's going on with you? Why are you glowing green all of a sudden?"

Typical for Lucky, the cat ignored him entirely. Ves had already learned he wouldn't be able to get his pet to respond. Lucky also wouldn't appreciate being taken away from this treasure of a planet.

"Alright, I give up. Just continue to much if you wish. Just don't go too far and stop when you feel bloated."

"Meow!"

Even though the overcharge phenomenon concerned Ves a lot, he slowly started to suspect that the energy cells might not be as unstable as he thought. He returned to the camp of the Whaler and approached the boss.

"Ves." Walter gruffed at him over a private comm. "Did you figure out what's going on yet?"

"Not really. I think the planet or a particular combination of exotics are to blame for the overcharged energy cells. It's able to affect any kind of cell that works on energy, and I don't think it's limited to mech-sized energy cells. The batteries that power our comm and other equipment should be susceptible to the phenomenon as well, although we haven't seen any smaller gear being affected as of yet."

"So what does this all mean for us?"

Ves paused for a moment. He was about to make a very dangerous suggestion. "I think we should continue to work with the overcharged energy cells. We should test them as well, but we can't wait for the results."

The biggest issue right now was that the Vesians, pirates and other opportunistic scum would move in eventually. When that happened, the Mech Corps shifted to phase 2, retracting most of its mining operations around the planet to fortify one single red zone.

The Blood Claws and Walter's Whalers would also have to abandon this promising mineral-rich area and move towards the edge of the perimeter set by the military.

As expected, Walter gave in to the suggestion. "You're right. This is the best time to be mining exotics. We can't afford to sit around and wait for a miracle to save us."

They announced their decision to the Whalers, which stunned them into a stupor.

"I ain't gonna work with these bombs! It's suicide!"

"It's not safe to pilot any mech!"

"SHUT UP!" Walter yelled over the channel, overriding everyone else's complaints. "We came here to make our fortune, and we always knew that we'd be facing danger. Compared to fighting other mechs, what's so scary about a few supercharged energy cells?"

While his words made sense, it didn't reassure them at all. Enemies haven't shown up yet so it was easy for them to dismiss those distant threats. In contrast, they sat right next to those overcharged energy cells.

Ves left the job of motivating the men to work to Walter, since it directly affected the earnings of his gang. For once, Ves didn't have to kick around the Whalers by himself, leaving him free to investigate the overcharged energy cells. He ordered the technicians to gather a couple of the cells in question.

"What do you want to do with these cells?" A techie asked as his bot delivered the cell to a pile of other affected cells. None of the technicians went close to those cells.

"The first thing I want to find out is what happens if we blow it up."

To prevent any panic among the men, Ves decided to conduct his experiments far away from the camp. He brought a cell to an open depression behind a mass of jagged hill and moved behind cover. He already affixed an explosive to the cell in question.

After setting up some sensors and scanners, Ves detonated the charge.

A massive blast engulfed the site. Electric discharge blasted out and reached out over fifty meters away. Nobody up close could have withstood the blast.

From the readings Ves had made, he determined that the mining equipment had no chance of making it out unscathed, especially since the energy cells had to be placed inside of them where the manufacturers only included basic safeguards against accidental discharges.

Just to be sure, Ves blew up a variety of overcharged cells. Some only carried an overcharge of 150 percent, while the worst ones boasted an overcharge close to 700 percent.

The results didn't reassure him at all. The power of the blast was directly proportional to the amount of overcharge contained within the affected cells. By his reckoning, the 700 percent cell could even overpower the Blackbeak's impressive armor system.

Ves used his last cells to test whether they had become more volatile. He controlled a couple of bots to heap abuse on the poor cells. From throwing them from above, to dropping increasingly heavier rocks on them, Ves didn't spare any mercy for the devices.

Surprisingly enough, the cells held up. Their designs came with many safeguards that prevented them from blowing up, and all of these measures worked as advertised despite their lackluster quality.

Walter's Whalers might buy cheap components, but they made sure they selected the most rugged ones in their price range. All of the energy cells they used came from reputable manufacturers whose designs had been tested over and over in the frontier.

Once Ves finally pushed an energy cell past its limit, its final safeguards insured that most of the energy discharge harmlessly fried the ground.

"Strange. Why do the safeguards still work despite dealing with such a massive amount of energy?"

Ves ordered the bots to pack up the scanners and bring them back to the pack while he mused about the issue. The entire overcharge phenomenon seemed strange. They blew up with incredibly fanfare if affected by an explosion, but regular physical abuse seemed to treat them like they didn't hold an overcharge at all.

The results led him to a strange but compelling conclusion. He immediately sought out Walter and opened up a private channel.

"The men reported lots of flashes over the hill. Did you find out what's the big deal about these cells?"

"I think I figured out what's going on. It's not that these energy cells suddenly received an injection of excess energy. In the perspective of the energy cells, they always contained the same amount of charge."

Walter couldn't wrap his head around the explanation. "So it's an illusion? It's all fake?"

"If the overcharge phenomenon is an illusion, then it shouldn't have forced the mining equipment to shut down. You see, the energy cells think they contain a normal charge, but the mining equipment detect they're dealing with an overcharge. This triggers their safeguards and forces them to shut down."

That still didn't illuminate the issue to Walter, so Ves dumbed down his explanation even further.

"Look, imagine a bottle of water. The bottle thinks its filled to the brim. There's nothing unusual about that. However, when someone picks it up and is about to take a couple of swallows, he sees the bottle is under an immense amount of pressure. Somehow, the bottle is carrying thrice the amount of water than it should have fit."

"If that's the case, then the bottle shouldn't be able to fit that much liquid at all." Walter replied. "Your example is rubbish."

Ves shrugged off the complaint. "Actually, it's possible if you use extreme pressure, but forget about all that. Just assume that the bottle is carrying three times as much water than it ought to. Now, you have a bottle that thinks it contains a normal amount, and an outside observer who sees that it holds an excess amount of water."

"Then who is right?"

"Both of them. Neither of them."

That really got Walter lost again. Ves sighed and palmed his head, only to bump his helmet with his hazard suit's gauntlet.

"It's complicated, I know, but just bear with me. Rather than say one side is right and one side is wrong, it's more apt to say that the Glowing Planet has affected the fabric of reality in such a way that a quantity of water is somehow turned into a larger quantity of liquid, but it still takes up as much space as the smaller quantity."

"And this means?"

"Ultimately, it means the overcharged energy cells won't blow up on their own. It takes a lot of effort to get them to explode, just like what would already happen to a regular energy cell. Basically, you can throw the energy cells around and you won't risk any explosions in this way, but if you place them in front of a laser rifle and fire at them, you'll get a massive blast in return."

This changed the rules of engagement in a major way. The mining equipment wouldn't explode from regular use, though the technicians would have disable some of their safeguards to get them to work.

The real danger came from combat. Both mechs and mining equipment that contained any overcharged energy cells became extremely susceptible to catastrophic explosions.

The worst thing about it was that the problem would only get worse. As time went on, more and more energy cells continued to receive an overcharge. By the end of the week, Ves predicted that pretty much every energy cell based on direct energy turned into a potential bomb.

The only cells that remained free of the problem consisted of fuel-based energy cells like the one he incorporated in the Blackbeak.

"That reminds me, how's much progress has Fadah made in draining his mech's energy reserves."

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The Whalers went back to work while the Technicians modified every machine. They manually disabled the safeguards that prevented them from working if they detected any abnormalities from their energy cells.

It all put the workers operating the mining equipment on pins and needles. They hardly became enthusiastic about the prospect of working next to potential bombs.

"I didn't sign up for this! Even slaves have it better than this!"

Walter raced down towards the idiot who said that over the local channel and knocked his helmet with a meaty fist. "Shut up you idiot! How can you call yourself a Whaler when you cower away before an enemy has even showed up? Stop dragging your feet and get back on that machine!"

Ves felt a vindictive sense of satisfaction at seeing Walter try to push his men and women to work. He finally reaped what he sowed for making it normal for his men to skip out on their work.

Still, if the mining operators had it bad, then the mech pilots had it worse. Their high-powered mechs burned through energy as fast as Lucky munched through minerals.

Not only did mechs carry lots of energy cells, they also used more potent types that crammed as much energy in as little space as possible. While they came with the latest and most advanced safeguards available to their manufacturers, it still didn't detract from the fact that they blew up under certain circumstances.

Now, all those energy cells slowly turned into portable bombs slotted straight into the spines of every mech. Ves estimated that around eighty percent of all mechs ran on energy cells. Mechs that ran on fuel cells typically enjoyed less popularity due to the difficulties involved with resupply.

In fact, the Whalers themselves had to borrow a few containers of medium-density mech-grade fuel to keep the Blackbeak running.

Ves approached Blackbeak. He ordered Fadah to exercise the mech and see whether it showed any abnormalities with regards to its power supply. Right now, a technician replaced the spent fuel cells, showing that the exercise had finally finished.

"Did anything stand out when you used up all of its fuel?"

Fadah yawned behind his helmet. 'Yeah, the mech lasted far too long. This rogue planet's reduced gravity also isn't helping much. Your mech is so goddamn efficient that I had to dive in the operating system and crank up the power past its ordinary limits."

That didn't sound so good to Ves. "Overloading your mech won't do it any good. Now I'll have to check your Blackbeak again for any faults."

"Whatever. In any case, the Blackbeak worked like a charm. Every move is light and responsive and the power draw looks normal as well."

Ves confirmed Fadah's observation by inspecting the logs. Everything operated within parameters. The fuel cells hadn't suddenly become stuffed with additional fuel, and the power reactor also functioned as normal.

It was as if the Blackbeak cheerfully went about its day while most of its fellow mechs developed diseases.

This finding came as a huge relief to Fadah. "Looks like enemies won't be able to pop me in a single hit."

The news spread quickly, and over the next couple of hours, Ves received word from the Blood Claws that they observed the same results, barring some exceptions. Certain ranged weapons drew their power from magazines instead of a mech's internal power supply. These mechs still remained vulnerable to the overcharge phenomenon even if the mechs themselves ran on fuel.

"There's nothing we can do about it." Ves told the people who asked for a fix. "As far as I'm aware of, the Glowing Planet is emitting a field that changes the properties of the energy cells on the fly. We can't even detect it, let alone block it from affecting our gear."

"Don't we have the dimensional smoother to protect us from this stuff?"

"The dimensional smoother is not a miracle device. It's designed to fulfill a very specific role. Its main job is to stabilize the surrounding gravitics so people won't get turned inside out or get thrown into orbit all of a sudden. You'd need a different machine to affect electromagnetic fluctuations."

The Whalers, the Blood Claws and every other force on the planet eventually resumed their work. After the first modified machines operated normally, people started to let down their guards. Ves had been right that the energy cells wouldn't blow up on its own if it received a tiny bump. It took a lot more effort to get them to explode.

A couple of days went by as everyone on the planet hurried to extract as much exotics as possible. As long as nobody attacked their mechs or equipment, they didn't have to be afraid of anything.

For some reason, the Glowing Planet didn't agree. Ever since they made landfall, the men started to suffer from hallucinations. They saw things that shouldn't be there, talked to people who already died and even thought they'd been sent to an alternate universe.

Only one in thousand reported abnormalities like this, and everyone else dismissed them as paranoid delusions triggered by anxiety. No one wanted to admit that the Glowing Planet had even more weirdness in store for them. Half of the energy cells they brought to the surface had already become overcharged.

Two developments in space delivered bad news to the forces on the planet. The Bright Republic's mortal enemy had finally made their move.

"The Vesians are coming!"

The massive Vesian armada consisted of over two-thousand ships, the majority of which carried a mix of spaceborn and landbound mechs. Sending so many ships must have meant the Vesians had committed to a battle for supremacy over the Glowing Planet. They obviously played for keeps and angled to take its bountiful wealth away from the Republic.

"We only have three more days until the Vesians reach orbit! Mine as much as we can, because we'll be moving camp in two days!"

The workers finally disregarded their concerns about safety in an effort to dig up as much higher quality exotics as possible. They left the ubiquitous junk exotics aside in favor of smaller quantities of ores that yielded tiny amounts of pure exotics. The Whalers didn't possess the necessary facilities to process the ores on site, so they had to leave the bulk materials behind.

During this time, the mercenaries finally arrived over the glowing planet. A significant amount of mercenaries hired themselves to the Republic, enabling them to make use of the 4th division's dimensional smoothers.

Still, despite being in their camp, the Mech Corps didn't trust them very much, leaving them to make landfall in some of the least active zones on the Glowing Planet. The mercenary lords probably aimed to avoid contesting the hotspots in favor accumulating a steady amount of exotics.

Not every mercenary lord decided to bat for the Republic. The wanted to remain independent in order to reap the richest harvests. The mercenary lords in charge of those fleets held back their forces at the outer edge of the Glowing Zone in order to wait for an opportunity to pounce.

That left the scattered pirate groups. Each outfit stayed on their own. Unlike the mercenaries, the pirates lacked a charismatic leader that could draw the separate groups together. They seemed destined to remain scattered and distrustful.

That was until the notorious Dragons of the Void arrived.

They came with only three hundred ships, many of which appeared to be of dubious quality. Ves was old friends with the Dragons of the Void, so he knew about their modus operandi.

"Most of those ships are cannon fodder. Don't mistake their crew as part of the Dragons of the Void. They're actually brainwashed to the point where they'd eagerly meet their deaths if the Dragons gave the order. The real core of the Dragon fleet consists of only a dozen ships at the center of their formation."

Fadah frowned at that news. "If they treat those ships as trash, then they'll treat their mechs the same way. Do you reckon they'll be scared of any overcharged energy cells?"

"The leaders will probably see it as a welcome surprise." Ves pressed his lips. "I can already imagine them looking forward to strapping additional energy cells onto their mechs and sending them off as suicide bombers."

The Bright Republic enjoyed the home advantage of being nearest to the Glowing Planet. They'd also been able to forge a loose cooperation with the non-governmental forces that nominally swore allegiance to the Republic. The Mech Corps continually reinforced the 4th division with ships and mechs, but their efforts were hobbled by the need to defend vital territories such as Bentheim and their bases.

If every non-Republic force decided to gang up on the Mech Corps, they'd be hard-pressed to last more than a couple of days.

"Keep watch on the mercenaries who haven't picked a side." Fadah advised Ves as they continued to tweak the Blackbeak. "As soon as one gets the upper hand, the mercenaries who remain free up to that point will throw their entire weight behind the strongest faction."

Ves found that advise to be perplexing. "Most of those mercs are based in the Republic. Many of them have families and friends who are Republican citizens as well."

"Do you think that matters if they can become rich overnight? They'll sell out their own mothers in a heartbeat if they can earn a couple of million credits."

All of this led to an increasingly tense mood in the camp. The Whalers regretfully secured their harvest and packed up their gear as they waited in line to be brought to their new location by their small rickety transports.

The transfer finished a day later. This time, the Whalers maintained serious expressions as they worked to setup a defensive position.

Using prefabricated structures provided by the Blood Claws, they built a tall but easily erected set of walls. To prevent any aerial mechs from bypassing the walls with impunity, the Whalers also prioritized the construction of the anti-air turrets.

The only snag came when Walter ordered the defenses be powered by a central power source.

"These laser turrets are designed with energy cells in mind." Ves replied when Walter ordered him to make it happen. "I can't just snap my fingers and make them run on a power line!"

"I don't care. I don't want these turrets to be a hazard in our defenses. I'm hardly able to get my pilots to keep piloting their mechs. I can't deal with a base that's riddled with bombs. Everything needs to be run from two or three underground power sources, nothing more."

Ves quietly shook his head as Walter turned to yell at someone else. The man had been in an awful mood ever since the overcharge phenomenon shook up his men. The technicians already worked their sweat off by overriding all of the safeties. Now they had to deal with another pile of work by hooking up the turrets to a central power supply.

At least the Blood Claws had been generous enough to supply a few spare reactors. Their condition looked decent as well. Unlike the Whalers, the hardened Blood Claws didn't stint on logistics.

"Let's get to work." He sighed, and began to gather up some mech technicians to assist him with the task.

Even though he grumbled about the job in front of Walter, it actually didn't require too much thought to hook up the laser turrets to a different power source. The feature had already been baked into their design. Ves merely needed to teach the mech technicians to make the right connections.

The Vesians would arrive near orbit in less than a day. Anything could happen at that point. Currently, the Bright Republic's mech carriers would be fools to stay in orbit. They'd likely pull out later in the day in order to give themselves more maneuvering room while still staying close enough to the Glowing Planet to provide support for their troops on the ground.

"This will be the first time I'll face the Vesians in open combat."

"Hah! They're not as scary as they look once you look past their craziness." Fadah remarked over a beer. They both took a break from their tasks and left their bulky suits to eat dinner. "I fought the Vesians in the last war. They always press forward, and you can expect their lower ranks to never give up. The officers are always the first ones to run away once the battle turns against them. Pff. Nobles."

A low anticipation had built up inside Ves for weeks. Even though the prospect of facing an extremely well-armed mech force terrified him to the bone, he also felt some eagerness to test his mech against them. The Blackbeak's entire purpose centered around fighting the Vesians.

"Whatever happens, tomorrow we'll be tested."

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The Glowing Zone reached out around five light-hours away from the Glowing Planet. It was an empty mass of space that contained virtually nothing except the malignant influences of the exotics residing on the Glowing Planet. The further you went in, the more susceptible to anomalies you became.

All of this rested on probability. The chance of crashing your ship went up to a hundred percent once you reached close enough to orbit the Glowing Planet. Even if the dimensional smoothers helped with negating the worst of the dangers, the Glowing Planet still found ways to torment the visitors disturbing its silent vigil.

Ghanso Larkinson chewed on a stimulant as he stared out of the porthole of his tiny shuttle. He recently finished an additional training course and had been transferred to the 1st Volari Starhawks of the 4th Bentheim Division.

"Are you nervous, kid?" An older mech pilot casually asked from the seat next to Ghanso's. "The big bad Vesians are less than a day away. If you want to back out from the fight, you best pull out now."

"I'm a Larkinson. Fighting the Vesians is in my blood."

"Hah! A Larkinson, are you? Then I hope you don't fumble about like Melinda Larkinson. I would have whooped Captain Vicar within five minutes!"

Ghanso believed the older pilot, but that comparison wouldn't have been fair, considering that Captain Vicar was still in his early thirties.

The shuttle slowly entered the belly of a fleet carrier and parked itself on a busy loading platform. Every transfer debarked from the shuttle and followed the navigational guidelines projected by their military-grade comms.

Ghanso and the old man happened to be assigned to the same unit. When it became clear they walked to the same destination, the man introduced himself.

"Looks like we'll be putting our lives in each other hands." The man casually laughed while scratching balding grey hair. Unlike most other men, the pilot didn't bother seeking any treatment for his baldness. "You can call me Alex Dirge. I'm a tried and true space knight pilot."

That garnered some respect from Ghanso. In the vast distance of space, most battles occurred across very long distances. Lasers and missiles formed the bedrock of a spaceborn mech squad's armaments. Sometimes, enemies veered close enough to make railguns and ballistic rifles effective.

Yet spaceborn mechs almost never resorted to melee weapons. Mechs in space possessed too much mobility for them to be pinned down. A rifleman mech always massed lighter than a knight mech, so it could easily dash away from any knight that tried to approach it from afar.

This fundamental disparity relegated the space knight archetype to a purely defensive role, whose only job was to absorb enemy missile fire that would have otherwise struck their allies. There was nothing wrong with that role, but the sheer amount of firepower being exchanged made it very difficult for space knights to remain relevant throughout the battle.

"I should be thanking you for covering my back." Ghanso said sincerely. "I'm a laser rifleman, so I'll be counting on you to block the Vesian missile volleys."

He truly respected anyone who piloted a space knight and survived long enough to the point of growing grey hair. The Vesian penchant for fielding lots of missileers gave the pilots of the Republic a lot of appreciation for the underutilized defensive mech type.

The pair reached a hangar that predominantly serviced spaceborn mechs. They followed the end of the line projection by their comms and met their new commanding officer, who turned out to be a middle-aged female captain with violet eyes and short black hair.

After a brief introduction in which the pair passed over their orders, the captain looked at them with an eager glint in her eyes.

"I'm really glad you made it in time. You're sorely needed to replace a pair of cowards who chickened out when they heard we'd be facing the Vesians in the first wave."

"Seriously, ma'am? A couple of Volari Starhawks actually lost their nerves?" Alex asked with incredulity in his tone.

"Hey, don't get caught up by all the propaganda. Sure, we're the Volar Starhawks, one of the Republic's best spaceborn regiments, but not all of us are crack troops."

Captain Rynsel had been with the Volar Starhawks for a fair amount of time, but like many other mech pilots, she stagnated at the upper limit of what an advanced pilot could reach. As Rynsel grew older, the prospect of ever advancing to expert pilot became further out of reach.

This diminished her importance to the brass. She only made it to captain because she also possessed enough skills to lead a regular platoon.

"You're going to have to become used to your mechs as fast as possible, because the Vesians are expected to reach orbit at the end of the day."

Alex grumbled a bit. "They sure are in a hurry. The Vesians must be confident of their numbers."

"We still have the edge in quality." Ghanso quickly replied. "Even if we didn't bring a lot of ships, we made sure to send some of our best. Besides, we also have our allies to soak up some of the incoming fire."

"Heh. Allies. More like parasites. You can't count on gangs and mercenaries to stand up to the Vesians. Mark my words, their ships will find all kinds of excuses to drop out of action."

The Mech Corps had a very dim view on gangs, and barely tolerated their existence due to their uncanny ability to evade crackdowns.

Mercenaries also earned some contempt for two reasons. First, they employed a lot of talentless hacks that failed to pass the entry qualifications of the Mech Corps and often made a mess of things on the battlefield. Second, they also took away talented pilots with promises of better pay.

The two transferred pilots passed over to Lieutenant Fairfax, who led their assigned squad.

"Right." Fairfax spoke as he regarded the younger Ghanso and the older Alex. "It's about time you two showed up. I've been asking for more bodies but the bureaucrats upstairs keep reinforcing the elite squads before I get a turn. As if they don't already have enough resources!"

Privately, Ghanso thought he deserved a spot on those elite squads as well. He was a Larkinson, for the Republic's sake! Still, at least he secured a place amongst the Volari Starhawks, one of the most distinguished spaceborn regiments of the Republic.

The two recruits had very little time to familiarize themselves with their mechs and tweak them to their liking. Ghanso had been assigned to a fairly standard Vhendra, a model developed in-house by a design team working for the Starhawks.

"The Vhendra is an old design, but that means it's been tested over the years. It's a reliable frame, and a classic in the Starhawks." The chief technician explained to Ghanso as he patted the surface of the giant dark blue rifleman mech.. "This one happens to be the Vhendra-S. It's a minor variant that gives you faster flight speed but will last a little less. Its long-range accuracy also won't be as impressive, as the added power to the flight system introduces a lot of extra vibrations."

"I see. That's not what I expected. I specifically noted that I'm a marksman."

"Yeah, and Lieutenant Fairfax has been nagging command for new replacement pilots for ages now. You're the unlucky chap command has sent to shut him up."

Ghanso had a relatively balanced skill-set for a laser rifleman pilot, but he preferred to pick opponents off from longer ranges. Still, he could roll with the changes. His mech just had to get closer to the enemy in order to land a sure shot.

"Let's take a look and make some quick adjustments."Ghanso said. "We need to be ready to fight within eighteen standard hours. That's when the Vesians will get in range."

To be honest, eighteen hours was not enough for Ghanso to acclimate himself with a new ride. A mech pilot always required weeks of practice, immersion and tweaking in order to make a mech entirely his own.

