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

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Countless mechs had been deployed to the surface of the Glowing Planet. Of all the different models, certain ones stood out from the rest.

For example, take the Havalax. Dumont's debut design might not be the most valiant offensive knight, but some mercenaries didn't care about the bad reputation it had acquired as long as they received enough discounts.

They brought their newly purchased mechs to the Glowing Planet and expected to dominate in any close-ranged engagements. What they actually experienced was nothing of the sort.

"This is ridiculous! How come it's run out of energy so quickly!" One mercenary cursed as his mech switched to ultra-low power consumption mode after all of its energy cells had been drained. "These new undercharged energy cells are so stupid! How can I keep running my mech with just thirty percent of its previous capacity?"

Some of his colleagues laughed over the communication channel. "Serves you right. I told you so that you'd regret spending the company credits on the Havalax. Even with normal energy cells it can't even last a single duel!"

To be fair to the Havalax, the duel had been something of an anomaly. The Havalax should easily be able to last half a standard day at normal power consumption.

However, such a meager amount of operating time wasn't as impressive as other mechs who would easily be able to last an entire day without replenishing their energy cells.

"This thing is a giant trap. It's great in a battle, but it's awful everywhere else. I'm going to put it up for sale as soon we get back."

While the couple of Havalax pilots grumbled about the poor performance of its design on the Glowing Panet, the pilots of the Blackbeak enjoyed their greatest moments.

As one of the few fuel-based mechs on this planet, they faced very little risks from the start. The constant skirmishes and occasional long-ranged raids also helped the Blackbeak fit in. The handful of mercs who piloted the exclusive gold-label Blackbeaks all performed above and beyond their usual standard.

For example, on a desolate field of crags and low rocks, ten pirate mechs were frantically running away. One might expect those ten mechs to be chased by a squad or platoon of mechs, but in actuality only a single Blackbeak hounded them from behind.

"This monster! Why won't he give up!!" A pirate moaned. "C'mon, run faster!"

None of the pirates seem to suggest they turn around and gang up on the Blackbeak. They already tried that, only to get demolished one by one.

"Let's split up!"

"He'll hunt us down one by one!"

"Are you kidding? He'll only be able to kill a couple of us before he loses track. Let's do it!"

The pirate mechs split up in different directions. Rather than bewilder the Blackbeak, it stopped holding back and put more power into its durable engine. As far as its pilot was concerned, the pirates had consigned themselves to death by ceasing to move in a cohesive formation. The Blackbeak hunted down the mechs like a cat chasing after a pack of mice.

"Keep running, you little rats. Even if you get away, you won't be able to supply your mechs."

Besides the handful of gold label Blackbeaks on the Glowing Planet, the silver and bronze label versions also acquitted themselves well. During the time when the undercharged energy cells hadn't been developed yet, they took the lead in defending the bases. Their strong, stable and exemplary performance had elevated their reputation to the point where most knight mech pilots yearned to obtain their own copies.

Many mech designs developed in recent years hadn't been tested in large-scale campaigns. The Glowing Planet served as a crucible where the best and most robust designs gained an edge over those which featured too many superfluous elements.

Major factions such as the Mech Corps and the Mech Legion collected all of the data to perform analyses and add to the public record of each individual model.

The highly encouraging realspace performance data of the Blackbeak gave the LMC an unexpected boost. Sales of the bronze-label model fabricated by EME, which had flagged in recent times, suddenly surged as the mech industry gained a new appreciation of its tough and enduring design.

The LMC enjoyed brisk sales as well. Along with a concerted marketing push, the Blackbeak had been pushed to the forefront of recognition. Silver label Blackbeaks became a hot item to well-off customers, so much so that Marcella started selling them by batches which the LMC's small workshop struggled to fulfill.

As the COO of the LMC, Jake Altern often visited Marcella's brokerage for business. Currently, they moved to an upscale restaurant and enjoyed a luxurious meal.

"Even if the Glowing Planet's appearance is a disaster for the Republic, it's been a boon for the LMC. The Blackbeak's appeal is at an all-time high right now."

"I know." Marcella replied as she finished chewing an exotic meat dish. "I don't even have to convince my customers to purchase a mech or two. Instead, I have to pull them back from placing too many orders. Both our bronze and silver label versions have a waiting list that's at least a half year long."

That represented an enormous amount of revenue. While both of them had much to celebrate for accumulating so many orders, none of them adopted satisfied expressions.

Jake stopped beating around the bush. "We don't have enough production capacity. Everyone in the company is aware of how much revenue we're missing out. Customers who have been hoping to purchase a Blackbeak are being discouraged by how much we've raised our prices and how many other customers are waiting for their own copies."

"Why are you bringing up this topic?" She asked with suspicion. "Both the EME and LMC are producing your designs as fast as they can. Neither of them are in a position to expand their production lines any further. The EME still has to pay back their debts while your company is just starting to break the ground on your new manufacturing complex."

"There's still another solution."

"You want to contract another mech manufacturer." Marcella stated.

"Exactly. Benjamin Larkinson approves of the idea. The rest of the board is behind the plan. As long as you agree, we'll have unanimous approval to extend a special licensing contract to Vaun Industrial."

"I recall that Ves once visited their impressive factory complex and didn't come out impressed. He won't like it if anyone else than EME gets to produce the bronze label Blackbeaks."

Jake helplessly spread his palms. "Well, he's not here to object, is he? Instead, he ran off to the Glowing Planet to mine some expensive rocks. At the very least, our decision here will teach him not to pursue his whims and go harrying off into danger."

It all seemed dirty to Marcella. She knew Ves always prioritized his reputation and hated losing control over the distribution of his products. Yet she wasn't unaccustomed to getting her hands dirty. As Jake had said, Ves only had himself to blame for being unable to stop a necessary decision to maximize the profits of his company.

"Consider me onboard to your plan. I own five percent of the LMC's shares, after all. The more the company earns, the better off I'll be. I can guess the Larkinson Estate is also eying the benefits."

This conspiracy couldn't have gotten off without the express approval of Ves' grandfather. Much of the higher management of the LMC consisted of retainers nurtured by the Larkinsons. Even if they worked for Ves, they still owed their loyalty to the organization that nurtured them from young.

Even if the LMC didn't issue any dividends as of yet, the Larkinson Estate still benefited enormously in other ways if the company earned record profits.

With the war about to come into full swing, the Estate always had a need for more money. That was the time when the Mech Corps spent money like water, and often had to go into debt. It wasn't unheard of for well-to-do families like the Larkinsons to contribute to the war effort in exchange for better treatment for their relatives serving in the front.

"Even if Ves objects, he shouldn't forget his roots." Jake decisively said as he began to eat his dessert. "Besides, Vaun Industrial is an excellent partner to work with. Their production facilities are top-notch and they haven't made any excessive demands. They're willing to pay a bit more fees now that the success of the Blackbeak is set in stone."

Both of them discussed the matter as if they had the best intentions at heart.

As for Ves, he remained ignorant of the proactive decisions made behind his back. Instead, he blissfully spent his days aboard the Gregarious Wrath. Chief Petrisc granted him a fair amount of liberties, as if he didn't have a care in the galaxy if Ves attempted to sabotage the giant tunneler.

It didn't make a difference anyway. With the amount of monitoring going on, Ves would never be able to hide any suspicious activities unless he activated his Privacy Shield.

Not that he wanted to. The Gregarious Wrath's journey to the center of the Glowing Planet had to go well for Ves to complete his mission. He did all he could to lend his expertise to the many problems facing the enormous tunneling machine.

It turned out that the energy fields constantly destabilized the Wrath. Countless systems relied on each other to ensure the smooth function of the tunneler. If one system got knocked out, that didn't mean the Wrath would stop. However, the systems depending on the functions of that knocked out systems might malfunction, which eventually led to a chain reaction of errors that eventually forced the tunneler to a stop.

Thus, Chief Petrisc prioritized plugging each and every gap as soon as they formed. Ves joined one of the troubleshooting teams and began to go back and forth along the Wrath's lengthy hull to fix various issues.

Most problems sounded a little inane.

For example, one time a cooling fluid storage tank suddenly burst because the fluid abruptly expanded. The entire mess fouled up the compartment and locked up the other storage tanks.

It didn't take too much effort to clean up the mess, but the engineers puzzled over what had caused the expansion and how they could prevent the cooling fluid from going haywire again.

Another problem was that certain alloys degraded as if they'd been rusting in corrosive waters for decades. This didn't matter too much if it came to a table or wall panel, but if the component happened to be part of a primary power channel, then the entire forward half of the Wrath might shut off.

It was the job of the troubleshooting teams to solve these problems before they grew into something big. While Ves felt like a fish out of water concerning the workings of a massive ship-sized tunneler, his excellent foundation in various fields of science allowed him to suggest workable solutions to the problems at hand.

"Look, why are we holding this portion up with an alloy support structure? It's overkill in my eyes. We all know that certain exotic alloys are reacting badly in the presence of all of these energy fields. I think we shouldn't shy away from replacing these alloy structures with plastic composites."

"If this was a mech, I wouldn't be satisfied with this slapdash fix. Everyone can tell this replacement part will break down the next day. Rather than return each day to perform the same repairs, why not overhaul this entire section. Let me sketch out my suggestion for a durable structure."

Several days went by as the Gregarious Wrath continued to overcome new challenges every day. With thousands of crew members on board, the tunneler had an abundant amount of talent to draw on to ensure her continued operation. Even if she encountered another obstacle, someone would eventually come up with a solution to get the tunneler back on course.

After more than two weeks of tunneling, the Wrath finally stumbled upon the edge of the outer core of the Glowing Planet.

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The Mech Corps didn't have much time left before their 70-day deadline came to pass. The Gregarious Wrath took much more time to breach the outer core of the Glowing Planet. Thus, the military moved very quickly to confirm they reached the periphery of their goal.

From the outside, the outer portion of the core glowing in bright green. It consisted of a virtually single gigantic mass of growing green junk exotics with just a tiny speck of extremely rare exotic material interspersed in between.

Sadly for Ves, none of the trace exotics happened to be the substance the System sought for. Even if a single gram of certain exotics could be sold for ten billion credits in the open market, none of them possessed any traits that could truly make the impossible into reality.

"So this isn't the right substance either, huh?"

Ves threw away the latest sample excavated from the core. After it bounced on the deck, it ended up in the clutches of Lucky, who eagerly began to devour it. The cat had been in bliss ever since they breached the core.

Chief Petrisc oversaw the maintenance of the Gregarious Wrath's drill components. After burrowing thousands of kilometers into the ground, the drill urgently required maintenance. Ves had nothing to do at this time because he'd do more harm than good if he involved himself with drills.

"This is boring. When are we going to go deeper into the core?"

"The Wrath will move forward as soon as we know the core won't ruin it. The deeper we go, the denser the bedrock. We need to replace the regular drills with more expensive ones if we want to make any progress." An engineer replied besides him. "It's strange how most of the energy fields disappeared at this depth. It's as if the core is isolating us from the exotics up above."

Unlike other planets, particularly life-bearing ones, the Glowing Planet didn't feature magma or any form of liquids. After the planet's formation and its exile from its original star system, the magma had slowly cooled until it became fully solid. This gave the planet enough time to sink all of its heavier materials to the core of the planet.

The ore that the System demanded from Ves should also be found close to these depths. It would be impossible to reach the exact center with today's technology, but hopefully they'd reach close enough to start encountering the desired material.

"More tunneling and mining machines will arrive very soon to lend a hand. The core is largely uniform, but if we're lucky we might come across an easier side path. This entire planet is weird so who knows what's down there."

"We're also short on time." Ves added. "We only have less than twenty days to wrap up this expedition."

While he had faith that the Mech Corps would be able to hang on to the red zone, he had less faith in their ability to approach the inner core and reach the truly valuable substances that rested so deep. All of this was pretty much out of his expertise, so Ves had no choice but to stand aside and let the experts do their jobs.

He left the labs where the ores were analyzed after a time. Lucky didn't want to go, but the cat hadn't been allowed to roam on his own. "Stop being fussy. We still have plenty more days for you to chew on some ores."

Even as his cat yowled in protest, he carried Lucky back to his bunk and threw him on top of the bed. Ves followed suit and rested on its comfy surface while he rubbed his stomach.

Due to the unknown shielding effect, all of the energy fields no longer tried to disturb his body and his delicate internal energy cycle.

Over the past weeks, his body somehow accumulated what it had lost from the ghost. Ves hadn't expected his internal energy cycle to bounce back so fast. He wondered where the energy came from in the first place.

"It would be too banal if it comes from my food. I don't take enough nutrients to account for so much energy."

Perhaps his body absorbed it from the energy fields, or perhaps he drew it from some abstract dimension. Whatever the case, his body regained the same pros and cons as before. His strength increased to an unrealistic level while his body risked getting blown up if his energy cycle ever went haywire.

He even half-hoped the ghost returned to siphon away the excess energy. Ves deliberately found reasons to be alone, but his mother never came.

"What a neglectful parent." He sighed.

Ves looked forward to leaving this cursed planet. Humanity would never thrive upon such an active and chaotic planet. The alien species that took to such planets as easy as drinking water must be extremely formidable.

Still, it hadn't prevent most species from getting bulldozed or chase away by the human race during the Age of Conquest.

"Well, we're in the Age of Mechs now. We don't have the numbers to fuel a further expansion into the rest of the galaxy. We're already spread thin in the star sectors we've claimed."

Much of the empty and poorly-explored territories inside human space hid buried treasures. Treasure hunters didn't have to leave for the frontier to score big. Even at the galactic center, many new stars came into being. All kinds of stellar activity generated an uncountable amount of exotics at the heart of the galactic center.

Despite the hazards of living in such active regions, they generated an enormous amount of riches.

On the other hand, the Komodo Star Sector was so far away removed from those lucrative regions that it had to excavate the leftovers that drifted to the galactic rim. The Glowing Planet was just a little more exceptional than anything else that came to the Komodo Star Sector.

While Ves slowly drifted off into sleep, a sudden thrum ran over his body. His energy cycle receive a severe shock which prodded him back to wakefulness.

"What's that!?"

Even Lucky jumped up from his slumber at the foot of the bed. The cat arched his back as if he faced a giant dog.

Both of them sensed something amiss just then. Ves hadn't imagined the jarring sensations. After a couple more minutes of waiting, he let down his guard.

"Something's up. Anything that can spook the both of us isn't normal."

Ves freshened himself up and left his bunk. He headed down to engineering, only to encounter a flurry of activity. Ves found an engineer he became familiar with and asked what was going on.

"Didn't you hear? We've found 3 milligrams of Rorach's Bone!"

The significance of that news hadn't set in on Ves. "What's Rorach's Bone?"

"It's the entire reason we dug so far! Don't you know how priceless Rorach's Bone is? It can't even be expressed in credits! The Mech Trade Association has an insatiable demand for Rorach's Bone. It's said that it's an essential ingredient to make cutting-edge mechs!"

Now Ves understood all of the excitement. Any material that was valuable enough to be used in the best mechs of the galaxy should be extremely exceptional.

As Ves left the engineering bay and headed for the labs, he flicked open his comm and read up on Rorach's Bone in the Gregarious Wrath's internal database.

It only contained a brief entry on the material. Much of it had been redacted, and Ves didn't possess the necessary clearance to know any more. What he did learn was enough.

As a material referred to as a bone, the exotic substance formed an essential part in constructing a durable internal frame. Besides granting the skeleton of a mech an unheard amount of durability, the most amazing property of Rorach's Bone was that it drew in heat and used that energy to self-repair itself!

The entire concept seemed unreal to Ves. "So it's actually possible to make a self-repairing mech!"

Incorporating Rorach's Bone onto other components also granted them the ability to repair itself. Obviously, there were limits to this ability, but it granted mechs an unheard amount of endurance. Even if the cutting-edge mechs became lost, its ace pilots would still be able to survive with the help of his constantly replenishing mech.

Learning about these traits made Ves suspect something about the System. "Is it damaged?"

Certainly, Rorach's Bone didn't offer anything unique. Many other extremely valuable exotics offered the same amount of increase in toughness.

When Ves reached the lab, he got a distant glimpse of the so-called bone. It was just a tiny grain suspended in a vacuum chamber as the scientists performed all kinds of tests.

One of the scientists summed up their findings. "According to our analysis, this is a low-grade Rorach's Bone. It's lost its potency over billions of years of separation. While it's still a valuable specimen, the MTA won't get much use out of it. However, its presence proves that there should be larger samples of Rorach's Bone buried deeper within the core."

That satisfied the officers who had been sent to he labs to take stock of the latest find. The Mech Corps would definitely intensify their efforts to dig deeper into the core. Rorach's Bone was an amazingly dense material, so it would have sunk down deep into the center of the Glowing Planet at the beginning of its formation when much of its volume consisted of magma.

Ves approached the group of officers and made his presence known. "I hope to be informed whenever you've made another major find. Don't forget that my Master has already called dibs on the first major chunk of Rorach's Bone."

The scientists nodded, but the officers didn't seem so pleased. One of them stepped forward. "The Mech Corps needs all it can get. Everything you see here and everything we've achieved so far is accomplished on our own. As far as I'm concerned, the Coalition can wait in line."

As much as Ves sympathised for his home state, he wasn't willing to sacrifice his own interests. The System demanded for its pound of flesh and Ves could only cut if out from his own body if he couldn't present a fat pig.

Ves continued the pretence that he was here on behalf of the Coalition. "I would hope that you understand how severe your words may sound. Don't forget that the only reason we're allowed to scramble in the dirt is because the Coalition has granted us seventy days to do as we wish. If they wanted to, they could have come within a month."

He hit a good point. As much as the officer wanted to stand up for the Mech Corps, he didn't dare speak ill of the Coalition in public. If someone recorded his words and spread them onto the galactic net, he'd be booted from the service in an instant.

"Come on, sir. We have business to attend." Another officer gestured the man. They all moved away.

"That's very brave of you, Mr. Larkinson." A metallurgist casually spoke. "Was it really necessary for you to remind them of their obligations?"

"It was. I have my mission and they have theirs. Mine just happened to supercede theirs. The Komodo Star Sector belongs to the Coalition and the Hegemony. The Bright Republic is just a tiny fish that swims in the same pond as the sharks. We should do everything we can to prevent the predators from eating us."

Ves didn't like these words, but he had to in order to keep up the pretence. He knew the Mech Corps would benefit enormously if they retained every piece of Rorach's Bone they dug up from the core. He hated that the System forced him to divide his loyalties.

This incident reminded him that the Mech Designer System never owed any loyalty to the Republic. This wouldn't be the last time he'd have to choose between the System and everyone else.

An alarm sounded out.

"Detecting anomalous movement!"

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The Gregarious Wrath primarily functioned as a tunneler, but that did not describe the extent of her purpose.

Many battles that took place on planets actually took place underground. While controlling the surface was important to control the local population and much of the smaller industries, the real jewels could be found at least a couple of kilometers underground.

While this brought a lot of inconveniences, the huge barrier of soil formed the most formidable fortification against bombardment, raids, infiltration and a host of other nasty consequences.

The main reason why the LMC spent half a billion credits on their production complex was because Ves wanted to create a giant underground fort. Considering the onset of war, such an extravagant precaution might definitely pay off.

In any case, with the proliferation of underground bases, a means had to be developed to strike them. After all, even pirates used underground fortifications to hide or withstand against the wrath of the lawful authorities of the galaxy.

Thus, Ves learned why the Gregarious Wrath adopted such a strange and aggressive name, and why the Mech Corps maintained such a large and expensive machine.

The Wrath performed the role of siege breaker.

As the anomalies neared the immobile tunneler, hatches opened up, allowing aerial mechs to emerge. Most of these mechs had their energy cells replaced by the undercharged variants that Ves had developed, so none of the pilots showed any hesitancy in sortieing out.

Meanwhile, everybody inside the Wrath went to their action stations. Ves had to leave the labs as well. As a guest, he should be returning to his bunk and hole up while the Mech Corps took care of the threat, but Ves wasn't in a mood to hide.

"I still have those permissions given by Chief Petrisc. I'll probably be able to enter the engineering bay."

Ves resolutely found the nearest fast platform and stepped onto its surface. The platform instantly zipped away along a special track in the corridors. Many other crewmen had boarded the same kind of platforms in order to quickly traverse the entire length of the Wrath.

His platform deposited him a couple of compartments away from the rear engineering bay. After going through another security checks, he finally entered it and found Chief Petrisc. The man occasionally issued orders while he kept his eye on a projected multi-pane interface that showed almost everything that happened inside and outside the Wrath.

"Ves, I figured you'd be here. A Larkinson never shies away from a fight! Come here and help me make sense of the readings."

Glad that he hadn't been chased out, Ves approach the command console and turned his attention to the proximity map. Twenty-five mechs made up of the first wave. Without a better understanding of the incoming threats, the captain held back the other mechs.

Also, the expanded tunnel around the Wrath didn't offer a lot of space anyway.

The deck beneath Ves rumbled a bit, and the reactors stationed at the center of the bay powered up.

The Wrath slowly powered up her systems and started digging again.

"Why are we tunneling again?!"

"We need to make more room for our mechs to fight!" Petrisc replied as he swiped his fingers across the projection, making adjustments on the fly. "The tunnel we've made doesn't give our mechs a lot of room to maneuver, and the Wrath is vulnerable as well if she remains stuck like this."

The Wrath slowly started to curve upwards. The recently deployed mechs followed in her wake. After making a deliberate course change, the Wrath now pointed upwards, leaving plenty of room for the mechs to meet the approaching signals coming from the core of the Glowing Planet.

"The signals are moving right through solid matter." Ves noted quickly as he studied the plot. "They're moving through both mundane and exotic materials like they don't exist! I don't think any machine made by man can do such a thing!"

Both of them came to the only conclusion possible. "They're indigenous life forms!"

Three strong signals burrowed through the core like it was made out of vacuum. Ves tried to guess at their properties and wondered if they descended from the native wildlife that had once roamed the Glowing Planet when it still orbited around a star.

As the three signals came closer, the Wrath's sensors resolved more data. Ves found them to be difficult to parse. The sensors failed to detect any mass readings or pick up any vibrations that indicated the signals burrowed through the terrain. Yet the amount of energy they held should be enough to power ten elite mechs.

"What kind of life forms are these?!"

"Whatever they are, they're heading straight for the Gregarious Wrath! I think that says enough about their stance towards us!"

The galaxy spawned countless wonders throughout its ten billion year history. Many strange and unusual life forms emerged from these unique conditions, and humanity had encountered billions of them during the Age of Conquest.

Many times, these indigenous life forms seemed omnipotent, but they all fell in the end against the might of humanity's inexorable rise. No one on the Wrath feared the approaching indigenous aliens, even though they possessed enough energy to riddle the Wrath from inside-out.

As Ves quietly tried to make sense of the increasingly detailed but incomprehensible readings, his mind inadvertently drifted back to the moments he met the ghost that wore his mother's face.

"They're energy life forms! They don't possess a material form!"

Chief Petrisc's face turned grim. He instantly sent off a message to the captain before he even tried to confirm the wild guess. "If those are energy beings, then we're in a lot of trouble."

Humanity encountered a handful of energy beings, whose existence in the material dimensions could only be sensed indirectly. It wasn't accurate to call them ghosts, but most laymen treated these intangible energy beings this way.

That was because they couldn't be hurt by a laser or projectile. Swords and shields flew straight through their transparent forms, though sometimes they didn't even show any hint of their existence. These near or fully invisible creatures harvested countless of lives, mechs and ships before humanity finally found the key to repel their cheat-like existences.

"Do we have an expert pilot on board?" Ves asked with sharp eyes.

"We do. Venerable Stanton Drake is standing by to deploy. The only problem is that the mech technicians recently overhauled his Fire Worm. It's a highly complex aerial striker mech that uses up a lot of power. Standard energy cells won't meet its energy consumption so the scientists have been trying to adapt your energy cells for expert mech designs. They only managed to do so a day ago."

"It's been weeks since I released those designs. It's taken them this long to develop a new energy cell?" Ves sounded exasperated. "They should have consulted me!"

"You know how the Mech Corps works. Those scientists holed up in their research bases are pissed at you because you upstaged all of their efforts. They don't want to admit a single mech designer can trump over their collective smarts."

Whatever the case, the mech technicians in charge of the Fire Worm raced against time to hammer the mech back together from its semi-disassembled state. So long as the Venerable didn't have access to a mech tailored to his talents, he wouldn't be able to display his full might.

Ves didn't offer to assist, since he would surely be rejected. He didn't possess the right clearance to work with highly sensitive expert mechs. These mechs cost many billions of credits to make and often incorporated some of the best technologies available to the Bright Republic.

In any case, a dedicated team of mech designers and mech technicians always accompanied each expert mech. Ves wouldn't be able to add anything unless he became more familiar with the Fire Worm's design.

"How much time do they need until the Venerable can deploy?"

"Ten minutes. We have to hold out for at least ten minutes."

After several tense moments, the alien energy creatures finally emerged from the core. They appeared to be semi-corporeal, with a transparent green glowing body that evoked the image of an illusionary snake the size of three mechs stacked on top of each other.

Most notably, the limbless creatures didn't possess any sensory organs. The only thing that distinguished its front from its back was the gaping toothless maw that possessed some sort of attractive force.

When the mechs that escorted the Wrath finally opened fire, the energy snakes widened their incorporeal maws.

Amazingly, every laser, shell, projectile and missile sent in their way curved their trajectories until they ended up inside their maws, where they promptly disappeared.

"What happened?!"

"How can all of those projectiles disappear!?"

"The worms are glowing brighter! They're feeding off the incoming fire!"

The mechs soon received orders to cease fire. After failing to make a dent through ranged fire, a few courageous melee mechs flew forward to meet the giant snakes in close combat.