The Vesians wouldn't give them the time. The hours went by quickly, and besides a brief but necessary rest, Ghanso worked frenziedly to get the Vhendra-S to behave a little more like its base model.

A red light flashed through the hangar and throughout the rest of the fleet carrier.

"It's time!"

"The Vesians are here!"

A surge of fear and anticipation swept the mech pilots and the crew of the ship. They realized that this might be the outbreak of the latest Bright-Vesia Wars. The Volari Starhawks happened to receive the dubious honor of blunting the first charge.

"Mech pilots, get to your mechs!" Captain Rynsel hollered as she swept up her piloting suit. "We've received orders to deploy within ten minutes, so chop chop!"

The mech technicians had already wrapped up most of their maintenance work, so every mech under Captain Rynsel's command came online in record time.

Alex opened up a private channel to Ghanso. "Hey, little Larkinson. Is this your first deployment?"

"I'm not a rookie. I've fought over six separate engagements against pirates."

"Well, the Vesians are nothing like those ruffians who can't coordinate their mechs to save their lives. We're playing in a whole different league right now. Don't lose your breakfast in the next fight, little Larkinson."

It irked the young Larkinson to be treated like an inexperienced recruit. He was a Larkinson! He grew up hearing stories about fighting the Vesians. And unlike his crippled cousin Ves, his genetics gifted him with sufficient aptitude to fulfill his dreams.

"Don't worry about me. Focus on doing your best in your own mech."

Ghanso went back to finishing his preparations. His Vhendra-S boasted fully charged energy cells and a robust cooling system to vent and store the rapid build-up of heat. This came at the cost of its armor and stealth. The Vhendra series had always been particularly vulnerable to getting locked on by Vesian heat-seeking missiles.

He only hoped that Alex would be able to shield him from the impending attacks.

Captain Rynsel spoke over the platoon channel. "Command is ordering us to standby along with the rest. Only the scouts are deployed so far. We're still waiting to see if the Vesians want to commit to the attack."

A general rule about space combat was that if both sides wanted to avoid combat, they had a million different ways to make it possible. Space was to big, and relative velocities sometimes reached absurd amounts that made it difficult for two different fleets to exchange a single volley.

Most times, a battle in space would only ensue if one force happened to be immobile and therefore vulnerable to attack.

This generally happened in two instances: when a fleet just transitioned from FTL to the edge of a star system, and when a fleet wanted to maintain orbital superiority over a planet, moon or any other object in space.

This time, the Mech Corps had to make a stand near the Glowing Planet. If they yielded control of the planet's skies, the Vesians would be able to bombard their ground forces with impunity.

While the groundside forces already made some headway into digging underground fortifications, they needed a lot more time to setup an effective, bombardment-proof bulwark.

Over the next two hours, the two fleets slowly danced around each other. Ghanso stared at the projection like a hawk, tracking the movements of the various fleet elements. The Vesians had finally come close enough to identify their make-up.

"The vanguard consists of the Grand Chasers! They're fast buggers!"

The Grand Chasers had accrued something of a reputation, and was recognized by both the Vesians and the Brighters as one of the fastest spaceborn mech regiments in the region.

By putting out the Grand Chasers in front, the Vesians signalled that they wanted to test the waters first. The Republic's fleet moved in response, putting forth its lighter elements while keeping its heavier ships and mechs around the transports carrying their dimensional smoothers.

"They're deploying mechs!"

Over a hundred heavy mechs poured out into space. They arrayed themselves in a neat formation before readying their launchers.

"Detecting torpedo launches!"

Each mech launched a dozen torpedoes, all of which took up so much space that the heavy mechs became useless. In any case, the sole purpose of their existence was to circumvent the MTA's taboo of incorporating ship-grade weapons onto ships.

The sight of over twelve-hundred torpedoes burning towards the Vesian fleet sent a chill through Ghanso's back.

"Deploy now!" Captain Rynsel ordered. "Command wants us to help bring those torpedoes down! Don't wait for my orders once you get out. Just start shooting!"

"Hahahaha!" Old man Alex laughed. "What a way to start of the war! I hope your aim is decent, Larkinson, because the fleet carrier's survival is in your hands!"

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Vesians had a penchant of starting off any engagement with a massive missile barrage. The Bright Republic's pilots called it the Vesian Welcome Package.

At certain times, the massive Vesian opening salvos disintegrated their targets if they didn't bring enough countermeasures. Even if the defenders did bring enough guns, the chance of a couple of projectiles slipping through could never be eliminated.

Ghanso's Vhedra-S hastily emerged from the launch bay of the fleet carrier and flared its powerful flight systems forward in order to catch up with the formation of his squad.

Even under these dire circumstances, the mech pilots of the Volari Starhawks still maintained their discipline. The high levels of discipline, coordination and logistical support that underpinned the Mech Corps enabled it to wipe the floor with any gang or mercenary corps.

The pilots of the Starhawks followed their training and entered into a predetermined matrix formation that maximized each ranged mech's coverage so that they could spread out their anti-missile capabilities.

"Damn it. Why did they send torpedoes this time?"

Captain Rynsel passed down word from command on the comm channel. "The incoming torpedoes are all old stock. They're using up their aging reserves first, so cheer up folks, because their ECM won't be as sophisticated as the newer ones.

"How old are we talking about?" Old Man Alex asked. "Are they like old-old, like last war surplus?"

"They're using a mix of torpedo designs from the interwar period, so they're not as obsolete as you think."

Ghanso took that as a serious warning not to rely too much on his targeting systems. A rifleman mech pilot like him didn't rely too much on outside aid anyway. While the Vhendra-S variant lacked a bit in extreme range precision, it should be able to make up for it when the torpedoes approached into terminal range.

"Larkinson, Don't forget we're facing torpedoes, not missiles." Lieutenant Fairfax spoke to the side as he brandished his ballistic rifle. "The Vesians design their torpedoes to be tough as hell. They can take a lot of hits and are practically impervious to low-intensity laser fire. It's best to switch to full-powered beams."

He already knew that, thank you. Ghanso already switches his rifle's mode before he even launched from the fleet carrier.

He looked through the optics of his Vhendra-S and stared at the black void of stars. In the distance, he saw nothing but the void, but his mech conveyed hundreds of approaching carriers from the Vesians.

Once he switched the mode of his HUD, the empty void of black lit up in a flare of pinpricks as his mech conveyed the sharks lurking far beyond his range of vision. The eternal night disappeared in a dazzlingly enchanting confluence of light and motion.

"The torpedoes are two minutes away! This is it, lads! Give 'em all you got!"

Only a few mechs among the Starhawks fired their weapons. Only the best sharpshooters had any realistic chance of hitting the torpedoes at this range. Even if everyone else relied on their targeting systems, the ECM and physical juking of the torpedoes ensured that most attempts ended in failure. It was better to hold back until the torpedoes came closer.

Blooms of anti-ballistic missiles flared to life from the midst of the Starhawks. Over ten-thousand small but potent missiles streaked towards the Vesian torpedoes with nothing but their goal in mind. Despite the substantial amount of missiles, no one held up their hopes they could catch every torpedo.

The Vesians knew their missiles, and packed their torpedoes full with countermeasures of their own.

As the missiles curved to the side and followed an arcing intercept towards the incoming torpedoes, Ghanso finally received permission to let loose.

"Open fire!"

Ghanso held his mech absolutely still inside the formation and began to open fire with measured beams of lancing hot lasers. His mech didn't possess the sensors to see the result of his first salvo, but the collective observation capabilities of the ships backing up the mechs provided an accurate picture of what happened at the other side.

His initial laser volley hit the head of his targeted torpedo head-on but failed to take it out. The Vesians incorporated a lot of junk exotic alloys in the nose of their torpedoes, ensuring that they wouldn't fold in a single blow.

Fortunately, Ghanso didn't fight by himself. A mech pilot from another squad noted the damage sustained by the torpedo and delivered the coup-de-grace with his precision ballistic rifle. The torpedo's weakened nose couldn't withstand the sudden kinetic impact and its payload detonated in a powerful focused blast that had been designed to punch straight through thick layers of starship hull plating.

By this time, the anti-ballistic missiles they launched also reached the torpedoes. Both waves of projectiles engaged in an elaborate electronic battle as they tried to fool their opposites without getting fooled in turn.

Over three-hundred torpedoes perished outright and around two-hundred more suffered incidental damage to their exterior.

It wasn't enough.

As the torpedoes entered medium range, every mech with a gun opened fire. Even space knights like the one piloted by Old Man Alex fired back with their backup pistols.

Over half of the remaining torpedoes fell into quick succession. The closer range enabled mechs to worry less about accuracy and focus more on firing as fast as their heat management systems could handle the successive build-up of waste energy.

"They're getting close! Only less than three-hundred are left! Kill them now! For a brighter tomorrow!"

Every pilot echoed the slogan. "For a brighter tomorrow!"

A sense of sacred duty filled Ghanso's mind as he spoke those words. His aim grew steadier and his breath grew even as he methodically shot down torpedo after torpedo with the help of his fellow Starhawks.

The spirit of the Starhawks infused his neural connection between his brain and his mech and the two fought closer in sync. His Vhendra-S became an extension of his body as he utilized his substantial training take down as many torpedoes as they entered their terminal mode.

"They're speeding up!"

The Vesian torpedoes always left the best for last. They kept a fourth of their energy reserves for the final sprint, burning it over the final seconds before impact to ensure a powerful and unavoidable collision for any bulky ship.

"Not enough." Ghanso gnarled as he sent a mental command to override his rifle's safeties. Heat leaked out from the built-in heatsinks in his rifle and warmed up the entire frame, but the Vhendra-S handled the weapon like a machine gun, firing a succession of rapid full-powered laser beams at the rapidly accelerating torpedoes.

He only caught one torpedo while his colleagues destroyed over two-thirds of the torpedoes that made it this far.

"Here they come! Brace yourselves!"

Ghanso ceased his fire and huddles his mech into a ball to expose as little of its frame as possible.

The Republic's ECM successfully fooled twenty-six into hitting non-existent targets. They only found empty space in place of solid ships and detonated quickly after, dealing little damage as few ships had been in range of their concussive blasts.

That left seventeen torpedoes who found their marks. They all rammed into their chosen ships, punching deep into their hulls before detonating in highly devastating explosions that destroyed the smaller combat carriers outright while crippling the fleet carriers.

"The Harmony of Revel is gone!"

"Every person aboard the The Farchis Endymion is dead!"

"Feldman's Ire entire rear half has split apart! She's drifting out of formation!"

The Vesians reaped a terrible toll on the Starhawk fleet, and this was just the opening act. Ghanso became distracted by the cries for help that had somehow snuck their way into the command channels.

The Virulent Remedy had been the closest ship to Ghanso that had suffered a hit. It was a combat carrier, a medium-sized carrier built small and light enough to convey as much mechs to the surface of a planet as possible.

The Remedy didn't stand a chance. The torpedo bore straight through its outer hull before detonating right against its inner layers. The blast ripped through a quarter of her compartments and outright tore apart several critical systems such as the bridge and life support.

A cascade of critical failures piled up in an instant that riddled the Virulent Remedy's tortured hull with scores of secondary explosions. Some of them reached her reactor and damaged its robust but ultimately helpless containment, causing the entire combat carrier to be lost in a massive blast of exotic and radioactive fury.

At least eight-hundred spacers lost their lives aboard the Virulent Remedy.

While a number of mechs and smaller vessels started rescue operations, the rest of the Starhawks readied themselves for the second round. The Grand Chasers hadn't been sitting idle while they launched all those torpedoes.

Captain Rynsel shook the younger pilots from their horror. "I know it looks bad, but the battle isn't over yet! Let the damage control teams take care of the mess. Focus on the enemy in front of you!"

In the next couple of minutes, the Volari Starhawks and the Grand Chasers shifted their formations in response to each other. The Grand Chasers followed an oblique trajectory that aimed to pass the flanks of the Vesian formation.

To be honest, they wouldn't be able to do much damage, but it galled the Mech Corps to remain passive when the Vesians made their firing pass. Thus, the Starhawks boosted away from their damaged ship to intercept the incoming Chasers.

"Alright folks, command wants us to make a single pass." Captain Rynsel spoke through the channel. "Stay in formation and hit the bastards straight in front of you. Don't get bogged down in dogfights and don't let your squad mates drift off in space if they're immobilized."

Neither the Chasers nor the Starhawks wanted to get entangled in a muddy dogfight at this stage. Any fight that got bogged down in space turned into vulnerable targets to both sides.

Ghanso's Vhedra-S boosted in line with his squad as he worked to cool his mech for the upcoming firing pass. His mech suffered substantial internal damage at the final moment due to all the excess heat and energy running through its systems.

He faced a minor dilemma on whether he should keep pushing his mech or conserve its integrity by holding back some power.

"This is merely the start. It's too early to go all-in."

The Vhedra-S slowly cooled down as Ghanso focused on venting as much heat as possible while lowering its overall output. By the time the Vhedra-S returned to a relatively normal condition, the Grand Chasers neared into effective range.

"Alright, lads! Here they come! Keep firing and keep moving. Don't ever stop!"

The two formations of mechs followed intricate arcing patterns as their squads followed trajectories meant to spoil the aim of anything that shot at them at long range.

Once they approached into closer range, thousands of mech started to open fire against each other.

This time, the Volari Starhawks gained the advantage. The Grand Chasers mostly consisted of lighter mechs. Without their heavy missileers, their formations lacked the punch of the more balanced composition of the Starhawks.

Many Starhawk mechs fell out of formation due to being picked out with focused fire. Each Vesian squad focusing on taking out one or two mechs at a time, thus allowing them to compensate for their relatively lighter armament.

Meanwhile, the Starhawks left the choice up to the pilots themselves, as they required less firepower to take out a fragile light mech. Ghanso still found it to be a challenge to actually land a hit against the agile light mechs, but once he succeeded in landing a shot, it often crippled the unlucky target.

"Larkinson! They're shifting fire to you! Dirge, cover him!"

A volley of ballistic fire streamed past the frame of his mech, pulling him out of his target fixation. Ghanso knew he was in trouble and started juking around like hyperactive monkey.

"Stop bouncing around and get behind me!" Old Man Alex shouted as his space knight valiantly positioned itself in front of the Vhedra-S before it could suffer significant damage. "Stay calm and fire over my shoulder!"

Ghanso had forgotten himself for a moment. He grew angry for his disgraceful behavior and poured his vengeance into his rifle, firing right back at his attackers as they tried to get past the space knight's meaty shield.

"Hahaha! The Grand Chasers don't have the weight to get past my shield!"

The space knight fared well against the Chasers. Their skinny rifles and cannons hardly dented Alex's shield.

"They're getting close!" Lieutenant Fairfax reminded everyone. "Watch your angles and don't get hit from behind!"

Seconds passed as the two formations meshed through each other. A chaotic flurry of shots and hits exchanged in rapid tempo as the Starhawks and the Chasers merged together before breaking apart in the opposite directions.

"I got hit!" Ghanso gritted his teeth as his mech spun away from formation. "My flight system is inoperable. It got hit by debris from the rear!"

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Ghanso Larkinson suffered from an unlucky sequence of events. The Vesians hadn't been able to get past Alex's space knight, so they turned their firepower to an unprotected mech from a nearby squad.

The Starhawk mech in question hadn't expected to be targeted by an entire Vesian squad. The knight in his squad was already shielding another squad mate, so the targeted mech lacked any form of support.

The mech blew up as soon as its pilot ejected into the distance. Some of the shards of the exploded mech happened to have hit Ghanso's mech from behind, thereby dealing significant damage to its fragile flight system

The damage hadn't been extensive, but it took a long time for the flight system to regain its functionality. As Ghanso halted the uncontrolled spin, he looked back to the Starhawk formation to see how well they fared.

"Overall, they held up better than the Grand Chasers. The Starhawks suffered relatively few casualties, but most of the affected mechs had to be written off due to the intensive amount of firepower they sustained.

Even Alex's space knight had its shield chewed up at the end, causing his mech to endure the final volleys on its frontal armor.

"Don't look at me. I'm fine. This is all in a day's work for a space knight."

As the Grand Chasers arced their way back to their own fleet, the Volari Starhawks started to police the battlefield. They turned their formation around and methodically recovered the wrecks while rescuing mech pilots from both sides.

No matter how heated the war between the Vesians and the Brighters got, they quietly maintained a couple of basic rules of conduct. The most important of which was to take prisoners whenever they could and exchange them with each other at a later date.

It helped the two sides conserve their most precious and limited resources, which were trained and capable mech pilots. Such agreements hadn't always been the norm, but after several generations of endless rivalry, both sides saw the need to civilize their conflict in order to prevent their neighbors from casting their aspirations upon them once they exhausted most of their manpower at the end of another war.

Eventually, Ghanso's Vhendra-S had to be hauled back to the fleet carrier. Her hangars had become stuffed with mechs as she welcomed an influx of homeless mechs who lost their original berths aboard the ships targeted by the torpedoes.

Ghanso felt a little bad about the engagement. Any excitement about being a part of the first formal action between the Bright Republic and the Vesia kingdom had disappeared.

"Did we lose the battle?"

"It's hard to say." Old Man Alex replied as he zipped down from the cockpit of his beaten mech.The space knight looked like it had taken a stroll through a micrometeor storm. Its frame showed off lots of smaller impact marks. "The Grand Chasers underestimated us. We took out more mechs from our firing pass, and we've been able to capture every living Vesian trapped alive in their cockpits."

"Yeah, but we lost so many ships."

"It could have been worse. Twelve-hundred torpedoes is nothing special. Wait until they gather an entire division and throw out a wave of ten-thousand torpedoes. You'll really taste despair at that point."

In terms of war materiel, the Vesians clearly won the exchange. They took out seventeen ships at the cost of a lot of expensive but ultimately disposable torpedoes.

Yet all was not in vain. The Grand Chasers ships and mechs had to extend past the Vesian lines in order to perform their attack, which made them vulnerable to pursuit. After expending so much torpedoes and mechs, the exhausted Chasers had suddenly become the prey as another regiment of the 4th division initiated pursuit.

Both sides started to maneuver for control over orbit. Regiments shifted around like chess pieces across a large and intricate three-dimensional chess board.

Orbital mechanics played a critical role in the defense of the Glowing Planet. The 4th division took advantage of their proximity to the gravity well by slingshotting their fleet elements to hasten their maneuvers over the Glowing Planet's orbit.

The battle turned into a murky slog. Its outcome still remained in question.

Down on the surface, Ves didn't know one of his cousins experienced combat against the Vesians for the first time. The lack of bandwidth of their ground-side camps limited communication between the forces on the ground and the forces in space to a handful of often-repeated codes. Personal correspondence had no chance of making it through.

Right now, Ves oversaw the final adjustments to the mechs that enabled them to operate despite carrying bundles of bombs inside their frames. The last batch of normal energy cells had fully turned into overcharged ones by the capricious energy field emitted by the Glowing Planet.

After their initial horror passed, a sense of resignation overtook the Whalers. They pretty much accepted that they had to continue piloting their mechs and hope nothing struck their energy cells.

One of the mechs that had been affected happened to be Melkor's Stanislaw. Melkor hadn't made much waves ever since he touched down on the surface. Rather than enter the cockpit, Melkor instead aided the Whalers by shoring up their feeble electronic systems against enemy intrusion.

"How's their information security coming along?"

"Well enough that they'll hold against pirates." Melkor replied as he leaned against the foot of his Stanislaw. "I don't think it'll last more than a second against any Vesian hacking attempts. The Whalers are better off pulling the plugs from their connected systems."

"Sounds awful, but not unexpected. If you've seen the kind of mechs the Whalers are using, you'll realize that the Vesians don't even need to bother with hacking their systems. They can just overrun the entire base."

It felt refreshing for Ves to talk with someone other than a Whaler. Every member of the gang somehow fell into the delusion that they could put up a decent fight against a trained military mech force.

"So what did you do to my Stanislaw?"

"I added some compartments to the Stanislaw's internal architecture. Your energy cells are placed in a seperate box, as it were. It won't prevent your mech from being wrecked if they happened to blow up, but it will increase the odds you'll survive. I've beefed up the armor of your cockpit to make sure you'll make it out alive."

Melkor nodded in satisfaction. "That sounds good, but I know my Stanislaw. It doesn't have much space for all of those things you mentioned."

"That's right. I opted to remove a couple of energy cells and some redundant components. Your Stanislaw won't last as long in the field and it's also a little more fragile to being crippled. Regardless, I think it's better to trade these off in exchange for not getting killed in an instant if an enemy happens to hit your energy cells."

Ves only had time to modify one mech at once. The mech technicians lacked the extensive body of knowledge to develop their own modifications. A few of them had already tried to do so behind his back, and every mech that suffered from their ministrations had turned into safety hazards.

When Walter demanded that Ves modify the Whaler mechs to be less susceptible to abrupt explosions, he demanded he start first with his cousin's mech. At the very least, he wouldn't be worrying about Melkor while he sat in the makeshift workshop trying to turn a bunch of rotten ingredients into serviceable meals.

"You know, you told me once that you entered into the Mech Corps after graduating from an advanced academy. Why did you leave?"

"I didn't leave. I was forced out of their rolls at the end of my orientation."

Melkor's tone made it clear he didn't want to talk about it, but the issue had always been nagging at Ves.

"Did you get into a fight, or did you piss off a superior or something?"

"Let's just say I found out something I shouldn't have when I took my hacking hobby a little too far."

Melkor could have uncovered anything from classified documents to illicit dealings from his superiors. Ves had an imaginative mind and ran through dozens of possibilities in quick succession.

"Well, you didn't get killed or anything, so it must not have been something critical enough to earn the ire of the Larkinsons."

Maybe Melkor simply got his hands of some nude recordings or something. Ves tried to stifle his laugh as he finished putting the Stanislaw back together. Once he affixed the final plate, he floated down to the ground and stretched his body.

"It's all done now. Make sure to keep facing the enemy from the front. I know you rifleman have a tendency to turn your mechs to the side sometimes, but try to avoid that because it will expose the side and rear armor to the enemy. I haven't been able to do much with those."

"That's already enough." Melkor clapped Ves on the shoulder. "I'll get back on patrol to get used to the modifications. You stay safe, Ves."

He had a whole line of mechs waiting to be modified, starting with Walter's incredible Urman.

As a mech designer, Ves enjoyed digging into the guts of any remarkable designs, and the Urman offered plenty of excitement. Yet he also harbored some reservations about going through every mech one by one in order to make them more impervious against incidental damage that could set off their energy cells.

"It's going to be an awful slog."

Ves had no one to blame for himself for signing up to this expedition. He got exactly what he wanted, and he already earned a significant share from the income the Whalers expected to earn from their mining gains.

It was too bad that their current location didn't offer as much riches as their old location. The Mech Crops chose to establish their ground-side fortifications in the middle of the most defensive terrain within the red zones. They dragged their allies such as the Blood Claws with them, and in turn the Blood Claws forced the Whalers to take up one of the most awful locations at the flank.

The ever-present green glow had been covered by a grey, sooth-filled smoke cloud. Small but annoying vents littered the jagged cliffs and ancient hills that made up this portion of the Glowing Planet. Merely moving from one side of the camp to the other posed a significant challenge due to the substantial amount of deep cracks in the ground.

One careless pilot even fell into the gap with his mech. Its legs had been flattened to pieces while the pilot sustained significant impact injuries. Everyone learned their lesson from that point and made sure to cross the gaps from the ramps placed on top of them. It all seemed tentative and fragile to Ves.

"Where's Lucky?"