It quickly turned ugly for the Mech Corps. The mechs hardly thrusted out their swords and spears before the snakes sped up and engulfed the mechs with their transparent bodies.

This time, the mechs hadn't disappeared. The snakes passed through the mechs as if they passed through a paper-thin screen. They completely dismissed the mechs that suddenly halted their flights.

After a few seconds of silence, the mechs lost all of their remaining power and dropped down to the core. The lighter gravity deep underground made the falls appear gentle, but no one knew whether the mechs could still restore its systems or if their pilots were even alive.

"They devoured all of the energy inside those mechs!"

"They're energy eaters!"

"Not only that, they can eat smaller solid substances as well!"

Chief Petrisc and the handful of men standing around him quickly summed up the traits of the energy snakes. Their existence couldn't be understood through a conventional lens. The abundant variety of exotics buried in the Glowing Planet spawned a bizarre form of life that brushed aside a well-equipped platoon of mechs.

"They're still heading for the Wrath!"

Chief Petrisc couldn't take it any longer. He raised his comm and hailed the bridge. An interference field automatically sprung into being that prevented Ves and any bystanders from eavesdropping on the conversation. Once the chief engineer finished the call, he issued an important order.

"Polarize the hull!"

The power reactors cranked up all of their power towards an intricate set of systems that caused the entire exterior of the Wrath to glow. The snakes halted their approach and curved around the Gregarious Wrath's strange new condition.

"It worked!" Ves exclaimed.

"Don't celebrate too soon. The Wrath can't stay in this condition for long. It takes a ludicrous amount of energy to maintain this state. I'll be forced to pull the plug in less than two minutes."

Polarization was a rare and underdeveloped technology in the Bright Republic. They expended so much energy that only their most important ships could be equipped with this option. Even if the Wrath possessed an abundant amount of energy sources, even those would be drained in record time if the tunneler had to maintain its polarization state.

Right now, both sides waited patiently. The snakes somehow sent that it took a lot of effort for the Wrath to keep up her polarization, while the crew aboard the Wrath tried to buy enough time for restore Venerable Drake's mech. Only an expert could save them from the devourers yearning to drain them of their energies.

Amazingly enough, despite the enormous power draw, the Gregarious Wrath largely held up. Much of the repairs and preventive maintenance done to the tunneler had paid off. Only a couple of auxiliary systems malfunctions as the Wrath strained to keep up its polarization state for two full minutes.

'How much longer until the Fire Worm is ready?" Ves asked.

"They need at least four more minutes! The mech technicians are already rushing their work as it is."

That was far too much time. As the final seconds approached, everyone aboard the Wrath held their breaths. Eventually, a lot of indicators on the status pane sent out alarms, and Chief Petrisc reluctantly pulled the level that shut off the polarization systems.

The Gregarious Wrath had dropped her defenses. The devourers already reared up to fly right through her meters-thick hull.

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Close to the final moment before the devourers tore into the Gregarious Wrath, Ves gained a new idea. "Chief! Can the dimensional smoothers be overloaded?"

"Huh?"

"The dimensional smoothers that protect us from wrinkles in spacetime! Can their power be cranked up any further?"

"It's not that simple!" The chief shook his head. "We borrowed them from the MTA under punishing conditions. If we damage them in any way, there's hell to pay!"

"Well, the energy snakes are about to breach inside the Wrath, so I hardly think this is the time to hold back!"

The chief faced a lot of pressure with this decision. The devourers wouldn't give him enough time to discuss the option with the captain. His eyes hardened as he decisively took action. His fingers brushed across a couple of options in the projected panel.

"Let's see what happens if we dial the power up to a 150 percent!"

As soon as the dimensional boosters received an influx of excess power, they reacted by emitting vastly empowered restrictive fields. The three dimensional smoothers placed along the length of the Wrath ensured the entire tunneler became covered in this enhanced fields.

As the snakes finally reared forward, they bumped head-long into the newly empowered field. While they initially kept flying forward, the sakes quickly halted as their bodies warped out of shape.

"It's working!" Petrisc shouted with awe. "How did you know that would work?"

"The devourers look like they have one foot in the material dimensions and another foot in the other dimensions. I figure they are existences that straddle both sides in order to take advantage of their best parts. This kind of semi-corporeal state can only be maintained if there aren't any barriers between the material dimensions and the upper dimensions."

In truth, Ves had been thinking of a way to fight back against his 'mother' if she ever appeared before him again. All those hours of brainstorming eventually produced results, of which Ves applied one of them. The success of his measure strengthened his confidence against the ghost.

Perhaps his next encounter with his mother wouldn't turn out to be one-sided.

The snakes exhibited signs of deep discomfort. Whatever the dimensional smoothers did to solidify the local space, the devourers deeply behaved as if they got scalded by hot water. Only after they shifted back a fair distance did their bodies stop looking like they would fall apart.

"How long can the dimensional smoothers hold?" Ves asked.

"Not long. They have in-built safeties that will forcefully regulate their power intake after forty-five seconds."

"That's not long enough!"

"At least you bought us some time. It's all in the hands of the mech technicians that are putting back the Fire Worm together."

Ves had no more rabbits to pull out of his hat. Any other measure he could suggest wouldn't work due to a lack of means. Even his impromptu suggestion to overload the dimensional smoothers had been a fluke as he knew almost nothing about their properties.

As the seconds passed, the crew of the Wrath prepared for a ruinous outcome. Chief Petrisc ordered the emergency deactivation of all but one of the power reactors, thereby forcing the tunneler to a halt.

"Ten more seconds to go."

Sweat poured from Ves as he readied his own countermeasures. He made sure that Lucky stayed nearby before holding his fingers atop his comm. He would instantly activate his stealth module as soon as one of the snakes emerged in the engineering bay.

Suddenly, the status projection sent out an audible ping.

"The Fire Worm is ready! Venerable Drake has lifted off!"

Through a hidden hatch at the rear of the Wrath, a colorful orange mech emerged into the tunnel. Ves scoured his eyes over the frame of the mech and noted that it could only be the Fire Worm.

The mech appeared to be an aerial striker, though it actually wielded a combination of laser rifles and flamethrowers embedded in its arms. Forces primarily utilized such mechs to harass the rear lines of their enemies and disrupt their supply lines. Only rarely would any force employ aerial strikers in a frontal clash.

"Aerial strikers don't have the room to accommodate both their lasers, flamethrowers and flight systems. It takes too much energy and fuel to feed all of these systems." Ves mused.

However, the rules didn't apply to expert mechs. As long as a designer applied sufficiently advanced technology, all of those limits could be overcome.

Naturally, these benefits always came at a ruinous cost. The Mech Corps could only afford to provide these treatment to their rare and valuable expert mech pilots.

Ves always dreamed of designing a tailored expert mech for one of the Venerables of the Republic. Now, he'd be able to witness one of those mechs in action.

Despite weighing as much as a medium mech, the Fire Worm accelerated at a rate on par with a light mech. The lighter gravity helped somewhat, but the model's incredibly powerful systems enabled it to surpass ordinarily limits without any strain.

It took seconds for Venerable Drake to reach the closest devourer. Chief Petrisc already ceased overloading the dimensional smoothers, so the devourers quickly recovered from their momentary discomfort.

At the Fire Worm's approach, the devourer appeared to be alert. Somehow, it detected a high level of energy from the approaching machine. The ethereal snake faced the Fire Worm with a gaping maw, ready to absorb anything it threw in its way.

The Fire Worm didn't play by its rules. Venerable Drake held back his fire and flew his mech past the maw in an arcing path. Only after his mech turned around did he open fire.

His bulky, sophisticated rifle spat out a trio of thick laser beams. They converged upon a single point on the devourer's surface.

Ordinarily, such a mighty convergence would have vaporized any mech in the way, but the lasers passed through the body of the snake without any effect.

While the snake kept turning around to face the Fire Worm, Venerable Drake kept circling around the bewildered devourer while trying to avoid the swiping passes of its two companions. The Fire Worm tried a few different configurations, but none of the lasers left a mark on the snakes.

It looked like the expert mech pilot had to employ his full strength to tackle this alien menace.

The Fire Worm's exterior started to glow red as some of its components started to resonate with some unknown influence. Its armor radiated so much energy and heat that Ves had an illusion that the Fire Worm caught fire.

"The Venerable is getting serious now!"

The main difference between an advanced mech pilot and an expert mech pilot was that the latter had broken through the limits posed by their genetics.

A good genetic aptitude only provided potentates with a decent start. Once they reached the pinnacle of advanced mech pilot, they had to evolve beyond the parameters holding back the human race from gaining as much might as the pinnacle alien races in the galaxy.

Even four-hundred years after the start of the Age of Mechs, humanity couldn't explain how expert pilots came to be. Ves himself only knew of a couple of traits that empowered them beyond baseline humans.

The most important of which was that expert mech pilots gained the ability to resonate with exotics. Most exotic materials actually didn't react very strongly to an expert mech pilots, but a small portion actually reacted very strongly when an expert mech pilot made a connection to those materials.

This enabled them to bring out the dormant potential hidden deep within these exotics and perform various miracles that often seem like magic. The galactic net was rife with battle recordings where renowned experts pulled off feats such as teleportation and duplication.

One all-time popular battle recording even showed a single battle in space where over a hundred spaceborn mechs fired their rifles at a motionless expert mech. They thought the expert mech had somehow lost power.

They were wrong.

The expert mech woke up just before they pulled their triggers and began to glow in purple. Mystical lines ran through its frame as a concave field came into being.

By the time the lasers and projectiles reached the expert mech, they stopped and curved around as if they orbited a planet. The attacking mechs quickly got torn down by their own fire.

Such incredible feats had elevated expert mech pilots to the forefront of human society, even if they didn't show up in public that much. The more they showed off their talents, the easier it was for their enemies to develop countermeasures.

Right now, Venerable Drake had no such concerns. The Fire Worm's glow reached an apex, whereby the energy transferred to the bulky rifle in its arms. A module on rifle glowed resplendently white before the rifle spat out three white-hot beams that carried special qualities.

This time, the lasers struck the hapless devourer, and carved out a burning hole in his body. The energy snake reared back as if it had almost been decapitated. With surprising speed, the wounded devourer flew back, but the beams kept pumping more hurt into its body.

The rifle eventually dimmed after two full seconds, but by that time the devourer stopped moving.

"He did it! He killed the creature!"

Hope bloomed among the crew. Even though the Fire Worm expended a significant amount of energy to kill off that snake, only two more creatures remained. Despite the initial success, Chief Petrisc held back his smile.

Ves noted the chief's reticence. "You don't believe Venerable Drake can do it?"

"He's not a high-tier expert pilot. The Venerable deserves respect for reaching a realm that most can only dream of, but he can only fight on one to ten odds."

Even expert mech pilots could be classified in tiers. Newer expert pilots could generally beat ten mech pilots at once if they all piloted the same mechs.

Those that made a lot of progress in practicing their abilities eventually reached the point where a single expert could beat a hundred mechs at once, but only if they piloted a mech tailored to their talents.

While Venerable Drake piloted a fitting mech, he hadn't gained enough time to become a top-tier expert pilot. Still, the expert didn't flinch from his duty. The Fire Worm turned around to face the two devourers that had become enraged at their companion's death. Their speed grew to the point where the Fire Worm wouldn't be able to outrace the alien creatures.

In response, Venerable Drake resonated with his mech again. The Fire Worm regained its energetic glow, but this time it acquired a scarlet tint. The mech calmly holstered the rifle onto its back before extending its two arms.

The two devourers tried to be clever and split up to attack the Fire Worm from both sides. Venerable Drake therefore responded by aiming the muzzles of his mech's flamethrowers in their direction. As soon as the devourers came within effective range, the energy converged into the wrists where the muzzles of the flamethrowers rested.

Then, they spat out fire.

Two humongous gouts of flame extended more than a hundred meters from the flamethrowers. Even an entire corvette would be enveloped by the gigantic scarlet flames!

Once the flamethrowers ceased their operation, the flames died out, leaving nothing but broken creatures in their wake. The snakes slowly drifted down to the core now that their semi-corporeal bodily functions stopped working.

The Fire Worrm massacred the energy life forms with contemptuous ease.

Inside the engineering bay, Chief Petrisc sighed in relief. "It's a good thing those indigenous life forms don't seem all that strong. They can be killed as long as we have the right tools."

With Venerable Drake and his Fire Worm on standby, the Gregarious Wrath wouldn't have to worry about being beset by the strange creatures.

The journey to the center of the Glowing Planet was back on track.

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The sight of an expert pilot in action greatly inspired Ves. Though he'd seen plenty of archival footage and exaggerated drama depictions of expert mechs, seeing one so close and in such detail exhilarated him like nothing else.

Nevertheless, Ves would never have the opportunity to design an expert mech any time soon. The development of each mech relied on restricted technologies with regards to integrating resonating exotics into various components.

For example, at a minimum, the Fire Worm's armor, power reactor, energy cells and internal architecture had received massive enhancements in order to channel so much energy at once. Ves had no clue how to go about designing a mech that could accomplish a fraction of what the Fire Worm exhibited.

In the mech industry, anyone who wanted to design a customized mech for an expert pilot had to be a Journeyman Mech Designer at a minimum. In practice, Senior Mech Designers always took charge over the development of expert mechs. The difficulty of nurturing expert pilots insured they always received some of the best treatment available.

"Did you understand how the Fire Worm is able to hurt those energy creatures?" Ves asked Chief Petrisc.

"Nope. Not a clue."

This left the deep mining expedition in an awkward state. The Gregarious Wrath and her contingent of mechs remained helpless against any further incursions by the same species of aliens. They had only reached the edge of the core and already they faced three of the beasts at once.

What would happen if ten of them came? Or twenty?

The sudden appearance of indigenous life forms forced the Mech Corps to curtail their plans of branching out. With only one mech capable of fighting back against the worms, the Mech Corps wouldn't be able to send out smaller tunnelers and mining machines on their own.

After a couple of hours of formulating new plans, the captain of the Gregarious Wrath finally ordered the massive beast to continue to borrow towards the center. The Wrath would be taking the lead after all.

Over the next couple of days, the Wrath kept encountering packs of devourers once every few hours. Their threat forced Venerable Drake to remain awake and alert in order beat them back before they inflicted catastrophic damage on the giant tunneler. Naturally, the rest of the crew also had to stay on their toes.

Even then, the men and women aboard the Gregarious Wrath never slacked off on their duties. They had been through worse, so staying alert for so long hardly fazed them at all. Even Drake could go without sleep for a few days with the help of stimulants.

They made fair progress into the core. This time, a dozen smaller mining machines followed the Wrath in her wake. Anytime their mineral scanners detected a promising signal, they dug the side walls until they dug out traces of Rorach's Bone or some other highly active exotic. With these activities alone, this deep mining expedition had already turned a profit.

Still, the largest piece of Rorach's Bone that the mining machines had uncovered was only as large as a fingertip. That obviously didn't satisfy the System's greedy demands.

As Ves gradually inched closer to his goal, up on the surface, the Glowing Planet had turned into a true battlefield. The amount of mechs that perished at the hands of others had surpassed ten-thousand and began to approach twenty-thousand.

The struggle to occupy the juiciest territories with the richest deposits of high-grade exotics prompted many smaller outfits to fight among themselves. Groups with greater forces relied on their deterrent factor to discourage most fights before they started, but sometimes greed overtook common sense.

The Mech Corps occupied the most valuable red zone on the Glowing Planet, so they also happened to draw the most powerful of these reckless groups. Highly fanatical pirates under the lead of the Dragons of the Void kept chipping away at the Mech Corps.

This in turn had put a huge burden on the gangs and mercenary corps that settled at the edge of the red zone. As the first line of defense, they often had to take the brunt of the pirate attacks. Attrition had reached an unsustainable level and some outfits even lost eighty percent of their mechs.

At this point in time, the Mech Corps had ceded a third of their territory. The bases painstakingly constructed by the Blood Claws and Walter's Whalers had to be abandoned upon pulling back the defensive lines.

While the Blood Claws only lost around forty percent of their mechs, the Whalers had ceased to become an effective standalone force. Whatever mechs they retained could hardly be relied on to stand in the frontlines as years of lackluster maintenance and shoddy procurement caught up to them. Only a handful of their elites continued to operate under the banners of the much-diminished Blood Claws.

Right now, the Mech Corps fended off the latest thrust of opportunistic pirates. This time, the Dragons of the Void somehow roped in a couple of mercenary outfits to join in their thrust, so the battle became especially frigid as mercs always displayed more competence on the field.

"This is ridiculous! How many mechs have the Dragons thrown away? How is any of this worth it?!" Raella huffed as her mech expertly darted around a mercenary knight. The enemy mech deftly turned to keep her beaten-up Sliverath from stabbing it in the back.

This turned out to be a trap as Fadah's Blackbeak charged in from its rear. The merc detected the approach and panicked. In his attempt to dodge both, a volley of lasers struck the knight in the sword arm, causing its grip to loosen enough for the Blackbeak to bash it out of reach.

Without exchanging any words, Raella moved in and together with Fadah pressured the weaponless knight from both sides. While the merc held off the two-pronged assault with his knight's single shield, it started to accumulate more and more damage whenever he slipped up.

"Now!"

The Sliverath dove forward with two upraised daggers. Before the knight could adjust, the Blackbeak locked its shield with its own, preventing it from maneuvering it elsewhere.

SHUNK!

The daggers stabbed into the knight's back and sank in deep. Even though its boasted decent rear armor, Raella had put her mech's entire momentum into the double blow. The knight lost all power and sank down into a heap.

"These mercs are a tough nut to crack." Raella remarked.

Fadah agreed. "I don't know how much they're getting paid, but this is ridiculous. We dismantled an entire squad and they're still not running away."

The battle still raged on at the center of the gates, which had already been torn down by the concerted efforts of the pirates and mechs. To be honest, the outfits in the employ of the Mech Corps only played a side role in this battle. Their job was to hold the flanks and prevent the pirates from sneaking in the base from another direction.

"Tch. My mech won't hold out for long." Raella cursed as she checked the status readouts of her Sliverath. Constant battle and accumulation of battle damage had stretched its integrity to its limits. "I think I'll have to bow out soon."

"No problem. I can take care of the rest with Dietrich." Fadah replied with quiet confidence.

Of the two, Fadah had taken down twice as many mechs. Even the Blood Claws acknowledged his skill and considered him the strongest mech pilot after Walter.

In truth, Fadah owed much of his success to the Blackbeak. The highly modified offensive knight had turned into a terror on the battlefield. Even if it had a tendency to build up too much heat in this airless environment, the Blackbeak always bounced back after each round of repairs. Its true worth as a durable mech started to shine through.

The Blackbeak's excellent performance helped stabilize the lines and prevent the pirates from threatening the base from another direction.

Up in space, the Mech Corps long lost any hope of maintaining orbital supremacy. The only upside was that no other force had been able to secure the orbit for themselves as well. So many different factions angled for control over the skies above the Glowing Planet that they'd all gang up on anyone who wanted to monopolize the benefits to themselves.

This led to a rather tense standoff as nobody wanted to provoke a needless fight. Even if they won a single battle, they'd lose so many mechs and ships that they had become worse off than before. Knocking off one single group among hundreds hardly reduced the threat the victor faced.

Ghanso Larkinson gloomily kept his eyes on the plot as his new mech continued to patrol around a small formation of fleet carriers. After he recovered from his first loss, he'd been transferred to another squad and put into a spare mech, which happened to be a copy of the old baseline Vhedra design.

The Vhedra suited him better than the S variant. His previous narrow escape against a foreign faction's expert pilot hadn't dimmed his enthusiasm for piloting mechs. Instead, it sparked a fire within him, prompting him to become much more focused in his training to be a better mech pilot.

"I won't let your death be in vain, Alex." He whispered to himself as his mech continued its patrol alongside the rest of his squad.

He already distinguished himself by taking down seven mechs since his reassignment. Ever since he broke past his limits and managed to score a hit against the enemy expert mech, Ghanso found that his accuracy against moving targets had improved by leaps and bounds. Even the swiftest light mechs couldn't escape his retribution.

"Larkinson! You're drifting away! Get back in formation!"

"Yes, sir!"

For now, the Mech Corps maintained a sufficient hold onto the red zone, but whether they could get away with the haul they've made so far was still in question.

Nevertheless, Ves cared for none of those concerns, as the Gregarious Wrath finally reached a sufficient depth where they encountered vastly more traces of Rorach's Bone.

In fact, he sensed it before anyone else because strange waves resonated with his sixth sense. Over the past couple of days, Ves realized that some of the secrets of Rorach's Bone had to do with their ability to amplify the resonance of any component. This was actually considered an even more valuable trait than its ability to self-repair.

The importance placed on resonance made Ves suspect that it had something in common with the sixth sense. Even if expert mech pilots didn't gain his sensitivity regarding the sixth sense, they still gained the ability to affect resonating exotics with their mind and will.

"It's an entirely different application of metaphysics."

Besides working on a common set of wavelengths and energy, Ves realized that expert mech pilots applied their enhanced powers in a different fashion. Whereas Ves focused on creating the imaginary and bringing them to life, the mech pilots exerted their influence directly in the material dimensions to accomplish immediate effects.

His presence aboard the Gregarious Wrath enabled him to learn a lot on things he wasn't supposed to learn yet. Apprentice Mech Designers should focus on polishing their foundations.

"I can see why that's prudent. The amount of knowledge needed to work on something as mythical as Rorach's Bone alone is astounding."

Even if Ves had no chance of designing an expert mech on his own, the added knowledge enhanced his understanding of metaphysics. This is turn improved his ability to imbue the X-Factor into a design.

He even came up with a certain guess that his abilities would improve with the help of a resonating exotic.

In any case, the Gregarious Wrath slowed her digging once the researchers determined they had reached their goal. They had dug so deep into the Glowing Planet that they had come across the likely origin point of the Rorach's Bone they had found so far.

They had reached the fabled boneyard.

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This deep inside the Glowing Planet, things started to get weird, especially when they entered the boneyard. The increased density of naturally-formed resonating exotics caused everyone to feel as if they took a dive into a lukewarm bath.

The pressure they felt could solely be felt in their minds. No matter how much they shielded their bodies, they couldn't escape the pervasive thrum of power that radiated off the pieces of Rorach's Bone.

In that regard, the mining machines had a field day excavating all of the trace materials. Picking up a couple of milligrams here and there became as easy as breathing water. However, the Mech Corps ceased to care about these scraps and started to hunger for larger samples of Rorach's Bone.

The larger the piece, the better its potential. A thousand pinches of Rorach's Bone couldn't hold a candle to a single fingertip-sized sample. Most of the mining machines focused on seeking even larger samples of Rorach's Bone.

Eventually, they hadn't managed to find anything notable before trouble came knocking at their door. Everyone aboard the Gregarious Wrath ran to their stations when an alarm rang out. The Wrath's long-ranged sensors detected a massive energy signal approaching their position.

"It's a devourer king!" Chief Petrisc exclaimed as the researchers finished analyzing the readings. "According to the projections, this beast is ten times as large as a regular devourer!"

Ves had been afraid of this. While Venerable Drake easily mopped up the regular devourers, they never faced the true tyrants of the core of the Glowing Planet.

The Gregarious Wrath prepared for a hard fight. Every other mining vehicle swiftly retreated upwards while the Wrath moved so that her mechs had room to fight, not that anyone expected the regular mechs to hurt the devourers.

Through constant battle, the Mech Corps learned that the devourers were attracted to energy sources. In this case, the otherwise useless mechs at least served as bait.

"Ten seconds until the devourer king is in sight!"

The creature finally emerged from the walls of the core. The gigantic snake was at least half as large as the Gregarious Wrath. However, when it opened its endless maw in a challenge, it stretched wide enough to engulf the tunneler in a single gulp.

No one could imagine the extent of the damage should that happen. They had to stop the devourer king in its tracks.

"Are the dimensional smoothers ready to be overloaded?" Chief Petrisc asked an engineer in charge of keeping them safe.

"They're still recovering from the last time we stressed them out. We only have a twenty-eight second allowance this time. Any longer and they'll automatically return to normal levels."

That didn't sound very good. If this devourer king put up a decent fight against their expert pilot, then the Wrath might not escape unscathed this time.

"Do we have any other countermeasures against the energy beings?"

"None…"

Even after many days of experimentation, the Gregarious Wrath remained as helpless before the devourers. Nothing could stop their advance except with the help of the effects stirred by resonating exotics. Out of the thousands of people in the deep mining expedition, only the Venerable possessed the ability to do so.

The Fire Worm emerged from the rear of the Wrath as flamboyantly as always. The mech's oversized flight systems pushed the aerial striker forward in a direct confrontation with the incoming worm. The mech had already started accumulating energy inside the Wrath.

All of that poured into the rifle held in the Fire Worm's arms. After a short moment where the energies piled up inside the rifle, the weapon spat out three bright lances of lasers.

The beams instantly struck the giant devourer's maw, which strained to absorb the destructive energies.

"The devourer king is hurting!"

"It's not enough." Ves shook his head. He worryingly held Lucky in his arms. "The maw is the strongest part of a devourer!"

Indeed, the triple laser beams hadn't been able to inflict any notable damage other than giving the devourer some belly aches. After the Fire Worm expended all of the energy it accumulated in the rifle, started to charge its second set of armaments.

As the devourer king slowly inched up the tunnel with its maw opened wide, the Fire Worm released its most destructive blast of firepower. Two massives flares of flame almost engulfed the entire maw. The two flamethrowers continued to project streams of augmented flames until they finally ran out of energy.

"It's still alive!"

Amazingly, the devourer king survived, though it hadn't escaped unscathed this time. The flames had been so intense that it forced the energy being to shut its maw. This allowed some of the flames to scorch the devourer's semi-corporeal exterior, inflicting severe burn damage to its front.

The devourer king became enraged. Just as Venerable Drake began to charge his mech yet again, the creature did something none of the stupid devourers had done.

The king dove through the tunnel and into the bedrock.

"Damn! This organism grasped our weakness!"

The fact of the matter was that the Fire Worm could only fight inside the tunnel. As much as Venerable Drake would like to, he couldn't turn his mech into a ghost and chase after the devourer king.

This single move had completely negated their only advantage!

On the sensor plot, the signal emitted by the devourer king followed a looping path that brought it straight towards the side of the Gregarious Wrath.

"Overload the dimensional smoothers!"

The Wrath groaned as she pumped an abundance over power into the three devices the Mech Corps borrowed from the MTA. Everyone held their breaths. At least they bought some time for themselves to figure out a solution.

At least that was what they thought.

As the incoming signal came close, the devourer king emerged from the wall and sunk into the hull of the Gregarious Wrath. The creature had withstood the effects of the overloaded dimensional smoothers!

Countless alarms blared out and the status projection highlighted portions of the Wrath in an alarming shade of red.

"We're hit! We've lost telemetry of the middle starboard side of decks eleven to twenty-six!"

The devourer king retreated after it made the attack. The dimensional smoothers still worked to deter the creature, but only after it came near to one of the devices.

"The creature has a much higher tolerance to the dimensional smoothers! We aren't able to cover the entire length of the Wrath with only three devices!"

The devourer king attacked the giant tunneling machine twice, each them taking a bite out of the affected sections. Everything in its sphere of influence that ran on power turned into useless scrap, while every man or woman turned into braindead idiots as if they had their lives sapped out of them. Despite the lack of physical damage, the energy being had virtually annihilated a large swathe of the Wrath.

"Where is the Fire Worm?"

"He just reentered the Wrath, but he won't be able to tell where to go!"

The devourer king cunningly swirled around the Gregarious Wrath after each attack. This prevented it from being pinned down and minimized its chances of meeting the Fire Worm.

Ves felt his heart begin to thud like a drum. The Mech Corps truly possessed no other means to fight against this deadly creature. He thought they might have hidden away a trump card or two, but it turned out they didn't have any other means to fight against an energy beings. They were just so rare in the galaxy and had never shown up in the Komodo Star Sector before.

He began to think of an exit strategy. Ves had no faith that the Fire Worm could take down the king before it could engulf the entire Wrath. He quietly stepped back from Chief Petrisc's side and eyed the exit hatch.

"The dimensional smoothers activated their safeguards! We can't overload them anymore!"

That was very bad news. The Gregarious Wrath's only form of deterrence against the devourer king lost much of its effectiveness. The devourer king evidently sensed this change. It ceased to attack an unimportant corner of the Wrath and dove straight for the power reactors in the rear engineering bay.

"It's coming straight for us!"

The devourer king easily endured the weaker dimensional stabilization field emitted by the smoother and dove deeper into the Wrath. Hundreds of crewmen lost their lives as the monstrous creature passed through their bodies. The Wrath herself ceased to move as she sustained too much damage.

Ves didn't have the opportunity to run. Everything happened so quickly that he could barely take a few steps away from the main control panel. Just a second later, a part of the transparent form of the devourer king emerged from the roof of the engineering bay.

A few armed crewmen shot their weapons at the approaching maw of doom but accomplished nothing at all. Others screamed, panicked or cried. Chief Petrisc faced his approached his impending death with an impassive face.

Just when all seemed certain, Lucky jumped out of Ves' grasp. The cat turned into a silver streak that bumped straight into the blackish map of the devourer. Upon reaching it, Lucky activated a supercharged version of his energy claws and tore a small hole out of the abyss.

Somehow, this minor action stopped the massive energy creature. Lucky fell back down in an exhausted state.

"Lucky!" Ves called and ran after his cat who collapsed on the deck. "Are you okay?!"

"Meow…"

Lucky appeared much dimmer than before. He even lost some of his silver luster. Yet his single act of defiance had saved them all from imminent death. The devourer king sustained so much damage that it had been pushed back a couple of decks. Still, the wound only hurt it slightly. The monster hadn't sustained any actual damage.

However, before it could make another attempt at devouring the power reactors, the Fire Worm finally reached the right compartment to attack the devourer. It instantly fired off its laser rifle against the devourer's side.

This time, the lasers hit home on the creature. The lasers burned aside the monster's thick exterior and dealt severe internal damage. The devourer became so hurt that it started to rear back from the Wrath, but Venerable Drake didn't let go of his prey.

Without thinking of the consequences, the Fire Worm fired off a single enhanced flame strike. It burned the entire deck into crisp and cremated all of the bodies that had died from being passed through by the devourer.

The flames bore through the gap burned by the laser and inflicted an even greater level of internal damage. The flames burned so hot that the surrounding compartments melted apart.

The devourer king finally couldn't take it anymore. The creature burned from inside out and finally let out a final inaudible roar before it ceased to move.

Moments after that, its ethereal form fragmented into pieces and drifted out of the tunneler. The devourer king had been slain.

No one celebrated the victory this time. The Wrath suffered grievous damage to the point of crippling her in place. Getting her back in a barely functional state required a lot of emergency repairs. With their time on the Glowing Planet running out, the Mech Corps had to race against all odds to retrieve the Gregarious Wrath.

In the meantime, Ves hugged Lucky tight against his chest. "I don't know what you just did, but I'll be sure to pay you back what you lost! I'll get the Mech Corps to feed you some Rorach's Bone if I have to!"

"Meow!" Lucky already perked up when he heard those words. The gem cat already started to salivate at the thought of munching on some of those extremely delicious exotics.

Ves had no doubt the Mech Corps would acquiesce on this issue. After all, everyone in the engineering bay witnessed Lucky's feat. Without his timely assistance, the Gregarious Wrath would have truly become stranded deep inside the Glowing Planet. As long as the engineering bay remained intact, the Wrath could still regain her mobility.

Chief Petrisc approached Ves with a touch of awe. "When I saw you being followed by a mechanical cat, I didn't think it hid such capabilities."

"What can I say? He's a marvel of Rubarthan engineering." Ves lightly boasted. He wanted to intimate that his pet came from a first-rate superstate. Only they could turn a mechanical pet into a killing machine that was capable of harming energy beings. "I hope the Mech Corps doesn't have any intentions for my pet."

"Don't worry! I'm sure command can keep their greedy hands off your property. We aren't that desperate to steal your cat. Besides, we won't be able to beat its loyalty programming anyway."

That lifted off a weight off Ves.

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The devourer king suffered the same fate as its lesser brothers, but the price hadn't been worth it. The creature managed to wound the Gregarious Wrath severely. Over twenty percent of her systems and crew had been lost, stranding the giant tunneling machine near the inner core of the Glowing Planet.

Who knew if more devourer kings rested deeper inside. What if an even larger devourer emperor rested in the exact center? The Gregarious Wrath couldn't take on another devourer king even if she wanted to, so the entire deep mining expedition stopped advancing deeper.

While the smaller tunneling and mining machines started excavating the Rorach's Bone buried in the vicinity, everyone aboard the Wrath began to help with the repairs.

They only had a few days to get the Wrath functional again. The end of the seventy-day period loomed closer and the Mech Corps started to plan for a comprehensive evacuation. The Wrath needed at least a couple more days to climb back up to the surface.

Meanwhile Ves or rather Lucky became the star of the show. No one expected the small and cute mechanical pet that always hung around Ves to hide such potent capabilities. Even Ves himself didn't know that Lucky could harm energy beings!

"Lucky!" Ves held his dim cat in front of his face. "Why didn't you help me fend off my mother? You could have chased her away at the very least!"

"Meow."

Ever since he repelled the huge devourer king, Lucky turned almost lifeless, as if he expended all of the energy he accumulated ever since he stepped on the Glowing Planet.

"Next time my mother comes, don't sit around like a helpless kitten. Just swipe her face with your claws!"

"Meow…"

Ves sighed. He couldn't stay angry at his cat, especially since he saved his life yet again. Right now, he wanted to make sure that Lucky got rewarded for his services.

The entire crew aboard the Gregarious Wrath looked at Lucky with a new light. Some wanted to pick him up and hug him, while others gripped their holstered pistols tighter. Pretty much everyone took for granted that Lucky was an extravagant bodyguard pet from a first-rate superstate. Many people envied Ves for owning such an exclusive gift.

"We've almost reached the vault." Chief Petrisc told Ves as their lifter platform almost reached the center of the Wrath. "Now, don't misunderstand. You aren't there to take anything away. You're only tasked with inspecting the security systems for any damage accrued from the last attack. Return as soon as you've run over the systems."

"Understood."

"One more thing. The devourer king's attack has wiped out a lot of archival data, including the logs pertaining to the vault. Please take stock of the inventory while you are there. Of course, you're not allowed to take anything away. We will conduct a strict search when you enter and exit the vault, so don't think you can sneak anything past our guards."

"No problem, chief. I'll make sure not a hair is out of place."

They reached the highly-fortified vault doors. Two mechs stood at the sides, one of which pointed its laser rifle at Ves.

"Don't be alarmed, Ves. Any guest we bring to the vault receives the same treatment."

Though it unnerved Ves to be pointed at by a mech-sized weapon, he could tell that the rifle's safeties hadn't been disengaged. He nodded to show his understanding and let the chief bring him up to the checkpoint where a squad of exoskeleton-suited guards awaited their arrival.

After Ves and Lucky underwent a thorough search, the vault doors slowly retracted, revealing a clean metallic chamber filled with small, head-sized storage compartments.

"There are over ten-thousand different safes inside this vault, of which more than a third are filled with samples of Rorach's Bone or something else of extreme value. Due to the recent attack, we aren't quite sure how much are left. What if the devourer king ate them all? Here's a pass to open the safes. It will only work for the next four hours, so you better move quickly."

Once Ves received the pass that enabled him to open the safes, he entered the vault with Lucky, upon which the doors slowly closed again.

He was finally left alone. "Okay buddy, this is your Lucky day."

The first thing he did was to disable the sensors and monitoring systems. Ordinarily, such an act couldn't be done by himself, but the crew of the ship had already disabled various systems related to the vault's security throughout the Wrath. Ves only had to expose some control panels and unplug some wires he memorized beforehand.

Every monitoring and security system inside the vault turned off. Ves grinned once he confirmed that nothing stood in his way from robbing, ahem, inspecting the vault.

"Alright Lucky, let's take stock of the inventory and see how much the devourer king swallowed its contents."

"Meow!"

Ves approached a random row of safes and swiped his pass over one of them. The safe box opened up to reveal a floating, eyeball-sized exotic mineral of unknown properties. It wasn't Rorach's Bone, but it must be valuable if the Mech Corps stored it inside the vault.

After a few seconds of consideration, Ves drew his card and swiped it in front of the safe before flipping it over his shoulder. The antigrav modules holding the ore aloft in the center of the safe pushed the ore out of the safe, upon which Lucky jumped up and caught it between his paws.

While Lucky enthusiastically devoured the highly valuable exotic like he'd been starved for months, Ves swiped his card downwards, prompting the emptied safe to lock itself up.

"Alright, this safe is empty. Let me note that in my log. Done. Let's move on to the next one."

Ves casually walked down the rows, opening up each and every safe to see whether they held anything of value. Sometimes the safes contained nothing, but most often they contained small amounts of Rorach's Bone. The Mech Corps must have stored every piece of Rorach's Bone larger than a pinch inside these safes.

Right now, all of it happened to be within his grasp.

Chief Petrisc hadn't given Ves the opportunity to 'inspect' the vault out of a whim. In truth, high command had been dragging their feet with regards to allowing Ves to take his fair share.

He even heard rumors that some in command wanted to keep the largest pieces to themselves. After all, a hand-sized piece of Rorach's Bone was the creme de la creme.

Their refusals reminded Ves that the people who ran the Mech Corps prioritized their own benefits over anyone else's. A small figure like Ves didn't register on their radar.

Perhaps out of guilt or out of a sense of obligation, the captain turned a blind eye to those directives. Instead, he allowed Chief Petrisc to come up with this convoluted scheme to allow Ves to take what he wanted from the vault.

Even though a couple of people knew about the scheme, they all owed their lives to Lucky. Besides showing their gratitude, they also allowed Lucky to munch on the exotics because they needed him to regain his strength.

What if another devourer king came? What if Venerable Drake couldn't stop it from submerging into the bedrock again? The Wrath had become even more of a sitting duck to the cripping damage she sustained in the last attack. They couldn't even overload the dimensional smoothers anymore, as additional safeties had set that restricted any further rough treatment.

Thus, Lucky became their only hope of buying enough time for Venerable Drake to come to their rescue. Not that high command agreed. They simply didn't believe that Lucky alone repelled a gigantic devourer worm half the size of the Gregarious Wrath.

In any case, Ves didn't take their refusal to heart, because he would have received a couple of scraps for a reward. "It's good to be king for a day."

As he passed through the vaults, Ves threw out anything that looked promising as long as Lucky finished processing his earlier meals.

As soon as Lucky figured out this pattern, he ceased to chew the minerals for enjoyment and began to focus on breaking them down as fast as possible. His energy claws along with his incredibly strong and sharp teeth ensured he never needed to spend more than a minute to break down a chunk.

The cat kept inhaling the pieces as long as they fit his gullet. Evidently, Lucky didn't have to worry too much about his digestion. As soon as the ores ended up in his stomach, they ceased to be a concern.

After feeding Lucky with more than a dozen chunks of Rorach's Bone and other curiosities, Lucky regained his usual vigor. His eyes sparkled like gemstones and his silvery exterior took on a shiny sheen. The gaps between his exterior plating glowed so brightly that it resembled plasma.

"Keep eating, Lucky. This is a once-in-a-decade opportunity for you. I'd have to sell countless mechs to afford this much Rorach's Bone."

In actuality, exotics of these grades couldn't be found in the open market, especially in the resource-deprived galactic rim.

Ves sighed at the thought of all of the riches the Glowing Planet still held. The Mech Corps only retrieved a fraction of its bountiful wealth. The rest would be handed over to the Hegemony and the Coalition once the seventy-day deadline had passed.

"Even with such a generous window of time, they'll still end up with more than ninety-nine percent of the wealth."

It sounded so unfair, but that was the privilege of power. The second-rate states only had to wave a single hand to wipe out the Bright Republic.

"C'mon Lucky, eat faster!"

Lucky underwent a subtle as Ves kept feeding him with medium-grade Rorach's Bone. His entire surface rippled as if his metallic body became pliable. Ves had the sense that Lucky didn't just convert the Rorach's Bone to pure energy.

His gem cat somehow incorporated their properties to his body.

Ves became happier when he realized that Lucky grew stronger. He especially looked forward to seeing the self-repair properties of Rorach's Bone in action.

"Keep eating. The stronger you are, the better you'll be able to protect me."

When they reached halfway, Ves tossed about five percent of the contents of the safes to Lucky. He didn't dare grab a larger share and prompt the Mech Corps to launch an investigation.

A five percent loss should be unremarkable enough for some doddering bureaucrat to dismiss the report as a natural consequence from being attacked by a giant semi-corporeal snake.

Once Ves swiped his card for the umpteenth time, a safe opened up to reveal the largest piece of Rorach's Bone to date.

It was about half as large as his head.

"They did find a piece!"

The Mech Corps never intimated to Ves that they dug up a piece of high-grade Rorach's Bone. The chunk floating in front of him was the most priceless piece of exotic he had ever come across since he arrived at the Glowing Planet.

Ves turned his head to peek at Lucky. His cat eyed the high-grade Rorach's Bone with sparkling, hungry eyes.

"This is mine!" He told his cat, and quickly opened up an adjacent safe and threw a smaller piece of Rorach's Bone to Lucky.

Even if Lucky hungered for the large ball of bone, he still couldn't resist a meal that landed right in front of him. Sometimes he could be simple-minded in this way. Ves let out a deep breath once he saw he successfully diverted Lucky's attention.

With heated eyes, Ves retrieved a pair of special gloves from his suit pocket and put them over his hands. He then reached out to grab for the ore. After months of work and avoiding almost-certain death, he finally reached the end of his mission.

As his hands almost reached the ore, a third hand reached out and pulled the ore out of his reach.

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"What the?"

Ves turned to face the one thing he never wanted to meet again. His mother's ghost. "You!"

"Hello, my son." His mother smiled at him as she held the high-grade ore. "You have been a naughty boy. This does not belong to you."

"Damn ghost!" Ves cursed and turned to Lucky. "C'mon buddy, the ghost is here! Attack!"

He expected his pet to pounce on the ghost and scratch out her face just like he scratched the devourer king's maw.

He did not expect Lucky to ignore him outright and keep on munching at his latest dish.

"Lucky!"

His mother's smile took on a knowing edge. "Have you forgotten where you obtained him in the first place?"

The System gifted Lucky to Ves shortly after he received it. The System came from his father, which meant…

His mother snapped her fingers. "Come here."

Lucky suddenly ceased his munching and slinked over to his mother, bypassing Ves as if he didn't exist. As soon as he reached her legs, he brushed his body against them as if his mother was his owner.

Ves felt betrayed.

"So my son has named you Lucky, has he? That is a fine name for a creature such as you." His mother remarked as she bent down to pet his back. "I see he has been treating you well."

He already felt a tug from his recently recovered internal energy cycle. His mother didn't hold back from harming her own son.

"You're not my mother!" He hissed. "Stop pretending you're her!"

His words fell on deaf ears. Lucky kept acting cute in his mother's presence while the witch herself looked at Ves like he turned into a three-year old kid who was having a tantrum.

"Ves, I am not your enemy. I am your mother. I can never hurt my own flesh and blood."

"Then what about your presence and your life-sucking aura?! You're draining me even as we speak!" He replied and backed away. He even tried to retrieve his laser pistol, only to remember he handed over the weapon to the guards just outside the vault.

The extra distance helped, but Ves quickly bumped into a wall of safes. He had nowhere else to go as his mother drifted forward as if she didn't have a care in the world.

The drain quickly picked up, and Ves started to lose a significant amount of internal energy. Even though he had no clue of its use, he didn't wish to give it all away to an indigenous monster from the Glowing Planet.

Sadly, his only means of fending her off had just rolled over to show his belly to her. His mother reached down to scratch Lucky's chin. Who was his real owner here?!

"Oh Ves, poor Ves, you understand so little." His mother tutted as she hovered closer. "You keep lying to yourself, but you can't deny what your heart is telling you. It is time for you to grow up."

Even as she spoke those words, the drain accelerated to the point where Ves lost control over his body. This encounter happened in the exact same manner as the last two times. He really grew sick of facing energy beings!

His mother must have been aware of how Ves started to grow feeble. "My time grows short. Just know that I am glad to see you healthy, and wish you don't risk your life anymore. I have lost many friends and family in the last war. Not even mech designers are safe."

"Go away…"

"I will see you again, Ves." She whispered, and her body started to fade out of existence.

The only problem was that she took the high-grade ore with her. Somehow, the Rorach's Bone broke apart under her grip and swirled around his mother's increasingly translucent body. Her ghost-like form radiated like liquid silver and for a moment, Ves though she had turned fully corporeal.

Then, she faded away, leaving nothing of her trace behind.

Ves collapsed onto the deck. He breathed deeply as he tried to cope with the increasingly familiar sense of weakness. The ghost had leached from him again, and this time she stole his mission reward as well!

"Damn her!" Ves vented and banged his fist against the deck.

Lucky obliviously climbed up to his feet and padded over to Ves. He curiously bumped his forepaw against Ves.

"What a great help you've been."

"Meow." Lucky made a gesture that indicated he wanted to feed again.

"Really now. Do you think I'm in the mood to feed you when you've just turned your back on me?"

"Meow!"

Ves tried to ignore his pet, but couldn't. Lucky had a way of worming into his heart. Despite his sudden betrayal, he didn't fault his cat. He must have been programmed to recognize his mother. His friend-and-foe identification must have grown confused, and like the simple-minded machine that he was, Lucky prioritized his mother over her son.

The entire encounter revealed a lot about Lucky. As much as Ves had grown to love his feline companion, he had no clue how he worked and what kind of programming dictated his behavior.

He supposed he should be growing paranoid about Lucky. After all, his cat did betray him just then. Yet Ves had truly become attached to Lucky and considered him a part of his family. He really didn't want to part with his pet.

"Oh alright. You can stay with me, but you better not defect again next time!"

Ves still had a lot of safes to go through before his pass expired. He wanted to make the most out of the opportunities he obtained and didn't let his mother's impromptu visit ruin his plans.

Most eagerly, Ves wanted to go through the remaining safes quickly and find another high-grade Rorach's Bone. His mother already snatched the only specimen he found so far. He dearly hoped the Mech Corps stored another similarly-sized sample in this vault.

"Not here. Nope. Too small. Nothing here. Heavens, nothing again!"

Even as he rapidly opened up the safes, he found nothing that could match the splendor of the high-grade Rorach's Bone. He only came across medium-grade bones or unknown curiosities that held little significance to his mission. He chucked some of them out to Lucky and continued to check the other safes.

By the end of the eight-hour period, his pass dissolved into air. Ves raced to open every safe within the time limit, but his efforts failed to yield what he desired most. The vault only held one high-grade Rorach's Bone and his mother had taken it away!

"Stupid ghost!"

After cursing out the thieving ghost for a minute, Ves finally gave up. In low spirits, he began to finish his cursory inspection of the vault before he knocked the armored door. It slowly retracted, allowing Ves and Lucky to depart the vault.

"Did you have a good haul, sir?" A security officer asked as he searched through his pockets.

"Oh. Yeah. A good haul."

"Your pet looks a lot healthier now."

Lucky acted like he never did anything wrong. His newly invigorated state even brought back his playfulness. He chased around and pestered the security guards like any other regular cat.

Once the inspection ended, Ves headed straight back towards his bunk, though he also made a stop at the mess haul to retrieve a nutrient bar. He needed to regain some energy fast, so he didn't care for the nutrient bar's awful taste.

As he laid down on his bunk, Ves considered his next option. He couldn't return empty-handed. The System's penalty was too severe for him to bear.

"The crew of the Gregarious Wrath will think I've already fed the high-grade ore to Lucky. I won't be able to ask for another one, not when it holds so much value."

He couldn't just walk up to Chief Petrisc and say he slipped up and let a ghost that pretended to be his long-dead mother snatch the high-grade ore from the vault. It would be like saying his dog ate his data chips that held his homework.

"What can I do?"

The time to depart the Glowing Planet had almost come. Ves only had days left to figure something out. "It's unlikely Lucky and I can earn more merits. The Wrath is stuck in place, and none of the tunneling machines have the guts to burrow deeper where the likelihood of finding high-grade ores is higher."

Ves found it extraordinarily frustrating to fail at the cusp of completing his mission. He let down his guard and forgot that his mother had always appeared out of nowhere.

"Though, why take the ore? Why hasn't she dug it up herself?"

It might had something to do with the devourers. A small human-sized ghost probably couldn't match the prowess of the devourers which monopolized the core of the Glowing Planet.

Only after the deep mining expedition killed off one of their alphas did his mother finally appear.

"It's good to know that even she can be afraid of something."

Ves didn't even realize he referred to the ghost as his mother without challenge. It was as if it was the most natural thing in the universe to say.

He guessed that the devourer king must have claimed this territory as its own. Now that it had died, the entire area became ownerless. For a short period of time, there shouldn't be any risks of encountering another devourer.

A bold idea popped into his mind. "Why not go out on my own?"

The Mech Corps had become incredibly timid, but that didn't mean that Ves had to hide on the Wrath. If he couldn't beg them for another high-grade ore, he might as well venture out into the tunnels and conduct his own search.

He turned his gaze back to Lucky, who started to slumber atop his chest. He ate an enormous amount of minerals recently. Even though he didn't gain any weight, his cat still had to digest all of his gains.

"Rest well, Lucky. I'll be relying on your senses tomorrow to find some juicy pieces of Rorach's Bone."

The next day, Ves fleshed out his plan and approached Chief Petrisc with his intentions. The Chief Engineer frowned at Ves.

"Now why would you want to go out by yourself? Don't you know how dangerous it is?!"

"But can you lend me a shuttle?"

"Oh, that's not a problem. We have plenty of those to spare. The bigger issue is that there's no way you can stay in range of a dimensional smoother. All the other machines are carrying smaller versions of the devices, but it still won't fit inside a shuttle. Furthermore, there's no chance I can get permission to borrow one for you to use. In short, you'll have to go out naked and exposed!"

Ves hadn't thought of that. The space around the Glowing Planet was fairly unstable. Random wrinkles in spacetime had claimed the lives of thousands of oblivious visitors, including the entire trading convoy that initially stumbled upon the Glowing Planet.

Going out without a dimensional smoother was highly dangerous!

After some deep consideration, Ves weighed the risks. If he stayed in proximity to the Gregarious Wrath, he should still fall somewhat in her protective envelope. Even if the stabilization field emitted by the dimensional smoothers weakened quite a bit the further he drifted away from the Wrath, he should still receive some benefits.

He made a calculated risk by pressing on with his choice. "Just lend me a shuttle, chief. I know what I'm dealing with but I don't have any choice."

It took a lot of begging to convince Petrisc to release a shuttle for his use. Despite the chief's reluctance, Ves had annoying him so much that he relented, if only to chase away an annoying fly.

"Thanks, chief! I'll only be out for a couple of hours at a time."

"Don't come crawling back to me if you suffer a mishap!"

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The chief engineer arranged a souped-up armored shuttle for Ves. Compared to a regular shuttle, it held a lot less storage space, but the armor and increased structural integrity made up for it in spades.