He hadn't been paying too much attention to Lucky lately. His mood turned grumpy ever since Ves took him away from the riches laying on the ground at their old location.

This time, Ves installed a powerful tracking device around Lucky's collar, so his comm picked up the signal from further away. Ves donned his hazard suit and left the protected confines of the workshop. He followed the directional markings until he came across his gem cat who had just finished gorging on a lump of valuable exotics.

"There you are. Let me take a look at you."

Ves carefully handled his cat and took a closer look at Lucky's exterior. Over the past couple of days, his pet had undergone a metamorphosis of sorts. While he still remained level two, his overall quality had went up quite a bit.

Physically, that came into being by shifting his energy lines from blue to green, which matched the shade of the planet's grow. Once Lucky's glow had reached its saturation point, his exterior plating started to change as well.

"Your plates are paler than last time. Are you turning into a silvery substance?"

"Meow."

Lucky behaved awfully nonchalant despite undergoing fundamental changes in his physical makeup. It worried Ves a bit that he didn't know whether the changes benefited his pet or not. He currently leaned on the changes being beneficial because he didn't think that Lucky's remarkable design could be brought down so easily.

"So have you been turning your senses to sniff out the core of the Glowing Planet?"

"Meow." Lucky bobbed his head side-to-side in a very clear no.

"Damn. Do I actually have to find a way to dig past the crust of this planet in order to get my hands on a so-called core?"

The System's mission put a sense of urgency behind his stay with the Whalers. He doubted the gang possessed the hardware to dig that deep into this dangerous planet. He'd have to find a way to attach himself with a more capable force, such as the Blood Claws or the Mech Crops.

"The Whalers won't last long enough to maintain their own camp anyway."

He already planned his exit from their midst. The sheer amount of incompetence that hobbled the Whalers would bite them back in the end.

None of this mattered for the moment. It would take some time for the Vesians or the pirates or any scum to land their forces on the ground. Even then, they might not clash immediately, as every force would be scrambling to take up every available spot of land before they thought about contesting some of the more promising occupied regions.

Lucky suddenly turned stiff. He hissed at something behind Ves.

"What's wrong, buddy?"

Ves turned around to see a sight he had never thought to see again in his life.

"Mother?"

His mother stood before him in the flesh. Even as his rational mind yelled at him that he'd been caught in a hallucination induced by the Glowing Planet, his emotions went out of control, scrambling him into paralysis.

"It can't be you. You're dead!"

"Vesssssss." The apparition of his mother hissed. "You are so handsome now. You're all grown up."

The image of his mother flickered closer until she stood right in front of him. The back of her hand brushed his cheek. Despite wearing a hazard suit, the translucent hand went right past the helmet as if it didn't exist and began to caress his skin.

Ves felt his skin deform as the chilly hand physically pushed and stroked his smooth skin. Tears fell out of his eyes. Whether his eyes grew moist due to his abject fear or his yearnings for his mother, he didn't know. He couldn't even move. Somehow, his body ceased to follow his instructions.

"Mother. You're dead. Your grave, I visited it last year!"

"Is that what you believe?" His mother shook his head. "Life and death are interconnected, Ves. One cannot truly die."

Her reality-warping hand trailed down his neck and followed his arm until it reached his comm. "I see you've been making use of your father's present."

"You know about the System?!"

His mother smiled at him in amusement. "You are always so impatient, my little Vessie. Have you been drinking enough tea lately?"

"Mother, answer the question please!"

The faded form of his mother suddenly disappeared from his sight. One moment, she hovered in front of him, smothering him with motherly affection like she always did when he was young. In the next, her image vanished out of existence, as if the Glowing Planet deliberately roused his hopes only to crush them underneath the heel of its booth.

"MOTHER!"

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They say that dead men tell no tales. His mother didn't reveal anything either about the System.

Ves had become awfully spooked after meeting his long-dead mother. He clearly felt as if his mother was real, but that couldn't be. She was dead.

"I'm hallucinating, just like those other folks. She's not real. She's a figment of my imagination."

He struggled inwardly to convince himself that he imagined the whole sequence. Only one thing forced him to admit that it might not have stayed inside his head.

He turned to Lucky. "You saw that, didn't you?"

His cat kept up a wary posture, as if he encountered an extremely dangerous predator. Ves had the sense that Lucky had definitely shared his experiences.

With that confirmation, Ves didn't know what to think. Did the Glowing Planet toy with him? Did the planet possess some highly energetic exotic that was capable of manipulating spacetime? Why did he encounter mother, and not someone else?

Too many questions swirled in his mind, but without a solid understanding of what happened to him, it was useless to speculate any further.

"Another incident to add to the growing pile of mysteries surrounding my life."

With a harried mind, Ves returned to the fortified camp with Lucky in his arms. His cat had been so spooked by the encounter that he didn't resist being picked up. Apparently, he lost his voracious appetite, which was a first.

Once he returned to confines of Walter's Whalers, Ves declined to report the incident and tried to go back work. He went to the workshop that held the partially disassembled Urman mech and removed his bulky hazard suit before approaching the Urman.

The mech looked huge and strong as always. Ves admired its robust construction and how much care its designer had put into strengthening the arms.

Walter approached from the side. "The Urman's been with me for more than a decade. While I don't know how the fiddly stuff works, I can tell you that there's hardly anyone who's more familiar with the Urman than me. I don't think there's more than forty of these mechs in circulation, and I'm sure that most of them have been scrapped by now."

"Is it because it's difficult to fight with a brawler mech?"

"Oh, more than you can imagine. The only way the Urman can withstand a sword or a spear is to block them with its heavy gauntlets. While they're powerful and open up a lot of options, they also slow down your arms and they're really expensive to maintain."

Ves already figured out the Urman came with such a trade-off. Those disposable gauntlets weighed as much if not more than a typical mech-sized sword and shield. This gave them an amazing amount of thickness and endurance, but it didn't help the brawler mech's speed.

Any mech pilot crazy enough to pilot a brawler had to be a natural wrestler and fistfighter to be qualified to pilot such a strange type of mech.

He started to listen to Walter describe in his own words how he saw the Brawler. Despite his many faults, Walter had been gifted with a talent for brawling, and he honed his street fighting skills by taking formal classes back when he joined a gang in Bentheim.

The gang leader didn't ruminate on his stay in Bentheim and turned his story back to his mech.

"The Urman is a great mech, but it's a difficult one to pilot as well. The mech designer who sold me the Urman went bankrupt soon after. He must be regretting that he designed a brawler mech in the first place."

"Why did you go for a brawler instead of a more conventional mech like a knight or a swordsman mech?"

"Oh, I've tried those mechs. I've tried to find the right mech plenty of times. They didn't click me. It's like I'm being stuffed into the wrong body. Those knights are useless without their armaments and the swordsman mechs rely too much on their swords. All the time I've piloted those standard mechs, I always felt less of a man."

Walter's discussion about his mech was fascinating to Ves. Hearing about his experiences successfully cleansed his fright and allowed him to forget his brief but frightening encounter with the apparition of his mother.

"Alright, I think I've gained an understanding of your Urman." Ves nodded in satisfaction. "Let's move on to what you want to change. Since I'm overhauling your mech, I might as well be thorough."

"I don't know." Walter appeared serious as he considered the matter carefully. "I'm already used to how it's built right now. There's hardly anything that stands out that I want done. It's not the best mech, but it's mine."

"Mechs like these won't be able to maintain a constant level of performance, especially if they are older than a decade. There must be something that you're annoying with. It could be something that worked fine at the start, but became increasingly more annoying over the years."

"Now that I think about it, I've always been wondering about the left elbow joint. It's just a little bit less supple than the other one. My mech technicians say it's fine, but maybe it's starting to break down."

After jogging his memory, Walter listed over two-dozen pet peeves. Some of them sounded trivial to the point where Ves doubted a mechanical problem had been the case, but Ves noted them all down anyway. Once he got his list, he gathered a couple of mech technicians and got to work.

Dismantling the Urman, designing new modifications and implementing them on an existing frame proved to be a stimulating job to Ves. Over the course of several days, he became immersed in trying to understand this rare and exotic brawler mech.

With each puzzle solved, Ves gained another insight into the operation of heavier mechs. Although the Urman hadn't reached that particular threshold, it operated along the same principles as an orthodox heavy mech while retaining a couple of key features of a medium mech.

As Ves went about his days, the universe around him moved on.

The Whalers dug out a decent underground refuge and finished putting up some rudimentary defenses.

The Blood Claws used their extensive manpower and sophisticated equipment to establish a fort.

Meanwhile, the Mech Corps that neighbored them both formed an even larger defensive position that could withstand a couple of Vesian regiments at once, for a time.

It could be seen that the Whalers presented nothing but a feeble obstacle to any but the most pathetic raids. In the face of a determined invasion, their only role should be to buy enough time for the Blood Claws and the 4th division to gather up their ground-side mechs.

Such an attack could come at any time, especially since the battle in space turned chaotic.

After the initial skirmishers, the Brighters and the Vesians lost their appetite for more engagements. Their numbers closely matched each other, which meant that an battle would be too close to call. They didn't have any reason to retreat but neither did they have a compelling urge to attack.

The goal of the Bentheim fleet remained protecting their ground-side assets. They placed a significant amount of ships in geosynchronous orbit over their red zone.

The Vesians responded by claiming the red zone directly opposite on the other side of the Glowing Planet. They placed some ships in geosynchronous orbit as well and started landed lots of landbound assets.

When Ves heard about what happened, he wasn't too surprised by their actions. "The planet is still big enough to fit the Vesians. What's more important is what will happen when the other guests arrive."

By this time, the massive pirate armada led by the mysterious Dragons of the Void almost made its way to the Glowing Planet. The frontier pirate group's unexpected capabilities had allowed them to get close without being affected by the Glowing Planet's incidental hazards.

Ghanso sat quietly in his mech. The mech technicians already fixed up his Vhedra-S in the past few days. Now, he sat on standby while he waited for the Vesians or the pirates to make a move.

"What do you think the pirates are up to?" Old man Alex chattered over the comm. "If they arrive just like this, won't they be provoking both us and the Vesians?

"Beats me." Ghanso shrugged. "I heard that they're not even using dimensional smoothers to suppress the gravitic anomalies around them. It's clear the Dragons made a lot of preparations. I can't help but think they're up to something."

"I've got that feeling as well."

The pirates mainly possessed converted carriers. None of them matched the capabilities of the combat carriers of the Mech Corps and the Mech Legion. They also didn't bring anything that could match the giant fleet carriers either.

What the incoming fleet lacked in quality, they made up for it in quantity. The main job of a carrier was to convey their mechs from one destination to the next. In that, the converted carriers did their job.

Even if the military forces of both states had the edge in mechs and training, they still felt apprehensive about facing so many mechs. The amount of resources the Dragons expended to maintain such a gathering of ships must be through the roof.

Besides the pirates, the mercenaries also posed a threat. The mercenary lords who refused to work for the Bright Republic must have thought they could get a better deal if they joined the side of the ultimate winners of the battle over control of the Glowing Planet.

Lieutenant Fairfax interrupted their musings. "Captain Rynsel has just received word of caution from command. They think the pirate fleet will be trying to bypass our forces land as much mechs as possible before we chase them off."

"Can we stop them?" Ghanso asked.

"Not really. Even with the help of the Vesians, we won't be able to stop so many pirate carriers from descending onto the surface and unload their mechs. They've got too many ships."

Everyone's faces turned grim. They waited for a couple of hours until the pirate swarm almost reached the planet.

"Alright men, this is it! Launch and gather around me!"

The mechs assigned to Captain Rynsel emerged from the fleet carrier in pairs. They formed up around her in a double chevron formation before flying outwards to their assigned coordinates. Ghanso noticed that these coordinates brought him closer to the Glowing Planet.

"This is our sector. Our orders are to hover in orbit and wait for the pirate fleet to arrive and disperse. Any pirate mech or ship that passes through our sector should be destroyed before they make landfall."

"What should we prioritize, ma'm?"

"Take out the descending carriers if you can. Any mech that passes through us will be spaceborn mechs that won't be of much use on the ground. It's better to focus on the carriers first. Even the smallest ones will be carrying five to seven mechs."

Ghanso waited for arrival of the pirate fleet while the Mech Corps arrayed its forces into a net that covered close to a third of the globe.

"Here they come! They're already splitting up!"

As predicted, the fleet led by the Dragons of the Void avoided a fruitless battle over orbital supremacy. Instead, they decided to focus on the real prize, which was the Glowing Planet and its many resources.

Large numbers of spaceborn mechs emerged from the pirate ships. All of them flew forward in order to lead the charge and spoil the aims of Ghanso and the other defenders as best as possible.

"They're spreading out their mechs! They shouldn't be aiming to take us out. Don't get distracted by their antics. They don't have to guts to fly close to us!"

Ghanso calmed his mind and sought to establish a deeper connection with his mech. Last time, he faced an enormous torpedo wave followed by a single pass of the Grand Chasers. Facing a bunch of pirates shouldn't be as nerve-wracking, although their sheer numbers made him grow a little pale.

"They're just rabble. They're nothing special. I can take them out by the dozens."

The pirate fleet began their orbital insertion.

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The battle against the pirates erupted in a mass of chaos and individual action. The Volari Starhawks and the other regiments had spread themselves thin, and that had forced the pirates to disperse as well.

The Dragons of the Void could have chosen to concentrate their ships and mech, but that would have allowed the Mech Corps to close the envelope and trap them in each direction. They decided it was better to remain elusive at all fronts.

All of this meant that Ghanso and his squad members only faced a couple of mechs at a time. Ghanso methodically shot at the approaching mechs with his laser rifle set to medium. He didn't require any more power to take out half-rusted mechs that looked second-hand at best.

"Incoming ship! She looks like she's carrying at least eight landbound mechs! Forget about the small fry and take her out!"

Ghanso switched his target in a heartbeat and opened fire on the incoming carrier. His laser shots merely scratched the coating of the immense ship, so he cranked up his laser rifle until it released beams as thick as the arm of his mech.

His super-heated laser beam did almost nothing to the frontal cone of the carrier. "My lasers aren't doing anything to the ship!"

"My rifle bullets are bouncing off the cone!"

Captain Rynsel made a risky decision. "Cease fire on the carrier and resume targeting her escort mechs. Once the carrier passes us by, try to hit if from behind."

They exchanged fire with the escorts which drew closer, but Ghanso had a hard time landing any hits due to their speeds. He lost his previous calm when frustration started to creep in. Why couldn't he hit any mechs?

One of the pirate mechs swiveled his rifle and spat out a volley of explosive shells at his Vhedra-S. Old Man Alex moved his mech in front of Ghanso and shielded him from the blast.

"Get a hold of yourself, Larkinson! You're overheating your rifle!"

He cursed as he noticed the build-up of heat. If he continued firing at this pace, he'd hardly have anything left once the pirate ship passed by their squad. Ghanso stopped his fire entirely in order to allow his rifle to cool as fast as possible.

"This isn't the first time you lost your mind!" Old Man Alex admonished him as he moved away to shield another squad mate. "Whatever crap you're dealing with, it's not as important as the mission! Everyone is counting on you to do your job, so do it!"

Ghanso growled in frustration, but kept his opinion to himself. Alex had been right that he should be focusing on his mission instead of letting his emotions dictate his actions. Overheating his rifle early would only benefit the pirates instead of their own side.

Even as his instincts yelled at him to take down the pirate mechs, Ghanso remained fixated on the incoming carrier. Now that the pirate ship neared their position, he noticed that her dull black coating his a surprisingly thick frontal cone made out of random plates of scavenged mech armor.

"Damn. How many mechs worth of armor plating does this carrier have?"

"More than ten I bet. These plates must be the refuse that had been dislodged from their original mechs."

Despite their damaged state, the plates possessed enough integrity to withstand most of the attack sent in their way. Their thickness prompted Captain Rynsel to give up taking out the carrier from the front. Instead, they all waited until the ship came close.

"Get ready to turn around and shoot at the rear!"

Five, for, three, two, one, "Open fire!"

Not every member of the squad could open fire on the carrier. For some reason, the escort mechs turned berserk and assaulted the closest Starhawk mech they could find. Alex and a couple of other melee mech pilots raced to the rescue while Ghanso focused on the thrusters of the descending carrier.

He took a deep breath and released a penetrating laser beam. Its seconds-long burn hit the rear of the carrier but did practically no damage.

Thrusters had been built to absorb a lot of heat, so the laser beam didn't do much damage. Ghanso shook his head and shifted his aim, though the rapidly widening distance made it hard for him to focus on a single section of the ship. He quickly fired again before the ship flew out of range.

This time his lasers glanced off the side of the carrier. Despite the near miss, his laser happened to strike a less heat-resistant part of the ship. His highly potent laser beam melted through the armor and damaged a couple of compartments, though none of them seemed important.

Nevertheless, the opening made by his lasers prompted his squad mates to focus on that vulnerability. Together, they widened the hole in the carrier and inflicted increasingly severe internal damage.

A final explosive shell landed deep within the ship and destabilized her power reactor. The ship lost control and spin uncontrollably.

"She's dead! Good job!" Captain Rynsel praised.

If the ship lost her power, her inertial dampeners would quickly drain their meager reserves. Once that happened, the occupants of the ship would have no way of protecting themselves against the g-forces induced by the ship's decent and uncontrollable spin. Everybody's body would undergo an experience akin to a blender. Their bodies didn't stand a chance.

"Eyes up! Two more ships are passing through our sector! If they've got a strengthened cone as well, then wait until they pass us!"

Neither ship turned out to be as abnormal as the first one. Ghanso and his squad comfortably blew up one ship, but they didn't spare enough firepower to take out the other one. Even as they shot at the rear of the surviving carrier, her mech escorts plunged into their midst, forcing them to deal with them first while the remaining pirate ship got away.

This pattern repeated over and over over the entire globe. Even the Vesians dropped their vigilance against the Mech Corps in order to prevent the pirates from gaining a foothold on the planet.

Both the Mech Corps and the Mech Legion soon found out they underestimated the resolve of the pirates. Many pirate mechs that accompanied their carriers towards the surface recklessly entered into mortal combat against the defenders that made up the net. They attacked with no regards to their lives and always fought to the death.

Though costly, the distraction worked. Ghanso lost track of how many dinky carriers passed by their squad as they tried to fend off the latest wave of suicidal pirate mechs.

"Since when did pirates fight to the death?!"

"Beats me! Pirates aren't the smartest bunch of people in the first place!"

"My ammo is running low! I'm all out of high explosive shells!"

"My energy reserves are dipping as well!" Ghanso reported. Even at the lowest settings, the rate at which he fired off his beams had led to an inevitable drain on his energy cells.

Sometimes he wished his mech suffered from the overcharge phenomenon, but it appeared the Glowing Planet only affected mechs closer to its surface. Just in case, the mech technicians had overridden the power safeties of each mech, but it hadn't been necessary for now.

Down on the surface of the Glowing Planet, Ves just finished affixing back the last piece of plating on the Urman. "Your mech is back in one piece, Walter."

"Took you long enough." The big man gruffed as he zipped up to his cockpit. "Don't wander off. It's going to get dangerous soon."

As Ves watched the Urman come online and move out of the workshop, he felt a little lost. Due to the pirate incursion, Ves had been forced to curtail his extensive rework of the Urman and rush to put the mech back together.

"I could have learned much more if the pirates didn't chose to drop from above." He sighed with regret.

He picked up Lucky who had been staying alertly by his side as if he expected an imminent attack.

"Do you sense the pirates approaching from above?"

"Meow."

Lucky certainly became more perceptive ever since he gorged himself to the mineral wealth of the Glowing Planet. His exterior had turned into a soft and pliable silvery alloy, but Ves had no doubt that its toughness surpassed the previous bronze-like exterior.

"Well Lucky, let's go up to the roof. I'm not content with holing up in this workshop."

Ves didn't want to cower in the face of the pirates. He walked over to where he stored his hazard suit and put it on in record time before he raced up to a lifter platform that brought him to the upper ramps. There, he found a secured entryway to the roof which Ves easily opened with the access codes he received from the Whalers.

Once he stepped outside, he watched at the blinking lights falling down from orbit. The lack of air meant the mechs and ships descended without the pesky build-up of friction and heat. This made it rather difficult for Ves to spot the descending pirates with the naked eye.

He had to establish a connection with the base's sensor net, which had to borrow the telemetry sent out by the Blood Claws and the Mech Corps before they could make out how many pirates fell from the sky.

His helmet visor bloomed with menacing purple icons. The sunless sky over Ves alone contained over fifty falling mech carriers. Occasionally, the space around them flashed as the pirate mechs fought back against the forces of the Mech Corps trying to stop their descent.

"Too many ships are making it through." He determined.

Only a fifth of the carriers encountered a mishap as the various spaceborn regiments of the Mech Corps feebly tried to catch as many pirates as they could.

Ves didn't blame the Mech Corps for their failure. Unlike them, he knew how many cannon fodder the Dragons of the Void were willing to sacrifice in order to advance their goals.

A spread of seven different pirate vessels happened to aim their trajectory close towards their position. As the collective sensor net refined their readings, they even determined their most probable landing zones.

One medium-sized pirate carrier happened to land a short distance away from this camp. Despite their threat, Ves remained in place. A single carrier shouldn't be able to convey enough mechs to threaten the Whalers.

The anticipation within him grew bigger as the carrier descended into visual range. Amidst the ever-present green glow, the underbelly of the pirate ship reflected back the light as if it was a star.

Alarms rang out throughout the base as the anti-air turrets oriented their barrels towards the incoming carrier. After sounding out a final warning, the turrets thrummed as they shot laser beams after laser beams at the incoming pirate ship.

The carrier happened to be a sturdier specimen from the rest. Her underbelly bore the laser beams without buckling. Each beam only left shallow furrows into the armored hull.

A couple of turrets that fired kinetic projectiles opened fire after that. This time, they left deeper scars, but the sturdy carrier endured the rain of projectiles until it whooshed past their line of sight and landed a fair distance away behind some jagged cliffs and hills.

For a moment, the base fell silent. The turrets returned to standby once their targets left their line of sights. Meanwhile, Walter, Fadah and the other leaders fell into a quick discussion on what to do next.

Ves wasn't privy to their conversation, but he didn't need to make a guess because they already went into action. A couple of squads led by Fadah and some other cadre exited the base and cautiously approached the landing site of the carrier.

He approved of their action. The mechs and pilots inside the carrier must be suffering from the aftereffects of their crash-like landing. Even if the ship had survived the entry onto the Glowing Planet, that didn't mean the carrier had made it out unscatched.

Ves patched into a private feed he surreptitiously added to the Blackbeak's systems. His helmet visor shimmered before it began to transmit the Blackbeak's view. He wanted to get a first-hand view of the Blackbeak's upcoming performance. He especially wanted to determine whether Fadah could cope with all the changes he demanded from Ves.

"Don't screw up, Fadah."

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Walter, Fadah and the rest of the most experienced Whalers approached the landing site with haste.

From the sensor readings and their own observations, they knew that the pirate ship sustained a lot of damage and had been forced to descend in a controlled crash.

Different from an uncontrolled crash, the carrier and her occupants survived the impact. However, that didn't mean they regained their senses immediately.

Walter might not be a genius in administrative matters, but he had a good sense for combat. He wanted to seize the initiative and take out the pirates before they could muster a proper defense.

Due to the haste involved in this decision, Walter had to let the faster mechs go ahead, leaving his Urman to catch up from the rear. Fadah's modified Blackbeak showed its new strength in this moment. The slimmed-down medium mech caught up with the jogging light mechs without issue.

"The landing site is five kilometers away. We should spread out and cover the flanks."