The first time Ves stepped inside the shuttle with Lucky hanging over his shoulders, he became a little bit intimidated by its complex control scheme.

Forces employed armored shuttles in many different ways, from stealthily dropping commandos behind enemy lines to pursuing a rampaging mech. The Mech Corps employed even more advanced shuttles that came with many additional features that bore unwieldy acronyms like GURED or NEFFI-Fast.

"Don't worry." A shuttle technician said as he accompanied Ves inside. "Let me activate the dummy mode for you. It'll disable most of the advanced features and automate the rest. As far as the controls go, it'll turn into something similar to the games you can play from your comm."

"Ah, thank you for the trouble. Please do so."

Ves sat down the chair and watched the technician navigate the projected control panel. Overall, the menus looked similar to those employed by mechs, so Ves quickly got the hang of it himself. Still, as he hadn't trained in piloting shuttles at all, it was best to leave the controls to dummy mode.

In the wide-ranging galaxy, humanity became increasingly dependent on machines to rule their lives. Humanity was a quintessential tool-using race that had ascended into dominance due to their ever-voracious appetite for deadlier and more capable machines.

Naturally, this also presented problems as many machines required extreme amounts of training to master their use. Mechs alone not only demanded potentates with the right genetic aptitude, they also required at least ten years of training to gain the most basic qualification to pilot them these days.

At the start of the Age of Mechs, mech pilots only needed four years to effectively wield their mechs. This stark difference showcased the relentless advance to developing better but more complex machines, which meant it applied to anything that fell under this category, including mechs, shuttles and starships.

A human could only master a couple of skills in a given amount of time. To provide against contingencies and to make their products more appealing, developers and manufacturers of these machines standardized the implementation of dummy modes to their products.

The basic standard of an effective dummy mode would be that even a ten-year old kid could figure out the basic controls. The moment the dummy mode began to proliferate, life became much easier. Even though most of the advanced capabilities would be wasted, sometimes a person only needed to accomplish a simple job, like going from A to B.

Ves fell into the same situation. He had no intentions of performing any advanced maneuvers. He just wanted to go out into the tunnel and sniff out a high-grade Rorach's Bone.

"C'mon Lucky, you better get your mineral senses ready. I'll be relying on you to get me another fat piece of bone." Ves petted the lazy cat on his shoulder.

Using the dummy mode, Ves easily drifted his armored shuttle out of the hangar, to the collective relief of the crew. At least he didn't veer off and crash against the deck or something.

"It really is like a game."

Through making some delicate hand gestures, Ves got the hang of the controls. He maintained a slow speed and slowly inched the shuttle away from the Gregarious Wrath. The tunneler loomed large in the shuttle's augmented sensors.

Currently, tons of shuttles and mech technicians crawled over her exterior. Ves knew that even more repair crews worked inside the tunneler. To get the Wrath moving again required all hands on deck.

"I should be there too."

Someone like Ves might not understand any of the larger systems, but he could still lend a hand with routine repairs. Still, acquiring another high-grade Rorach's Bone ranked much higher than earning a bit more kudos from the crew.

"Now then, let's start my search."

Due to the high amount of interference and other weird effects, the Mech Corps possessed very few means of locating high-grade Rorach's Bone. They could only vaguely detect that they had entered a more promising area. Even if a valuable piece of ore rested a meter away from the tunnel wall, the sensors couldn't detect its presence.

This prompted the mining vehicles around the Wrath to go blind and hope they picked the right direction. The odds of Ves encountering a high-grade specimen in a couple of days was extremely rare.

Fortunately, he wasn't alone. He still had Lucky, who's insatiable appetite for quality exotics always drew him to the most promising deposits. His senses was a lot more keener than the mineral scanners aboard the Gregarious Wrath.

"Alright Lucky, point me to the right direction."

"Meow."

"Don't meow at me like you don't understand what I've said. Go on. Find something!"

It took a bit of coaxing to get Lucky to point at a promising direction. Ves carefully flew his shuttle further away from the Wrath and towards an unremarkable tunnel wall section.

"Is this the place you detected something promising?"

"Meow!"

"Alright, let's head out."

Ves exited the pilot's chair and moved to the main compartment where a bulky mining suit awaited him. The suit was twice as thick as a hazard suit and required powered assistance to move, which technically turned it into an exoskeleton. This variant came with a couple of optimizations that made it suitable to roam close to the center of the Glowing Planet.

As Ves drifted out from the hatch, his suit's antigrav modules came online, which held the entire thing aloft. Meanwhile, Lucky had climbed on top of his helmet and kept a firm grip.

Small thrusters on the backpack module of the suit flared to life. The force propelled him forward and he reached the wall in no time. In fact, he almost crashed against it if he hadn't managed to figure out how to turn around and thrust in the opposite direction.

"I should learn how to maneuver in zero-G sometime."

Spaceborn humans learned how to move in zero gravity conditions as soon as they learned how to walk. A landbound human like Ves would never be able to catch up to their level of skill, but acquiring the basics shouldn't be too difficult.

Once Ves stabilized his position, he experimentally knocked on the smooth and compacted tunnel wall. The first meters should be extremely tough to dig through, and no man-sized mining machine could put a dent in it. Ves didn't even bother to bring any tools for that reason.

He didn't need to when he already had a cat that could do the work in his stead.

"Alright Lucky, go ahead and dig." He transmitted over the channel he maintained with his pet. His gauntlets grabbed Lucky's body and held it out against the wall. "C'mon, use your magic."

Lucky seemed put off at being treated like a slave, but he eventually began to dig a small tunnel for himself. Somehow, Lucky parted the solid compacted materials as easily as digging through sand. He didn't even have to resort to his energy claws to dig deeper.

Twenty minutes went by as Lucky dug an eight meter tunnel. He stopped once the tunnel began to glow. His senses hadn't deceived him. The cat managed to find an energetic piece of ore!

"Don't eat it yet! Bring it back to me first!"

It took quite a bit of effort for Lucky yo dislodge the ore and bring it back to the lip of the tunnel he dug out. It turned out to be a quail-egg sized exotic that he'd seen before in the vault.

"This isn't Rorach's Bone. Lucky, you found the wrong mineral. I want Rorach's Bone, not this junk."

Even though Ves was certain the piece held a lot of value, he threw it back to Lucky, who eagerly munched it down. Ves did not have any delusions that he would be able to sneak an extremely valuable hoard of exotics past the Mech Corps. A big find would also cast more suspicion on Ves.

For the next twelve hours, Ves kept moving his shuttle from place to place, taking care not to stray too far from the Wrath. At this distance, Ves figured he didn't run any risk of encountering a dangerous spacetime anomaly.

Sadly, his conservative efforts amounted to nothing. Each time Lucky dug something up, it turned out to be a medium-grade Rorach's Bone or worse. Even Lucky's vaunted mineral senses couldn't pinpoint any pieces of high-grade ores.

"This isn't getting me anywhere." He sighed as he returned the armored shuttle back to the hangar. "This session is a bust."

There was nothing wrong with his methods, but trying to find a piece of high-grade ore revolved around luck. If he had as much manpower as the Mech Corps, he'd be bound to stumble upon it sooner or later.

The next day, Ves ventured out into the same armored shuttle and ventured further away from the Gregarious Wrath. While this exposed him to greater risk, he figured that moving away from the Wrath should allow Lucky to be more accurate in his search.

Nothing changed from yesterday. Lucky kept finding decent traces of low to medium-grade exotics, but they didn't fulfill the criteria set out by Ves. Halfway throughout the session, Ves groaned and palmed his helmet with his gauntlet.

"Do I need to move even further away?"

He already extended his range further down where the concentration of Rorach's Bone steadily increased. The deeper he went, the higher the chance of locating a high-grade specimen, though he also had to brave the risk of suffering a spacetime mishap.

After some serious consideration, he hardened his eyes. "Fortune and danger go hand-in-hand. I can't afford to play it safe."

Despite the risks, Ves resolutely pushed his shuttle a little deeper into the tunnel. The shuttle stopped three kilometers away from the Wrath.

With Lucky acting like a hunting dog, the two continued to prospect for minerals. The extra distance yielded significantly larger samples of Rorach's Bone, but they still fell within the medium-grade category.

Hungry for something better, Ves slowly inched his shuttler further and further away from the Gregarious Wrath. Somehow, he could feel the increasing instability in the local space. The omnipresent fields emitted by the dimensional smoothers had weakened enormously by now.

Further down the tunnel, Ves even saw flashes that disrupted the tunnel walls. The danger was very real at this point. He even thought about pulling back sometimes.

"I can't give up. Not when I'm this close."

Lucky had grown a lot more enthusiastic by now. He continued to stuff himself endlessly with the minerals he dug up. His stomach had literally turned into a bottomless hole as he kept eating Rorach's Bone after Rorach's Bone. Even his exterior plating began to take a milky-white sheen from its former silvery luster.

The change indicated that Lucky had definitely incorporated Rorach's Bone on a deeper level.

Ves was happy to see his pet grow stronger, but he still hadn't found what he was looking for. At the end of his second jaunt, Ves was just about to return to the Wrath when Lucky suddenly struck paydirt.

His cat's activity level spiked. Lucky had to expand the tunnel he dug in order to retrieve a large piece of glowing white ore.

"High-grade Rorach Bone!"

Lucky had done it! Ves laughed and brought his cat to his helmet and nuzzled him. The cat kept turning his head back to the piece of high-grade ore. Despite his obedience to Ves, Lucky kept mooning over the priceless piece of Rorach's Bone.

"I'm sorry, Lucky, but I need it more than you."

Once he put down Lucky on his shoulder, Ves looked around to see no one nearby. He activated his Privacy Shield to disable the shuttle from recording him on its sensors before he held out one of his gauntlets, which interfaced with his comm.

Ves activated the System and went to the Missions page. He held out the ball of high-grade Rorach's Bone and presented it to his comm. "Here you go, System."

Nothing happened.

Uh, hello? This is prime quality Rorach's Bone! Why aren't you accepting it yet?!"

[The material that you present does not fulfill the criteria of the mission. Please present the correct substance to pass the mission.]

"What?!"

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Ves wanted to bang his head against the tunnel wall. All this time, he assumed that the System desired a piece of high-grade Rorach's Bone. To think he made a big mistake frustrated him to no end. He quickly re-read the mission.

[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 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 hadn't named the material by name!

"What are you looking for, System! Just tell me, damnit!"

Naturally, the soft-spoken System almost never replied to his request. It was as if it thought that Ves should figure out stuff on his own. The System never coddled him in any way.

"So it's not Rorach's Bone you're looking for, right?"

Ves didn't know much about Rorach's Bone, but acquiring a better sample than what he held right now shouldn't be possible. This was the best that he could get.

The stupidly obtuse System refused to reveal what kind of substance it demanded. Whatever it was, it should be even rarer than high-grade Rorach's Bone. Perhaps it couldn't even be found at this depth.

Whatever the case, the answer lay deeper into the core.

He stood at a crossroads now. Either he could summon up his courage and brave the dangers, or he could stay at his current depth and hope he struck it rich.

"There's only a day or two left before we have to leave this place."

From what he heard, the repairs for the Gregarious Wrath went well. Replacing the most essential broken components was a straightforward though labor-intensive procedure. Relatively little challenges had popped up that could otherwise delay the repairs.

This meant that Ves had two more days to find what the System sought.

"I really hate you sometimes, you know that?"

Ves had little choice but to bow before the inevitable. He decided to return the shuttle back to the Wrath and plan out his miniature expedition properly.

First, he stocked up his shuttle with additional supplies, including food and water. Returning to the Wrath to eat and sleep took too much time. Ves planned to make the best of the time that remained.

Second, he checked the System whether he could buy anything useful. Even though his DP skyrocketed lately, he still couldn't afford anything useful. He'd have to accumulate millions of DP to acquire a rudimentary device that could protect him from spacetime fluctuations.

"It's not for nothing that the Mech Corps is willing to pay out of their nose to borrow the dimensional smoothers."

Looking at how much DP he earned in recent weeks made Ves suspicious. He knew how many mechs the LMC could produce at a given amount of time. It only possessed one proper production line that could fabricate the Blackbeak.

As for the third-party manufacturer, the EME only possessed four modern production lines. Producing fifty mechs a month shouldn't be too much of a problem for them, but the amount of DP that Ves had earned suggested to him that he sold a lot more Blackbeaks than that.

Then he figured it out. It should be the virtual Blackbeaks that must have set off the current surge of DP. As a modern 5-star virtual mech, it sold in much less numbers than in the lower tiers. Mech designers who competed at this level paid a lot more attention to performance, and his mech didn't specialize in short bursts of combat that characterized arena combat.

"Looks like interest in the Blackbeak is surging."

Ves could only attribute the increased interest to the successful performance of the Blackbeak on the Glowing Planet along with the LMC's relentless marketing campaign. Combined, the demand for the Blackbeak should have spiked, and more people wanted to experience its magic.

He didn't consider that the DP could have come from the production of extra physical mechs.

Currently, Ves considered upgrading his Stealth Augment. Going deeper into the tunnels didn't only mean he would have to brave the spacetime anomalies. He also had to take into account the risk of bumping into a devourer or devourer king.

"It's too expensive. I can hold off the purchase until I actually need to hide myself."

Ves eventually decided to save his points and postpone his spending.

After a short nap, Ves set off with the armored shuttle and brought it many kilometers deeper. Though a lot of dangers lurked in the shadows, Ves studiously ignored the risks. The odds of actually bumping into a spacetime wrinkle shouldn't be too large.

"It's like walking across the street with aircars flying over your head. The chance that one of them crashes isn't very large, and the odds that it will land right on top of you is even smaller."

Even though he comforted himself this way, he still couldn't forget how these improbable accidents happened to destroy a lot of ships.

His slow journey towards the end of the tunnel dug by the Wrath set him to thought. Why did he have to stick out his neck and risk his own life this way?

Why couldn't he do anything to fight back against his thieving mother whenever she dropped by?

Why did he have to rely on Lucky to fend off a devourer king that managed to avoid the best efforts of the Mech Corps to take it down?

All of these incidents shared one common element. "I'm not in control."

The lack of agency was beginning to get at him. Even though his company earned billions of credits, he still ended up at the mercy of others.

Those who organized these kinds of expeditions could afford to throw a lot of manpower and resources into the mix. Why couldn't Ves do something similar?

The idea grew more appealing the more he thought about it. He didn't need to organize a large-scale expedition, but even a modest force under his command could accomplish a lot of things on his behalf. He already owned an excellent corvette to act as a scout or courier.

"It's not that expensive to get my hands on a few transports and converted carriers. However, it's going to take a lot of mechs and reliable pilots to give them some teeth."

He knew that contracting a reliable crew of pilots and spacers was by far the biggest challenge. If he chose the wrong men, they might decide to run off with all of his newly-purchased assets and disappear into the frontier.

"I can think about it later. There shouldn't be any need to go on an expedition right now with the war looming closer."

The armored shuttle successfully reached the bottom of the tunnel without encountering any mishaps. Though he encountered a few close shaves, the anomalies hadn't affected the shuttle in any way.

Once he floated outside, Ves threw Lucky towards the bottom of the tunnel. "Okay Lucky, go dig downwards."

His cat looked back at him as if he lost his mind.

"Just dig and tell me when you detect anything that's more energetic than a medium-grade Rorach's Bone. Make sure to leave enough room for me as well!"

It took a number of times to repeat his intentions to Lucky. His cat set out to dig a wide hole and go further downwards.

Ever since Ves found out that the high-grade Rorach's Bone didn't meet the System's needs, he resolutely fed it to Lucky.

As far as his gem cat was concerned, he might as well have gone to heaven. His cat took three hours to savor the fat piece of high-grade bone. His eyes narrowed blissfully as his body took in more and more of the extremely rare exotic.

Consuming the high-grade piece had definitely given Lucky a major boost. His body's exterior had turned into an even brighter shade of white. It was as if he had turned into a milky white cat. Besides the changes in his appearance, his other capabilities also improved by a major step.

At his current state, Lucky easily dug a wider tunnel. This allowed Ves to float behind him and descend into the depths alongside his pet. The floodlights embedded in his mining suit shed the tunnel in a harsh light.

This went on for a couple of hours. Occasionally, Lucky detected something attractive, and changed the direction of his digging in order to reach what had attracted his attention. It mostly turned out to be medium-grade Rorach's Bone.

"This is looking like a veritable boneyard here." Ves muttered. They encountered more and more bones the deeper they went. "Still, it's a shame I haven't found any high-grade ores."

He eventually had to call off the digging after reaching an estimated depth of two kilometers. Ves had grown extremely uncomfortable after digging so far away from the Gregarious Wrath. He picked up Lucky and floated back out of the tunnel before boarding the armored shuttle that rested nearby.

After a meal and rest, Ves donned his mining suit and floated down the tunnel dug by Lucky.

"Keep digging downwards. Go deeper."

His cat did as he instructed. Though Ves had a lot of misgivings at this point, he couldn't stop halfway. He had to see this journey through in the end.

After half a day of digging, Lucky noticed something strange. His digging speed became twice as fast and the cat practically raced towards a specific destination to the sides.

"What did you find, Lucky?!"

His cat kept digging as if his life depended upon in. After more than fifteen minutes of digging, he surprisingly reached a cavity. Once he dug out an opening, Lucky fearlessly jumped inside.

"Hey, wait for me!"

Ves had to wriggle his way through the opening before he could get through. Spotting his cat, he quickly flew towards the center of the oval chamber, where he came across a remarkable sight.

Lucky stood frozen as he beheld what looked like a neat array of bones. The strangest thing about the skeleton was that they shone in a luster closely related to Rorach's Bone. It was as if the set of bones that lay in front of him had been the source of the Rorach's Bone on this planet!

The reason why he came to that conclusion was that the area directly underneath the skeleton was made up of a mottled mass of medium-grade Rorach's Bone! That much Rorach's Bone in one place should be impossible!

"But why isn't there any high-grade bone?"

He regarded the skeleton with suspicion. Perhaps it needed time to contaminate the surrounding bones, or perhaps it already absorbed the quality materials to enhance its own structure. It would explain all the holes around the skeleton.

"That said, why does it look like a humanoid?"

The most remarkable aspect about the skeleton was that it resembled a huge human. It stood as tall as a light mech and Ves imagined it weighed about the same as well. Although the galaxy spawned a lot of humanoid aliens, they never precisely evolved to adopt a roundish head, hands with five fingers or feet with five toes.

"It's like a giant out of mythology."

Even the bones could be mistaken for a human if it wasn't so large. The uncanny resemblance to the human physique disturbed Ves in the same way when he first found out that the System had the capability to manipulate time.

He felt as if he brushed across a huge secret of the galaxy.

"It's dead now. It should be millions or billions of years since this alien died. There's nothing to be worried about."

Despite his rational words, he still treated the skeleton like a dangerous animal. Its shiny, sparkling bones radiated a certain kind of pressure that constantly tickled his sixth sense. Ves carefully stepped forward, passing by Lucky who still hadn't padded forward.

Once Ves reached the foot of the prone skeleton, he reached out a gauntlet to touch it, but then changed his mind. "Who knows if I'll trigger something bad."

He instead began to inspect the skeleton with his eyes and sensors. He wanted to find out if the remarkable skeleton was made out of homogenous material.

Once he swept over the entire mech-sized skeleton, Ves found one single anomaly that stood out from the rest. He detected strong fluctuations the brain cavity of the human-like skull.

"This… what is in this giant's head?"

He strongly suspected the skull hid an extraordinary treasure. From the energy readings alone, it surpassed a high-grade Rorach's Bone by far. It might even be a legendary piece of extreme-grade Rorach's Bone!

The more he thought about the possibility, the more his breath grew uneven. He flew away from the skull and returned to his immobilized cat.

"Stop being a scaredy cat, Lucky! Come on, I need your help!"

He scooped up his pet and returned to the skull. Even though Lucky squirmed in his arms, Ves didn't let go of him. Once he flew close, he held out Lucky and shook him up and down a few times.

"Can you please open up this skull? There's something yummy inside. Don't you want to take a bite?"

Lucky acted as if Ves was about to drop him into a bath. His pet kept trying to turn his body and claw away from the menacing skull. Ves had to press his cat flat against the skull in order to get him to claw away at the skullcap.

This time, Lucky failed to dig through the skull. No matter how many times he tried to claw at the dome, his paws failed to make a single dent.

Things only changed when Lucky activated his energy claws. He pumped a significant amount of power into his claws before letting loose with a swipe.

This time, the skull finally yielded. A shallow groove emerged, encouraging Lucky to swipe again and again. After expending a fair amount of energy, Lucky finally cracked open a tiny hole in the humongous skull.

A white light flashed out from the hole. The sheer intensity of it blinded his mining suit's sensors and scared Lucky out of his grasp.

More than just the lights, his sixth sense started pinging like crazy. Ves felt as if his entire mindscape had shook.

Fortunately, the light show ended a few seconds later. The glow subsided and his sixth sense calmed down. Ves sighed and carefully approached the hole until his helmet visor bumped against the hole.

What he saw inside caused him to gasp in surprise.

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Why did the skeleton of a giant humanoid ended up in the core of the Glowing Planet?

Was he buried underneath alone, or did the planet contain several other graves?

How long ago did the giant live, and how long ago did it die?

Why was there so much Rorach's Bone around the skeleton of the giant, and why hadn't the skeleton gone to dust all these eons?

So many questions swirled around in his mind. Much like any mystery he encountered, Ves ignored the implications of what he'd seen and focused on the more important priority: getting his payday.

Thus, when he saw the giant's skull contained, he couldn't hold back his glee.

A resplendent glowing jewel hovered at the center of the brain cavity. The jewel looked as polished as the most expertly cut gem, and shone in transparent white, as if nothing had ever tainted its purity. The more Ves stared at it, the more he guessed that it might be the origin of all of the Rorach's Bone in the vicinity.

"If this isn't what the System wants, then I don't know what can top this treasure."

After he finished admiring his find, Ves activated a function in his mining suit that extended a claw-like grip from his gauntlet. Its extra reach allowed him to reach through the hole and carefully grip the shining jewel.

Nothing happened when he pulled the jewel out of its resting place. Ves half-expected some kind of trap to go off, but nothing stood out. Even his sixth sense hadn't picked up any mental spikes.

Thus, with excruciating care, Ves pulled out the jewel and beheld it in his gauntlets. He suspiciously eyed Lucky, but it seemed his cat didn't show any interest in it at all.

"Hah, I forgot. You're a gem cat. This probably looks like excrement to you."

Lucky huffed, but never put down his vigilance. Ves took note of his pet's alertness. Danger still existed even if he retrieved his prize.

"Well, let's get this over with. System, here's your damn jewel. I hope I got it right this time!"

Once he offered the jewel to the System, Ves sighed in relief as the jewel started to dematerialize. It meant he finally hit the jackpot.

[Congratulations for obtaining the core and completing the mission. Exotic materials have a complex origin, and may be spawned by both nature and design. As a mech designer, you must understand the materials you are working with, and be able to distinguish the good from the bad.]

[You have received 10 golden lottery tickets. Please visit the Lottery page to redeem your tickets.]

[You have received a Special Upgrade Voucher (Machine). Please visit your Inventory to redeem your voucher.]

"I'm done! I'm finally done with this mission!"

It came as a huge relief to be finally done with this awful mission. Though the rewards looked promising, he would rather do without all of the danger.

As the jewel slowly disappeared, the System's message about materials put Ves to thought. He floated back and eyed the giant skeleton in the perspective of a mech designer.

"This skeleton looks awfully like the internal frame of a mech."

He'd only have to remove the superfluous parts like some of the ribs and he'd have a ready-made base for a unique mech. The bones must hold some very powerful properties to be able to persist like this. They looked as pristine as if the giant had died yesterday, if not for the lack of flesh.

"It'll have to be a mech that takes full advantage of these bones."

That meant he'd have to design something like a light skirmisher, which relied heavily on the soundness of the internal frame to pull of all those high-speed movements. Ves envisioned adding internals and armor plating around the skeleton. The skeleton seemed tailor-made for humanoid mechs.

"It's viable."

For a moment, Ves thought about claiming all of these bones. Then, he reconsidered.

"It's not as if the Mech Corps will let me keep such an important find."

Again, his lack of influence and his role as an external consultant limited his options. After a lot of thought, Ves sadly gave up on attempting to claim the bones.

Once the jewel finally disappeared, something changed. The giant skeleton abruptly started to break down. Its pristine white bones grew grey and turned incredible brittle before falling apart into lifeless chunks. A pulse of violent rage emanated from the center of the Glowing Planet and momentarily overwhelmed his sixth sense.

"Arggh!"

The entire cavern shuddered, and rocks began to fall from above. It was as if the entire Glowing Planet had gone mad.

"Lucky! Let's get out of here!"

Ves picked up his spooked pet and engaged his mining suit's thrusters. He flew into the tunnel Lucky had dug and carefully navigated it all the way up. This took quite a lot of time because the tunnel was too narrow for him to navigate at full speed.

In the meantime, the rage that his sixth sense picked up thrummed with violence. Ves didn't know where it came from, but the sheer power and reach behind the ripples scared Ves to death. It might even be the planet itself that was lashing out!

"Who the hell did I piss off?!"

In his haste, Ves mistakenly bumped against a turn in the tunnel. His mining suit gained some scuff marks and Lucky meowed in complaint, but nothing broke, so Ves resumed his flight.

All the while, the spacetime fluctuations began to grow in number. Some parts of the tunnel momentarily warped as if someone pinched that part of space. This alternatively widened or narrowed the tunnel in a random pattern. Sometimes, Ves had to prompt Lucky to claw their way out of a barrier that appeared out of nowhere.

One time, Ves almost bumped head-first into a section of warped spacetime. He had to careen his suit against the sides of the tunnel to stop him from turning into noodles.