The light mechs split apart without any further acknowledgement. Everyone understood each other due to the camaraderie they forged over a span of decades.

While the light mechs covered the flanks, the mainstay medium mechs took the lead and approached the dormant carrier from her rear. The ship dug a deep furrow into the craggy ground, leading to a messy stop at the foot of an obsidian cliff.

"The carrier is radiating a lot of heat. My sensors are going haywire from all of the junk. We don't know what's inside."

That prompted the mechs to approach the carrier with a little caution. Fadah and the others waited until Walter's Urman emerged from behind. He took one good look at the downed ship before issuing a command.

"What are you afraid of? It's a sitting duck right now! Shoot at it?"

"But boss, don't you want to salvage the ship? That's a medium-sized carrier!"

"Who cares about a half-wrecked ship! A couple of containers worth of junk exotics is a lot more valuable than this carrier. Shoot!"

The Whalers brought a handful of rifleman mechs and a single cannoneer. All of them unleashed their firepower on the static vessel.

The rifles only dealt shallow damage to the hull, but the ballistic cannon tore through the hull armor like a dog chewing through bone.

The alarming damage from the cannon prompted the pirates inside to action. Despite the hard landing, their mech pilots had all been safely ensconced in their landbound mechs. When they blasted open the hatch, they showed very little signs of losing their wits. They poured out of the carrier and fired back at the Whalers.

"They set a trap for us!"

"Calm down! They're out in the open and they don't outnumber us!"

The Whalers had spread out in a half-moon around the crash site. Furthermore, their mechs all took cover behind some sturdy rocks and hills, preventing the pirates from dealing any effective damage.

The pirates obviously realized that and shifted directions. If they charged down the middle, they'd be surrounded on all sides. Thus, they chose to charged towards the extreme left of the formation.

"Cycle clockwise!"

The Whalers dynamically adjusted their formation in return. They spun the moon so that the pirates would be forced to cash against Walter's Urman in a frontal clash.

By then, it was too late for the pirate commander to change his mind. The pirates committed to the charge, shooting at the Urman with their ranged weapons while brandishing their melee weapons to finish the bulky mech up close.

The Urman stoically withstood the impacts, having crossed its arms to let its thick armored gauntlets take the brunt of the blows.

On the pirate side, two swordsman mechs and one knight led the charge. As for the Whalers, they continued to maneuver from the sides in order to envelop the pirates. For this to succeed, Walter had to blunt the charge of the pirates by himself. He grinned inside his cockpit.

"COME!" He roared as he urged his Urman to lumber forward, building up momentum for the double fists it prepared to unleash.

The knight in front sheathed its sword and held its shield with both arms. The Urman looked like it could pack a mean punch, and the pirate mech didn't think it could withstand a lunging strike with a single arm.

"TOO FLIMSY!"

The Urman outright shattered the shield, pushing the knight back and taking it out of the action for a few seconds. The swordsman mechs that came right after slashed forth with their swords, only to be caught by the Urman's heavy gauntlets.

One pirate had been smart enough to let go of his sword, but the other pilot stubbornly clung to his only weapon. Walter grinned and pulled the sword forward, which forced the mech that held an iron grip on the handle to stumble closer.

That was a fatal mistake.

The Urman let go of the words and wrapped the vulnerable knight in a clapping bear hug that squished its outer frame. Its heavy gauntlets dug into the thinner rear armor until they pried open the armor plating. After ripping open the rear armor, the Urman dug into it with its clumsy fingers and demolished the critical internals underneath.

The mech lost power, prompting the Urman to drop its first kill.

"Who's next?!"

Both the knight and the swordsman mech recovered somewhat, although they hadn't made it in time to rescue their unfortunate fellow pirate. Both of them flanked the Urman and started to prod at the brawler mech with their swords.

While Walter occupied the two mechs, the rest of the Whalers dealt with the riff raff. Fadah's Blackbeak shone at this moment by weaving through the disarrayed pirates like a shuttle racer through an asteroid field.

Each time Fadah passed by a mech, he opportunistically thrust or slashed the Blackbeak's sword. Any retaliation sent in the modified knight's way would either be dodged or absorbed by its shield.

Fadah started to grow fond of this extra defensive option. "This shield is a cheat!"

Despite the shabby quality of most Whaler mechs, they had the edge over the pirates. The pirate mech pilots suffered from various amounts of disorientation while their mechs suffered minor impact damage from the rough landing.

The pirates could have recovered their full strength after an hour of acclimatization, but the Whalers spoiled their plans.

In addition, the Whalers spent days getting used to the Glowing Planet's unusual environment. The lack of atmosphere, the reduced 0.7 gravity and the strange everpresent green glow all took time to get accustomed to. Some Whalers even used the abnormal conditions to their advantage.

Fadah laughed as he piloted his Blackbeak like a nimble mouse among a clumsy herd of elephants. Even though his sword strikes didn't have much power behind him, his constant harassment successfully threw the pirates off balance.

His Blackbeak approached an enemy rifleman mech from behind and chopped at its arm, forcing the pirate mech to cease its attack on a vulnerable Whaler. Fadah didn't stick around to make a follow-up attack but instead preserved his momentum and veered towards another knight mech that locked its armament against a battle-axe wielding mech.

"Lou! Keep the git in place!"

"Got it, Fadah!"

Lou forced the pirate knight in a bitter struggle, pushing it back and knocking it slightly off-balance. Fadah took advantage of the opening by lunging forward and putting his mech's full weight behind its sword.

The tip buried straight through the back of the knight's substantial armor and happened to dig deep enough to slice through the cockpit, instantly killing the pilot within.

"Great job, Lou!"

"Thanks. Let's mop up the rest!"

The Whalers decisively tipped the balance in their favor over the next couple of minutes. With Walter occupying the their two best fighters, the pirates found themselves hard-pressed to fend off the Whalers attacking from each direction.

At some point in time, the pirate rifleman mechs shifted focus. Instead of shooting at the closest threat, they turned around and focused all of their firepower on one of the Whalers piloting a light mech.

A barrage of high-powered lasers and explosive shells struck the terrain around the light mech. The pirate mechs quickly corrected their aim and started landing solid hits on the Whaler mech.

"Hoyler! Get out of there!"

"I'm trying but they're boxing me in! URGH!"

An explosive shell ripped its leg, causing the light mech to falter in its steps. Hoyler's mech spun around and exposed its back towards the enemy for a single instant. The next volley of shells and lasers struck aside the flimsy rear armor and reached the compact energy cells buried underneath.

"NO!"

Hoyler's small and nimble light mech exploded before its pilot even had a chance to eject. The combined explosive and electric discharge wrenched every mech from their feet, flinging them away as the terrain buckled from underneath.

They landed on their backs or sides in a series of violent crunches. If the Glowing Planet possessed air, then the resulting pressure wave from the discharge would have squashed them straight into the cliffs.

Of all the mechs, only two recovered quickly. Walter's Urman only suffered marginally due to its immense bulk and stable footing. Fadah anticipated the blast in time and curled his Blackbeak just before their footing underwent an upheaval.

"Hoyler! He's gone!"

"Finish off these scum!"

With the help of the Urman and the Blackbeak, the Whalers ruthlessly finished off the immobilized pirate mechs. Their pilots hadn't been aware of the overcharge phenomenon so they hadn't been on-guard against a violent explosion like that. They never recovered before the Whalers stomped their cockpits with the foot of their mechs.

After they finished the battle, they stood in silence to honor their fallen brother. Hoyler had been one of Walter's early recruits, and while he never amounted to anything in the Whalers, his steady presence had been a pillar to the entire gang.

"Finish off the ship. Don't leave any survivors."

The Whalers didn't think about recovering the ship or any of its cargo. Their ranged mechs simply blasted it from a distance while the crew of the vessel ran around like headless chickens.

The gang didn't even bother chasing any of the pirates running away on foot. Their vacuum-sealed suits only lasted them a couple of days at most. Without any other supplies, they'd starve in the harsh and desolate landscape of the Glowing Planet.

Once the fallen carrier turned into a pile of broken chunks, the Whalers carefully dug up any pieces of Hoyler's mech they could find and bring them back to camp.

Ves halted the feed that enabled him to spy on the Blackbeak at work and sighed. "I told them they'd face setbacks."

The Whalers overestimated their abilities and committed to the fight with more aggression than they needed. Still, the intense battle gave Ves a first-hand glimpse of how the new Blackbeak fared.

Fadah delivered a marvelous performance. All of the modifications that added to its mobility had been worth it as Fadah flexed and moved his mech in a way that resembled a dance. The pirates had never been able to catch the Blackbeak once.

Still, Ves placed a caveat on his observations. "Fadah can only get away with it on the Glowing Planet."

The lack of atmosphere took away the need to fight against air friction. The lighter gravity allowed the Blackbeak to pull off moves that medium mechs wouldn't be able to in ordinary circumstances.

Ves had to admit that for all of his smarts, he overlooked the environment as a decisive factor that could change the performance of a mech.

He wouldn't be blamed for making such an elementary mistakes. Most battles on land occurred on terraformed planets that had been cherry-picked by colonists because their gravity closely matched the Terran standard.

Humanity's true origin came from Old Earth. Their species thrived best if they propagated onto planets with environments that closely matched their ancestral home.

The battle that Ves witnessed earlier taught him that his mechs may often be deployed under strange conditions. During the design process, he modelled his Blackbeak's performance under a variety of abnormal environments, but he always treated those simulations as a chore.

Now, he realized that those simulations foretold some very important outcomes for his mech. "The perfect mech that performs well in every possible environment doesn't exist. A bad design under standard conditions might be able to redeem itself in other conditions."

Ves quietly digested this lesson as the Walter and his men returned to their fortified camp.

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The loss of Hoyler and the way he died left the Whalers in a somber mood. Ves hoped their rude awakening would push them to work more meticulously, but the Whalers showed a remarkable ability to move on from tragedy.

They held a festive party over the night where over half of the Whalers drunk themselves into a stupor. By the time they woke up the next morning, the pain at losing Hoyler had become a distant pang.

Everything went back to normal, although the Whalers heightened their alertness. No more pirate vessels fell from the sky in their vicinity.

In fact, every descending carrier aimed to land in the middle of unclaimed terrain. The ships that crashed near the Vesians or the Brighters had been forced to veer from their original trajectories due to the damage they suffered from the battle up in space.

This left everyone with a bit of reprieve. Until the pirates recovered from their landings and gathered together, they posed no threat to the Whalers.

Fadah and Ves gathered at the stables where the Blackbeak rested. The mech didn't suffer anything more than a couple of scratches at the hands of the pirates. It actually sustained more damage from its fall when Hoyler's mech blew up, and that had to be fixed.

"I can fix the Blackbeak up in half a day." He said, eying his own work with a new sense of appreciation. The lack of armor didn't seem so bad now that he knew that Fadah would be able to make the most of it on the Glowing Planet. "Is there anything else you'd like to be modified while I'm at it?"

"No." Fadah lethargically shook his head. "The Blackbeak is still in a pretty good shape. Just do the basics and move on to fixing the other mechs."

"Alright."

Ves quietly went to work, though inwardly he sighed again. Fadah expected too much from him. He wasn't a miracle worker. The Whalers piloted cheap and badly maintained mechs. Their workshops lacked a lot of advanced tools and the mech technicians resembled bums more than professionals.

Still, he kept his complaints to himself and tried to make the best of it, knowing that he might need to get accustomed to working under trying circumstances.

With his penchant for diving into trouble, he might be put into situations where he'd be forced to work on a mech without any tools or supplies.

A couple of days went by as Ves modified mech after mech. Nothing much happened on the ground.

The pirates that landed on the surface gathered up and formed a series of underground bases. Occasionally, the Mech Corps and the Mech Legion up in orbit bombarded their positions, but the sheer amount of distance and some unknown influences from the Glowing Planet caused most shots to miss their mark.

It was a waste of time and energy to bombard the pirates unless they gathered at least an entire regiment.

However, whenever they did so, the pirate fleet that remained in the vicinity of the Glowing Planet would move in and threaten the mechs. This led to complicated orbital maneuvering where the three sides tried to box each other in to no avail. All of the fruitless course adjustments frustrated the pilots that had to remain on standby like Ghanso.

"When will this ever end?!" He moaned inside his Vhedra-S.

"It'll end when the pirates slip up." Old Man Alex replied.

"Like that'll ever happen. Those Dragons of the Void bastards are cunning as hell, and slippery to booth. They keep bluffing us over and over and we keep falling for their tricks."

"That's spaceborn combat for you. It's not as if we're on land where we'll halt our movement once we shut off our engines. Everything is in motion. In order to thrive in space, you have to understand the mechanics behind all this stuff."

"Do you?"

"Nah. Are you crazy? I'd rather improve my piloting skill than to go back to school. Leave the thinking to Lieutenant Fairfax and Captain Rynsel. I heard they took some extra courses in order to qualify for promotion."

That opened up some doors in Ghanso's mind. He understood the need to become more familiar with how movement worked in space. The basic courses taught in the academies only scratched the surface of what had happened here.

"Maybe I'll register for those classes as well."

"Good luck, then. You're young enough to keep learning, so make the most out of it while you still can. Don't ever stop improving!"

Ghanso detected some regret in Old Man Alex's voice. Perhaps the man missed a lot of opportunities in his youth. "Thanks for the guidance."

"It's nothing. You Larkinsons are able to figure things out sooner or later. If not me, then some other relative of yours would have clued you in."

That did not detract from the value of Alex's advice. Ghanso opened up his comm and browsed for the next available openings for the classes he had in mind.

While a stalemate continued to persist in space, back on the ground, Ves took a break after modifying the tenth mech that passed in his hands.

"Alright, this is enough. Go take the rest of the day off!"

The exhausted mech technicians whooped as they dropped their tools on the deck. Ves winced at the careless treatment of their gear. If only the Whalers had a proper chief to knock some sense into their skulls.

Lately, Ves did all of his work underground. The Whalers finished tunneling a coupe of secure mech-sized halls, and finishing moving most of their surface assets to these empty spaces. Ves felt better for having layers of rocks stand between his head and a laser beam from orbit.

"Melkor!"

He met Melkor by the entrance of the workshop. Lately, his cousin had been volunteering to go on patrols. Even though Lucky had run off to dig up highly valuable exotics, Ves hardly felt any threat from the Whalers. Thus, he allowed Melkor to volunteer for other duties.

"We need to discuss something." Melkor as he guided Ves by the arm. "It concerns the battle in space. There's a chance we might get cut off from escape, at least for the next couple of weeks."

Ves turned sour as he contemplated the possibility. Nothing good ever happened when a groundside force got cuff off from support up in orbit. He already went through a munity in his previous adventure to Groening IV.

'What's the Mech Corps up to?"

"My guess is that the've decided the 4th division iss too exposed and outnumbered to make a play for orbital supremacy. It might even be impossible to maintain geosynchronous orbit over their men on the ground. They're pulling back to a higher orbit over the planet where they have much more room to maneuver. The Blood Claws and the Whalers and the other outfits who signed on with them will follow suit."

So we're letting the pirates hover over the planet with impunity?

"Not exactly. They've been forced into an even higher orbit. They're so far away in the skies that they won't be able to threaten our base. The men I've talked with heard from other men who speculated that the pirates are waiting for reinforcements. Either they're expecting a lot of help, or they're holding secret talks with the mercenaries who haven't signed a contract yet."

Ves understood Melkor's concern. They couldn't rule out the possibilitity that the mercenary lords would throw their lot with the pirates, who possessed the most ships out of the three principal forces battling for control.

They started to discuss contingencies. Anything could happen in the next weeks, and the Whalers might end up facing a threat that none of them could beat.

"I'll divert some supplies from the Whalers. They don't even guard them. All they're focused on is the growing pile of exotics that they've dug out of the soil."

Melkor nodded. "Okay. I will volunteer to go on patrol outside the walls. I'll be mapping our escape routes and note any dangers along the way."

They both prayed that they never had to enact their contingencies, but the balance of power kept shifting out of the favor of the Bright Republic. The mercenary lords who decided to stay neutral did so because they lacked faith in the Republic's strength.

Over time, the Mech Corps would continue to diminish in power. Melkor passed on to Ves that the Mech Corps refused to send more divisions to the Glowing Planet. They couldn't afford to strip their defenses in favor of chasing after riches onto an unknown alien planet.

"What about the Vesians?"

"I have no clue." Melkor shrugged. "The Mech Legion doesn't appear to be expecting any reinforcements either. I think they're too scared to commit so many forces across the border. It's easier for us to ambush us them if they have to enter our territory first."

Ves nodded in understanding and walked away. Now that he had some time to himself, Ves intended to return to the barracks and sleep. He exited the workshop hall and traversed the hollowed-out corridors towards his destination.

The grim underground tunnels cast his surroundings in a depressing light. He preferred the creepy green glow over the corridor's harsh white ceiling lights.

The only upside to working underground was that the Whalers sealed the entrances shut. Everyone inside ditched their bulky hazard suits, including Ves. Even if the base suffered an attack which caused the air to leak out, he still had his anti-grav clothes to provide him with some oxygen.

Ves passed by an empty room that hadn't been put to use yet. As he turned his head for a peek, he suddenly felt a slim but incredibly strong palm push him inside.

He tumbled into the room into a heap. That palm carried a lot of strength, much more than his enhanced body could handle!

"Who's there!?" He yelled and whipped up his back pistol towards the entrance, only to meet a familiar sight. "No! You can't be here! You're not real!"

A chill ran through his body as he met his mother's apparition again. After his first encounter with his mother, he tried to convince himself that she hadn't actually risen from the dead.

"Vessssss….." His mother dragged on as her body hovered closer to her son.

Each time his mother came close, Ves took a step back. The chill in his body grew more frigid and his mind grew sluggish. The ghost of his mother called out to him in a way that turned him into a helpless young toddler that yearned for his mother's embrace.

"You're… not… real…" Ves hissed from between his gritted teeth as he fought back against his uncooperative mind and body. "This… is… all… in… my… mind…"

"My Vessie boy. The heart doesn't lie. Don't you recognize me?" His mother asked as she neared his son. She grew more substantial the closer she got to Ves. "Dreams and reality are interconnected. What you see in front of you doesn't need to exist in order to exist."

"Stop acting like my mother! You are nothing like her!" He uttered as his back bumped against the wall of the room. He slid his body sideways until he trapped himself in a corner.

His mother closed in with a disappointed expression. "Ves… I never meant for you to be involved with mechs. Your father always insisted that mechs is in your blood, but it's not. You shouldn't have become a mech designer and you shouldn't have come here in the first place."

"Why…?"

"Because I had someone change your genes." She revealed as she stopped in front of Ves. Her finger reached out and trailed his cheek again. Her ghostly finger felt very real to Ves. "You used to be a Larkinson. When I thought about my baby boy risking his life on a foreign planet, I couldn't bear the thought of losing you. I went behind your father's back and visited a clinic in Bentheim to take away your genetic aptitude."

"What? Mother, that's nonsense!"

"It's true. I took away your affinity for mechs."

"You're lying!" He screamed, though his voice lacked his usual strength. "You loved me. You always promised me you'd support me if I became a pilot…"

Even though he already reconciled himself with his lot in life, his mother had brutally ripped open his mental wounds. The pain of disappointment and the despair of knowing that he could never be a true Larkinson had always lurked in his mind.

His mother didn't seem to care.

"Ves. You should have stayed at Cloudy Curtain. You should have been safe there." Her face turned ugly. "But your father ruined it all!"

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In the Age of Mechs, the greatest honor a young child could ever receive was to learn he had the potential to become a mech pilot. Society elevated such potentates and granted them many privileges in order to facilitate their ability to pilot a mech.

Yet not every parent wished their child to become a mech pilot. Considering the immense casualties the Republic suffered after each war against the Kingdom, a growing underground movement formed between mothers who wished their children would never have to face another mech on the battlefield.

Wouldn't it be better if their child remained home and took up a mundane job instead of throwing away his life for an empty cause? As new lives bloomed within their bellies, these mothers would do everything to see their offspring live a long and fulfilling life.

Thus, they formed an underground movement. With the complicity of illegal genetic clinics, they secretly broke the chain of genes through modified gene treatments that had ordinarily been used to immunize their unborn children against genetic defects.

This could only be done in the first months of their pregnancies. Gene modification became increasingly more difficult as their children grew. Only extremely extravagant means like gene boosts could change a person's entire genetic makeup.

"Mother… you're lying…" Ves softly retorted, even though her revelation sounded true in his heart. "Why did you break my genes? And what did father do?"

"Isn't it obvious?" His mother shook her head. "That gift of yours is Ryncol's solution to your problem. He knew what I had done, and even if he never confronted me about it, he found his own way to defy me!"

Her body became more substantial the longer she lingered close to Ves. He could even feel the energies quietly circulating inside his body being siphoned away by her somehow. Each mote of energy that entered her body seemed to strengthen her aura, suppressing Ves to the point where he could barely lean against the corner of the room.

"What are you, mother? How did you turn into this ghost?"

She smiled at him and patted his head like he was a child. His mother didn't answer his question, but stared at him with a mixture of loathing and love.

Ves felt deeply uncomfortable at seeing his mother's face so warped in this way. It was as if this ghost wanted violate his most cherished and innocent memories of his mother.

The standoff continued until the energy cycle inside his body started to stutter. More than half of his vigorous energy had been handed over to the ghost who wore the visage of his mother. Ves didn't believe his mother came back from the dead. No parent would ever treat his child this way. With a wordless grunt, Ves summoned up the vestiges of his strength and pushed himself from the wall.

His body flew right through his mother's translucent body. Her dress hardly shifted as Ves encountered nothing but air. He sprawled to the floor yet again. This time, it took many seconds for him to turn around.

His mother had disappeared. She was gone like the wind.

Ves dried the tears in his eyes and began to recover more of his strength. His lethargic energy cycle continued its figure-eight rotation, but for the first time in months, Ves didn't feel as if he was one step away from being blown up by Dr. Jutland's gift.

Should he be thankful for his mother for delaying the bomb that ticked inside his body?

"That's not my mother." He repeated as he deeply tried to convince himself that he faced some sort of shapeshifting ghost. "My mother would never try to hurt me."

Somehow, his excuses rang hollow. Deep within his heart, some primal vestige of his love for his mother had judged the ghost to be who she said she was. No matter how much logic Ves threw at his heart, it never swayed from its judgement.

Eventually, Ves did what he had always done when he faced an intractable problem. He shoved it to the back of his mind and tried to pretend the incident never happened.

Ves wearily left the empty room and walked back to the barracks where he holed up in his private bunk and slept.

He had no trouble falling asleep.

The next morning, Ves wearily woke up and returned to his work. Just over a hundred mechs awaited his ministrations. No one wanted to repeat Hoyler's experience. With their mechs stuffed with overcharged energy cells, each pilot risked instant death whenever they deployed.

"Please, Mr. Larkinson! Please help me!" A pilot begged to Ves. He even bent his knees in supplication to the almighty mech designer. "I don't care if you slow down my mech. Just make it safer for me to pilot!"

Sighing, Ves agreed to fulfill the pilot's request. He learned the hard way that they didn't take his realistic assessment very well. The Whalers expected Ves to reduce the risk by as much as fifty percent.

In actuality, the most he could do was to pull off some tricks to reduce the likelihood of setting off the energy cells by ten percent at most. He couldn't alter the fundamental makeup of a mech, especially not with the means the Whalers had at their disposal.

"There are limits to how much armor I can stuff to the rear of these mechs."

The Whalers used a substantial amount of light mechs and frontline mechs. Both of them had very little tolerance for added weight. Their designs already reached their limits in terms of weight allocation, so Ves always had to remove something else in order to improve the protection around the energy cells.

All of it was barely worth the effort, yet Ves had to play the charlatan in order to put a stop to the growing panic among the Whalers. Many mech pilots had grown increasingly paranoid about their own mechs. Only after Ves adjusted their machines did they calm down from their fright.

Fortunately, the pirates hadn't made a move against the Whalers during this grace period. The battle in space continued to be tepid while the pirates on the ground only formed sporadic raids.

The Mech Corps didn't like it when a group of pirates gathered together within their sphere of influence. They proactively sent out hunting parties to eliminate any small to medium-sized gathering of pirate mechs within the vicinity.

Ves got word that the Mech Corps detected a large-scale gathering of pirates, and tasked the Blood Claws to eliminate the group before they became fully entrenched.

In turn, the Blood Claws called upon their own subordinates to assist them in this endeavor. Walter's Whalers had to contribute twenty mechs to the engagement.

Walter decided to send out three different squads, one of which happened to be the fast-reaction squad led by Fadah. This would be the Blackbeak's second serious deployment.

This time, the entire mech force would be leaving the vicinity of the base. Due to the intense amount of interference on the planet, the mechs would be out of communication for days. Ves wouldn't be able to enjoy a live picture of the Blackbeak in action. He could only resort to activating a hidden recording function inside his mech.

"The Blood Claws are deploying over two-hundred mechs." Fadah spoke as he waited for Ves to finish his final touch-ups. "I even heard there's a new star among their midst. They say she's related to you."

That must have been Raella. "I know. She's my cousin. I don't think she needs any help, but please take care of her when you can. Like any Larkinson, she's a good mech pilot, but she's never been on an actual battlefield."

"Hah! Don't worry, Ves. Daddy Fadah will take care of your baby cousin!" The pilot smacked his chest for emphasis. "With this super-fast Blackbeak, there's no way I can lose to any pirate!"

Ves hadn't been allowed to accompany the task force. The Blood Claws wanted to flatten the pirates quickly, and that meant they had to minimize their burdens. A mech designer like Ves wouldn't be too useful at the very front, especially if he couldn't bring any supplies.

"I hope you can keep your word."

After Fadah and nineteen other Whalers entered the mechs and stepped out of base, some of the liveliness had disappeared. No one who remained could tell whether all twenty would return.

Ves thought this was good. Walter's Whalers finally dropped some of their complacency and seriously started to weigh the risks.

During his free time, Ves carefully investigated the ghost sightings among the Whalers. He discreetly tracked down the people who reported the hallucinations and found a couple of patterns.

First, everyone saw a loved one who had died. This could be their parents, their grandparents or some other acquantaintance who moved on from this galaxy.

Second, no one ever experienced multiple hallucinations. Half the people who reported the sightings couldn't even remember the incidents.

Third, none of the people who experienced these hallucinations had something sucked out of their bodies. Only Ves had the fortune to encounter a ghost who harvested from his bountiful life energies.

When he came to these conclusions, he depressingly rubbed his eyes. "Am I some sort of human battery for these ghosts? How many of them are there?"

He faintly suspected that only one ghost haunted this base. The ghost must be proficient in reading the memories of its victims and imitate what he stole from their minds.

It was the only explanation Ves could come up with that allowed him to deny the continued existence of his mother. He simply didn't want to accept that his mother had really talked to him in this manner.

Ves had half-convinced himself that the ghost would pay another visit to him sooner or later. His special physique must be a wonderful tonic for insubstantial life forms that existed more in the imaginary realm than the physical realm.

"How can I hurt a ghost?"

He left out any mundane means like hitting it with a rod or shooting it with a pistol. The ghost had already showed off its ability to ignore anything it didn't wish to touch.

"I can't use anything conventional."

The only solution he could turn to was to use the heaven-defying properties of exotic materials.

Unfortunately, the minerals the Whalers mined up to this point didn't fit the job. Most of the ores the Whalers dug up with their mining equipment consisted of low-tier exotics with simple effects such as lighter mass or a little bit of extra sturdiness. They didn't differ too much from the junk exotics that any idiot could pick off the ground.

"The really valuable stuff should be buried deep underground or somewhere closer to the center of the red zone."

The red zone exhibited a lot of strange effects. Without the dimensional smoothers, the sheer amount of deadly fluctuations would have wiped out the Mech Corps that settled on this resource-rich territory.

"I've got to find a way to get into the red zone."

Not only did Ves want to obtain some materials that could help him fend off his so-called mother, he also wanted to make headway into completing the System's mission. He quietly activated his Privacy Shield and re-read the mission again.

[Mission]

Mission: Obtaining the Core

Difficulty: B-Rank

Prerequisites: Find your way to the Glowing Planet

Description

The rogue planet that has been discovered by the humans hides a special ore that originates from its core. Seek out a hand-sized sample of this ore and offer it to the Mech Designer System.

Failure condition: Fail to acquire a substance from the core of the Glowing Planet within ninety days from the issuance of this mission. Your ability to spend Design Points will be curtailed for two years.

Reward:

Special Upgrade Voucher (Machine), 10 golden lottery tickets

The System didn't reveal anything useful about this ore. It didn't tell him how it looked like and what kind of benefits it offered. Ves could only tell that the System valued it extremely highly, given that it attached a steep penalty for failing this task.

"At least the rewards should be something good."

Ves didn't put much stock into low-tier lottery tickets, but the System never skimped when it came to something good. The golden lottery tickets should be offering something extremely good, though he could also end up with junk if his luck had taken the wrong turn.

What he really aimed for was the so-called Special Upgrade Voucher (Machine). It sounded like he could upgrade the parameters of any machine he owned, and by a significant margin to boot. Depending on the definition of 'machine', Ves could upgrade anything, from Lucky, to his Dortmund printer, to his highly modified comm module.

"If this ore is as valuable as I think, then this voucher should be worth effort to seek it out."

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Ves faced an important impediment to fulfilling the System's mission. Walter's Whalers would never be able to breach to the core with their low-tech mining equipment.

They simply didn't possess the infrastructure to dig more than a couple of kilometers underground, and neither did they held the inclination to do so.

Why bother digging so deep when they harvested enough riches at their current depths?

He'd have to resort to other outfits to bring him to the core. Ves doubted the Blood Claws possessed much more ambition than the Whalers. Even if they brought more sophisticated gear, they'd only focus on the immediate fruits instead of the richer treasures buried deep.

"It's got to be the Mech Corps. Only they have the ambition to exploit this planet completely."

The Mech Corps already revealed their ambitions by claiming one of the red zones of the planet. Despite its many dangers, the red zone also offered some of the richest deposits of exotics.

Furthermore, it was likely that the Mech Corps must be holding some suspicions of this wondrous planet. They would definitely attempt to explore the unknown as much as they could before the seventy-day deadline had passed.

"I've got to find a way to slip into the Mech Corps."

That was a very tall order. The 4th Bentheim Division that presided over the base in the red zone didn't allow any entry to outsiders. Ves couldn't find a good excuse to convince the guards to let him roam around sensitive military regions either, let alone join a deep core mining expedition to the center of the Glowing Planet.

"Let's take this one step at a time. Every lofty goal is insurmountable if you stay at the beginning."

His first task would be to find a way for the Mech Corps to allow him to enter the red zone. It would be better if they invited him on their own initiative, which should only happen if he offered something vital that only he could do.

What was the biggest problem facing the Mech Corps on this planet?

"It's got to be the overcharge phenomenon."

As long as the energy cells kept receiving an overcharge, every mech that ran on these type of cells turned into portable bombs.

Ironically, cheap low-tier mechs like the ones procured by the Whalers didn't pose much of a risk. Sure, even a light mech's catastrophic discharge had been capable of throwing nearby mechs off their feet, but that was the extent of the damage.

Heavier and more advanced mechs carried as much as ten times more energy than Hoyler's pitiful light mech. They had to in order to deliver the kind of performance their designers had in mind.

The kind of energy cells used in an advanced mech like the Havalax compressed a lot more energy in a much smaller package. This enabled Dumont to stuff the rear of his Havalax with double or triple the amount of energy cells, each of which carried an extremely potent amount of power.

"Only one of them has to fail."

If one cell blew up, the adjacent cells quickly followed. This would continue to cascade until the entire advanced blew up in a titanic discharge that would swallow any other mech in the vicinity.

This was the scariest part. Any mech in range of this violent explosion risked setting off their own energy cells. Again, only a single failure sufficed to set off another sudden blast.

As long as enough mechs had gathered in the same place, this could lead to an increasingly devastating chain reaction that would swallow both the Mech Corps and whoever they fought. Nothing could survive these runaway explosions.

"While the Mech Corps can rely on their fuel cell mechs to do the heavy lifting, it won't be possible to furlough over eighty percent of their mechs."

Mechs that ran on pure energy cells remained the norm in the Mech Corps. The convenience of working with a single, universal resource that could be replenished in a million different ways outweighed the higher amount of energy density that processed fuel provided.

If an energy-driven mech somehow got stranded, its pilot could whip out the energy solar chargers and let the local sun replenish the spent cells. While it would take years to charge up a single cell this way, at least it offered hope.

The only problem was that Ves didn't have a clue how to go about the problem. The Mech Corps undoubtedly put a lot of researchers together to fix the problem themselves. If Ves wanted to upstage those scientists, he'd have to find a way to cheat.

"That's where the System should come in."

He still saved up a decent amount of DP. The last time he checked his reserve, he accumulated more than 50,000 DP, all of which he'd earned from selling his Blackbeak models.

Strangely enough, the System included the bronze-label mechs fabricated by EME to his credit as well. Ves estimated that EME must have earned a fortune by selling over four-hundred mechs so far. Since the System based its DP rewards by revenue instead of profits, Ves received a lot more DP from EME than from the LMC's own in-house production.

"There's a benefit to a larger scale of production."

The System's remuneration system prioritized the spread of his designs over how he could maximize the profits of each mech. In a way, their goals diverged, as Ves wanted to focus on selling a limited quality of high quality mechs while the System wanted to spread his mechs regardless of their merits.

In any case, that was a problem for another day. First, he had to consider how to spend his DP. 50,000 DP sounded a lot, but it could easily be wasted if he invested in the wrong skills and items.

"I've got to learn more about the overcharge phenomenon first. Until I can narrow down the list of possible solutions, I have no clue where I can best spend my DP."

Ves turned off his comm and went back to work. Even if he wanted to spend some time on researching the overcharge phenomenon, he still had to meet his obligations to the Whalers. He made a promise, after all.

Through his work, Ves became exposed to a variety of different mechs, almost all of which had been cheap, second-hand or modified to the point where he couldn't figure out their original design.

Getting his hands dirty with each of these mechs had broadened his vision concerning the many ways in which a mech designer chose to reduce the cost of their designs. Ves had never thought up such extreme measures, and getting a detailed glimpse of other people's works enlightened him to a different style of designing mechs.

"I've always been straight and narrow with my designs. Quality comes first."

Both the Marc Antony and the Blackbeak carried his philosophy of squeezing as much quality as possible out of the limitations set by his budget.

For example, the Mark II had been designed to deliver the most amount of value for its recommended price tag of 30 million credits, while the Blackbeak tried to do the same for a base price of 60 million credits. Ves always set a budget and tried to exceed the average level of performance of other designs that cost the same.

Through these cheap designs, Ves figured out a different philosophy. It was a philosophy that revolved around cost, and cost alone.

Quality and performance didn't matter too much, not as this price range. Mechs that cost less than 10 million credits performed so badly that it didn't matter if you dropped a little lower. As long as you could shave off a couple of hundred thousand credits here and there, any compromise in performance could be justified.

All of this had to do with the inherent cost efficiency of numbers versus quality.

The Bright Republic's mech industry maintained a very rough rule of thumb on this issue.

Two mechs that cost 5 million credits each could beat a single mech worth 15 million credits.

Two mechs that cost 10 million credits each could beat a single mech worth 30 million credits.

Two mechs that cost 20 million credits each could beat a single mech worth 60 million credits.

Two mechs that cost 50 million credits each could beat a single mech worth 120 million credits.

Four mechs that cost 150 million credits each could beat a single mech worth 1 billion credits.

These figures stated that it was always better to field more mechs than to invest in a smaller amount of more expensive mechs. Even that single mech worth 1 billion credits would be forced to run like a dog if it faced a swarm of mechs that each cost only 5 million credits.

Smaller outfits like the Whalers didn't lack for low-quality mech pilots. They often worried about coming up with the money to buy more mechs. This led to the decision to invest in lots of cheap mechs.

The elite portion of the Mech Corps and the better-off outfits faced the opposite situation. They often enjoyed abundant funding, but they faced an insurmountable bottleneck in terms of recruiting talented mech pilots. Each advanced pilot and higher was a treasure, and it would be a waste if they paired them with a worthless mech.

These kind of buyers had to maximize the value they could squeeze out of their pilots. They didn't care as much about how much money they had to spend, so long as their pilots could fully exploit their talents.

Ves had always focused on the latter clientele and completely neglected the segment of the market with the highest volume of sales. He thought that such cheap mechs lacked sophistication, and that they derived the majority of their cost savings by cutting corners.

"It's true, but there's more to it."

His opinion turned out to be prejudiced. After multiple detailed studies of their designs, Ves gained a new appreciation of budget mechs.

"It's true that they cut a lot of corners, but they're always very inventive about it. They cut out anything that's superfluous and treat the parts that absolutely essential with reverence."

The key to keeping down the costs lay in specializing the designs.

An expensive design like the Blackbeak could fulfill multiple roles. While Ves designed it as an offensive knight, it possessed enough traits from other types to act like a skirmisher of defensive knight if the situation called for it. Any buyer would easily be able to accentuate these roles by applying some aftermarket modifications to the frame.

Ves had already done so for Fadah's Blackbeak.

The cheap mechs in the hands of the rest of the Whalers lacked this fluidity in roles. Their designers only kept one rigid vision in mind when they came up with their designs.

A light skirmisher always functioned as a decent skirmisher, but it lacked the advanced sensors to act as a scout. It also couldn't be employed as a light rifleman due to the lack of optimization in its arms.

He learned that this wasn't a bad thing. A mech specialized for one single style of combat delivered so much cost savings that they'd been able to depress the production cost to an enviably low sum.

"A hyper-specialized design is probably twenty-five percent cheaper than a standard design."

To gangs and mercenary corps with little funds at their disposal, the demerits of these designs didn't scare them off too much. Anything that couldn't be solved with quality could be compensated by numbers.

For the first time since the start of his career, Ves felt the urge to design a cheap but effective frontline mech.

"Walter's Whalers can do better. They're getting stiffed by their suppliers."

Ves had casually inquired how much they spent on these mechs, and in his eyes they'd been scammed. The Whalers spent five million credits on pieces of junk that shouldn't be worth more than three million credits.

"I can do better."

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Raella Larkinson strode among the vanguard of the Blood Claws horde. Over two hundred mechs spent days trying to traverse the rugged and uneven terrain of the Glowing Planet.

Since she didn't bring her own mech along, the Blood Claws lent her a mech that fit her well.

The Sliverath wasn't like her Vectrix at all.

Her previous duelling-oriented mech excelled at quick bursts of performance, offering a lot of power at the cost of poor efficiency.

That didn't mean the Sliverath turned those parameters around, but it offered a much flatter performance curve in order to extend its uptime. At their current power-saving pace of marching, the Sliverath could easily last a couple of days without replenishing its energy cells.

The Blood Claws still did so after each day in case they met an ambush. A couple of low hovering transports followed far behind them to supply the mechs. Everyone kept an extremely lengthy distance from the transport vessels, since they carried so many energy cells that the explosion could mimic a weapon of mass destruction if they all set off.

The overcharge phenomenon manifested more changes than that. Each mech kept a healthy distance from each other as well in order to avoid a chain reaction.

They even knew precisely how far they had to disperse. Some of the scientists from the Mech Corps came up with a formula that determined the volatility of each mech from how many energy cells they carried and how much overcharge they held.

The results would be indexed from a number from 0 to 10. The number 0 represented no risk while the number 10 meant that a kilometer wide area would be scoured from end to end.

The Sliverath only received a score of 3, as the light skirmisher didn't offer much space to store a lot of energy cells. It also didn't drain as much as energy as a laser rifleman, so the smaller capacity didn't hinder the mech.

"Hey Dietrich." She called over her private channel with her boyfriend. "How's it going? Do you miss the feeling of flying in the air?"

"Not really. It's way too dangerous to pilot an aerial mech on this cursed planet. I'd rather hide behind some solid cover this time."

The Glowing Planet's abundant exotic minerals emitted constant interference fields that made flying a bad choice. Besides having to deal with unstable flight, any aerial mech would only need to be hit once before they popped like firework due to their light armor and heightened energy consumption.

Thus, Dietrich borrowed an average rifleman mech model instead of a mech identical to his Harrier. Even if he disliked being bound to the land, he didn't want to leave his girlfriend alone when she was about to embark on her first actual battle.

The attack force reached the pirate base a couple of hours later. A scout mech that had been watching over their activities met with Kanaan, the head of the force.

"Report."

"It's just like the boss predicted. The rats have just found out about the overcharge stuff and are scrambling to get their mechs back online. They even stopped their digging activities because of that. Most of their mechs and assets are still above ground.

The scout passed a detailed topographic map of the base to everyone in the attack force. Raella studied it with her own eyes and saw that the pirates circled their grounded carriers as makeshift walls.

"Are these carriers vulnerable?"

"No. The ship crews dismantled and hauled away their energy cells. They're solely running on ship-grade fuel now."

"A shame, but to be expected. The pirates aren't that stupid." Kanaan flatly remarked. "Have you identified the leaders?"

"Yeah. There's a squad of mechs that look fancier than the rest. They're probably part of the Dragons of the Void."

A number of dragon-themed mechs appeared over the projection. The command squad featured a high proportion of swordsman mechs and only included a couple of rifleman mechs for posterity.

"Damn, these swordsman mechs look slippery. It will be hard to pin them down, let alone blow up their energy cells."

After projecting the elite mechs, the scout also showed off some of the regular pirate mechs. "The rest of the pirate models are typical low-tier mechs. They're very diverse, but they're all crappy to an extent."

"What about fixed defenses? Do we have to worry about turrets and such?"

"Oh, they erected a couple of turrets, but as far as I'm aware of, they still run on their own energy cells. Focus at the base of the turrets if you want to pop those cells."

"Noted. Anything else we should know?"

"Yeah. Those ship-grade energy cells I just mentioned? The pirates chucked them to the other side of that mountain over there. I got a marksman stationed far away but with a direct line of sight of that pile."

"You're not thinking of…"

"Oh yeah, let's say we blow it up."

Everyone grinned at that suggestion. Pirates had never been very smart, and these ones seem dimmer than usual for dumping all of their excess energy cells in the same place. Even if the cells had been dumped a couple of kilometers away, the magnitude of the explosion should be unlike anything they had ever seen before.

Kanaan formed a quick adjustment to the plan. "Alright men, let's do it like this. Instead of surrounding the base from all sides, we'll be waiting behind those low hills on the opposite side of the big bang. That should shelter our mechs enough from the blast."

Once the massive explosion ran its course, the Blood Claws and their subordinate forces would rise up from the hills and shoot at the disoriented pirates. However, Kanaan didn't want to let the melee mechs like Raella's Sliverath go forth.

"It's too easy for mechs to clump up this way. It only takes one suicidal pirate to decide he wants to take his opponent with him to the grave. Stay with the ranged mechs and guard them against any incoming pirates."

With the plan set, the attack force moved to their new coordinates. Even though they tried to hide their maneuvers, somehow the pirates got wind of their presence. Alarms sounded out in their comm channels, alerted them of an imminent attack.

"No time! Everyone, hug the ground! Scouts, blow up the energy cells!"

A fair distance away, a single high-intensity laser beam struck the sturdy energy cells stacked up in a mound. The laser bore through the strengthened shell of the ship-grade energy cell and proceeded to excite the overcharged energy within.

BOOOOOOOOM!

The chain reaction happened almost instantly after the first energy cell blew up. All of the explosions melded into a single overwhelming discharge that vaporized the nearby terrain and caused a hefty localized earthquake.

The pirates lost their footing due to the enormous blast. Lots of mechs fell over due to the instability. Only the Blood Claws remained stable as they already huddled their mechs on all fours.

"Attack!" Kanaan ordered.

The rifleman and cannoneer mechs crested behind the hills and began to chew through the ships in their way. They made quick progress as they each focused on a couple of points. The combination of lasers, explosive shells and kinetic projectiles made quick work of the vulnerable hulls.

"The pirates are recovering!" A scout reported. "The enemy command squad are kicking the pirate mechs back to their feet!"

By the time the Blood Claws chewed through a single carrier, the command squad gathered over fifty mechs, with more enemies joining in at any moment.

"Hold position and continue firing!"

The Blood Claws faced more obstacles as the pirates erected a lot of mobile cover blocks. They consisted of cheap, bulky alloys that provided enough cover to protect a pair of mechs.

Neither side gained the advantage at the start, though the mechs fighting for the Blood Claws succeeded in killing a couple of pirate mechs that had been slow to recover. The incidental explosions from those mechs set back any attempts by the pirates to organize into a cohesive defense.

While they destroyed over twenty pirate mechs, the base held a lot more mechs than that. Even if some of them didn't function due to their safeguards, the pirates could still muster more than two-hundred-and-fifty mechs.

One of the dragon mechs organized a loose formation of a little less than a hundred melee mechs. Once they gathered up, they stormed out of the base in an oversized wave that stretches for several kilometers.

"Melee mechs, get ready! Remember, whatever you do, don't focus on their energy cells and keep your ejection trigger at hand. Don't hesitate to eject if you think your energy cells will be breached!"

Both sides met just over the hills in an awkward collision. As if agreed beforehand, neither the pirates nor the Blood Claws clumped up too much. The clash turned into a series of duels as each mech only faced a single opponent at a time.

"This is more like it." Raella grinned as her Sliverath unsheathed a pair of straight knives. Her mech danced forward, carrying with it her eagerness to gut her first pirate mech. "Come on! Let's see if you have what it takes!"

The pirate mech in front of her wielded a spear in one hand and a pistol in the other. While the pistol shot some miniature shells that scratched the Sliverath's coating, it hardly achieved anything else.

Raella outright ignored the pistol and deflected the incoming thrust of the swear by crossing the Sliverath's knives.

"Too weak!"

The spearman mech looked old and rusty. Its performance simply couldn't match a modern advanced mech like the Sliverath. She deftly curved her mech around her opponent and stabbed her knives into the upper back.

The knives peeled away the rear armor. Raella wanted to take out her opponent in one move, but her mech lacked the strength to dig in deeper.

"Damn, I forgot this isn't the Vectrix!"

Her Vectrix would have crippled her opponent's mech in a single strike. Raella hastily recovered from her blunder by moving away before darting back in again. She easily deflected the next one-armed spear stab before she slunk a knife into the rear internals of the pirate mech.

This time, the mech collapsed, having lost all of its power. Raella didn't stick around and moved her Sliverath away. She didn't want to stick around in case the pilot decided to self-destruct his disabled mech.

She aided an allied mech that looked to be in bad shape. The swordsman mech it faced possessed actual skill. Yet Raella made short work of the threat by outmaneuvering the slower mech. Again, she disabled the mech by stabbing it from the stab.

"These pirates are worse than amateur duelists!"

His cousins always warned her not to underestimate an actual battlefield. Raella had to admit they had a point when it came to the Vesia Kingdom's Mech Legion, but these pirates fought like trash.