"That was close!"

Once the wrinkle disappeared, Ves carefully passed by the section of previously-unstable space before accelerating out. It took a lot of minutes before Ves finally reached the end of the narrow tunnel. He emerged in the much greater tunnel excavated by the Gregarious Wrath and flew towards his armored shuttle, only to realize that it had crashed.

The shuttle's entire starboard side suffered an implosion of some kind which compressed all of its materials into a single round ball the size of a tooth.

Ves cursed at the sight. "I'll just have to rely on my suit, then!"

Fortunately, his bulky mining suit contained more than enough fuel to reach the Gregarious Wrath. Ves flew upwards and tried to contact the Wrath.

"Mr. Larkinson! We've been trying to get in touch with you! Danger levels have risen to an extreme level. We advise you to return to the Gregarious Wrath as fast as possible!"

"I'm on my way, but the armored shuttle is a goner!"

"Noted. We've already sent out a rescue shuttle. We've already fixed your position so the shuttle is only a minute away. Hang tight!"

"Will do!"

The entire tunnel kept shaking as multiple spacetime storms ravaged the surrounding space. Ves figured he faced the same risks of being swallowed by them if he stayed still or moved, so he might as well continue flying towards the surface.

A light appeared from the distance. The rescue shuttle had arrived. It parked right above Ves, allowing him to fly up and reach its open hatch. An armed soldier pulled him inside and banged the button that shut the hatch.

"He's here! Let's move!"

The shuttle turned around and zipped back to the Wrath, where they could all take shelter underneath her dimensional smoothers.

"What did you find down there?! Did you trigger something?"

"Beats me! I only found a lot of bones!"

Naturally, Ves found more than Rorach's Bone, but he wouldn't admit to encountering the skeleton of a long-dead race of giants.

As the soldier subjected Ves to a brief interrogation, the shuttle successfully reached the Wrath without incident. Once it landed in the shuttle hangar, Ves exited the craft, shed his mining suit and ran towards the engineering bay with Lucky in tow.

Once he reached the engineering bay's command platform, he noted that Chief Petrisc was elsewhere. One of the senior engineers manned the consoles in his chief's stead.

"Where is the chief?"

"He's supervising the most difficult repairs."

"Okay. Can you tell me what's going on?"

"Not really. All we know is that the core has suddenly become unstable and that spacetime is going mad. The fluctuations are predominantly spatial in nature, but we've detected some temporal variance as well."

"Is the Wrath in danger?"

"The dimensional smoothers are holding up, but their effective range has decreased. They're getting stressed by all of the anomalies that are trying to affect the tunneler. The chief wants us to move within two hours to get away from these fluctuations. It gets better the higher up we go."

That put down some of his worries. In the next couple of hours, Ves stayed out of the way while the crew of the Wrath frantically tried to get the tunneler to move again. She didn't need to excavate a new tunnel as she should slither her way up through the tunnel she had already cleared.

This enabled the repair crews to skip much of the redundant systems. After more than three hours of clunking and improvisations, the Gregarious Wrath finally regained her ability to move.

"We're off!"

The giant tunneler feebly climbed her way up, but quickly picked up speed once it became clear her repairs held up.

Though she encountered some bumps in the tunnel due to the occasional spacetime flare-ups, her immense mass and power allowed her to bulldoze through any minor obstacle. To facilitate her race to the surface, several smaller tunneling vehicles flew ahead of the Wrath to clear any of the larger obstacles in the way.

In the meantime, Ves helped out with the miscellaneous repairs. Just because the Wrath regained her mobility didn't mean she was in good shape. In truth, she operated with almost no redundancy. If a single critical pipe broke from the stress, the entire tunneler would be forced to a halt.

No one wanted to envision such an outcome, so the repair crews rushed out to repair the pipelines. In general, such repairs didn't require an in-depth background on giant tunneling machines, so Ves easily contributed to the work.

He didn't even think about using his newly gained rewards. The situation was too hectic for him to play with the System. Besides, even with his Privacy Shield, he doubted he would ever be able to escape scrutiny for long. He could tell that some of the security officers kept a close eye on him. It was as if they suspected he played a role in the sudden outburst of the Glowing Planet.

"Do they really think I'm capable of triggering such a staggering response?"

Even if those suspicions had a lot of merit, Ves continued to play the victim and act dumb. Now that the System devoured the jewel and the giant skeleton turned to dust, there shouldn't be any proof left of what he'd done. He also messed with the hardware of the mining suit before he set off in his jaunt in order to make sure it didn't record his actions.

"I'm sure I didn't miss any hidden recording functions on my suit."

If any microscopic spying equipment had stuck around, then Lucky should have already taken care of it. Ves had trained Lucky to always swat away any microscopic bugs.

After reasoning that the Mech Corps shouldn't have gotten their hands on solid proof, Ves relaxed and continued to work.

Six days later, the Gregarious Wrath returned to the surface of the Glowing Planet. A much more disarrayed base greeted their sights. The spacetime fluctuations had been a little less severe on the surface, but the dimensional smoothers had their work cut out for them as the Mech Corps relied on them to cover a large radius.

The Mech Corps had no reason to detain Ves, so he was allowed to exit the tunneler and return to his friends. After questioning some of the base personnel, Ves got the gist of what had happened on the surface.

Both the Blood Claws and Walter's Whalers sustained significant casualties. This forced them to abandon their previous bases and seek refuge at the military. The Mech Corps only retained a crowded section of the Red Zone. Several different pirate and vulture alliances claimed their surroundings.

"I should get in touch with the gang. Hopefully they're still alive."

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Ves sent out a flurry of messages on his comm. First, he contacted Melkor, as he could trust his cousin to brief him without any bias.

"Are you safe, Ves?" Melkor asked over the comm. His projected bust radiated fatigue.

"I'm fine. I've had some close shaves, but we've dug up a fortune in exotics. Even if they have to relinquish the majority to the MTA, they'll still make it off with a tidy profit."

"That's good to hear. It's been rather hectic on our end. As you can see, this base hasn't fared well in the last couple of weeks. The pirates under the instigation of the Dragons of the Void have ganged up on us. They wiped out the smaller outfits first before they tackled the main forces of the Mech Corps."

"Is everyone else okay?"

"Raella suffered a minor injury when her mech got swarmed by enemy mechs. She managed to eject in time, but she's suffered a bruise to her ego."

"As long as she's breathing, I'm fine with that." Ves replied with relief now that he confirmed that both his family members survived. "What about the Whalers?"

"Walter's Whalers had been one of the first gangs to go. They lost most of their mechs and a decent amount of pilots. They didn't eject in time."

Ves bowed his head. He predicted such an outcome, but he didn't wish it turned into reality. The Whalers truly hadn't been prepared to fight a grueling campaign. Hopefully they took their losses to heart and implement some reforms. They needed to shape up really quickly if they wanted to survive the impending war.

"What about Walter, Dietrich and Fadah?"

"They're doing great. They're better than the rest, and their mechs are of much higher quality than the walking pieces of junk they ordinarily use. Together with Raella, they've made a name for themselves among the Blood Claws. Even the Mech Corps took note of their contributions."

"Sounds like you didn't fight alongside them. What have you been up to?"

"Nothing remarkable." Melkor shook his head. "The Blood Claws needed volunteers to patrol the outskirts and reconnoiter the approaches to the bases. I signed up for those duties because I've received prior training in these tasks."

Melkor earned a lot of contributions on his own by sniffing out enemy scouts. Even though he only skimmed over actions, Ves knew that Melkor had definitely risked his life a few times.

"Well, now that the Gregarious Wrath has returned to the surface, I think it's safe to say the Mech Corps will evacuate us any day now."

"There's only six days left on the clock. We don't want to be here when the armadas from the Hegemony and the Coalition arrive. DOn't forget that there are no Lagrange points in the Glowing Zone, so we have to take the long way if we want to transition out of here."

A Lagrange point was basically a point in space where the gravitational force between several stellar objects canceled each other out. For example, a planet with a moon would have a Lagrange point somewhere on the line between the two. Such points in space provided ships with a quick and convenient way to transition into FTL.

The problem here was that the Glowing Planet had gone rogue. It obviously used to orbit a star system like other planets, but it had been cast out into space on its own. The lack of Lagrange points served to delay their departure significantly.

"This is something that the big guys upstairs will have to tackle. We don't have many options but to go along with whatever they have planned.

Although Ves could stuff the Stanislaw and a couple of people aboard the Barracuda, he held no confidence his corvette could make it out of the Glowing Zone on her own. Too many pirate ships lurked in the Glowing Zone like an endless school of sharks.

"I'll go meet with the Whalers. Since I originally contracted with them, it's best I stick with them to the end."

Once Ves hung up on Melkor, he sought the encampment within the base that held the Whalers. He found them at a distant corner. A sad collection of ships and broken mechs greeted his sights. Even now, the Whalers still acted like cheapskates by trying to take along the wrecks that belonged to their opponents.

"At least they have good taste." He nodded as he noted the overall quality of the wrecks. Much of them could be sold for ten million credits in the salvage circle. If Ves worked to restore them to a functional state, he could easily increase their value by twenty to thirty percent. "The margins are too low for me to bother."

He already ran a profitable business selling brand-new mechs of his own design. Only mech designers who couldn't afford to license any mechs or components dove into the repair industry. As long as they mastered some basic skills and possessed some common sense, they could comfortably make a decent profit.

It still represented a dead end in terms of career progression. The mech industry rarely appreciated the repair business. It didn't take much to establish a footing there and there were countless of competitors.

In any case, Ves sought out Walter, who looked like he had taken a massive blow. All of those casualties had obviously took a toll on the gang leader. He even looked like he lost some weight!

"Walter. I'm sorry for your losses. I don't think any of us had really expected there would be so many pirates."

The burly man snorted a bit and chugged down another gulp of his cheap beer. "It reminds me of my worst days back on Bentheim. The things I did… back then, I was just a jumped-up grunt."

Ves remained silent as he took a seat at Walter's cafeteria table.

Walter burped. "Well, it's not your fault and none of your business. I can take care of my own house. So what brings you here?"

"Did you receive any word on how the Mech Corps is planning to get off this planet?"

"Hahaha!" The gang leader laughed. "Oh, they did, and it's a doozy. I'll send you the outline of their plan, though do try not to spread it around. It's sort of classified."

After Walter transferred the file to his comm, Ves briefly ran his eyes through the document.

The plan was crude and simple. Every ship on the surface would load up and claw their way up to orbit at the same time. The sheer amount of ships should deter any potshots, though the coordinated maneuver would also attract a lot of major pirate groups.

The spaceborn Mech Corps assets that hung in high orbit would pave the way for the surface fleet by beating back the pirates that gathered along their trajectory. After that, the spaceborn fleet would continue to shadow over the landbound as they collectively limped their way to the edge of the Glowing Zone.

"This will take way too much time." Ves frowned. While the Mech Corps ensured their safety in numbers, they also had to limit their speeds to the slowest ship in their midst. "How are your spaceborn assets?"

"They haven't fought at all, so they're at full strength. They're lacking in experience and equipment, though. I'd appreciate it if you can take a look at their mechs."

"Will do."

After making some small talk with Walter, Ves left to seek out his baby. He always cherished the first production model of his Blackbeak. Once he reached the nearby mech stables, Ves found his distinctive black creation in a much more rugged condition.

Even without a log, Ves could tell what kind of battles it fought and how well it fared. He spotted a decent amount of abrasions, evident of high-speed maneuvers gone wrong. He also located plenty of weapon marks such as laser pits, shell craters and sword scars.

All of these wounds added character to the mech. As Ves beheld the sight, he imagined his mech's X-Factor absorbing all of these experiences, taking them as fuel for growth.

Due to all of the recent excitement, Ves failed to enter the right mindset to determine if his Blackbeak's X-Factor had changed.

"Hey Ves!" Fadah called as he approached from the side. "I heard you just returned. I ran over as soon as you heard."

"So what do you think about the Blackbeak?" Ves suddenly asked.

Fadah appeared taken aback. "Well, it's a fine mech. It's hard to explain, but your mech has grown on me. It's a fantastic ride by itself and it's even better when I bring it to battle. I always feel as if the mech is giving me an extra push. That's not the case with my old mech. I often had to fight against her controls."

"What would you say is its best part?"

"Obviously her armor. It's amazing how much punishment it can take. Even if I always try to dodge every attack, I'm only human. The only reason I did well through all of those fights was because your mech always saved me from my own blunders."

Ves hadn't spent all of those merits in vain. The Veltrex armor system proved its worth in spades on this campaign. Its high upfront cost paid off in spades once the owners of the Blackbeaks realized how much money they saved on repairs.

"I see. Now that you told me what's the best part, what about the things that fall short?"

"My number one pet peeve is that your Blackbeak overheats too easily. It's mainly the fault of this environment, as my mech can't vent any heat through the air if there isn't any of it in the first. Still, I would never rely on the Blackbeak to fight in vacuum environments."

"I'll be sure to take that into account." Ves already knew about this problem. "I'll likely design a variant that specializes in these conditions. There's not much I can do about the base model, however."

"As long as you know. Another thing that's troublesome is that the Blackbeak guzzles up a lot of medium-density mech-grade fuel. That stuff is pretty rare in the Republic. Almost every other mech runs on low-density fuel."

"That's the price you pay to run an advanced mech like the Blackbeak. Low-density fuel is too inefficient to run a mech worth at least sixty million credits."

Despite these grumbles, Fadah didn't sound very hung up about this issue. The majority of the mechs that ran on pure energy cells either turned into bombs or switched over to the undercharged versions that frequently bottomed out quickly. Fuel-based mechs fared best of all on the Glowing Planet.

Fadah's experiences helped Ves a lot in confirming his own predictions. The modified Blackbeak hadn't suffered any inexplicable mishaps. Its excellent construction and personal tune-up by Ves had ensured that the machine was mechanically sound.

It didn't break when it faced a lot of pressure. This was the most important point that Ves wanted to confirm. He designed the Blackbeak specifically to last a generation. It had to hold up in the most intense moments of war, and from what Ves had gathered so far, the Blackbeak amply met this goal.

Once he finished picking Fadah's mind, Ves left the mech stables and sought Raella. It was time to hear her recalcitrant cousin out. He spotted her at some dingy makeshift bar the Blood Claws had setup as a form of relaxation.

Ves stepped up behind her barstool. "I've been looking for you."

"Eep!" The young woman jumped from her seat and almost spilled her cocktail. "Warn a girl next time, will you?"

"Where's Dietrich?"

"Him?" She snorted. Ves smelled the alcohol from her breath. "He's in the infirmary. When the pirates ganked my mech, he tried to ride to the rescue like a white knight in shining armor. Too bad he forgot that he pilots a rifleman mech. Don't worry, he made it out alive, but he won't be able to move his left arm for a while."

"Raella, this is no time to get drunk. We'll be evacuating from the Glowing Planet at any moment now."

The Glowing Planet's rage had subsided by now, or most of it had been absorbed by its landmass so that barely anything had reached the surface. The most anyone noticed the changes was when a small quake rippled their drinks.

"You're not my parents! I'm old enough to make my own decisions now! And you know what, Ves? I decided it's not worth it for me to stay with the Larkinsons. I'm forging my own path in life, now! I'm joining the Blood Claws!"

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He should have seen this coming. From what he knew about Raella, she had always behaved as if she had been cast astray from the path she initially set forth on. Her dream was to be a professional mech athlete.

Once she had been cast from the dueling scene, she never really knew what to make of herself. The Larkinsons likely sent her to Ves to find a new goal to work towards. The old fogies on Rittersberg likely wouldn't be glad to hear that she decided to hitch up with one of the most violent and infamous gangs on Bentheim.

"Raella, we've talked about this. You're making a big mistake. You only see the noble side of the Blood Claws. All of that power and wealth is earned through less than savory means. Joining them means you are contributing to the social ills of Bentheim."

"I know all of that! I'm not a naive little girl anymore." Raella grumbled as she pushed away her empty glass. "But you don't see the good they do as well. The Blood Claws sound scary because they want to be feared. If you look underneath how they work, you'll see that they're not so bad as long as you play by their rules."

"Those rules have no leg to stand on in the Republic's laws. Gangs operate in a very different layer of society than the military or the regular private sector. Once you formally join the Blood Claws, you'll shut the door to a legitimate job. There is no way you can remain a Larkinson as well."

"What do you care about it?!" She spat back vehemently. "Is it great to be a Larkinson, when you're consigned to join the Mech Corps from birth? That sounds a lot like slavery to me! Well I've had enough of nagging uncles and aunties telling me what to do. I quit the family!"

Plenty of Larkinsons have distances themselves from the family over the years. Unlike some of the other military dynasties, the Larkinsons have been very relaxed about the issue.

Don't want to be a Larkinson? Okay. We'll update our registry. Henceforth, you are not an official member of the family anymore. Just don't come crying back when you encounter a setback and you don't have a shoulder to lean on. You made your bed.

The choice to quit your family association meant you embraced freedom over duty. The Larkinsons didn't quibble too much over the loss of free-thinking offspring, thinking that it would be better to let them spread their wings rather than hold them captive in a cage. In that regard, if Raella really wanted to cast herself from the family, Ves had no means to prevent her from going through with her choice.

He still found it to be a very bad choice.

"Raella, please, think it over. There are many other outfits you can join instead. If you fancy a rough life, there are many reputable mercenary corps you could choose from. They'd love to employ a Larkinson like you."

She shook her head. "I'm not doing this for the money! You don't understand a single thing what I'm saying! It's like this. I don't fit in with the Larkinsons. They're all so serious about pursuing a career in the Mech Corps. Well, I don't want to be a cog in a machine. What I want is to fight alongside real comrades who I can trust to watch my back. Mercenaries don't cut it. They fight for money and for a cozy retirement."

"Is fighting alongside a bunch of thugs and criminals any better?"

"Hey! They're not all brutes like in the dramas! Many of them are like Fadah and Dietrich. I envy them, you know. All of the Whalers act like brothers to each other. The Blood Claws already treat me like a sister that I feel more welcome in their midst than back at the Larkinson Compound. All I get from cousins like you are snide remarks and disapproving looks. I'm fed up with that!"

Ves understood that he couldn't convince Raella to reconsider her decision. He wasn't a man of eloquence, and neither did he have any experience in dealing with obstinate relatives.

After a couple more back-and-forths, Ves resigned himself to this undesirable outcome. This looked to be a real mess, especially considering that Melinda served in the Bentheim Planetary Guard. What if Raella and Melinda faced each other on opposite sides one day?

When Raella drunkenly stumbled back to her bunk, Ves sighed to himself. "The family won't like it if she jumps ship with the Blood Claws when the Republic is at the cusp of war. They'll take her defection as a betrayal."

Even though Raella wouldn't suffer any concrete punishment from her abrupt departure, henceforth she'd never be welcome at any of the family reunions.

"Whatever. It's her choice in the end. A gang is pretty bad, but at least she hadn't gone pirate."

At the very least, gangs operated in a grey area and could be relied upon to defend their territory when the Vesians came knocking at the door. Pirates on the other hand would cut down their own mothers in an instant and did not possess a single responsible bone in their bodies.

Ves spent the rest of the day preparing for the impending departure. Whatever plans the Mech Corps cooked up, he had no doubt that the pirates objected to their departure.

Everyone knew that the Mech Corps extracted a massive fortune from the red zone. Even if they hadn't heard about the Rorach's Bone the Gregarious Wrath recovered from the core of the Glowing Planet, the pirates would still attempt to chip away at their transports.

In the meantime, the Glowing Planet experienced a lot of turbulence. The sudden onset of earthquakes and the temporary spike in spacetime anomalies alarmed every outfit operating on the surface of the planet.

Even if the Glowing Planet's rage eventually subsided, many people held suspicions on what could have triggered the outburst. Both the Mech Corps and the Mech Legion received increased scrutiny for that reason.

Naturally, this also made it difficult to plan out their evacuation. Ves vaguely heard rumors that the Dragons of the Void had been organizing the disparate pirate alliances into opposing any departures by the two military forces.

This reality put the Mech Corps in a weird spot where they had to cooperate with the Mech Legion in order to maximize their chances of making it out intact. If they lifted off from the planet by themselves, then the pirates would completely commit their entire forces on a single target.

"Will the Mech Legion cooperate?"

The Bright Republic and the Vesia Kingdom had been locked into a bitter, generational struggle for supremacy. They almost never looked eye-to-eye to each other. How could they forge an agreement when they hardly shared any common ground?

As Ves had never personally taken part in a war against the Vesians, he found the idea of cooperating with the Mech Legion a distasteful but pragmatic choice.

Unfortunately, much of the 4th Bentheim Division disagreed. Off-duty mech pilots practically spat at their names when they talked about the Vesians. He imagined their Vesians counterparts doing the same on the opposite side of the planet.

Nevertheless, a small figure like Ves had no chance of taking part in the planning of such an important operation. He had to mind his own business.

"So the Whalers are leaving most of their non-mech hardware behind?"

"That's right." Dietrich said as he lay on the bed in one of the infirmaries. He suffered a minor breach in the cockpit that had mangled his arms. "While they're still worth a couple of million credits, they're all junk and they take up way too much space. My father would rather want to fill up his ships with containers full of exotics."

That made sense. Ves figured most of the other outfits would be doing likewise. "Still, all of those containers will weigh down the transports. Many exotics have a much higher density than regular alloys."

"We know, but we owe it to those who died to make it out with as much booty as possible. Dad wants to set up a fund for their families."

The mood turned a little grim. Though Ves hadn't witnessed any frigid battles, he could tell that the Whalers had changed.

The constant fighting grinded away their confidence and harvested the lives of their brothers. They lost at least half of their mech pilots and most of their mechs. Even if they mined a fortune in exotics, such a massive loss had dampened any enthusiasm about getting rich.

"We'll recover." Dietrich whispered. "My dad already filled me in on where he plans to spend all of that money. We'll be beefing our numbers. Besides recruiting mech pilots, we'll also purchase better mechs. Dad is actually thinking about buying some of your models."

"Good choice. I'll personally fabricate some for Walter if he knocks at my door. It's the least I can do."

"Have you seen Raella?"

"Yeah. She told me she wanted to join the Blood Claws. Please don't tell me you have a hand in that."

"It's not my fault!" Dietrich raised his healthy hand in innocence. "She can be a bit intense when it comes to earning fame. She doesn't think she'll be able to distinguish herself if she's serving in the Mech Corps. It's much easier for her to earn some fame among the Blood Claws."

Ves grew suspicious. "Is it because of Melinda?"

"Don't even start on Melinda." Dietrich groaned as he palmed his face. "You can't imagine how jealous Raella is over Melinda's duel against Captain Vicar. She's always thinking about a way to trump that achievement."

"Are the two of you still together?"

"Yeah… well, sort of. I don't think we can maintain a long-distance relationship." Dietrich hung down his head. "Ever since she hitched up with the Blood Claws, she became incredibly focused on her training. All of those battles polished her piloting style, so right now she's improving pretty fast. Compared to that, what's the use of a boyfriend? I should have never taken her to Bentheim in the first place."

Ves clapped Dietrich's shoulder in encouragement. "Man up, Dietrich. I'm not really good in relationships, but I think you still have a chance with her. Keep training and make sure you can keep up with her improvement. As long as you're strong, she'll continue to respect you."

Actually, he had no idea what he was talking about. Ves merely wanted to console the Little Boss and encourage him to keep in touch with Raella. After all, how would Ves be able to keep tabs on her if she stopped corresponding with Dietrich?

"What about your own love life?" Dietrich pricked back at him. "I've never seen you with a girl, and you rarely go out in the city to get to know someone. You're not growing any younger, you know!"

"Ahem, that's none of your business." Ves stubbornly closed himself off. "Go back to healing. I expect the Mech Corps will begin their evacuation tomorrow. Even if you aren't fit to pilot a mech, you should at least be tough to endure some shocks."

The man on the bed began to frown. "It's going to be that bad?"

"I really don't know, but we should plan for the worst. Many pirates haven't brought sufficient mining equipment so they only harvested scraps compared to the bounty that the Mech Corps earned. Those pirates won't be able to hold back I think. Stealing other people's hard work has always been their modus operandi."

After discussing a bit with Dietrich, Ves left the infirmary and began to consider his own options. He considered using up his golden lottery tickets, but found no opportunity to be alone. The base was packed full of people and the Mech Corps kept a close eye on all of them. He also figured that the lottery tickets mostly held items related to designing mechs.

"With my luck, I won't receive anything relevant that will help me survive the coming days."

He returned to the Whalers and made his final preparations. Since the Barracuda remained up in space, Ves had to borrow a ride for himself, Melkor and his Stanislaw. He walked over to the rusty little mech carrier that would bring them into space and frowned.

"How old is this ship?"

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The evacuation began in earnest the next day. The Mech Corps had already shuttered its mining equipment and loaded their transports with exotics the days before, but now they started to dismantle and pack in their high-value assets.

Most of the objects that took up a lot of space but wasn't actually valuable would be left behind. This consisted of things such as prefab structures and walls. Though they incorporated a fair amount of exotics, they relied more on their thickness than their material quality to withstand enemy attacks.

Compared to low value bulk goods, the Mech Corps would rather load up their transports with more exotics. Even filling up their remaining cargo space with junk exotics made more sense than to retrieve their walls.

The other outfits followed suit. They placed a high priority on shipping out their haul. Bringing back their mechs came at a close seconds. A fair amount of landbound mechs entered the carriers and strapped themselves down.

Due to the recent battles, many of the berths had become free. Their owners cleverly filled up the remaining space with additional containers of exotics.

Still, they couldn't put away every combat-ready mech. The massive movement attracted the attention of the surrounding pirates.

Their prey planned to make a run!