Once she found her rhythm, Raella easily disabled the pirate mechs left and right. She achieved most of her results by teaming up with a fellow Blood Claw mech. Skirmishers like the Sliverath achieved the best results if their opponents had already been locked into combat with their opponents.

To the side, Raella absently noted that another mech copied the same strategy as hers. She recognized the distinctive black look of her cousin's Blackbeak mech. She sneered at the sight.

"I don't need a babysitter. You shouldn't have come here, Ves."

She ignored the black mech that followed in her Sliverath's footsteps and brought her mech to her next victim.

Over time, the hundred pirate mechs lost a third of their numbers. The difference in quality and he lack of preparation pressed the pirate mechs further away from the vulnerable ranged mechs.

Up to this point, none of the mechs had exploded as of yet. That changed when a rifleman mech bearing the emblem of the Dragons of the Void shot at an immobilized pirate mech.

It blew up, shaking the nearby mechs away from the center of the blast. Both the pirates and the Blood Claws scratched their head at the action. Didn't they worry about friendly fire?

Evidently, the rifleman mech thew common sense out of the window and continued to shoot at the downed mechs, all of which presented easy targets to an experienced rifleman mech pilot. Explosion after explosion erupted on the hills.

At least the Blood Claws already prepared for such a spiteful act. They always fought a healthy distance from the inner radius of any downed mech. This diminished the effectiveness of this tactic.

The Dragons of the Void changed tack. They issued a command that drove the surviving pirates mad. Somehow, they all went berserk.

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"I'm in trouble!"

"Did they all take stimulants or something? They're fighting to the death!"

"AAhhhhh! Save me!"

They suffered their first casualty soon after the sudden change. A knight mech got surrounded by two sword-wielding pirates. The defensive knight lacked the speed to fend off both mechs.

One of the pirates deliberately chipped away at the energy cells stored underneath its thinner rear armor. Once the pirate struck the energy cells, they both turned into conflagrations that further disarrayed the mechs around them and even crippled the other pirate mech.

"They're suicidal!"

"Calm down!" Kanaan roared over the channel. "Ranged mechs, suppress the pirate rifleman mechs. Don't let them set off any more mechs. Everyone else, don't hesitate to eject! If the pirates are eager to blow themselves up, then let's oblige them!"

Kanaan's words stabilized the Blood Claws pilot who had been wavering in their resolve. While it was dishonorable to eject too soon, the changes the Glowing Planet imposed on their mechs left them with little choice. They'd rather lose a mech and save a pilot than lose both of them for a needless cause.

Mechs continued to explode left and right, but the Blood Claws always ejected from their mechs in a timely manner. Once the threat of mutual destruction had been taken away, the pirates fell behind, as their reckless offensive turned them into mindless savages that only knew how to attack in a straightforward way.

Raella felt like she had the time of her life. Her nimble Sliverath easily coursed through the pirate formation and harassed them from the rear. Often times, she aborted her attacks and spun away, which distracted her targets and even prompted a couple of them to hit their self-destruct buttons prematurely.

"Hahahaha!" She laughed as she just finished toying with another mech who blew himself up for no reason. "Is this all you've got!?"

"No."

A swordsman mech almost struck the Sliverath. Only Raella's keen reflexes allowed her to juke her mech away at the last moment. She turned her sensors and gazed at the mech that almost cut off her mech and cursed.

She faced one of the elites this time. The command squad joined their suicidal subordinates and shored up their dwindling numbers. Raella happened to have the bad luck to draw the personal attention of one of those mechs.

"What's your name?"

"You can call me Takeru. And who might you be, milady?"

"Raella Larkinson."

The two mechs stood opposite of each other for a couple of seconds. Eventually, Raella made the first move. Her instincts as a mech athlete screamed at her to make the first move since she piloted the lighter mech.

The Sliverath slithered forth in an undulating trajectory that had been this model's hallmark. It didn't offer as much speed as the Vectrix, but it made up for it in flexibility.

Raella cautiously jabbed forward with a knife, only to get deflected by a powerful counter-strike that continued to chop at the Sliverath's head.

Fortunately, the skirmisher mech easily contorted its frame out of the path of the sword. Raella struck with her other knife, leaving behind a shallow nick on the arm.

"Damnit, what is your mech made of?"

The Slitherath didn't feature any compressed armor, but the mech piloted by her opponent evidently did. This placed a significant burden on her as the Slitherath had to target the same areas over and over to penetrate the tough compressed armor plating.

The dragon mech's pilot was no slouch either. Takeru showed an unprecedented level of mastery in swordsmanship as the dragon mech wielded its sword in both hands with powerful, sweeping strokes.

The speed and power behind each strike left little openings for Raella to exploit despite piloting the faster mech. Takeru ruthlessly took over her momentum and pressed the Sliverath back again and again.

"What the hell are you?! You're not a regular pirate!"

"You are way too green to know how real pirates fight. Let me show you the might of the dragons!"

The swordsman mech unleashed a flurry of continuous blows that left the Sliverath flustered. Both her knives kept being knocked back by the power of the rapid swirling sword strikes. As the Sliverath braced itself for another chop, the dragon mech suddenly lashed out with a kick which ruined its balance.

The sword chopped forth and struck an ugly rent in the Sliverath's chest. Only Raella's quick decision to go with the fall had saved her mech from being chopped apart by the shoulder.

A couple of long-ranged lasers struck the swordsman mech, but they did little but annoy it. Dietrich sporadically fired his rifle at Takeru's mech, but the angle and all of the other mechs in the way made it difficult for him to suppress the elite mech.

"Hold on, Raella! Help is on the way! My buddy Fadah will buy some time for you to retreat."

She didn't want to turn her back on this opponent. Even though Takeru outclassed her in both skill and mech, Raella wanted to prove herself as a warrior. Picking off those weak pirates didn't cut it for her.

Before the dragon mech unleashed another attack, a second mech struck it from behind, forcing Takeru to abort his attack. A slim moon-shaped phoenix shield slammed into the dragon mech's sword. The impact pushed the pirate mech away and allowed the Blackbeak to position itself in front of the damaged Sliverath.

"Raella, right? Your mech is in bad shape. You're in no shape to fight any further. I'll hold this bastard off for you!"

"No!" Raella growled, and tested the responsiveness of her mech. "I can still fight! Let's take him down together!"

Her left arm had lost most of its motive power. The damage to the shoulder had been too severe. Raella gave up on the limb and focused solely on using the Sliverath's right arm to deliver her attacks.

If her mech was in better shape, she would have insisted on taking on the elite mech alone, even though the odds of victory was low. Teaming up with Fadah had already pressed against her limits.

The Blackbeak mech shrugged and turned around to face the swordsman mech with its sword and shield. As a slimmed down offensive knight, the Blackbeak wouldn't fare well if it engaged in a straightforward slugging match against the pirate mech. Much like the Sliverath, the modified Blackbeak began to approach the dragon mech in a zig-zag and at an angle.

Fadah unleashed a couple of probing strikes, but Takeru aggressively deflected the attacks. He proved to be well-versed in dealing with faster mechs.

Once Takeru got the measure of the Blackbeak, his dragon mech surged forward and went on the offensive. Fadah had to rely on his shield to block most of the blows.

Before the dragon mech could press the Blackbeak further, the Slitherath quietly appeared from behind and tried to stab the dragon mech's vulnerable rear.

"Did you think I was blind? Your intentions are too transparent!"

The dragon mech spun his sword in a spin that deflected the Blackbeak away and left another dangerous rent in the Sliverath's chest. Raella's reflexes saved her mech again, if barely.

"Go away!"

"Screw you, doghead! I'm taking this bastard down!"

Both Raella and Fadah found themselves in a tentative uncoordinated dance against the indomitable Takeru. His dragon mech's specs exceeded the Blackbeak by a fair margin, though it still ran on energy cells so it was vulnerable to the same risks as the other machines that ran on the same source of energy.

This enabled the pair to exploit this weakness by constantly threatening to attack the rear of the dragon mech. Even if Takeru didn't think much of Raella, he still had to shift his attention to deflect her latest probe.

Dietrich tried to lend a hand but he never got a clear line of sight. The pirates had finally gotten their act together and sent out additional mechs to shore up the first wave of melee mechs.

Despite the precautions taken by the Blood Claws, mechs continued to explode in a disturbingly regular interval. Kanaan had largely lost control over his men as everyone fought for themselves.

Only the ranged mechs maintained some sense of order as they coordinated their attacks on isolated enemies. They didn't dare fire their weapons into the middle of the grand melee for fear of setting off a chain reaction.

Unfortunately, the pirates didn't hold as much scruples and constantly tried to aggravate the situation. This in turn forced the Blood Claws to allocate all of their ranged mechs to suppression duty. The pirate marksmen shouldn't be allowed to set off any energy cells with impunity.

Takeru's dragon mech suffered a few more nicks and scratches after a minute of back and forth. Despite being outnumbered, the pirate elite possessed enough skill to fend off both of its opponents at once.

"Hahahaha! Amateurs! Both your blades are dull! Without tempering your skill through life-and-death battles, how can you call yourself a mech pilot!"

"Shut up you criminal!" Raella roared as she pushed her anger into her damaged mech, willing it to slide the knife in the waist of the dragon mech. She completely forgot about the precarious risk of setting off an energy cell.

The pirate mech spun away in the nick of time. Takeru even left another sword mark on the Blackbeak's chest armor.

Fortunately, the Veltrex armor system held up decently well against the power of the dragon mech's sword strikes. For all of its speed and elegance, it relied mostly on technique and momentum for its bite. By pressuring Takeru from two directions, they prevented him from building up sufficient momentum for a heavy blow.

Fadah gained more confidence and started to regain some of the initiative. He didn't allow his opponent to wind up for one of his endless flurry of blows by making frequent but shallow attacks. He even struck with the edge of his phoenix shield to knock the dragon mech out of balance.

Takeru's mech started to suffer. Even Raella managed to sneak some superficial stabs in between the pirate's occupation with the Blackbeak. Takeru had to devote more and more attention to fending off Fadah's frequent attacks.

At some point, Fadah felt something deep within him echo with the Blackbeak he piloted. Their connection somehow crystallized in a deeper form of synchronization. The line between man and machine started to blur, but only for an instant.

Fadah made his move in that brief window of opportunity.

The Blackbeak surged forth at the swordsman mech's left flank. Takeru released a windmill chop that would have forced the Blackbeak to block with its shield. Instead of taking the chop head-on, Fadah angled the shield in a way that put the brunt of the force on the rim of the shield.

This gave his Blackbeak enough of a push to swivel around and put more strength into its stab. Fadah's sword sunk into the dragon mech's joints. The thin, flexible plates of compressed armor only blunted half of the force in the stab. The remaining power proved to be sufficient to disable the joint between the arm and the shoulder.

"NO!"

Takeru's mech lost a significant amount of threat after Fadah succeeded in disabling one of its arm. Even though the dragon mech continued to put up a good fight with one arm, the mech obviously lacked a lot of power compared to before.

This allowed Fadah to be more unscrupulous with his attacks. The Blackbeak's sword and shield started to hammer the tough exterior of the dragon mech. In contrast, Takeru could barely bite into the Blackbeak's Veltrex armor with his feeble sword strikes.

It didn't help that Fadah decided to stick his mech close to his opponent's machine. The shortened distance proved ideal for the Blackbeak to attack with its one-handed sword.

The dragon mech meanwhile couldn't leverage enough distance to enable its longer sword to exert its full power.

CLANG!

The swordsman mech shuddered as Fadah shaved off an important armor plate from the dragon's mech chest. Its internals became exposed.

SHUNK!

At the same time, Raella took advantage of Takeru's shock by stabbing the Sliverath's sole knife into the shoulder blade of the dragon's mechs sole functioning arm. While her knife didn't manage to cripple the arm, the damage it inflicted had severed a couple of minor systems, which reduced the pirate mech's responsiveness.

"I will not fall on this cursed planet!"

"Oh shut up you pirate!"

Both Raella and Fadah went for the killing blow. The Blackbeak locked the dragon mech's sword with its shield while ramming the tip of its sword into the exposed chest of its opponent. Raella meanwhile positioned the Sliverath low to the ground and sunk the knife into the dragon mech's knee.

Takeru's mech lost its footing and much of its power. It fell down onto face.

"Get away!" Dietrich yelled. He'd always been keeping an eye on their duel as he fired his laser rifle in support of other Blood Claws. "He's going to blow!"

Both mechs retreated in an instant, already bracing themselves for the inevitable blow.

Yet instead of an explosion, the dragon mech's cockpit ejected from the rear. Its powerful short-ranged boosters took away Takeru away from the battle and back to the besieged pirate encampment.

"Damnit! He got away!"

Even though the escape spoiled some of the glory, Raella still felt good about winning against her first formidable opponent. She didn't mind too much that she needed help.

"Thanks for the help, dude. Let's go clean up the rest."

The fall of an influential pirate elite rippled throughout the rest of the pirate faction. Despite their fanaticism, the rest of the pirates couldn't withstand the determined Blood Claws.

Even the command squad from the Dragons of the Void suffered casualties and Raella and Fadah teamed up to dismantle them one by one. This time, they didn't let their pilots eject. They both aimed to take out the cockpit from the start.

After half an hour of intensive battle, the Blood Claws won the melee, though it cost them half of their melee mechs.

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The Blood Claws and their subordinate forces lost too many mechs from a single engagement. Even though the pirates put up a decent fight, the battle shouldn't have been so deadly to their mechs and pilots.

Ordinarily, mechs could soak a lot of damage. Even uncompressed mechs outperformed conventional tanks due to their mobility which allowed them to dodge or mitigate a lot of incoming attacks.

"It's this overcharge nonsense." Kanaan uttered as he saw the devastation in front of him. A field of craters and broken parts had been strewn before the pirate base that his men heaped their vengeance upon right now. "Any battle besides an ambush will result in a pyrrhic victory for whoever's left."

A few of the senior Blood Claws by his side nodded. "Our steeds have become our worst enemies."

"It's too difficult to guard your energy cells in a larger battle."

"We'll be turning our pilots into cowards if we allow them to eject too early."

"Mechs have turned into fragile scrap. Even the Mech Corps will run out of mechs by the end of the month at this rate."

Their first actual battle had taught them a lot of lessons on the devastating consequences of the overcharge phenomenon. A single change to the functioning of an energy cell had resulted in far-reaching effects for any force that fielded mechs.

The Blood Claws completely lost their appetite for further battles. None of the men found any glory to be had in the grueling fight they had just concluded. If they hadn't been compelled to attack the base by the 4th Bentheim Division, they would have never ranged this far from their walls.

"Alright, let's wrap it up here. Rescue any mech pilots that are trapped and finish off any pirates that are still alive except for the leaders. Have you gotten a hold of Takeru and the rest of the Dragons of the Void?"

"They ran away. They still hid a small corvette in between their carriers which lifted off out of sight behind that hill over there."

"Damn!"

Even if they stomped a dangerous forward outpost, thus reducing the threat to their base, Kanaan still felt sore about the losses.

Over the next days, the news trickled back to the Mech Corps and their affiliate powers. The Whalers especially took the news with a gut punch, because they lost six mechs and four pilots. Proportionally, they suffered the worst casualties out of the outfits that took part in the assault.

This time, the Whalers hadn't been able to drink their gloom away.

Ves quietly shook his head as he finished modifying the umpteenth mech. He developed an efficient routine that allowed him to come up with some basic modifications on the fly and implement them into the cheap mechs in three hours or less.

He had to cut a lot of corners in order to achieve this speed, but Ves succeeded in overhauling every mech in the hands of the Whalers within a week.

"I can't waste too much time in this base. The Whalers will be fine without me once I find a solution to the overcharge phenomenon."

Ves had devoted some of his off-time to researching what the Glowing Planet did to achieve this bizarre phenomenon. His current hypothesis was that some energetic exotic mineral emitted an all-pervasive energy field that changed the properties of stored energy.

The worst trait about the energy field was that it couldn't be blocked by anything. To test this out, Ves repurposed some tons of scrap and built a thick enclosure around a freshly drained and recharged energy cell.

The cell still gained an overcharge after a day.

If Ves couldn't prevent the field from affecting an energy cell surrounded by meters of alloys, then nothing else but some other exotic alloy would be able to block the energy field. The problem was that Ves had no clue what kind of exotics would qualify.

Walter's Whalers accumulated more than fifty different minerals from their mining activities over two locations.

The old site contained more active and more valuable minerals, but none seemed to possess any special interaction with energy.

As for the new site, it contained an entirely different mix of exotics, but again nothing seemed to stand out to Ves.

Perhaps some of these exotics held the key to solving the problem, but it would take too much time to probe each type of mineral. Ves needed a faster, surer solution than a gamble with exotics.

Through his casual studies and experimentation, Ves developed a number of approaches on how to tackle the problem.

He could invest in his Physics Sub-Skills and become more knowledgeable in the abstract fields of energy.

He could invest in Metallurgy and reinvigorate his research on exotics in order to come up with a new exotic alloy that might be able to influence the mysterious energy field.

He could also throw a Hail Mary and acquire some eclectic Sub-Skills from the Metaphysics tree. Perhaps a deeper understanding into the imaginary would be needed to fight against the unknown.

After lengthy contemplation, he rejected these approaches. All of them strayed too far from his core competence as a mech designer.

"I'm a mech designer, not a scientist. There's a difference between the two."

The former took the tools at hand and combined them in a way that solved the problem at hand. The latter wasn't content with the tools already available, and sought to explore new methods.

Neither approach was wrong. Both had the potential to come up with an effective solution to the overcharge phenomenon, and Ves had to take the approach that fit him best.

"Let's try it from an mech designer and engineering standpoint."

Ves called up a design for a typical energy cell.

Their design didn't differ too much from brand to brand. Protective materials and safeguards took up around twenty percent of its volume.

The most important part of an energy cell lay in the patterns and arrays that stored the actual energy. The cheaper cells used mundane alloys while the more expensive ones incorporated exotic resources that drastically increased their maximum capacity.

As far as Ves was aware, the overcharge phenomenon didn't discriminate between materials. Both cheap and expensive cells suffered from the same problem, though with slight differences in magnitude.

Another correlation he found was that certain structures resulted in a less drastic overcharge than other structures.

Ves focused on the latter for a possible solution. "If I can play with this structure, I might be able to achieve a drastic difference."

He figured that most scientists and mech designers that had tagged along with the forces here would focus on the materials instead. With the abundant amount of exotics dug from the ground, they may be able to figure out an effective new alloy that could mitigate the phenomenon.

From the moment they heard about the Glowing Planet, the Mech Corps would have certainly brought along a lot of specialists who dedicated their lives to understanding exotics.

In contrast, they probably didn't think of bringing any mech designers or engineers who specialized in energy cells. In truth, much of the innovation with regards to energy cells had been kept in the hands of the large trans-galactic corporations.

Hardly any mech designers decided to specialize in something as boring as energy cells. They'd rather license an affordable ready-made design. After all, specializing in other components yielded easier performance gains and saved them a lot of money in licensing costs.

"What kind of Skills and Sub-Skills do I need to specialize in designing energy cells?"

The worst part about working on the Glowing Planet was that the Whalers didn't set up a quantum entanglement node. Neither did the Blood Claws do so for that matter. The Mech Corps forbid any communication with the rest of the galaxy and strictly prohibited the activation of any nodes on the ground.

Only the Mech Corps themselves enjoyed that privilege.

"I don't have the right to access the galactic net from their access points."

Ves shook his head and decided to explore another way. He returned to his barracks and entered his private bunk. After sealing it up, he activated his Privacy Shield and activated the Mech Designer System before navigating to the Skill Tree.

"Let's see what you've got."

With over 50,000 DP to spend, Ves had plenty of points to spend on various Skills and Sub-Skills. The basic ones didn't take too much DP to unlock.

"I'm already a Journeyman in Electrical Engineering, but I don't have a lot of Sub-Skills related to this field."

To be honest, he hadn't found a use for that Skill outside of coming up with new internal architectures for his designs. Ves made very little gains in this field ever since he forcibly upgraded it by spending his DP.

"It's time to make better use of you."

He found a couple of related Sub-Skills that sounded relevant to the issue at hand.

[Energy Storage I: 400 DP

[Energy Storage II: 800 DP

[Energy Storage III: 1600 DP

[Energy Storage IV: 3200 DP

Learning these Sub-Skills all at once gave Ves a much deeper understanding on the physical makeup of energy cells.

Ves understood what each safeguard did and how they prevented any shorting or accidental discharge. He knew why mech designers came up with a single size and format of an energy cell.

He learned the basics of how an cell could pack more energy by using different materials or incorporating them in different structures, alternating between conductors, superconductors, exotic conductors and nonconductive materials.

"This is a lot."

He turned from a novice to an amateur expert with regards to energy cells. Previously, Ves treated them like black boxes, something that was independent from his designs and should not be tinkered with. Now that he gained all of this new knowledge, he finally gained the basic confidence to tweak an existing energy cell.

"It's not enough to design a new one, however."

Ves lacked too much of the underlying science and engineering to develop a new energy cell from scratch. Fortunately, that had never been his goal from the start. He didn't need to reinvent the wheel. He just had to modify an existing one to the point where it stopped acquiring an overcharge.

New knowledge brought new understanding. Combined with his previous experimentation, be realized how impossible it was for energy cells to hold more charge than they had been designed to store.

"It's impossible. It simply doesn't work that way."

Yet somehow, it did.

He shook his head. Ves would get a headache if he kept obsessing about the impossible nature of an overcharged energy cell.

Now that he received a crash course about energy cells, Ves figured out the kind of Sub-Skills he needed to design or modify different structures.

[Conductors I: 1000 DP

[Conductors II: 2000 DP

[Conductors III: 4000 DP

Ves gained a much better insight into conductors, superconductors and exotic conductors with this cross-discipline Sub-Skill. It elaborated on the Energy Storage IV by going into detail about the properties of different conductors and how modern energy cell designers squeezed more energy density out of the materials they had at hand.

"It doesn't help me too much with finding a solution."

As far as he knew, regardless of the material, as long as they conducted energy, they all became susceptible to the overcharge phenomenon. It would take a deeper dive into Metallurgy to come up with a conductive material that might be immune to the energy field.

"That's not the focus of my research."

Learning about conductors didn't just help him design better energy cells. It also benefited his insights on how to design a more efficient internal architecture for mechs. In that regard, he didn't waste his DP.

"It's not that relevant, though."

Still, he needed it to understand the actual energy storage portion of an energy cell. Combined with his other knowledge, Ves began to see the light.

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Ves hadn't spent 13,000 DP in vain.

The Energy Storage IV and Conductors III Sub-Skill provided him with enough of a foundation to take any existing energy cell design and transform it into something else. They also provided him with a promising approach on how to deal with the overcharge phenomenon.

"The Glowing Planet's energy field can't be stopped or blocked. An energy cell will acquire an overcharge whether they're empty or full. The energy field makes it so that energy cells won't let physics stand in the way of stuffing themselves full with energy."

What did this mean?

"I should just let it happen. The key is to mitigate the problem after it has occurred."

The simplest and most primitive way would be to drain the overcharge, either by siphoning it elsewhere or by using it up in a rapid fashion.

"I'm sure someone is already figuring out a way to do that. It's not very efficient or safe, though."

Dealing with such a deadly amount of charge risked courting disaster. Any excessive transfers also generated massive amounts of heat and stressed out any components involved. Mechs would require daily maintenance to continue to function this way.

Such a solution merely exchanged one problem for another.

Ves wanted to develop a more elegant solution. In order to gain entry into the fortifications erected by the Mech Corps, Ves had to present the brass with a new design that could impress them on the spot.

"Let's think about the structure for a moment."

Pretty much every mech-grade energy cell focused on cramming as much energy as possible inside its standardized volume. The materials and structures used in the cell focused primarily on maximizing their energy density.

Ves wondered if a structure that prioritized a different goal would be able to achieve a different result. Every energy cell he encountered so far used the same principles to store their energy. They only different in the safeguards and the materials used, leading to a limited variation of structures that basically looked the same from a distance.

A couple of different ideas flourished in his mind. Ves opened the designer program and spent some time designing alternate energy cell designs using existing ones as the base.

To put it simply, Ves thought he might find a solution by lowering the energy density of a cell. In essence, he wanted to see whether the overcharge phenomenon could maintain its strength against an energy cells that had been purposefully designed to be bad.

He only spent half a day to come up with four different designs, which he further split up into cheap and expensive variants.

Compared to conventional energy cells, these deviations worked a lot less efficiently than others. They generated substantially more waste heat while holding much less charge in total.

"It's all well and good to doodle some new designs, but the only way to see if it works is if I fabricate some physical copies."

Ves left his bunk and went to the nearest workshop. The Whalers brought a cheap 3D printer to this expedition. It was the sole machine that could print new components if their mechs required replacement parts.

He unconsciously sneered at the sight. The cheap and awful printer had obviously been salvaged from a former production site. Lack of maintenance and overall neglect had degraded the machine to a fairly awful state. The Whalers didn't even bother using it to fabricate most of their replacement parts, preferring to order new ones from another source.

"Well, it's not like I have anything better to work with. Let's fix her up."

He performed some superficial maintenance on the machine. The machine probably hadn't received so much care in a decade. Most of what he did amounted to cleaning the interior and correcting the alignment of any components that had shifted during intensive jobs.

Ves lacked the expertise to bring the printer back to its prime, not that he had the time to spare in the first place. "This should be enough to work with some precision."

He didn't place a lot of demands on the quality of his energy cells. He only wanted some proof of concepts to test out his ideas.

As some of the simpler components of a mech, the printer didn't have to strain too much to spit out the energy cells. It only took two hours to fabricate all eight of them. Ves ordered a couple of bots to take them away to an empty underground testing chamber he appropriated from the Whalers.

While it didn't matter if they held a charge or not, Ves charged them up to full capacity anyway in order to hurry up the process. After that, he set some automated measuring equipment before leaving the energy cells alone.

Ves checked up on his experiment every twelve hours.

The first time he checked in, he raised his eyebrows. Surprisingly enough, one pair of energy cells that shared the same design acquired an overcharge after only several hours.

"If I want to develop a cheap bomb, then this should be the right direction. It's a shame no one will want this. It's too volatile."

He carefully directed a couple of bots to lift the two cells and take them far away from the base. After that, he made some more adjustments to his rig before he left the chamber.

Over the course of several days, Ves continued to visit the chamber to inspect his progress. The other pairs of energy cells eventually became affected by the overcharge phenomenon, but different than last time, the problem became much less severe.

Regular energy cells acquired a charge that varied from three to seven times their initial capacity. In contrast, his experimental designs only acquired a maximum charge of two times its initial capacity.

Ves chalked it up to the tricks he used to minimize the magnification of the charge. He introduced deliberate inefficiencies to stifle any way the energy field could accomplish its physically impossible effects.

Some tricks worked better than others. At the end, the final pair of energy cells which incorporated the most radical redesign gained an overcharge of only a hundred-and-thirty percent, which was drastically lower than anything else he'd seen so far. It also took a lot longer for the energy field to affect these cells, as if it couldn't figure out how to manipulate it in its favor.

The magnitude of any explosive discharges from these cells would be severely curtailed. Ves virtually eliminated the hazards with this design.

While Ves should have been happy with the result, he didn't jump for joy when he ended his test.

"Why am I only able to achieve the best results with my worst design?"

The fourth pair of energy cells only carried a third of the energy of their equivalent industry-standard cells. That basically meant that each mech that ran on energy cells had to choose between becoming moving bombs or working with seventy percent less uptime.

Ves figured that most mech pilots favored the latter. "It's not that much of a problem to a defensive force. The Mech Corps can fabricate an abundant amount of energy cells and instruct their mech pilots to resupply more often."

It was a much more tolerable situation than to constantly worry about chain reactions. Even if his so-called undercharged energy cells sustained critical damage, the explosion wouldn't set off any other cells due to the low magnification and low base charge.

In fact, mechs would be able to safely and quickly use up the meager amount of excess energy in their normal operations. That largely made up for the pitiful amount of capacity of his undercharged energy cells and extend the running time of any mech.

His only regret was that he lacked the time to finetune the design of his undercharged energy cells. Ves had already wasted a lot of time with coming up with these new energy cells and the the seventy-day deadline loomed closer every day. He couldn't afford to perform a second round of research and development.

While Ves wrapped up his experiments and drew up a report, up in space, the Glowing Zone hosted a lot more fleets than before.

"Another day, another group of incoming clowns." Ghanso sighed as his mech lazily patrolled the a detachment of carriers positioned to intercept anyone that wanted to make a move on the Mech Corps. "I never knew there were so many rats in the Komodo Star Sector."

Old Man Alex laughed as his space knight flew beside Ghanso's Vhedra-S. "We're right up against the frontier. It's a given that our star sector is filled with criminals. I'm guessing that at least a quarter of the pirates from the Nyxian Gap have made their way here."

The amount of pirates that have reached the Glowing Zone had reached a disconcerting level. Many of them organized themselves around major pirate organizations like the Dragons of the Void. Over ten such armadas have already formed and made their way towards the Glowing Planet.

"Do you think the rumors are true? Are we really going to sign a truce with the Vesians?"

"We have to." Alex said. "There are too many pirates for us to continue our squabble. Even if we hate each other, we're not stupid. Any fight to the death will only benefit the scum watching from the side."

Besides their initial skirmishes, the Mech Corps and the Mech Legion completely gave up any attempt to fob each other off from the Glowing Planet. Too many vultures had gathered to continue their schoolyard spat.

They would rather allow their principal enemy to benefit from the Glowing Planet than to pave the way for lawless pirates to reap the ultimate rewards. For this, they buried the hatchet.

"All the armada's are on the move again. They'll be here within days."

"It took them long enough to get their hands on a batch of dimensional smoothers. How are they getting their hands on them? I thought only the government or the Big Two has access to that technology."

"It's not that much of a surprise if you assume the pirates are backed up by another major power." Ghanso replied. He couldn't help but add an ominous tone to his voice. "I've been thinking about what's going on lately. Did you ever feel that we're being stared at by another influence?"

"Not at all. Who the hell is crazy enough to covet the Komodo Star Sector? Besides our border to the frontier, we've got nothing that's worth a damn. Anyone who's stirring the pot is probably bored or brain damaged."

Even if Old Man Alex had a point, Ghanso still couldn't shake off the idea that the pirates secretly worked for someone else.

An alert sounded out, prompting Captain Rynsel to issue new orders. "Heads up! Our fleet has detected incoming stealth vessels. They've been very sneaky in their approach, but our sensors spotted them out. The Volari Starhawks have been assigned to intercept this unknown fleet."

"Do we know of their origin, ma'am?"

"Command is just as clueless as you. It's likely not the Mech Legion. We already have a fairly complete database on the kind of ships they use. It's either pirates, mercenaries or foreigners."

That didn't reassure Ghanso very much. His Vedra-S fell into formation as the Volari Starhawks flew forward in a very obvious intercept of the unknown fleet.

This prompted the sneaky bastards to drop their stealth.

"Detecting fifteen medium-sized carriers! They're deploying spaceborn mechs! They're turning around!"

"Hah! The cowards don't have the guts to face the Starhawks face to face!"

"They're also outnumbered two-to-one. Those stealth carriers don't hold much capacity. They look awfully advanced, though."

Captain Rynsel relayed another order. "Pursue! We've got the advantage in numbers and they're still fighting back against their previous forward momentum! This is the only chance we have to catch up to them!"

The Volari Starhawks descended on the latest fleet of outsiders that attempted to sneak past the Mech Corps. They already destroyed or chased away a half-dozen different fleets. The Mech Corps held the advantage for now, but Ghanso doubted they would be able to hold against the major pirate fleets.

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Time was of the essence. Ves immediately entered the comm center and sent a priority message to the Mech Corps through the hardline connection that ran from the Whalers.

His message passed on to the Blood Claws, who didn't dare to delay its transmission in any way given the import of the claims that Ves had made.

Just a couple of minutes later, Ves received a receipt from the base commander herself. He had to sit tight and wait for transport. They wanted to bring him over to verify his invention with their own eyes.

Since this might be the last time he'd stick with the Whalers, Ves quickly sought out Walter and filled him in about his breakthrough.

"You really did it? That's great news!" Walter laughed and embraced the mech designer in a meaty hug. "We won't get to blow up anymore!"

Ves didn't have the heart to hide the designs for the undercharged energy cells from Walter. He passed the gang leader a secure data chip that contained all of the technical specifications.

"You can hand that over to any decent mech technician. They're easy to fabricate but it will take some time before you're able to replace all of your existing cells."

At least they solved this pervasive problem. Ves also granted the Whalers an opportunity to butter up to the Blood Claws by presenting the designs to them a little early. The sooner everyone replaced their energy cells, the safer everyone would be.

Ves and Walter quickly discussed some logistical matters. The Whalers dearly lacked some technical expertise, but this time Walter actually listened to the critique.

"I've been thinking about that as well. Our mechs fared worse than the others in the pirate base assault. We've got a lot of shaping up to do. If I hand over your invention to the Blood Claws, I can probably get them to lend us some of their senior technicians. Heavens know we need someone who can take over what you've done for us so far."

They parted with each other on amicable terms. Ves quickly packed his meager luggage and sought out Lucky who'd been digging for exotics near the mines. His gluttonous cat must have eaten tons of the stuff already, but he hadn't gained any weight at all.

"You must be chock full of energy right now." Ves grasped hold of his silvery mechanical cat. "We might be moving to the red zone soon. Don't run around randomly, okay? There's a whole bunch of military men running around there so you might be spooking them if you're trespassing into a restricted area."

"Meow!"

His cat appeared to look forward to entering the red zone. As for tripping alarms and alerting the guards, Lucky didn't seem to be worried about that. He only had more exotics in mind.

Fadah and the rest of the Whalers who raided the pirate base hadn't returned yet, so Ves couldn't say goodbye to the inheritor of his Blackbeak in person. Ves composed a quick message and addressed it to Fadah's comm, which would receive it as soon as it returned to the local network.

The only complication that remained was that Ves had to leave Melkor and his Stanislaw behind.

"It's fine, Ves." Melkor replied as he leaned against the foot of his mech. "The Mech Corps and I aren't exactly buddies since they cashiered me. It's best I stay away from their premises in order to avoid any misunderstandings. I'll stick with the Whalers and try to help out Raella whenever possible."

Ves felt reassured that Melkor didn't blame him for bailing out. "That sounds good. Don't forget the contingency plans. I strongly suspect this base won't hold against a determined attack. More and more pirates are descending upon the Glowing Planet. It's going to get awfully crowded soon."

They both heard the news that trickled down from the Blood Claws. Tens of thousands of ships had appeared in the Glowing Zone. Most of them didn't seem to acknowledge any authority except for their own. Even Ves could tell that the Mech Corps had no way of holding back the sheer number of pirates on their way to the Glowing Planet.

They said their goodbyes before Ves left for the landing on the surface in his hazard suit. He only had to wait a couple of minutes before an armored shuttle escorted by a couple of aerial mechs descended on the pad. A uniformed officer appeared from the hatch.

"Mr. Larkinson, please step inside. Do you have the samples?"

"They're over there." Ves pointed at the bots holding the pair of energy cells that fared best in his previous test. "I've already drained their charge, but it's best to handle them with care."

The shuttle sent out their own set of bots who grabbed hold of the samples with extreme care. They carefully placed the cells into purpose-built boxes before closing them up with an abundance of locks.

Once Ves and Lucky stepped inside and the boxes had been stowed away into the shuttle's cargo compartment, the shuttle lifted off.

Neither the officer nor the guards appeared talkative, so Ves remained in his seat and stroked his apprehensive gem cat. Lucky must be feeling apprehensive at being stuck inside a shuttle full of armed guards and countermeasures. It became clear to Ves that the Mech Corps treated his invention with utmost importance.

It didn't take too long for the shuttle to arrive at the center of the sprawling fortification in the middle of the red zone. The closer they got to the center, the more Ves become more uncomfortable.

"Over thirteen energy fields are being projected from the red zone." The officer commented when he noticed Ves having trouble keeping himself together. "As far as we're aware of, they have minimal effects on human physiology, but it will take some time to get used to them. The side effects will fade within a day."

Somehow, Ves didn't think the regular rules applied to him. His main source of discomfort came from his recently-diminished internal energy cycle. For some reason, something underground exerted an attraction on the energy. Like a magnet pulling metals from their place, Ves found that the unknown attraction field attempted to pull his internal energy away from his chest.

It hurt quite a lot.

He groaned a bit and tried to flex his body to cope with the changes. His energy cycle had become deformed, and it took quite a bit of effort for his body to get used to the new configuration.

"I'm okay." Ves waved away the officer when he approached to lend a hand. "I'm not a baseline human. My enhancements are going a little haywire from the energy fields."

"You should visit the medbay."

"It's okay. Let's get my meeting with the base commander out of the way first. I don't think she's patient enough to wait for me to recover."

An entire squad of armed guards took away the boxes that contained the undercharged energy cells. Meanwhile Ves received his own honor guard who firmly but briskly led him down to the underground city the Mech Corps had dug up with their advanced mining equipment.

The base was a veritable hive of activity. The Mech Corps constantly shifted men and mechs back and forth. Even though the overcharge phenomenon had turned every mech into a deathtrap, their pilots hadn't been deterred from doing their duty at all. Ves missed this sense of professionalism. The Whalers looked like toddlers in comparison.

The officer led Ves straight through a series of elevators before leading him to a command center which coordinated the Republic's presence on the Glowing Planet. Ves only got a tiny glimpse of the projection with the disposition of every force before they reached a guarded checkpoint before the office of the base commander.

Once Ves got scanned yet again, he was allowed entry, though he had to leave Lucky behind again.

"Remember, don't crawl off, Lucky. Stay."

After he made sure that Lucky understood the import of staying in place, Ves walked through the hatch and took a seat in front of a simple alloy desk.

The base commander appeared to be a typical veteran from the Mech Corps. The woman looked hard and she didn't bother to apply any cosmetic procedures to work away the wrinkles she gained from reaching middle age. Her short black hair had been bound up in a ball, thereby exposing Ves to the base commander's piercing eyes.

"Mr. Larkinson. It's not every day I see one out of uniform. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise, Colonel Ilos."

"When I heard you developed a special set of energy cells that claim to mitigate the overcharge phenomenon, I couldn't believe how fast you came up with them. The full weight of the Mech Corps has bent around the problem for weeks. We've put entire research teams on the issue and we've even contracted half-a-dozen different energy cell developers to present us with a better solution. You cannot imagine the amount of resources we've devoted to coming up with a solution."

Ves was very surprised to hear how much effort the Mech Corps put into their own research. "Has it paid off, then? Did you already develop a better solution?"

"Not… exactly." The Colonel admitted freely. "Efficiency has been low due to the relative lack of expertise among our own research teams. As for the developers, they're constrained by the fact that they have only heard about the problem second-hand. They claim that the overcharge phenomenon is such an impossible occurrence that they're having difficulty figuring out a direction for a viable solution."

It sounded like the energy cell developers might have other concerns in mind. Perhaps they planned on dragging their feet, thereby extracting more concessions from the Mech Corps.

Maybe they even signed a secret agreement with some other faction like the Vesia Kingdom's Mech Legion.

Ves was curious about the progress they had made so far. "What's the best solution your researchers have come up with?"

Colonel Ilos handed him a data pad that contained a classified document of a different energy cell design. Unlike the design formed by Ves, this one adopted the same conventional structure for the energy storage portion. The only difference was that the various conductors consisted of newly developed alloys formed out of exotics extracted from the ground.

"As you can see, our researchers suspect that one or more of the exotics underneath the red zone is responsible for the overcharge energy field. By incorporating these suspect exotics into our energy cells, they believe that they can block or interfere with this energy field."

"Looks like your research teams are onto something. It's pretty impressive to limit the overcharge to two-hundred percent of max capacity."

"That's not as impressive as reducing it to a hundred-and-thirty percent. Even if your energy cell design is under capacity, at least my pilots won't be having nightmares about piloting death traps anymore."

An energy cell that contained twice as much energy still risked being blown up. With the amount of charge such a cell normally stormed, the explosive discharge would have definitely been powerful enough to set off any other energy cells in the vicinity. What the Mech Corps had produced up to this point wouldn't be sufficient to negate the problem.

Only Ves had accomplished the goal that every research team assigned to the problem had been trying to figure out. While he didn't doubt that the energy cell developers would have come up with a similar solution, even a week's delay could lead to another disaster on the battlefield.

The next wave of pirates and fortune seekers were about to descend on the increasingly crowded Glowing Planet. Battle could not be avoided any longer. The sooner the Mech Corps switched their energy cells, the faster they regained their confidence.

"As you know, I didn't present you with these energy cells for free." Ves laid out his intentions. "Can you grant me a couple of favors?"

The colonel considered his request. "We can't promise you anything, but I'll do my best to satisfy your wishes."

So far, Colonel Ilos had been remarkably friendly to Ves. He chalked it up to offering up his energy cell design upfront without any delays. That action alone bought him a lot of good will.

Still, Ves sensed his family name helped a lot as well. Some people in the Mech Corps respected any Larkinson by their lineage alone, while others hated their family to the bones. Colonel Ilos probably fell into the former group, which happened to be very convenient at this moment.

"You see, I have a couple of things in mind, ma'am."

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Ves didn't dare be too greedy in his demands. He started with the most critical and important request. "I'd like to be a part of the mining expedition that seeks to extract the resources buried close to the core of the planet."

As soon as he mentioned the core, Colonel Ilos turned sharp. She completely shed her friendly expression. "Where did you hear about our deep mining operations?"

"I've been assigned to retrieve something valuable from the core." Ves quickly responded. "As you know, I'm apprenticed to Master Carmin Olson, who's currently a guest professor of the Leemar Institute of Technology. As her subordinate, I'm sometimes called to take care of business on her organization's behalf."

What he said was all true, but Ves deliberately mixed his actual meaning. His first sentence about being assigned to retrieve an ore from the core of the planet had been true, but he didn't explicitly state that he received this mission from the System.

What he said after that had no relations with what he said earlier, but by stringing these two sentences together, he weaved the illusion that Master Olson had actually given him this assignment.

Ves had become increasingly more adept to cover for the System and lie in a way that wouldn't trip any lie detectors hidden in the colonel's office.

"If it's behalf of an eminent Master Mech Designer, then I'm sure we can accommodate our request." The woman nodded with some reluctance. "As you know, the Glowing Planet is an exceedingly rare product of the galaxy. According to past records that none but the most highly placed individuals have access to, the core of such planets often hide great wonders."

"I'm aware of the value buried deep underneath." Ves nodded sagely, though he actually didn't have a clue. He just ran with his speculations in order to appear more authoritative on the subject and deflect any suspicions. "My master has only requested for me to retrieve a hand-sized sample of the only ore that matters. I hope that isn't too much to ask."

The colonel looked fairly troubled. "It might take some time as we'll probably encounter grains at first. It's a shame we don't have the time to excavate the entire treasure before the Coalition and the Hegemony descends on this planet. We might have to accelerate our digging operations to fulfill your master's demand."

It sounded like Ves demanded something really big. Some exotics held a lot of value if they came in a larger chunk. It seemed this mineral from the core of the planet must hold an exceptional amount of value as a result.

Ves relayed some other favors, though he certainly restrained his greed this time. He mainly requested free passage through the non-restricted areas of the base and gain permission for Lucky to roam around independently in these same regions as well.

"There's no reason for your mechanical pet to depart from your side." Ilos responded to the last point. "Your pet is already a security risk when you brought it here. I can tell it's an advanced machine, so I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and allow it to stay by your side. I will not grant it permission to roam the base without your supervision."

"That's fair. Thank you for allowing my pet to stay with me. He's something of my bodyguard as well."

He couldn't hide Lucky's deadly armament from the Mech Corps. Not only did Lucky possess a record of killing pirates, his cat didn't appear too different from the deadly bodyguard pets assigned to little boys and girls. Though these pets always risked being hacked, it wasn't a big concern in a hugely advanced first-rate superstate.

Ilos even showed signs of envy that Ves owned a pet that looked like it had been shipped straight from the New Rubarth Empire.

Ves didn't retain enough leverage to demand more concessions from the base. Colonel Ilos had already indulged him enough and he didn't wish to waste his remaining goodwill. He only asked for a slightly higher security clearance and to be kept informed about the development of better energy cells.

"I think that's enough for today." The colonel wrapped up the meeting. "My men will show you to your bunk where you can stow your luggage. You're free to roam the non-restricted areas of the base such as the mess hall, but you're not allowed to enter the workshops or mech stables and disturb the technicians at work."

"I understand." Ves hadn't been drafted yet. As a civilian, Ves had no right to butt in and tell the mech technicians how to do their work. He wasn't even allowed to study the predominant designs the 4th Bentheim Division currently employed. "Do I have permission to enter the labs where the new energy cells are being developed?"

"Only if you receive permission from the lab."

In other words, not likely. Ves had upstaged all of those research departments, after all. They must be cursing his name under their breaths right now.

Ves left the base commander's office after that. After retrieving Lucky, another officer led him upwards to a less restricted part of the underground complex.

"We've sent a partial map of this base to your comm. You should be able to find your bunk on your own. Do you have any more questions?"

"Yeah. Am I allowed to step outside?"

"No. For security reasons, you are only permitted to remain underground. The only personnel allowed above ground are mechs."

Ves nodded and left for his bunk. After reaching it, he dropped off his luggage before dropping to his bed. All the while, he continued to hold on to Lucky, though his cat appeared rather grumpy at this moment.

"Hey, don't blame me. The Mech Corps can be rather high strung about security risks. Tell you what. When I visit the deep mining expedition tomorrow, I'll see if I can get you something yummy. The mining operation must be yielding a lot of ores if it's aiming to reach the core of the planet."

"Meow." Lucky brushed his head against his chin.

Even with the technology the Mech Corps had at their disposal, it wasn't easy to bore down towards the center of a planet. That didn't even take into account the complications of burrowing through layers and layers of exotics, each of which could set off a deadly accident.

The base still needed to process his permissions, so he couldn't visit the mining operations right now. Ves left his bunk and roamed around the corridors, trying to get a first-hand impression of the famed and renowned Mech Corps.

As the premier mech force of the Bright Republic, the Mech Corps had been held up as the standard bearer of their state. Billions of citizens worshipped the Mech Corps and millions more pilots wished to join their ranks.

Looking at the people and mechs walking back and forth, Ves found that each of them held a distinctive pride. They felt proud to be a part of the Mech Corps. They also moved with much more enthusiasm than usual. Ves eavesdropped on some of the conversation and knew that his invention had made a splash.

"Hey, did you hear? Someone came up with a fix for the overcharge problem! Every workshop has been tasked with producing as much of these cells as possible!"

"What? Really? We finally don't have to tempt fate every time we enter our mechs? That's amazing!"

"You know what's even more weird is that some outsider came up with the new designs. From what the geeks have told me, the designs came from a mech designer who worked for a gang!"

"No way, a frickin' scumbag came up with the new designs? What are our eggheads doing?! How can they be so slow that some random criminal can figure out a solution first?"