The pirate alliances pounced on the base without any explicit attempts to coordinate their attacks. They merely followed their instincts and acted on any signs of weakness.

The sudden but expected attack necessitated a strong defense. Many landbound mechs remained stuck on the planet and had to fight back the pirates that constantly swarmed their lines.

At a certain field of rocks and cliffs, the Stanislaw huddled forward with its rifle radiating a fair amount of heat. The rifleman mech looked like it had seen better days. Significant amounts of armor had peeled away from all of the lasers and explosive shells that had glanced off the frame.

"Incoming squad of pirate mechs!" Melkor reported, though his mech had already sent the telemetry of his sightings to the Blood Claws. "One light, six mediums, one heavy!"

"Say again, did you just mention a heavy?"

"It's a salvaged artillery mech! They'll likely deploy it on the high ground up ahead and bombard the walls from a distance!"

The Blood Claw operator on the other end of the channel cursed. "We've already depleted our stock of missiles and we don't have anything that can outrange a heavy artillery mech. We'll be sending out an oversized squad to take care of the threat. Hold your position and guide the squad to the artillery mech when they arrive. Can you do that?"

"Got it. My mech still has some fight left into it. I have to pay them back for scratching up my Stanislaw."

On a more open side of the battlefield, the pirates deployed their mechs in significant numbers. A swarm of mechs raced forward to overwhelm the defensive lines.

Raella, Fadah and Walter stood before the walls along with the rest of the Blood Claws and their affiliated groups. They had been tasked with keeping this patch of wall steady, and for the sake of their massive haul, they promised to defend this wall to their deaths.

Whether the Mech Corps believed the vow or not was another question.

In any case, the Blood Claws made their stand, and the pirates came running to challenge their conviction.

"Careful, lads. Not all of the pirate mechs are carrying undercharged energy cells. Aim for the upper torso or the legs if possible. Avoid the waist and lower back as much as you can. Ranged mechs, aim high and focus on knocking off their heads if possible. They're much easier to disable once they lose their main sensors."

As the commander of the Blood Claws instructed their men, Raella sighed and opened a channel to Fadah. "I bet I can take out more mechs than you. I'm not the Raella you've seen before."

"Fat chance!" The light mech specialist laughed. "Even with your fancy new mech, it still pales in comparison to what your cousin designed. There's no contest which mech is better!"

Ever since her Sliverath bought the farm, the Blood Claws prepared another mech for her to use. Though someone else had originally reserved the mech, the brass decided to hand it to her on account of her skill. Many of the mech pilots in the employ of the Blood Claws never enjoyed the amount of systematic training that any Larkinson potentate had gone through.

"Here they come!"

A wave of pirate mechs braved the base with fanaticism driven by greed and brainwashing. By now, everyone had heard of how the Dragons of the Void messed with the heads of the pirates and made them pliable to their orders. If the Dragons of the Void wanted to throw away a thousand mechs, they could easily do so without any consequences.

It took a lot of courage to assault the Mech Corps directly. Many of the smarter pirate outfits had shown up on the battlefield but cleverly hung behind the first wave of idiots that had stormed ahead. Nobody sober wanted to lead the charge.

"Watch out for their energy cells! Take them out at a distance if you can!"

The defending side brought more ranged mechs than melee mechs this time. Once the pirates came within a certain range, all of the rifles and cannons spat out beams and projectiles at the incoming mechs.

Their fire focused first and foremost on the light mechs. The downside to charging forth in a massive uncoordinated swarm was that the light mechs didn't have much room for maneuver. They risked a collision if they juked too much and bumped into another mech.

Even then, it took a fair amount of firepower to score the first kills. Half of the mechs collapsed in a lifeless heap, but the other half exploded violently.

Some of those explosions affected the mechs next to them. A portion of the mechs that suffered the most substantial damage exploded as well as their overcharged energy cells discharged all at once.

The subsequent chain reaction disrupted the charge and plunged the formation into momentary confusion.

"This is our chance! Charge!"

The Blood Claws surged forward, closing the short distance that remained, and hammered into the confused huddle of pirates.

One thing the Mech Corps learned about these brainwashed pirates was that they lost their edge. In practice, they became more dim-witted and couldn't really think for themselves.

It was as if they had turned into human-form bots. Once you forced them into a loop of errors, you could easily shut them down.

Right now, the Raella sprung forth with her new mech. She piloted an advanced skirmisher mech called the Nimue, which notably featured a partial rainmant of compressed armor.

The Nimue blitzed past the front ranks of the pirates and sliced away at their arms. Though the strikes hadn't penetrated deep, she did manage to cut through some of the thinner armor around the arms and inflict some internal damage, therefore weakening the limbs.

"Hey! You're going in too deep!" Fadah called as he brought his Blackbeak in front of a sluggish knight. "Come back here, Raella!"

The enemy pilot in front of him recovered just in time to parry Fadah's sword with its shield. Still, he couldn't prevent Fadah from slipping to his flanks and sink the sharp edge of the Blackbeak's phoenix shield into its legs.

The pirate knight buckled a bit, opening it up for a stab through its thinner back armor. The Blackbeak pushed its weight into the thrust until the sword had reached the cockpit.

"That's one down." He muttered as he carefully retracted his sword in order to avoid bumping into the energy cells.

Many of the pirate mechs carried overcharged energy cells. Their wrecks remained a hazard even if they had been taken out safely. It only took one stray shot to set them off. This was why Fadah pulled his Blackbeak away as fast as possible. In recent times, every pilot acquired the habit of avoiding fallen wrecks. The risk of getting caught in a sudden blast was too much.

The wave of defenders eventually pulled back after having thinned out the pirate riffraff. Constant movement and sudden changes in direction served to confuse the brainwashed pirates even further. They didn't even realize their enemies had pulled out. They needed at least ten seconds to get a grip on the new situation.

"Open fire!"

The ranged mechs had cooler their laser rifles or changed the magazines of their ballistic weapons once the melee mechs went in. Now that they returned, the ranged mechs opened fire again.

This time, more explosions sounded out, as many of the fire focused on damaged and immobilized mechs. The chain reactions that resulted from the second volley destroyed even more mechs than at the start.

Once the ranged mechs reached their limits, they stopped their fire, prompting the melee mechs to set forth again.

The clever see-saw tactic made short work out of the initial wave of pirates. The onlookers who wanted to profit at the expense of the first wave hadn't been able to summon up the courage to follow up. The defenders hardly suffered any losses.

The mantises died to quickly for the orioles to pounce on the cicadas!

"Pff. The cowards." Raella taunted as she brought her Nimue back in line. Her mech suffered a fair amount of scratches, but the vitals all held up with the help of its compressed armor. "Why did they think they stood a chance in the first place? Even if they overran our position, they still have to deal with the reserves from the 4th Division."

Fadah tapped his finger against the armrest of his piloting chair. "You can't fault the pirates for making a last attempt. I got the sense that the Dragons of the Void never planned to take back these mechs in the first place. Just look at them. They're mostly junkers that are worth ten million credits at most. A single container filled with junk exotics is worth at least twice as much."

That made a disturbing amount of sense. Even though the Mech Corps constantly thrashed the pirates, they kept coming back as if they literally held no value. By the time the Dragons gathered up these dregs, they only composed of a fraction of what they initially brought to the surface.

"Well, we should thank our fortunes that the Dragons of the Void have been so loose with their slaves. If they saved them all up, they could have overwhelmed our defenses with sheer numbers."

As the remaining defenders stabilized the lines, Ves watched on at the roof of one of the prefab workshops. He didn't have any use at this moment, as the time for repairs had passed. Right now, every available hand helped out with loading up the spaceships.

He looked out at the distance and imagined all the fighting that went on there. Ves had tapped into his Blackbeak's feed but lost connection on the way. Some of the communication lines had been cut for some reason or another.

"Maybe this is a good time to use up my lottery tickets."

No one paid attention to Ves at the moment. With pirates at their doorstep and ships that needed filling, the Mech Corps spared no effort in monitoring a single if somewhat special mech designer.

Ves carefully looked from side to side, and spotted nobody nearby. "Lucky, is anything monitoring us right now?"

"Meow!"

Lucky had already swatted away a few bugs. Nothing else had drifted close since then. Ves took that as an affirmative and sat down in an enclosed corner. He brought up his comm and activated his Privacy Shield before he turned to the Lottery page.

Ten glistening golden tickets awaited his perusal. As always, the System went the extra mile to dress up its features. The tickets looked life-like and floated in front of Ves like an attractive school of fish.

"I hope you turn up something better than an old lantern or something."

Ves found the bronze and silver tickets to be a waste of time and DP. Even if he could buy them in bulk, he would rather use up his points in the Shop or Skill Tree. At least he'd get what he paid for in those cases.

As for these lottery tickets, if his luck bode ill, he might end up with ten complete duds. The risk of scoring ten straight misses weighed heavily on Ves.

"I'm not that unlucky, am I?"

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A sense of cautious anticipation swelled inside Ves. The System held extremely high standards, and the golden lottery tickets should be worth the effort of retrieving that strange jewel from the core of the Glowing Planet.

"There's no way the System will hand over a crappy reward for a B-rank mission."

From his frequent dealings with the System, he knew that it would never stint him on his rewards. It held itself to a high standard in terms of its offerings. As impersonal as the System behaved, it displayed a very rigid sense of class.

Still, lottery tickets never guaranteed a pay off. That was the nature of gambling. Ves had no doubt that if he bought a bunch of bronze or silver lottery tickets from the System, he'd waste far more DP than he would gain in value from his wins.

Ultimately, the System profited.

That put Ves to thought. Why did the System work with Design Points? What did it actually represent?

"I gain Design Points for designing mechs and selling them to others. The more I design, the more points I earn. The more my mechs proliferate, the more points I receive."

The System obviously incentivized Ves to conquer the mech industry and make his designs ubiquitous. What he didn't understand was what the System got out of it. DP was a currency that Ves could spend on very real benefits, such as upgrading his Skills or purchasing a powerful item from the Shop.

"It's not fantasy money that the System uses to restrict my spending." He guessed. He didn't think that the System came with an endless reservoir of energy and rationed some of it out to Ves in limited amounts. "It's more as if the act of designing and selling mechs is empowering the System."

From what he could speculate, DP represented some form of higher energy, likely existing in the imaginary realm. Every mech he sold generated some of this energy, which the System somehow captured and digested it to fuel its own incredible workings.

A ridiculous level of technology underpinned these workings. Ves frequently admired the workings of the System. Whenever he thought he found its limits, the System surprised him with another capability. All of these wonders required an enormous amount of energy that not even a capital ship's reactor could supply enough power to these processes.

"It's impossible for me to figure out how the System works."

He lacked the technical background to even attempt such an analysis. Ves was like a caveman who stumbled upon an abandoned shuttle. He didn't need to know how it worked to press a couple of buttons and get the shuttle to fly.

"It's enough for me to work within the boundaries set by the System."

Even if the System had a nefarious purpose, for now Ves had little to fear. He only received plenty of benefits so far. It wasn't too late to throw it away if it ever became a threat.

He moved on to the lottery tickets, which continued to hover in front of him. The projection appeared so realistic that he could almost touch them if not for his hazard suit getting in the way.

Using up the tickets on an isolated rooftop of an empty workshop didn't seem very prudent, but Ves had nothing to fear so long as he kept up his trusty Privacy Shield.

Lucky also scampered nearby. With his pet on the prowl, no spy bugs should be able to get close enough to breach the Privacy Shield.

"Here goes nothing."

Ves extended a gauntleted finger and ripped apart the first golden lottery ticket. The entire thing shone bright before revealing the interface upon which he would draw his prize.

A bin materialized that held a bunch of golden balls. Each of them shone with an attractive luster, as if they hinted at a great treasure. Ves figured that he had to pick and choose which ball to take.

"Here goes nothing."

He held out his hand and dug it deep into the bin of balls. The balls all appeared to be made of solid gold, which made it difficult for his suited arm to extend into the bin, but he persevered. Once his gauntlet reached the bottom of the bin, he grabbed hold of a random ball that rested at the bottom and carefully retracted it out of the bin.

The ball he held began to shine. Its gold surface sparkled and dematerialized, revealing a great light hidden inside its hollow cavity.

[You have failed to draw a prize from your golden lottery ticket. Please draw again.]

"..."

Really? After so much fanfare, he wasted an entire ticket?

"Come on, System! This is such a big scam!"

Alright, so he confirmed that even golden lottery tickets could end up as duds. Even though he predicted the possibility, it never felt good to fail on the first draw.

Once he finished drawing the price, the bin stirred itself up and the balls began to bounce back and forth. Once the process finished, Ves could use up another ticket by drawing another ball.

"Next try then."

He drew out one of the balls at the top this time. When the golden ball began to shine, it split up to reveal a miniature object inside.

[Congratulations! You have received a 10-year production license of the following sensor component: Colchester Revisions 44-SBNC1341455A.]

"At least I got something this time."

His tone sounded remarkably flat, because he did not have a clue on the value of this sensor license. Neither the company name or the unspeakable codename revealed any hint of its true value. Just because he received a production license didn't mean he could apply them immediately.

A license had to fit his vision instead of the other way around. In addition, chances were high that the sensor component either underperformed or demanded way too much exotics to be cost-effective. He'd have to check it out later to see whether the license held any use at all.

"If nothing else, I can always sell the rights to the license for a couple of billions credits."

In general, most production licenses could be sold or transferred to an interested party, though usually at a discount.

Ves put the matter aside and drew another ball.

This time, the ball shone much more brighter than the last one. It practically blinded his visor, causing it to automatically adjust. Something remarkable appeared out of the light.

A resplendent looking laser pistol materialized from the ball. Its beautiful appearance adopted a classy, vintage look. A generous amount of golden-like flourishes adorned its gleaming white surface, and the grippy, bone-plated grip automatically expanded its form to allow his gauntlet to wield the pistol properly.

Ves focused on the weapon in his hand.

[Amastendira - Inv]

Rank: Supreme

The Amastendira is a masterwork laser pistol hand-crafted by Pierre Femento, the renowned Rubarthan laser gunsmith. The Amastendira is part of a set of three pistols. It is rumored that the three pistols can be combined into a single super-rifle which can pose a threat to a cutting-edge mech.

On its own, the Amastendira is a fully-fledged laser pistol that can be compacted into an unassuming cube, allowing it to be pocketed. Once retracted, it can fire a variety of laser beams at a wide variety of power settings.

The efficiency of this weapon is directly related to its power settings. The Amastendira can fire up to five-thousand standard-powered beams before entering a one-hour cooldown cycle. Its renewable energy cell allows the pistol to constantly replenish its power and its dimensional heat sink enables it to shunt any heat into another dimension.

At maximum power, the pistol will only be able to fire ten beams in quick succession, and will need to cool down for at least ten minutes.

This unique work of art is the crystallization of Pierre Femento's life's work, but has been presumed lost. This weapon is has been partially reconstructed, but a significant amount of hidden settings still remain dormant.

"This pistol!"

Ves could not believe what he received. His dinky little backup pistol he holstered at his hip might as well be a toy in front of this slim and elegant piece of art. He could practically feel the X-Factor radiating out of this majestic weapon. This Pierre Femento must have designed and created it with an abundance of passion and love.

With bated breath, he slowly tightened his grip on the weapon, as if he was afraid it was an illusion. He was most impressed with its capacity to fire five-thousand standard laser beams without requiring any rest in between.

What did five-thousand consecutive shots means? It meant he could pretty much hold down the trigger and burn through a solid a solid piece of ship armor given enough time. It meant he could lay down as much fire as a full squad of infantrymen.

In addition, he noticed that the power settings could be dialed up to such a formidable level that he could burn through regular mech armor with a couple of focused volleys. Exoskeleton armor formed no obstacle at all.

"This is what I was looking for. Now I'm not so toothless anymore without Lucky."

Ves always found it grating to rely on Lucky to save him from a sticky mess. Now, with a formidable weapon by his side, he possessed the means to fight back, though he hadn't turned into a super soldier all of a sudden. Even the best weapons could be rendered ineffective if its wielder didn't possess the skill to wield them effectively.

Sadly for him, Ves only received basic self-defense training with pistols. His aim was far from ideal, which made this weapon a poor fit for him. He could tell that Pierre had designed this weapon for a highly skilled combatant, because it incorporated absolutely no form of aim assistance at all.

"An expert gunslinger doesn't need any form of help."

Despite this major deficiency, Ves still cherished this weapon.

"What does the 'Inv' stand for?"

[Any object that carries the suffix of Inv can be dematerialized into the Inventory offered by Mech Designer System with no limits.]

"Wow!"

Ves asked a couple of more questions, and for once, the System spared enough energy to answer his questions.

Any item above a certain rank could be held in the System's inventory, as long as he obtained it from the System in the first place. Amastendira happened to be an item that came with the rank of Supreme, which happened to be several times more remarkable than Lucky, who initially bore the rank of Gold when he initially received him as a gift.

Ves glanced over at Lucky, who didn't appear to be impressed by his fancy new weapon. The cat had transformed from a regular bronze-like gem cat to an impressive looking bone-white cat. The amount of Rorach's Bone he ingested was virtually priceless, with the high-grade bone contributing the most to Lucky's newfound strength.

"Don't worry, Lucky. You're still the best gift ever."

Once he finished admiring his splendid-looking gift, he dematerialized it into his Inventory before going back to his lottery drawings.

His luck seemed to have run out over the course of the next draws. He encountered dud after dud.

[You have failed to draw a prize from your golden lottery ticket. Please draw again.]

[You have failed to draw a prize from your golden lottery ticket. Please draw again.]

[You have failed to draw a prize from your golden lottery ticket. Please draw again.]

[You have failed to draw a prize from your golden lottery ticket. Please draw again.]

He finally received a solid prize on his eight drawing.

[Congratulations! You have received a single-use Superpublish voucher! Use this voucher to activate your Superpublish ability on any of your solely-developed designs. This voucher will not use up your regular Superpublish quota.]

Compared to the Amastendira, this Superpublish voucher failed to excite him in any way. If he remembered correctly, the Superpublish ability enabled him to spontaneously improve any design by ten percent.

Before, he always held back on this ability because he had to wait for an entire year before he could use it again. What if he used it frivolously and later ended up in a situation where he had to break past his limits to save his life? Thus, Ves always put the ability into a mental vault, and locked it away, never to be used unless his life was truly at stake.

Getting another chance at using the Superpublish ability granted him a lot more leeway with this ability. He planned to keep the voucher in his Inventory and save it up for a genuine emergency.

In the meantime, he'd use his regular Superpublish ability as often as possible in order to make full use of its possibilities. Even if Ves wouldn't be able to earn any DP for any designs improved in this way, he'd still be able to learn a lot from all of the changes.

Now, only two more lottery drawings remained. Ves itched his fingers for the final two balls.

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[You have failed to draw a prize from your golden lottery ticket. Please draw again.]

"Of course. Why not."

Ves shook his head as he received another dud on his next draw. Even a golden lottery ticket couldn't escape from the System's stingy grasp. It reiterated again how much of a bad trade it was to engage with this scam-like lottery business.

"I get the feeling it's a convenient way for the System to limit my actual rewards."

His distaste for the System's Lottery grew when he tried and failed to find a listing of the probabilities of winning any prizes. That was illegal!

Yet no matter how many times he nagged, the System remained inscrutable. He could only give up and draw the last golden ball with an apprehensive arm.

Once he retrieved the final ball, it shone as bright as the one that held the laser pistol. "This must be a big prize!"

Indeed, once the light had faded away, a translucent pill appeared in its midst. The entire lottery interface faded away now that he used up all of his golden tickets, but Ves didn't care as he stared at the compelling little pill.

"What is this?"

[Congratulations! You have received a Transcendence Pill. This object can be ingested to provide a powerful mental boost and break the human limit of any random mental Attribute without any lasting negative consequences. Ingesting the pill comes with considerable risk, and requires considerable mental and physical fortitude to survive the transformation process. It may take 1 to 88 days to complete this process.]

This time, Ves received another major prize. He had always been keeping his eye out on a way to breach past human limits. His endurance once reached past 2.0, but it reached that state in a highly unstable manner. His body slowly broke apart from the constant stress.

This time, the Transcendence Pill offered to do the same, but without any of the unsustainable elements. Even though the description still pointed out some risks, as long as he made the right preparations, there wouldn't be any lasting dangers.

"Still, if it takes up to eighty-eight days to complete the transformation process, then it's not a good idea to use it up at this time."

Right now, he was in the middle of a warzone. Soon, he'd be evacuated into space, but the danger only started from there. He could not afford to put himself under at this crucial time.

The System categorized the Transcendence Pill as a Supreme item, so Ves easily dematerialized it into his Inventory. Both his weapon and his pill would be absolutely safe there as long as his comm remained in his possession.

"It's too bad I don't have any way of upgrading my comm."

The fact that the comm that held his System could be taken away at any moment represented a major weak point in his security arrangement. Ves had been eying some comm upgrades in the Shop that could alleviate these risks, but right now he was loath to spend so much DP.

Overall, leaving aside the Special Upgrade Voucher, Ves received a fair amount of compensation for all of his trouble. The Amastendira met his need for a powerful self-defense option while the Transcendence Pill saved him the trouble of figuring out a way to break the human limit on his own.

As for the sensor production license, Ves reserved his judgement on it. He'd check on it once he returned to Cloudy Curtain.

"It really sucks that I've only scored three prizes out of ten draws."

With a tentative success rate of forty percent, golden lottery tickets sure provided an unsteady amount of value. Even if three out of the four prizes appeared to be exclusive items that provided benefits that couldn't be found in the Shop, it still didn't change the fact that it had been a risky exchange.

He glanced over at Lucky. His cat acted a bit grumpy as Ves fawned over his shiny new toys.

"Are you jealous?"

Lucky flicked his tail and turned around, ignoring Ves entirely.

Ves didn't take his pet's behavior to heart. "Let's go downstairs. It's about time we board our ride."

He walked down the stairs and sought out the beaten-up Happy Jelly. The transport converted into a mech carrier hadn't fared well on the surface. Sporadic long-ranged bombardment had struck the carrier, chipping away at its rusted armor coverage.

The Whalers patched up the craters as best they could, but they obviously hadn't been very proficient in the repairs. Even Ves could do a better job on his own.

Still, he figured it would be better for him to stick with the Whalers as they all came from Cloudy Curtain. It wasn't to the point where he trusted them with his life, but they had more reasons to keep him safe than the Blood Claws or the Mech Corps.

"Ves! You're here!" A suited Whaler waved at him as he supervised the final loading process of the Happy Jelly. "I've been wondering whether you'd come. I thought you hitched a ride with the 4th Division."

"The Mech Corps can be kind of touchy about letting me board their carriers." He responded. "Right now, they're focused on breaking through the pirate blockade in space. Having me around is a security risk."

"Couldn't you have traded some favors to get aboard their ships?"

"It's not worth the price."

Indeed, he already inquired about the possibility. Perhaps because of his shenanigans aboard the Gregarious Wrath, the Mech Corps put up a list of strict demands for Ves to continue his association with them. He rejected them because he didn't wish to start his draft at this time.

"How far is the loading process?"

"Everything essential is loaded up. We're only waiting for the final phase. It's going to be a tough time trying to load up all of the mechs that are fending off the pirates at the walls."

Ves nodded at that. It couldn't be helped, as the pirates continued to pour inside the red zone. They hungrily eyed the transports filled with higher grades of exotics. As long as they could shoot down one of them, they'd be able to salvage more than what they mined from the planet on their own.

"I'll go inside. Don't stay out for too long!"

As he entered the familiar badly-maintained interior of the Happy Jelly, the dirt and rust didn't look so awful anymore. Ves had the sense that he returned home. It was as if the Happy Jelly called out to him and told him he belonged.

Sadly, much of the recent deaths had hollowed out the ship. Many of the mech stables that ordinarily held mechs had been filled with cargo containers. The Jelly expected much fewer mechs to return to their berths this time.

The high level of losses sustained in this campaign had put a definite dampener on the mood of the crew. In his time among the Whalers, Ves found out that much of the members shared family relations with each other.

People recruited their brothers into the gang, and sisters married any man they found dashing. Among the Whalers, the mech pilots represented the apex of the organization, so it was a given that they all left a large number of widowed husbands and wives.

"If so many people die in a single campaign, then I get why my mother is so averse to conflict."

Thinking about his deceased mother ruined his mood as well. He had no idea what to think about the ghost who stole a big prize from underneath his nose. Though it eventually made no difference as the high-grade Rorach's Bone failed to meet the conditions to complete the mission, he still found it to be an awful experience.

At least he could finally say goodbye to this pernicious thieving ghost. The Glowing Planet and all of its secrets would soon become a headache for the Hexadric Hegemony and the Friday Coalition to deal with. They possessed plentiful tools to deal with energy beings like the ghost.

"Not that I'm helpless like before. This time I've got the Amastendira on my side."

One particular benefit of the mastercrafted laser pistol was that it came with a setting specialized in hurting energy beams. Ves actually looked forward for the ghost to appear in his midst again. He had a nasty surprise in store for the sticky-fingered creature.

With the death of many mech pilots, a couple of cabins became ownerless. The Whalers assigned him one of the best and roomiest cabins this time. They even went through the trouble of cleaning up the place and removing all of the effects of the previous occupants.

Lucky roamed around the roomy cabin, meowing in satisfaction. Ves stowed away his luggage before stepping out of the cabin. He knew the Whalers lacked a solid team of mech technicians and could use a solid kick in the butt.

Once he entered the Jelly's workshop, all of the mech technicians looked towards Ves. Almost everyone had worked under him at some point at the start of the campaign so they instinctively lowered their heads at his presence.

Inventing the undercharged energy cells also added to his prestige. Ves didn't even have to say a word to take over the entire workshop deck.