"Hey, don't raise your tone so much. I heard the inventor isn't some random thug. He's actually a mech designer, and he's a Larkinson as well!"

That particular revelation landed like a bomb to the group of gossipers.

"Didn't that guy came up in the news recently?"

"Have you already forgotten about the duel where Captain Vicar got his butt kicked by a girl from the Planetary Guard?"

"Oh yeah, that duel! So the Larkinson who came up with the new energy cells designed that black mech as well?"

"Yup, and he'll be sticking around the base, though I don't know why. It's going to get really dangerous here soon."

Talk like that had spread throughout the base. Even though no one recognized Ves, most people had been able to figure out his identity because he wore civilian clothes. Most of the other consultants consisted of scientists and experts who specialized in discovering the properties of unknown exotics. Only Ves looked young enough to be a mech designer at the start of his career.

This didn't affect the base personnel very much. The soldiers had a lot of other things on their plate to divert some time to fawn over Ves. After reading everyone's mood, he decided he should visit a doctor.

Ves followed the map to the nearest medical center. Upon entering it, he reported his issues and had to wait half an hour before a doctor came up to receive him. The jolly-looking man invited him to his office.

"I've consulted your records and I must say it's an usual case." The doctor said. "We are not very versed with the functioning of your extra organs."

"I'm aware how hard it is to figure out my body. I'm not asking for an explanation. I just want something that can mitigate the negative side effects of all of the energy fields in the red zone."

The doctor's expression turned pensive. "That will be difficult. Any medicine we give you can have the opposite effect. The side effects may be worse than the affliction."

"Just do the best you can."

Ves had to undergo a series of elaborate scans, much of it didn't reveal anything new, though Ves found his strength had decreased. Ever since the ghost that wore his mother's face drained him of his excess energy, Ves had started to feel less energetic. The difference didn't amount to much, but it pointed out that any further energy drains could lead to more severe effects.

The doctor in charge of his case found the changes to be puzzling. "You are still in fine health, Mr. Larkinson. I will prescribe you with some medicine that will ease your internal discomfort, but without a deeper understanding of your alien genes, it's unwise to add anything else."

That meant that Ves would have to deal with whatever happened on his own. This was the burden all human-alien hybrids had to go through.

He'd also have to endure anything the Glowing Planet decided to throw at him. From his limited understanding, Ves believed that he'd face much more active exotics the deeper he went underground.

Even so, Ves refused to stay near the surface and twiddle his thumb. The System gave him a mission, and he had to accomplish it at all costs. Even if he had to suffer through torture, Ves was determined to be among the first to breach the core of the planet and secure a valuable ore from within.

"There's no telling if the miners will withhold such a valuable chunk of ore. It'll be harder for the Mech Corps to refuse to hand any of it over when I'll be there on the spot."

Ves thanked the doctor and left the medical center. He thought about visiting the workshops before he reminded himself that he'd been prohibited to enter them. He felt a little regretful for not being able to place his hands on the mechs used by the Mech Corps. Ves had been drooling at their designs for many years now.

"Well, it's only a matter of time before I get drafted. I'll have plenty of opportunity to play with these mechs once the war finally starts."

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The Mech Corps brought out the big guns from the start when it came to mining. Besides bringing enough hardware to empty out the surface layers of red zone in a matter of months, they also brought an enormous cruiser-sized tunneler to breach the hardy soil of the Glowing Planet and reach the core of the planet.

A vertical shuttle descended quickly down the depths of the tunnel that had been excavated rather recently. Ves looked out of the porthole with wonder.

"Aye, that's the Gregarious Wrath at work." A cadet bragged to Ves. "She's two kilometers long, of which two-thirds are solely devoted to making her the best tunneler in the Republic."

Such a name would have been more fitting on a battleship than an enormous tunneling machine, Ves thought. "How far has she reached?"

"Around five-hundred kilometers. We've encountered a lot of obstacles on our way to the core. Some of the bedrock the Wrath has bumped into is too hard to burrow through, so she's forced to take a detour. That takes up most of the time. Besides that, sometimes weird stuff happens, forcing some important systems to become a little wonky. We have to shut off the entire machine if that happens."

"I understand. It's too risky to keep working under those conditions. Who knows what kind of risks we'll face if we brave the energy fields without understanding their effects."

As if to emphasize those words, his stomach suddenly turned. The nauseous feeling almost prompted Ves to cough up his breakfast.

"What is that?"

"Beats me." The cadet shrugged. "The scientists have a fancy name for it, but we just call it the stomach turning field."

Over the next half hour, the entire shuttle passed through multiple short-ranged energy fields which each caused some form of debilitating effect to the shuttle or its occupants.

"How is the Gregarious Wrath able to function with all of these energy fields?!"

"It helps that we put three dimensional smoothers at different points of her hull. They counteract or dampen most of these weird fields somehow."

Even then, some of proximity effects couldn't be fought against at all. Humanity still had a long way to go in understanding the effects of each different exotic material the galaxy had spawned

Of course, Ves had no doubt that the big trans-galactic organizations like the MTA and CFA possessed the most complete database of exotics. In their eyes, the Glowing Planet likely held no secrets. The same went for the first-rate superstates like the Terrans and the Rubarthans.

On the other hand, the petty states that eked out a poor existence in the galactic rim had no chance to develop such a complete record. Knowledge was valuable, and a detailed understanding of rare exotics even more so. The Republic couldn't find a single party in the galactic net that would be willing to sell such valuable information, at least not without paying a ruinous price.

Thus, the scientists and researchers aboard the Gregarious Wrath had to stumble about in the dark and forge their own paths.

Perhaps no one on the shuttle had been more sensitive about the abundant amount of exotics buried in all directions than Lucky. The mechanical cat had become annoyed that he wasn't allowed to claw his way out of the shuttle and start munching on the visibly glowing deposits of high value exotics.

"It's okay, Lucky. You'll get your chance soon enough. The deeper we go, the yummier the exotics."

"Meow!"

The Glowing Planet truly held no threat to Lucky. Ever since they touched down, his cat acted like this entire planet was his playground and a paradise filled with endless food. Ves tried not to think how much energy Lucky had accumulated so far. It must be enough to surpass a tactical nuclear strike at the very least.

The shuttle took a few turns when it encountered the detours made by the Wrath. Despite her shape as a cylinder, the Wrath incorporated accordeon-like structures along her hull that allowed her to turn like a worm.

Obviously, the Wrath had to use that particular function more and more the deeper she burrowed into the solid interior of the planet.

"Will the Wrath be in trouble if we encounter magma or some other liquids?"

"Are you kidding? The Gregarious Wrath is clad in heat and pressure-resistant compressed armor. She's as expensive as ten fleet carriers. No other tunneler is so extravagantly tough and durable. If not for the potential riches we can find in the core, the brass would have never risked sending it down the Glowing Planet."

This certainly added to the proof that the Mech Corps knew what to expect down at the core. Ves might have to fight to obtain his deserves share of the mysterious ore demanded by the System.

"Ah, we've almost reached the Wrath. You better return to your seat and strap in. It's going to get violent soon!"

Ves listened to the advice and strapped down on the crash shield while holding onto Lucky. Even his cat felt something amiss and tried to find some shelter in his owner's embrace.

The shuttle shook harder and harder, as if it had a lot of trouble keeping up a stable flight. Even in an airless environment, some sort of pressure wave still penetrated the vehicle deeply to the point of straying from its straight and narrow path.

"What's going on!?"

"That's the might of the Wrath! Behold the Republic's ingenuity!"

The shuttle took another turn and came into view of the rear of the tunneling machine. Ves had to rub his eyes a few times while suppressing the shudders that ran through his heart.

The Gregarious Wrath looked like a massive worm more than a machine. Her dirt-crusted hull gave the tunneling machine a sense that she was a living, breathing mythical monster.

Even as the shuttle neared the rear portion of the Wrath, the tunneling machine continuously bore through the soil, pressing excess crunched rocks to the side.

"How is the tunnel so stable? Aren't we risking a collapse?"

"The Wrath is not that simple! We mix a little extra fluids that stabilizes the tunnel walls. It's not that expensive, but it takes up so much space that the Wrath needs to be supplied every four hours."

"Why bother keeping open this tunnel in the first place then?" Ves asked.

"As mighty as the Wrath looks like, she's a tunneling machine, not a mining machine. When she reaches the core, she won't be able to filter the truly valuable bits from the somewhat valuable stuff. It will all get pressed to the sides to form new tunnel walls. We've got to bring other machines if we want to extract the hard-to-find bits."

As the cadet explained the workings of the different machines, the shuttle neared a small opening that led the vehicle to a hangar. As soon as the shuttle entered inside the Wrath, the entire vehicle suddenly became subjected to a different direction of gravity.

"Whoa!"

"Haha, I forgot to warn you that the artificial gravity inside the Wrath is set alongside her length. It's the best configuration for us to be able to shift stuff from the bow to the stern."

Despite being a quintessential land behemoth, the crew treated the Wrath as a ship. From the terminology to the command structure, everyone treated the tunneling device as if she swam through land.

"Let's bring you to the chief engineer. He's been dying to meet you."

After being subjected to a strict security check, they entered the tightly compartmentalized interior of the huge machine. Besides the constant low thrumming, Ves hardly noticed that the Wrath was burrowing through tons of soil. It must have taken an immense amount of effort for her designers to isolate and neutralize al the various sounds, pressure waves and the shifting gravity.

Since they arrived at the rear of the Wrath, they didn't need to traverse the entire length of the tunneling machine. The Wrath actually held two engineering bays, but the Chief Engineer currently resided in the rear engineering bay which was responsible for powering the enormous beast.

A storm of activity greeted Ves as soon as he stepped inside the engineering bay.

Huge rows of power reactors hummed out of sight while bots constantly hauled supplies and tools back and forth.

The engineers that kept the Wrath running constantly entered and exited the bay as they had to perform maintenance along the entire hull of the machine.

Ves sensed the passion and drive in each of the engineers. The Republic must have recruited some of the best graduates to staff the Gregarious Wrath.

"Like what you see?" An older man asked from the side.

"It's like heaven here."

As a mech designer, Ves truly enjoyed the sights of people pouring their passion into machines. Even if they worked on entirely different mechanical contraptions, they still shared much in common.

"Ves Larkinson."

"Harmon Petrisc. I'm in charge around here." The chief engineer shook hands with Ves with a meaty grip. "That's a nice grip you have. Your hands are still too soft."

"Hah, we let our machines do the heavy lifting." Ves admitted without shame. "I'd love to forge a mech without resorting to a 3D printer sometime, but that's still a long way to becoming feasible. Besides, don't tell me you're not using printers yourself to fabricate new replacement parts."

"You got me there!"

To certain hardcore mech designers, they only truly appreciated mechs that had been built without any form of automation. Even though a 3D printer required a lot of skill to utilize, a mech designer didn't have to expend too much effort to perform a complicated function.

The chief briefly showed him around. Everything appeared to work the same as any capital ship, though the designers of the Wrath had added a lot of necessary features to allow the tunneling machine to stay powered under tough conditions.

"Thankfully we don't rely on energy cells to run the Wrath, though we still use energy cells to provide backup power and run auxiliary functions throughout her hull. We've been working hard to replace them with your new design as fast as possible. It saves us a lot of stress, you know."

"I can imagine. The Wrath must be carrying hundreds of energy cells at the very least." Ves nodded in understanding. "It must be giving you a lot of nightmares to think they could detonate all at once if the Wrath entered the wrong energy field."

Both of them turned grim at that possibility. Neither could rule out the chance that they could enter some weird energy field that had a devastating effect on the already dangerous energy cells.

That was why the Chief Petrisc showed a lot of appreciation to Ves. Hardly anyone else including the captain and the executive officer of the Wrath knew how much they tempted fate by keeping those overcharged energy cells in place.

Once they finished their little tour, Petrisc guided Ves to his little office. "From what I understand, you're only here so you can nab your share of the most valuable exotic mineral we're expecting to find in the core."

"That's right. I hope I'm not imposing on you."

"Oh, don't worry. We're so overworked that we could use a hand. What do you say about lending some of your expertise?"

Ves frowned at that suggestion. "That doesn't sound very appropriate. The Mech Corps doesn't want me to touch their valuable hardware. I'm still a civilian, after all."

"Ah, who cares about the rules." Chief Petrisc casually dismissed the concerns. "To be honest, we're so overworked that we could use anyone with a brain to help us out. The Gregarious Wrath has always been meant to tunnel through regular terrestrial planets. The Glowing Planet is a whole different level of complexity. Every new exotic we find results in another inexplicable malfunction."

"I see." Ves considered the suggestion deeply. If he refused the offer, he'd be doing nothing while the Wrath would slowly trudge along. "Well, I'm anxious to complete my assignment as fast as possible, so if you think I can help out, then count me in."

"That's great news! I've already prepared the permissions for you. Since you've come up with something as ingenious as those new energy cells, I'll put put you to work in power management. It's not the easiest job onboard the Wrath, but our power systems are the most susceptible to outside interference. Hopefully your perspective will help us resolve these problems faster."

Thus began his work as a temp worker. Ves had never imagined that the chief engineer would accept him so easily, but he took it as another opportunity to broaden his vision.

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The situation on and above the Glowing Planet had deteriorated enormously in the past week. Ghanso Larkinson spent more time in space than in the fleet carrier. Everyone only caught four to five standard hours of sleep, and some didn't even bother going to bed.

Right now, the Volari Starhawks battled a large fleet of unknowns who didn't consider the Mech Corps to be an obstacle. Unlike the other pirate fleets who constantly tried to maneuver around their forces, this strange group of carriers and spaceborn mechs boldly tried to bulldoze through the Starhawks.

"Who are these guys?! I don't recognize any of their models!"

"They're exiles from another star sector." Old Man Alex replied as he endured another barrage of lasers in front of Ghanso's Vhedra-S. "All kinds of scum are attracted to the frontier. These fellows must have come to our star sector to excavate some treasures before they decided to go for the Glowing Planet instead."

In truth, the Volari Starhawks outnumbered the unknowns, but the invaders obviously consisted of some elite force. Much of their mechs turned out to be second-class and possessed a distinctive edge against the cheaper mechs used by the Mech Corps. If not for their excellent training and coordination, they would have been smashed to pieces by the foreign mechs.

Watch out for those orange-striped mechs!" Lieutenant Fairfax warned. "They've shaken off our elites and are heading in our way!"

Ghanso quietly cursed the foreigners. Why did everyone want to stick their fingers into the pie that represented the Glowing Planet. Was a planet's worth of junk exotics that much worth the effort?

The Volari Starhawks learned quickly not to underestimate the orange-striped mechs among the foreigners. Besides being better quality mechs that boasted significantly higher specs, their pilots all appeared to be advanced pilots that had reached their upper limits. Even though they lacked the deterrence of an expert pilot, so many elites gathered into a single squad could affect the course of the entire battle.

"Ghanso! Focus on their rifleman mechs! Suppress them as best as you can!"

"On it!"

The battle had turned into a wild battle for speed and maneuverability, which made it hard to secure a kill. The incoming enemies approached Ghanso's squad with so much acceleration that his Vhedra-S only scored some glancing blows with its laser rifle.

"They're circling around us!"

Insteading of clashing head-on against Fairfax's squad, the orange-striped elites took up a wide orbit around them. Ghanso kept firing calmly despite his disadvantageous position. The frequent skirmishes he'd been through beforehand had polished his instincts to the point where he scrubbed any clues that he'd once been a rookie.

"They've got more rifleman mechs than us! I can hardly hold my ground here!" Alex yelled over the comm as his space knight took an increasingly more severe beating. "We should bring the fight to them!"

Ghanso agreed with his squad mate. "Alex is right, lieutenant! Please give us the order to engage!"

His Vhedra-S rapidly accumulated heat as its rifle spat out beam after beam. Most of them ended up splashing ineffectually against his opponent's superior armor. It took sustained hits on the same location to do lasting damage.

In a battle with such speeds, Ghanso found it impossible to accomplish such a tall order. His beam often splashed all over the place. Any pilot whose mech got hit would instantly juke in a spin or in a different direction. The more surface the laser beam affected, the shallower the mark it left on the armor.

"Captain Rynsel and her men are on the way! Just hold out for ten more minutes!"

As he fired another ineffectual laser beam, Ghanso glanced at the proximity map and noted ten incoming friendlies approaching from below. Everyone on the squad cheered at the thought of being reinforced. These elites had been hammering their rifles at their mechs. They wouldn't last more than a minute at this rate.

"Alert! High energy emission detected!"

"Incoming comet!"

"That's not a comet, that's a mech!"

A bright blue-white flare approached the section of space where Ghanso and his comrades fought against the foreigners. Their collective sensor readings quickly resolved the incoming contact as an unknown mech of a unique design. One thing stood out the rest. It outputted as much energy as five heavy mechs.

"Oh mother! We've kicked the hornet's nest!" Alex exclaimed. "HE'S COMING STRAIGHT FOR US!"

The comet-like mech crashed straight towards Alex's mech. Its extreme relative speed hardly allowed anyone else to respond to its appearance in time. Ghanso narrowly engaged his mech's flight systems to back up, just in time to evade a narrow glowing stripe that passed just in front.

While the comet mech darted away, the space knight that had always stood by Ghanso's side suddenly parted in half from the waist before exploding in a violent conflagration.

"No!" Ghanso yelled as he couldn't believe how fast his partner's space knight had been killed. "Alex!"

Old Man Alex didn't have the time eject. His odds of survival was nil.

Captain Rynsel's squad suddenly stopped and turned around. "Fairfax! Disengage right now! You just got hit by an expert pilot! He's turning around for another pass!"

Everyone panicked when they heard they faced an expert mech. Lieutenant Fairfax swiftly ordered everyone to split up and flee in separate directions. Even with Alex's mech, the entire squad stood no chance of surviving against a single expert pilot.

"AArghh! I'm ejecting!"

One of their squadmates had to eject because the foreigners that had continued to circle around them took advantage of their loss of cohesion. The orange-striped elites had shifted their aim so smoothly that Ghanso suspected that they must have practiced this tactic.

"He's here!"

This time, the expert mech slashed two of their mechs in quick succession. Only one of their squad mates ejected in time. The other perished when his mech blew up.

Ghanso felt immense pressure to eject, but he held back due to the obligation to bring back his machine intact. The Mech Corps took a dim view on those who wasted their expensive war materiel. He continued to pray that the expert pilot wouldn't target him next.

In the next couple of minutes, the expert pilot targeted their reinforcements. Captain Rynsel feebly tried to resist, but eventually had to eject.

Just when Ghanso thought he made it away, the expert pilot curved his high-speed trajectory in a straight path towards his Vhedra-S.

"He's on to you, Ghanso!"

"Eject already! You don't stand a chance against this expert!"

Ghanso didn't want to abandon his mech so soon. Even if his fellow Starhawks wouldn't blame him for the early ejection, it still would have left a stain in his heart. As a mech pilot born to the cause, the last thing he could tolerate was to carry a brand of shame. Such a shame had a high chance of affecting his potential advancement to expert pilot.

The Vhedra-S threw all caution to the wind and fired beam after beam at the swift and relentless expert mech. No matter what tricks Ghanso pulled off, the expert pilot dodged his aim again and again. It was as if the expert read his mind!

Even then, Ghanso never gave up his attempt to land a single hit. He even increased his rifle's rate of fire to a ruinous level. Even if he stopped firing right now, both his mech and his rifle had been ruined irrevocably.

Ghanso didn't care. His mind sublimated during the brief interval as the expert mech came closer and closer. He vented his grief for losing Alex and his fellow squad members through his weapon. Each laser that struck out into the vacuum of space was another defiant scream to the unfairness of facing an expert pilot without support.

"Come on! I need a hit! Just one hit!"

In the final three seconds, Ghanso had become so fired up that his mind momentarily breached an invisible barrier. At that moment, a spark of flame exploded within him that guided his aim towards another direction.

His laser only scorched the expert mech for 0.15 seconds. The incredibly skilled expert swiftly adjusted his course before the laser could even begin to burn away the outer coating.

"Pull out!"

This time, Ghanso listened to the communication channel. He sent out a mental command which instantly disconnected the cockpit from the rest of the mech. The sudden loss of connection jarred Ghanso sufficiently that he didn't witness his cockpit escaping from the mech in time for the expert pilot to slash through the rest of the frame in a single slash.

Instead, as soon as he recovered, he laughed. "Hahahaha! I scored a hit! I scored a single hit!"

As his cockpit flung away from the battle and followed an arcing course to the rear lines of the Starhawk fleet, Ghanso laughed and cried at the same time. He laughed for surviving an encounter against a dread expert pilot, and he cried for the friends he would never be able to see again.

"Damn this Glowing Planet? It would have done this galaxy a favor if it came across a black hole and disappeared beyond its event horizon."

Battles erupted across the entire orbit of the Glowing Planet. The Vesians had also been hard-pressed to hold back as many pirates as possible. In the meantime, hordes of pirates and mercenaries slipped through the gaps and descended to the surface of the Glowing Planet.

Battle raged throughout the airless skies above the rogue planet. The pirates fought against the mercenaries, the mercenaries fought against the military, the military fought against the pirates, and the pirates fought among themselves.

Infighting was rife even among allies in the same fleet. It only took a couple of stray shots to splash against a nominal allied outfit to provoke a brawl. Even the pirate lords that browbeat the small outfits together couldn't alleviate the constantly rising tempers.

Broken mechs and chunks of space ships kept descending from above in regular numbers. Back at the base erected by Walter's Whalers, their turrets sporadically fired at an incoming artificial meteorite from above.

Sometimes, even the rifleman and cannoneer mechs had to lend a hand in order to break apart a particularly large piece of spaceship debris.

Still, that was child's play compared to the incoming pirates. Sometimes, elements of a pirate fleet got so confused that they lost their course and landed somewhere close to the red zone occupied by the Mech Corps. Any mech carriers that landed in the vicinity of the Blood Claws and the Whalers had to be destroyed before they could get away.

"You've improved!" Fadah complimented Raella as she swiped the head off a pirate mech in a single blow. "It was just last week when you could barely hold on against a single pirate."

"That scum was an elite!" Raella spat back as her Sliverath danced around the disarrayed pirate mechs with as much grace as the Blackbeak. The two made for an intimidating pair, and together with Dietrich's long-ranged support they developed a practiced routine. "I'm hungry. I hadn't been able to eat my lunch all day. Let's wipe these bastards out fast before I starve to death!"

The mechs aligned to the Bright Republic fought without holding anything back. Ever since Ves submitted his undercharged energy cell designs, every mech received the new energy cells. While the mech pilots faced a couple of complications due to their lower capacity and unstable energy supply, they all sighed in relief because they wouldn't get blown up anymore.

Naturally, such a momentous development couldn't be kept to themselves. The Mech Legion somehow got ahold of the designs and began producing their own replacement energy cells.

Some of the other well-connected factions such as the Dragons of the Void followed suit.

This had divided the forces on the planet in three.

First came the Mech Corps and the Mech Legion who had fully converted their energy cells to the safer designs.

Second were the poorer pirate outfits and mercenary corps who didn't possess enough connections to get their hands on the valuable designs for the safer energy cells.

Third were the incoming pirates, mercenaries and treasure hunters who just descended upon the planet. Since they hadn't been subjected to the surface energy fields for long, their energy cells hadn't developed an overcharge yet. This would change in the next couple of days, but until then they swaggered around their landing sites, provoking trouble wherever they went.

Thus, the Blood Claws and the Whalers constantly had to fight the smaller outfits while the Mech Corps mopped up the largest concentration of scum. After fighting multiple battles, everyone started to feel the strain.

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