"Give me an overview. How many landbound mechs are we expecting and how many spaceborn mechs does the Jelly carry?"

The oldest-looking tech stepped forward. "We're expecting five landbound mechs, which includes the Urmech, the Blackbeak and the Stanislaw. As for spaceborn mechs, we only carry two of them. Would you like to see them?"

"Yes. They're vital to the defense of this carrier. Before we lift off from the Glowing Planet, I want to make sure they're in fighting shape."

While the technicians led the way towards the two spaceborn mechs, over at the perimeter of the base, the open field had turned into a torn and broken landscape.

An abundance of wrecks littered the site. While a fair amount of mechs looked reasonably intact save for a hole in the cockpit or a cut to their limbs, an even larger amount of debris looked like they had gone through a storm.

Many pirate outfits lacked the connections or fabrication capabilities to supply their mechs with undercharged energy cells. This led to a judicious amount of explosions that hurt their side more than their opponents.

"I think it's about time we pull back." Raella muttered as she cast some of her sensors to the ranged mechs firing from the wall. "Some of the rifles have run out of ammo."

"There's still another wave of pirates heading in our direction." Fadah noted as he beheld the loose arrangement of pirate mechs coming up to the debris field. "Hah! They sent so many mechs at us that they have to watch their footing!"

The sheer amount of wrecks inadvertedly blunted much of the later pirate waves. In addition, the Dragons of the Void had exhausted much of its cannon fodder. They had to prod the other pirate alliances to pick up the slack, with mixed results.

"This latest bunch look dangerous, though. They've brought multiple heavy knights to the fore. I thought pirates shouldn't be able to produce these kinds of mechs!"

"That doesn't stop them from stealing them." Fadah explained. "In fact, it looks a lot like this outfit raided a military supply depot. These mechs are sporting serious hardware."

Fortunately, the Mech Corps finally sent the recall signal. The ships had finished loading the final cargo. Now, they only awaited the final batch of mechs that defended the perimeter.

"Let's go! This is the end run!" The commanding officer of the Blood Claws transmitted to the mechs defending this corner of the base. "Don't panic and don't run ahead. Stick to the plan and pull back in an orderly fashion!"

Thousands of mechs across the entire base collectively shrunk back. They pulled away from the walls and briskly headed towards the mass of carriers that awaited their arrival.

The pirate mechs noticed the retreat and hastened their way through the debris field. Both sides tried to reach the center and fight the final battle on the surface of the Glowing Planet.

This was the end run.

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At first, the pirates approached without contest. Once they walked past the debris field, they bypassed the walls and trudged into the interior of the base. Their prey had gone ahead and retreated towards the center of the base, where a host of ships awaited their arrival.

Surprisingly, the pirates hardly encountered any opposition. The lack of any obstacles among the empty prefab buildings lulled them to a sense of complacency. They unconsciously dismissed any threats among the empty streets and gathered up their numbers before they approached the final defensive envelope.

A fair distance away, at the very center of the red zone, a horde of mechs started to load up to their carriers.

Badly damaged mechs entered first, followed by ranged mechs that expended all of their ammunition. Only a final defensive line of laser rifleman mechs and undamaged melee mechs held their ground.

Alongside these mechs, a large number of anti-air and anti-missile turrets dotted the massive landing field. These formidable military-grade turrets fended off the occasional orbital and missile bombardment as well as any mechs that approached from the ground. A handful of turrets specializing in fast response even reacted swiftly enough to intercept ballistic shells.

The only way to break through the final defensive line was to commit to an all-out assault. Even though the final defensive line intimidated the pirates, their courage continuously swelled as their numbers grew.

On the opposite of the pirate mechs, Raella grinned as she looked forward to the show to come, though she sighed as she thought of her Nimue.

Her light mech hadn't fared too well in recent deployments. Many of its compressed armor plates showed signs of intense blows and some of them had even been peeled away. This meant she had very little buffer left to absorb further damage.

"Will they fall for it?" She asked.

"They're not acting like they've caught on." Fadah said as he sat in the cockpit of his worn-out Blackbeak. His mech had fared better than Raella's, but consecutive battles had stripped quite a bit of layers from its Veltrex armor system. "This is our last gambit. If it fails, we'll be having a rough time."

Fortunately, the pirate mechs cluelessly congregated in the open fairways between the abandoned prefab structures. Their standard sensors detected no explosives and not a hint of undermining beneath their feet. Thus, they swarmed into the base without reservation.

Once the numbers turned from hundreds to thousands of mechs, Colonel Ilos who commanded the evacuation issued an order. "Set off the trap!"

The prefab structures blew up all at once. The explosions had been synchronised down to the microsecond, leaving no opportunity for the pirates to take any precautions at all. Over fifty percent of the base suffered devastating explosions with a familiar electric bent. It turned out those prefabs had been stuffed with overcharged energy cells!

Screams filtered out into the open channels as the lucky ones survived with mangled mechs. As for those who used the prefabs as cover, both their mechs and their pilots had been torn apart from their proximity to the blasts.

The level of violence thrummed throughout the base and even the defenders had to fight to keep their footing. The massive shockwave from the simultaneous explosions even shifted some of the ships!

As the explosions faded, Raella struggled to understand why the pirates hadn't detected the energy cells. "How did the Mech Corps managed to fool their sensors? By now, every mech has their detectors peeled for overcharged energy cells."

"It's because the Mech Corps came with a specialized design that's purpose-built as a bomb." Another pilot in the channel said. "You see, those mech sensors are calibrated towards detecting mech-sized energy cells, but the base has lots of tools that run on smaller energy cells. If the sensors picked all of those smaller energy cells up, the pilot would eventually grow deaf from all of the alarms, so they are all set to ignore the cells below a given size."

Raella understood the ploy. "I see. So instead of making one large cell, you produce lots of smaller ones instead, and bunch them together so their chain reaction is still as devastating as the explosion of a single cell."

Even though the magnitude of the explosion hadn't managed to envelop the entire pirate force, it still brought a devastation to their ranks. At this stage, they lost at least a third of their mechs outright. Another third sustained moderate damage, while the rest got off lightly.

However, even if they still retained enough mechs to overwhelm the defenders, they completely lost their confidence. The devious trap that had devastated the entire outer base had completely smashed their illusions of achieving an easy win.

Some of the ornate mechs at the rear showed up to stiffen up the pirates and prevent them from turning back. A swordsman mech with dragon patterns even strode ahead and beheaded the cowards mechs who had already turned back.

"There's no way back!" Takeru shouted over the channel. "The Mech Corps is at the end of their ropes! Look forward and don't turn back!"

To add some weight to his words, the Dragons of the Void decided to launch their own gambit early. Something twinkled in the airless sky, prompting the anti-air turrets to swivel upwards and fire lasers and projectile at the incoming threats.

The Nimue possessed better sensors than most of the other mechs, so it easily resolved the incoming signatures diving towards them from low orbit.

"Incoming kamikaze ships!"

That set off a throng of alarm. One of the most prevalent and destructive means to circumvent the MTA and CFA's taboos on developing weapons of mass destruction was to employ massive objects originally built for another purpose as payloads.

The amount of damage a single multi-ton ship could deliver upon crashing was immense, and right now over a hundred ships of varying sizes headed straight in their direction.

"Shoot them down!"

Fortunately, the Mech Corps hadn't completely dismissed the possibility of such a tactic, though they never thought the pirates had the guts to commit so many ships. The anti-air turrets started overheating in rapid succession as they struggled to blast apart the sturdy ships.

The transport vessels broke up easily enough, but the converted carriers often carried substantial armor at their bows, making it incredibly difficult to wear them down from the front.

"Mechs, help the turrets. Their firepower isn't enough!"

The ranged mechs all aimed their weapons at the sky and fired them without concern for ammunition or heat. Even some of the melee mechs with backup pistols contributed some of their firepower.

The enormous weight of fire had effect, but not enough. Though the defenders easily took down half of the ships, those had been the easy targets. The rest absorbed a lot of concentrated firepower until they eventually broke up.

Even then, the debris remained a threat. They'd been carried forth in a parabolic arc that ensured that any pieces that emerged would continue to sail forth until it hit right in the middle of the base.

Some of the kinetic turrets and cannoneers had been tasked with knocking these pieces from their trajectory, but it was like pouring water through a sieve. Too many chunks emerged from the wrecks.

"Brace for impact!"

Eventually, the turrets exhausted all of their firepower and managed to destroy most of the ships.

Only a couple of intact ships crashed in the giant landing field. Those that collided directly with stationary ships blew up in an awesome conflagration that affected the closest ships in the vicinity.

Others missed the mark and impacted empty terrain, but the blast and the sheer amount of shrapnel heavily damaged several mechs and ships.

In actuality, the falling debris caused much more damage. Most of the fleet carriers and combat carriers made it out with scratches and dents. Their robust construction and plentiful armor cladding enabled them to shrug aside most of the blows.

The converted carriers and transports fared much worse. The Blood Claws lost six ships when the heavy remains punched through their relatively thin armor and impacted the engines or power reactor. Many other outfits suffered worse.

Worse, much of the debris field fell upon the mechs on both sides. The pirates cursed as they tried to move out of the way of incoming debris that had gone astray, but most of the pieces fell amid the defenders.

Fadah suffered a spate of bad luck as a sharp section of ship armor tore aside his entire shield arm. The momentum of the blow forced his Blackbeak into a spinning crash.

"Fadah!" Raella yelled, though she had no time to help her comrade in arms. She clumsily tried to dodge the smaller pieces raining down upon her Nimue.

"I'm okay!" He said as he instructed his mech to drop its sword and pick up the discarded shield. The Blackbeak tried to lift it up in front of it to face the incoming rain of terror. "I can take care of myself!"

Even the Happy Jelly suffered a lot of scratches as a torrent of fine components scratched her outer service. Luckily, she escaped the worst of the incoming debris as she'd been posted at the edge of the landing field. All of the pirate ships had originally aimed to hit the center of the field where all of the most valuable transports resided. They'd been filled to the brim with high-value exotics.

Indeed, many of those transports suffered substantial damage, and a fair amount had been destroyed outright. Despite the tragedies unfolding in their midst, Colonel Ilos kept her calm and urged the mechs to retreat to the surviving ships.

"The pirates have given us all they got! They don't have anything left to threaten us! Board your ship as fast as possible! We depart in ten minutes!"

Trying to load every defending mechs onto the carrier within ten minutes was a tall order, especially with the sheer amount of confusion going on. Some of the mercenary mechs who'd lost all of their carriers had to beg the other outfits for a berth.

To their credit, the gangs and mercenary corps with space to spare had welcomed these orphaned mechs. They all experienced the same disaster, so they unconsciously grew closer to each other.

Most of the mechs that survived the attack managed to get to their carriers in time. As for the mechs that lost their mobility, their pilots decisively abandoned them and ran towards the nearest ship on foot. Still, not everyone made it to their ships for various reasons.

After a couple of minutes of delay, Colonel Ilos finally had no choice but to cut off the final stragglers.

"Lift off!"

A majestic sight appeared when thousands of ships ascended from the landing field at the same time. Some of the pirates who regained their wits shot their weapons at them, but the sporadic volume of fire barely tickled the vessels.

The Glowing Planet exhibited lower gravity than the standard Terran norm, so the ships accelerated upwards with ease. The ships quickly boosted out of range and departed from the surface at a clip pace.

Inside the Happy Jelly's workshop, Ves had constantly kept an eye on the situation happening outside. Even as he supervised some last-minute field repairs on the Happy Jelly's spaceborn mechs, he still couldn't help but feel powerless.

"It's impossible for me to influence a battle with thousands of ships and mechs."

The Mech Corps had the situation well in hand, but even then Ves hated the thought of being a bystander. His moody thoughts affected his disposition, which in turn cowed the mech technicians acting on his instructions.

He started to get the hang of managing subordinates. Leadership came increasingly natural to him once he established his authority.

The Amastendira he won from the lottery also strengthened his nerves. The laser pistol he used to keep at his side had barely given him reassurances that he could take out any personal threats by himself. Ever since he received the mastercrafted laser pistol, he gained a lot of confidence that he could even take out a full squad of exoskeleton soldiers.

The thought of wielding so much firepower unconsciously bled through his attitude. People who looked at him regarded him as an elite.

Ves didn't care what others thought of him. He constantly kept his eye on the projected proximity plot which broadly displayed the tactical situation of the ascending fleet. They slowly climbed up to orbit, where a friendly spaceborn fleet awaited their arrival.

Ominously, many pirate vessels had begun to converge along their projected trajectory. The pirates weren't willing to let them go.

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The entire surface of the Glowing Planet had turned into a salvager's paradise. The amount of damaged and destroyed wrecks reached a mind-boggling number that would make any scavenger salivate at the prospect of unearthing this hidden wealth.

Yet at this moment, nobody spared a glance at the valuable remains. Neither the pirates nor their adversaries put the wrecks in their eyes as they steadily maneuvered in low orbit.

"At least three major pirate armadas are heading in our direction!" Ves concluded loudly. "Get the spaceborn mechs ready. We're going to need their protection very soon!"

The mech technicians obediently quickened their servicing of the two mechs. One of them actually consisted of Dietrich's old Harrier. Though it had been designed as an aerial mech, it still functioned decently in space.

The Little Boss himself walked over to Ves. "Is the Harrier in good shape?"

"Good enough for your purposes. I made some last-minute tweaks that will push more speed out of your mech. How are your wounds?"

Dietrich padded his recently regenerated arm. "The Mech Corps used their best facilities on hand to clone my arm. It's going to take a year to work it in, but it won't affect my accuracy when I'm back inside the Harrier."

A mech pilot interfaced with their mechs with their minds, not their muscles. In theory, a brain in a jar could also pilot a mech.

In practice, the state of the pilot's body had a profound influence on the connection between the pilot and the mech. A pilot with an imperfect body often carried his ailments through the connection, thereby affecting the ultimate performance of the mech.

Ves refrained from mentioning these facts to Dietrich because it went over his head. He let his friend keep his delusions in order to retain his confidence. It wouldn't do to pop his bubble just when he was about to sortie.

"So many pirates have come to spoil our escape." He sighed. "I never knew there would be so many pirates in the Komodo Star Sector."

"You haven't even seen the tip of their numbers. I can tell you there are way more pirates in the frontier and the Nyxian Gap who haven't taken the bait. Most pirates are cowards, you see. Brawling out in the open like this isn't their style."

"Even then, it's still ridiculous to see so many pirates sporting so much hardware. Even if their ships and mechs are scraping the bottom of the barrel, they still brought enough numbers to overrun a major region of stars. Why haven't they carved out their own state with their firepower?"

Dietrich laughed a that question. "That's because they never see eye-to-eye with each other! Except for the Dragons of the Void, all of those other pirate groups can't manage to keep a hold of more than a few hundred mechs. The moment they try to subjugate more pilots, they'll all rebel and break apart."

The mention of the Dragons of the Void caused Ves to frown. "Those guys again. Who are these people? They're able to brainwash so many pirates it's a wonder they're still around. I would have thought the other pirates would have ganged up on them already."

"It's the same story. Pirates are fundamentally cowards and they never get along with each other. It takes a massive pirate horde to wipe them out, which is something that will never happen. Even now, those three pirate alliances heading to intercept the Mech Corps are guarding against each other as well."

Ves hadn't noticed that, but as he eyed the plot, it started to become clear. The pirates made sure to approach from opposite directions and follow trajectories that didn't intersect with each other.

"I'm not sure this will help us right now. The pirates seem content to stay out of each other's way."

Multiple predators of the same race wouldn't quibble with each other in front of their prey.

"Contact in twenty minutes! Mech pilots, please board your mechs!" An announcement rang out.

"This is my cue." Dietrich said and turned around to race towards his Harrier. "Wish me luck!"

Over the next minutes, the situation started to become clearer. Ves got a better idea of what went on when he analyzed the movements of all of the fleets.

"First, we'll converge with the spaceborn mechs of the Mech Corps. Second, we'll combine forces with the Mech Legion!"

That last one came as a surprise to Ves, but he quickly understood the logic. Neither the Mech Corps nor the Mech Legion stood a chance if the pirates decided to commit all their forces on one of their fleets.

Rather than take the gamble and pray the pirates decided to go for their enemies, the two military fleets decided to take the certain path and gather together into one giant concentration of military-grade mechs and carriers.

"Even the pirates will quell at the thought of facing such strength."

The only problem was that the Mech Corps couldn't trust the Mech Legion and vica versa. They only had an incentive to band together when they were knee-deep into the Glowing Zone. Once they reached the edge, all thought of cooperation would vanish. Ves predicted that it would be a game of chicken to see which side struck the first blow.

"This is a mess."

If his relatives back at the Larkinson Compound heard about the Mech Corps and the Mech Legion banding together, they'd laugh at him for being a liar. Yet this momentary alliance of convenience presented the best option by far to make it through their common enemy.

The first part of the plan went smoothly. The pirates failed to intercept the ascending fleet before they merged with the spaceborn fleet. Bolstered by a significant amount of ships and mechs from the 1st Volari Spacehawks and some other regiments, the fleet gained a lot of teeth all of a sudden.

Still, the pirates resolved to stop them before they converged with the Mech Legion. Even they could extrapolate their trajectories and figure out the military fleets intended to back each other up.

Dietrich joined the massive formations of spaceborn mechs with his Harrier and continued to fend off the increasingly formidable waves of pirates. At another corner of the fleet, Ghanso Larkinson fought with relentless hatred against the pirates with his Vhedra mech. Their earnest defense caused the pirates to falter in their attacks.

"They're hesitating!"

"I don't see those Dragons of the Void bastards anywhere!"

"Push hard and fast! They'll pull back as long as we make them suffer!"

A prodigious amount of firepower travelled through space. The defenders fought with fury as they vented their frustrations accumulated in recent times onto the pirates that dared to face the Mech Corps directly.

Pirate mechs fell in great numbers, prompting the first of the cowards to turn back. However, a few of the daredevils continued to push onwards as they'd been promised great rewards for killing even one enemy mech.

At this stage in the campaign, both sides had lost their edge. Every mech pilot fought at least a dozen different battles with only occasional bouts of sleep as their rest. The constant vigilance and nerve-wracking patrols wore down their mental states and slowed down their reflexes.

Their mechs also dropped in quality. The pirates had it worst, as they often used cheap, salvaged mechs that ordinary mercenaries disdained. Many of the mechs they piloted had been scavenged from the scrap belts orbiting the Glowing Planet. They only enjoyed a rudimentary repair before being put back to service.

This led to the unfortunate tendency for pirates to eject early. They possessed no faith in the strength of their mechs. Some pirates even piloted their fifth or sixth mechs.

As for the Mech Corps, they used to field large number of high quality mechs. However, months of campaigning had ground down a substantial number of those premium mechs, which forced the mech pilots who ejected from a bad situation to take up cheaper run-of-the-mill mechs that had been kept as backups.

Ves noted that despite the somewhat tepid enthusiasm among the pirates, they still scored plenty of kills. The Mech Corps continued to hemorrhage mechs as they attempted link up with the Mech Legion.

"It's the attrition and weariness that gets to you." He said as other mech pilots and mech technicians gathered at his side.

Landbound mechs ceased to be useful in this conflict in space. Walter's Urmech and Fadah's Blackbeak had no way of maneuvering in space. They had to possess a flight system at the very least to travel back and forth.

Not all landbound mechs lost all of their power. In an emergency, a couple of rifleman mechs could position themselves next to the hangar doors and shoot out when they opened, but usually that was a waste of time. The Whalers didn't even bother with that nonsense.

Fadah grumbled a bit when he stared at the Mech Legion's fleet. "I'm more worried about the Vesians. We all know that we won't be playing nice once we make it to the end."

Even Ves worried about the possibility of falling out. They had to stick close enough to present a united front, but they also had to keep enough difference to discourage any funny business.

"I'm sure the Mech Corps has the situation well in hand. They're not stupid."

They could only trust in the Mech Corps to see them through. If nothing else, Ves had learned how little he mattered in a conflict that spanned over countless mechs and tens of thousands of ships. Unless some kind of mythical ace mech pilot showed up, the battle between the different factions depended upon thousands and thousands of mechs.

The sheer number of mechs involved in this struggle really opened his mind. As he tracked the slow convergence of the two military fleets, his despair about his insignificance increasingly took over his mind.

Then, he stopped.

"What am I thinking?" He shook his head. "I'm a mech designer. There's always a way for me to influence a battle."

As long as he designed better mechs that sold pretty well, he did his part in helping out the Republic. Ves imagined a day where his designs dominated the market and elevated everyone's strength.

Such a dream may take a long time to come into fruition, but it would definitely come to pass sooner or later.

As Ves dreamt of better times, the battle out in space grew into a tangled and dispersed running skirmish. Thousands of carriers and transports of all shapes and sizes desperately boosted in a particular direction. They constantly built up their speed as they leveraged the Glowing Planet's gravity well for their upcoming slingshot maneuver.

This made it difficult for the pursuing pirates to catch up unless they followed the same trajectory. However, this would put them into a permanent chase where they wouldn't have a lot of chances to catch up once they fell behind.

Ghanso knew that he had to hold the pirates back at this stage. As long as they linked up to the Mech Legion and sling-shotted their way out of orbit, they'd buy some precious time.

His Vhedra soared in space alongside his diminished squad and snapped off a series of shots. His laser beams disabled two approaching pirate mechs. While the machines hadn't blown up, his lasers successfully disabled their fragile flight systems, stranding them in a helpless ballistic course that brought them further away.

"Your aim's improved!" A colleague at his side exclaimed. "Just a week ago you would have only taken out a single mech!"

"I had a lot of practice." Ghanso replied nonchalantly.

Even as many mech pilots performed worser and worser, Ghanso was one of a few who constantly improved. Ever since he escaped death by ejecting early against the foreign expert mech, he found that some kind of limit had broken in his mind.

Many skills he'd been struggling with for years saw rapid improvement all of a sudden. It turned him from a well-trained but inexperienced mech pilot into a force to be reckoned with. His marksmanship trumped over his squadmates by a significant margin, and he continued to improve every day.

In truth, many mech pilots broke past their limits and experienced something similar to Ghanso's state. Mech pilots who experienced true combat and survived with their spirits intact grew more passionate about piloting mechs and bonded deeper with their mechs.

To a lesser extent, both Raella and Fadah experienced brisk improvement in their judgement and skills.

While Ghanso was taking out enemy pirate mechs left and right, he hadn't realized he attracted a lot of attention. The pirates shifted their deployment and a squad of extraordinary mechs veered towards his location.

An alarm sounded off his console. "Priority alert! Incoming expert mechs!"

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The moment the three pirate-affiliated expert mechs moved into action, the rest of their ilk regained their courage. Unless an ace or god pilot came along, expert mech pilots enjoyed an unparallelled amount of regard. Their presence alone lifted up the pirates and depressed their opponents.

Ghanso Larkinson shivered as his memories cast back at the time when he almost died to an expert mech. Of the three incoming mechs, he recognized one of them as the foreign-owned swordsman mech.

As a light mech, the sophisticated swordsman mech excelled in both speed and offense. It was a one-trick pony that relied on its devastating speed to slice apart any mech in its way and avoid anything that posed a threat.

Right now, that light mech took a backseat to the rifleman mech at the center of their formation. The expert rifleman pilot had already begun to shoot at the Mech Corps with his precision focused laser rifle.

Even at such a ludicrous distance, the expert marksman never failed to miss a target. To consistently hit mechs after mechs when it moved so fast was a testament to the pilot's skill and the mech's advanced targeting technologies.

"Get your heads back together, men!" One of their commanding officer spoke over the channel. "Expert mechs aren't invincible. They can be damaged, hindered and deterred just like any other mech! Pirate experts are the lowest of the low. They have forsaken all of their honor and dignity to pursue scraps of wealth. They are nothing compared to our conviction! We are the Volari Starhawks! We are the spaceborn might of the Republic!"

"For the Republic!"

"For the Starhawks!"

"Down with the pirate experts!"

Somehow, Ghanso got caught up in the excitement. His fears faded away once he realized he had thousands of brothers and sisters at his side. "Experts can go toe-to-toe against a hundred mechs, but fighting thousands at once is a tall order even for them. We have our own experts as well!"

Half of the Starhawks split up to deter the other pirates with long-ranged fire, while the remaining half tried to stall the approaching experts. Ghanso tried to recall his anti-expert training.

"Spaceborn expert mechs are fast and durable no matter their weight-class. As wasteful as it sounds like, the best way to prevent them from acting with impunity is to throw as much firepower in their direction as possible."

Many squads already started spraying their rifles and cannons in the direction of the experts. Unfortunately, the trio's space knight flew forward and deployed a rectangular tower shield that extended into a half-dome after deploying extendable side plates. The entire shield also started glowing as some kind of energy screen set in.

"Flank the experts but watch your firing lines! Follow your assigned plots!"

More than a thousand mechs dispersed into a sphere that tried to envelop the incoming expert mechs. Despite the naked challenge, the pirate experts refused to be cowed by such tricks. They slammed head-long into the sphere. Dozens of mechs blew up to accurate high-powered laser fire and thunderous sword strokes.

"Open fire according to your sequence!"

The mechs that made up the sphere fired their weapons as soon as they received a special signal. Enough mechs fired at the same time to pressure the enveloped experts from each direction. They only stopped firing when the signal went out, which usually happened if they risked hitting a friendly mech on the other side of the sphere.

Though accidents occasionally happened, the tactic produced solid results. The expert space knight tried and failed to cover the expert rifleman mech. As one of the more fragile expert mechs, the rifleman mech started to sustain significant damage to its rear armor.

However, its rear armor's toughness still surpassed the frontal armor of a regular heavy mech. The rifleman mech didn't go down that easily.

In the meantime, the swordsman mech diverged from its comrades and started to assail the sphere with constant high-speed passes. Each time the expert light mech passed a mech, its swords managed to bisect them in two.

Many of the mechs that tried to target the light mech failed to land a hit. The mech was so remarkably fast and agile that even a hundred mechs failed to land a blow through saturation fire. The expert pilot skillfully moved his finely-tuned machine like an acrobat that always managed to find the tiniest gap in the volleys thrown in his way.

"This slippery bastard!" Ghanso cursed at Old Man Alex's killer. He had no idea why this foreign expert sided with the pirates, but he promised to himself that he wouldn't let this expert get away with his slaughtering this time. "Die!"

His Vhedra took up a stationary position in space, which turned him into a sitting duck. However, only by reducing all of his frame's movement-related vibrations to a minimum could he ensure the highest accuracy.

"I can do this. I hit him once, I can hit him again."

The last time he scored a hit, the light mech charged at him head-on. It didn't require too much technique to land a lucky hit.

This time was different because the expert flew back and forth throughout the sphere formation. Ghanso had to tilt his rifle in much greater angles in order draw a bead on the light mech.

As he tried to gain a feel for the light mech's dodging patterns, he dialed up his laser rifle's power to the maximum. A regular medium-powered laser beam didn't cut it against this opponent. Even an expert light mech boasted enough armor to put an advanced medium knight to shame.

Once his mech received permission to fire, Ghanso pulled the trigger.

The laser beam went wide! It missed the light mech by more than ten meters due to the expert pilot's abrupt maneuvers. The beam instantly travelled onwards into deep space for many light-seconds, growing ever wider until it scattered out of focus.

"Damn it!"

The previous time he hit the light mech turned out to be a fluke. Still, Ghanso tried to regain his calm and returned to his sniper state.

By now, the light mech destroyed seventeen mechs in a row. Fortunately, the expert pilot never deviated from his targets once he began his approach, so many of unlucky mech pilots ejected early.

Nevertheless, the Volari Starhawks kept getting chewed with hardly any results in return. The laser rifleman covered by the space knight continued to disable mech after mech with his lance-like laser beams that burned straight through compressed armor with each shot.

Ghanso took a deep breath and focused on landing his second shot. Once he pulled the trigger, his beam missed again, but only by five meters this time.

"So close!"

He made the right prediction this time, but his mech failed to keep its rifle steady. His nerves grew increasingly frayed as he checked the heat levels of his rifle.

He specifically applied to wield this model. It boasted a vastly higher maximum output capacity at the cost of generating an extreme amount of heat. His rifle could only take three more shots before it automatically entered a forced cooldown cycle.

"I've got three more chances." Ghanso gritted his teeth and aimed again. This time, he didn't take as long to draw a bead as he grew increasingly familiar with the light mech's movement patterns.

This time, a sharp red beam emerged from his rifle and managed to score a glancing blow at the light mech's left foot.

It barely scorched the armor. The expert pilot basically ignored Ghanso's attack and kept focusing on decimating his nearby opponents.

"Don't ignore me!" Ghanso uttered and fired off another shot propelled by his anger.

Whether he lucked out or not, the second beam impacted the railings of the light mech's flight systems. The mech instantly ceased its attack run and whirled away its sword into a different direction.

The sword top pointed straight at Ghanso, as if the pilot had marked him for death. With a blast, the light mech entered into its high-speed mode straight towards Ghanso's Vhedra in a comet-like approach.

The expert came for Ghanso's head!

"Even as his squad leader yelled at him to eject, Ghanso kept his mech in place and aimed his almost-overheated rifle at the incoming comet. His eyes twitched as he cast his mind completely into his mech.

He stroked the mental trigger of his rifle, spitting out one, final beam.

Though the light mech barrel rolled aside at the last moment, Ghanso incredibly predicted the expert's split-second movement and struck the light mech's face head-on with a high-powered laser.

This time, the expert mech suffered a substantial blow, as its head enjoyed much less armor than its other parts. Even though the damage was largely cosmetic, Ghanso had literally slapped the expert mech's face.

The uber-fast light mech bayed for his blood.

Ghanso knew he pissed off the light mech for sure. He switched off all of his communication channels, which stopped the incessant calls to eject. "It's useless to eject. He'll chase after my cockpit and slice it apart."

In effect, he cut off his own escape route. He was fine with that. As the light mech neared his position, he grew increasingly excited. His warrior's blood called to him to meet the swordsman mech in earnest.

The Vhedra mech threw away its useless overheated rifle and let it drift away in space. Instead, it pulled out one single backup knife from its sheath.

The cheap, standard-alloy knife looked pitiful compared to the majestic sword in the light mech's hands. Ghanso's knife incorporated just enough low-quality exotic to hold up against compressed armor, if barely.

"I'll have to aim for its weak points. Stabbing its chest or back is useless."

Ghanso ignored the ridiculous thought of fending off an expert swordsman mech with an ordinary knife. Even as his death had become a near-certainty, his overwhelming hatred against the foreign expert reached a blinding height.

As the light mech rapidly surged towards the Vhedra, Ghanso closed his eyes and opened them to reveal his burning conviction.

"For the Republic!"

His weak Vhedra mech surged forth. Everything about his spaceborn mech had been optimized for ranged combat. His mech's own sluggishness provided an incredibly sharp contrast against the incoming light mech that was seconds away from slicing it in half.

"Come on! I can take you on!"

At the final second, just as Ghanso secretly resigned himself to death, a blazing hot jet of flames passed over his Vhedra's head. The light mech had barreled straight towards Ghanso's mech with its full momentum pressing forward.

Even though it rolled aside at the very last moment, half of the mech suffered heavy burns from the extremely jet of flames.

Ghanso's communicator suddenly surged to life. An external override had forcibly connected it to a private channel. "You did good, kid, but that's no reason to throw away your life. Pull back and rejoin your squad. Leave the rest to me."

An orange striker mech flew past the paralyzed Vhedra's position and began to chase the alarmed enemy swordsman mech.

As a bona fide soldier of the Mech Corps, Ghanso knew each and every expert pilot by name and mech. He recognized the orange striker as the characteristic Fire Worm.

Venerable Stanton Drake had saved his life!

Just as Ghanso came to terms with that fact, his attention turned to the battle at hand. Two other expert mechs had joined Venerable Drake in occupying the enemy expert mechs. At this stage, any help from the Volari Starhawks did more harm than good, as they could easily hit their own experts as they engaged in close-quarters combat with the enemy elites.

Therefore, Ghanso and the rest received orders to disengage from the sphere formation and rejoin the larger battle against the hordes of regular pirates.

As Ghanso unwillingly turned the Vhedra away, he kept glancing over to the duel between Venerable Drake and the enemy swordsman mech.

It was no contest, really. Striker mechs always countered melee mechs. This basic rule held true on land as much as in space. Every time the expert light mech tried to approach the Fire Worm, Venerable Drake spat out another deadly jet of highly potent flames.

The light mech lacked the capacity to suffer many blows from the intense heat. Its inability to take the flames head on constrained the expert mech to such an extent it had turned into a whipped dog.

Even as the light mech tried to disengage from the striker, the Fire Worm aggressively chased after the foreign mech.

The wide area of its jets of flames gave the light mech a lot of grief. Unlike a laser beam which only required a minor bump to dodge, the wider flames forced it to go through extreme lengths to escape its area of effect.

As Ghanso came off his high, he shook his head in disappointment. The light mech still possessed the edge in speed, so it would likely be able to shrug off the Fire Worm eventually.

Experts rarely perished in battle.

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Back aboard the Happy Jelly, Ves constantly monitored the situation in space. He even turned his attention to the expert pirate mechs when they flew into range.

Their incredible performance and amazing construction dazzled his imagination. He continuously tried to figure out their principles but failed to make any progress beyond some rudimentary generalizations.

"My study into metaphysics and exotic alloys are still too shallow for me to understand designs at this level."

He still had a long way to go before he reached the threshold of understanding and designing his own expert mech.

And this was just the start of elite mechs. Ace mech pilots and god mech pilots demanded their own specialized machines in order to make full use of their strengths.

The ambition welling inside Ves kept burning brighter as he witnessed the extraordinary performance of each expert mech. The battle became much more exciting once the Mech Corps sent out their own experts.

Only three arrived because they hardly required additional help. The Mech Corps sent out the Fire Worm against the pirate swordsman mech because it directly countered its type.

In the same vein, they sent out an expert skirmisher to deal with the enemy rifleman mech and an expert rifleman to suppress the enemy space knight.

"Even experts can't escape the limitations of their type." Ves concluded as he witnessed the pirate mechs getting beaten back by the well-chosen expert mechs from the Republic.

The pirates only had themselves to blame for sending out their expert pilots first. The main reason it took so long for the Mech Corps to respond was because they kept their experts back in their hangars until they saw fit to deploy them. They could have sent twice as many experts, but that would have revealed their trump cards.

Neither Ves nor the Mech Corps forgot that the Mech Legion constantly monitored their performance.

The Brighters and the Vesians continuously fended off the pirate waves as they neared each other's position. No matter how many mechs the pirate alliances threw at them, they never managed to break through their defensive lines.

Though the pirates continuously bled the ranks of both military fleets, they suffered at least twice as much casualties in return. Eventually, their cowardice overshadowed their greed, and many of them cut and run without a hint of any organized retreat.

Still, it mattered little as the Mech Corps wasn't in a shape to pursue. The pirates pushed them close to their breaking point and required a lot of rest and replenishment before they regained their strength.

The battle against the pirates had ended, but the struggle against the Mech Legion only started from here. With the pirate alliances in disarray, they failed to stop the two military fleets before they converged.

Naturally, the Mech Corps kept its distance from the ships and mechs of their rivals. A tense half hour went by as the commanders of the two fleet negotiated behind the scenes. Once they came to an accord, the two fleets flew closer, but not enough to merge their assets into a single whole.

Rather than consider their formation a combined fleet, Ves figured it was more as if they reluctantly chose to use the same bathroom at once. The Brighters and the Vesians hardly trusted each other to maintain their current state of ceasefire.

The only question was who would pull the trigger first.

"Sparks will fly at the end of this retreat." He surmised. Once the fleets reached the edge of the Glowing Zone, they'd be able to engage their FTL drives and transition back to friendly territory. "I bet the Vesians can't resist at that point."

Until then, the two fleets benefited more if they held back their animosity for each other. THe only way the massive blob of ships and mechs could deter the pirates from launching another attack was to present a united front.

As of now, none of the pirate fleets had dared to stand in their way as the two fleets slingshotted their way out of orbit. The extra speed granted by their maneuver made it difficult for other fleets to catch up to them unless they followed a similar trajectory.

Of course, this would betray their intentions and potentially isolate them for a devastating counter-attack.

"So no one chased in the end." Ves remarked as he turned away from the plot. Nothing more exciting would happen for a few days.

Fadah crossed his arms and leaned back against an empty container. "The pirates are greedy, but they aren't stupid. As long as the Mech Corps and the Mech Legion split up, they could conceivably overwhelm any single one of their fleets. The moment that possibility went out the window, the pirates don't have a reason to pester us anymore. They'd be able to harvest much more riches from the surface of the planet."

"They still lost way too much mechs in this campaign. Even if they bloodied the nose of the Mech Corps, it doesn't change the fact that they've lost a hundred-thousand mechs or more."

Thinking about such an astounding loss of mechs quaked his heart. Ves could not even imagine the amount of lives and money the pirates discarded in their ultimately futile attempts at stealing someone else's gains. It would have made some sense if they attacked an isolated mercenary corps, but where did they summon the courage to fight against the Mech Corps directly.

"Sometimes, it's worth it. Everyone knows the Mech Corps harvested big, to the tune of earning trillions of credits worth of exotics. Felling a single ore-laden transport ship is enough for a gang of pirates to live like kings for the rest of their lives."

Ves truly couldn't get a grip around such a remark. It all sounded reasonable, but the pirates had to be a special brand of stupid to think they could vanquish the Mech Corps without paying a ruinous price.

"THat's another thing you don't understand, Ves. The pirates don't mind all of the losses. As long as not too much of their own men lose their lives, they're fine with throwing away so many mechs. The fewer their numbers, the bigger their share. Don't you want to eat a whole pie instead of just a razor-thin slice?"

That really made Ves speechless. Pirates never cared or trusted any of their colleagues. Their greed had grown to such an extent that they would easily kill their fellow comrades if they could get away with it, all to pursue the greatest share of booty as possible.

"You seem to know a lot about pirates, Fadah. Have you…"

The older man grimaced. "I'm not a pirate and I never was, if that's what you're wondering."

Although Ves tried to pry the truth out of Fadah, the man remained obstinately silent. He obviously had a bad history with pirates, and it was very personal to him. Ves wondered if he lost a wife or children to a pirate attack.

"Alright, let's get back to work. The Vesians won't act friendly forever."

Fadah took the words right out of his mouth. Ves dropped the topic as the man walked away. At least he was right in one thing. The Vesians would tear down this facade in time. He'd better get the two spaceborn mechs fixed up.

Ves spent the next two days performing maintenance on the Harrier and the other spaceborn mech. Both mechs barely suffered any damage in the previous battle, though that was mostly because played second fiddle to the Mech Corps.

The lack of major damage allowed Ves to introduce a couple of modifications to both mechs. He mainly emphasized their ability to track incoming missiles. Considering the Vesian obsession with missiles, he found the precaution to be prudent.

The modifications hardly required his personal intervention once he fabricated the extra parts in the Happy Jelly's workshop. By now, he retrained the mech technicians just enough to be able to follow his instructions.

After making up his mind about allowing the mech technicians to work without his supervision, he exited the workshop and sought out Melkor. He found him in his bunk, where he quietly inspected the records of the previous battles in space and on the ground.

"We haven't been in touch lately." Ves said as he sat next to his cousin on the bed. "What are you studying?"

"I'm tracking the behavior of the different pirate alliances. Each of them favor different strategies. You already know about the Dragons of the Void for example. They treat their slaves like they are trash. They're happy to sacrifice an entire mech company if it can earn them a net profit of only ten million credits."

Melkor patiently pointed out the traits of the other pirate groups, from the Event Horizon Specters who favored stealth and misdirection to Ballard's Brutes who employed the most heavy mechs of all.

"This all sounds interesting, but what does that have to do with us?"

"Have you counted their numbers? How many pirates have shown up until now? This is only a fraction of their true numbers. They possess enough power to threaten the Bright Republic as a whole, especially if they band together with the Vesians. Can you imagine what will happen if we are attacked by both forces at once?"

That sent a chill through his spine. Ves could hardly imagine the amount of devastation that would ensue from such a conflict. However, he quickly dismissed the possibility once he remembered some important rules.

"The MTA will never let the pirates get away with such a brazen invasion. They consider them an enemy of all mankind. The main reason why they're so difficult to exterminate is because they are always dispersed. Once they concentrate their numbers, it'll become trivial for the Mech Corps to mop them all up."

"That's true." Melkor reluctantly nodded. "Yet that's only the case if the MTA has the mechs and ships to spare. What if something else draws away their attention?"

"Even then, the pirates will pay. If not now, then years from now. Besides, as an accomplice to pirates, the Vesia Kingdom won't escape retribution either."

That last point poked a big hole in Melkor's theory. The Vesians wouldn't have the guts to collaborate with pirates. They'd make an enemy of the entire human race!

Still, Melkor didn't relinquish his suspicions. "Maybe I'm wrong about this specific instance, but I still think I'm on the right track. I've been trained to spot patterns and all my instincts are telling me that there's a conspiracy afoot."

That didn't sound very encouraging to Ves. "To be frank, I've witnessed some signs as well. It's difficult for me to conclude anything solid, but the pirates are definitely an important part of what is to come."

Ves could never forget that more than a year ago, he and Dietrich stumbled across an illegal underground production facility that successfully developed gamma laser rifles.

Even though the pirates ordinary considered themselves lawless, they almost never dared to break one of the MTA and CFA's important taboos. Using any prohibited weapon like gamma lasers and nuclear weapons instantly brought down the full wrath of the MTA down upon their heads.

The MTA maintained a strong presence on almost every major planet exactly for this purpose. They did not hesitate to mobilize trillions worth of assets to annihilate a trivial pirate gang once it began to dabble in forbidden weaponry.

Still, as invincible as the MTA appeared, even they had their limits. The MTA allocated most of their strength in the galactic center. They maintained a fairly robust presence in the galactic heartland, but the galactic rim had always been something of an afterthought for the highly centralized organization.

If Melkor suggested that the MTA's presence in the Komodo Star Sector could be neglected, then Ves couldn't dismiss it out of hand. However, who would actually dare to fight against the MTA directly?

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The pirates left behind in orbit of the Glowing Planet turned their attention to themselves and started to fight over the spoils left behind.

This truly showcased the lack of integrity among their ilk. The moment they lacked a common enemy, the gangs that made up their alliances broke apart like like a meteor falling through atmosphere.

The smarter pirate fleets had already pulled back from the Glowing Planet. Ves found to his regret that the Dragons of the Void had begun to pull back even before the Mech Corps and the Mech Legion linked up.

In any case, Ves enjoyed a rare moment of peace as the Happy Jelly made her way to the edge of the Glowing Zone.

Along the way, they stumbled along a couple of smaller pirate vessels that had sought to park themselves out of the way from the most contested regions. These outfits and lone wolves instantly moved out of the way of the allied fleets and never turned back.

If even the massive pirate alliances hadn't managed to beat them above the Glowing Planet, then nothing else stood a chance.

"Looks like we can definitely rule out any more shenanigans from the pirates." Ves observed as he took a look at the plot. "It's a shame they're too scared to pressure us further. They're the only reason the Mech Corps and the Mech Legion haven't started shooting each other yet. I think it's time we take some precautions."

"Precautions? What for?" A mech technician scratched his skinny head. "They're maintaining a steady fifty kilometer distance from our fleet."

"Fifty kilometers is nothing in space. That's enough distance to allow any laser to hit our ships with perfect accuracy. Even if the Happy Jelly is juking back and forth to hinder any predictions, it's not going to help us a lot at this distance. We're too close."

His pronouncement depressed the joy that ran throughout the Whalers for making it out of the Glowing Planet alive. A significant amount of mech pilots had met their end on that rock.

No one was in the mood to fight another battle. Ves noticed that everyone instinctively avoided thinking about the possibility of clashing with the Mech Legion, so he took it upon himself to kick the Whalers out of their potentially fatal complacence.

"Look, we plan for the worst and hope for the best. There's a chance the Mech Legion is just as fed up with fighting as we are, but we can't make that assumption. The Mech Legion hates our guts and wants nothing more than to destroy the Republic and take away our stars."

Ves eventually got through the mech technicians that they had plenty of work to do. He presented them with a projection of the Happy Jelly's schematics.

"I've prepared some plans to repair and strengthen the Happy Jelly's structure with the supplies and scrap we have on hand. We don't have the time to apply all of these fixes, but every little bit helps us make it through the final fight."

An older female ship crew frowned as she studied the schematics. "Some of this looks really complicated. Did you come up with these plans yourself?"

"I've spent some time aboard large machines. While I don't specialize in starships, there are plenty of things in common to all machines. I'm mainly focused on strengthening the Happy Jelly's structural integrity, so there is little need to disrupt the delicate internal workings of the carrier."

To be honest, Ves did not have any confidence he could improve any of the Jelly's badly maintained functions. The FTL drive especially looked iffy. He was afraid that if he bumped into it once, it would malfunction entire and leave them stranded in local space.

After some convincing, the mech technicians and ship technicians went to work. Ves did all he could now to prepare the Happy Jelly for the coming the fight. He had his own preparations to make.

He returned to his bunk and looked at the flashing orb placed on his bed. "I miss you, Lucky."

His cat finally couldn't hold his evolution back. The moment it became clear that they made it off the Glowing Planet, Lucky curled in on himself and extruded an unknown white material around himself to begin his level up process.

Basically, he turned back into an egg.

Ves didn't dare to stroke the egg with his bare hands. He first let his antigrav clothes cover his hand with a glove before he dared to caress its bone-like surface.

"This feels a lot like Rorach's Bone."

The resemblance to bone made the egg feel truly real. Only the lines of glowing blue crisscrossing the surface of the egg made it clear that the egg possessed a mechanical aspect.

"I know you can't help it, but I really wish you'd waited with this level up."

Once the Happy Jelly began to move away from the Glowing Planet, they traveled out of range of its insidious energy fields, including the one responsible for the Overcharge phenomenon. Every overcharged energy cell slowly lost their excess charge and turned back to normal, though in the perspective of the energy cells, nothing had changed at all.

Lucky must have noticed that he began to lose his temporary condition, so he immediately decided to evolve as soon as the immediate danger subsided.

Unfortunately, this left Ves without his closest companion and bodyguard. He had always relied on Lucky to keep him safe against any threats on foot.

"For now, I'll only be able to rely on Melkor and my shiny new toy."

Ves activated his Privacy Shield and retrieved the Amastendira from his Inventory and put it in one of his pockets. He did not wish to reveal the System's ability to materialize and dematerialize objects in a possible fight.

A couple of days went by as thousands of ships boosted their way out of the Glowing Zone. The further they traveled from the Glowing Planet, the weaker its influence on local space.

The amount of naturally occuring spacetime anomalies had decreased to such an extent that they ceased to be a threat.

This was not good news.

Previously, the Mech Legion might have scruples about launching an assault. If they sent out their mechs towards the Mech Corps, they'd have to cross a brief No Man's Land where they wouldn't be covered by the dimensional smoothers.

After that, they'd have to rely on their enemy's dimensional smoother to keep them safe from the ravages of spacetime. The Mech Corps could easily decide to shut one off to spite the attackers.

Now that they flew several light-hours away from the dangerous planet, they had nothing to be afraid of anymore. An attack could come at any moment from either the Mech Corps and the Mech Legion.

Even if the Mech Corps enjoyed some bolstering by the Blood Claws and the other major outfits, they did not possess too much strength in space. Gangs mostly focused on controlling valuable territory. Therefore, they invested mostly in their landbound capabilities.

The mercenary corps who signed up with the Mech Corps fared better in this regard. Mercenaries always found stable gigs working as escorts in trade convoys.

Still, their relatively smaller scale meant that they'd be looking out for themselves. Nobody had the energy or motivation to spare some consideration for the Happy Jelly.

"We've got to save ourselves."

To his disappointment, the Whalers failed to keep up their vigilance after a day. The campaign on the ground had truly exhausted them to the bone.

Sometimes, Ves considered whether he went overboard. The odds of an attack would not be very great if the Mech Legion possessed little advantage.

"The Vesians are aggressive, but they aren't stupid. They won't start a fight they can't win."

Both fleets possessed roughly equal strength. The Mech Corps had more dependents to soak up the damage while the Mech Legion formed a more cohesive whole. His discussions with Melkor helped him figure out the most likely course of action by the Vesians.

"The carriers of the Mech Corps are tough and still in good shape for the most part. The Mech Legion won't easily be able to crack their shells. It's us who should be worrying about a surprise attack." Melkor tapped his foot against the deck of the ship. "Converted carriers like the Happy Jelly are tin cans waiting to be peeled. Once the gangs and mercenary vessels start to fall, a panic will ensue."

Ves easily imagined such a possibility. "If you can think about it, the Mech Corps has it figured out as well."

"Even if that's the case, they won't go out of their way to save us if we're in trouble. Knowing about a vulnerability and doing something about it are two completely different things. Trust me, I know how the Mech Corps works. They take a dim view on gangs and mercenary corps. Any suggestion that they should reinforce their hired help will be shut down by their leadership."

He could not dismiss Melkor's judgement of the Mech Corps. The man had trained in their ranks for several years. He should know what he was talking about.

From his own interaction with the Mech Corps, Ves considered them to be an organization that was swamped with responsibility. They had way too many fires to put out and too few firefighters to address every crisis.

The unease among the crew grew as they neared the edge of the Zone. Home and safety came within reach. They'd just have to make the final stretch before they could return to their homes with a full haul of highly valuable ores.

As Ves put down a wrench on the toolbox hovering next to him, he rose up to his feet after putting the deck back together. He had just added a couple of redundant safeties to the channels running below this corridor.

He activated his comm and pulled up the schematic of the ship to see what else needed to be done. As he scanned the up-to-date readout, his eyes flicked over to the lower decks.

He remembered assigning someone to reinforce the compartment next to the cargo bay. By now, the job should have been done. Was the guy sleeping on the job again?

Ves tried to contact the tech. "Yavic, come on. Wake up!"

Strangely enough, his signal went nowhere. Yavic's comm might have glitched. Ves tried to contact another crew member who worked at the lower decks.

"Simmons, are you there? Pick up the call, please."

Again, nothing happened. His comm messages successfully routed to the lower decks, upon which they disappeared into a black hole. He tried contacting other people assigned to the lower decks but came up with a disconcerting lack of responses.

A bad feeling crept up behind his back. He slammed his comm and activated an emergency transmission that he'd programmed beforehand. "Alert, I can't reach the lower decks! I highly suspect that this is no regular malfunction but deliberate sabotage! Enemies have sneaked aboard the Happy Jelly! I suggest you sound the alarm at once!"

He sent out the message to Walter, Fadah, Melkor and a couple of other people. They'd be able to check up on his claims and bring the ship to readiness.

As for Ves, he left behind his floating toolbox and sprinted back to his bunk. After glancing at Lucky's egg, he approached the hazard suit he placed in the corner and entered it from behind.

"A hazard suit is not as protective as an exoskeleton suit, but it's better than nothing."

He mainly wore the suit in case he got ejected into space. With the miniature thrusters and the magnetic harpoons built into the suit, he'd still be able to fly back to the Happy Jelly if he'd been launched off the ship for some reason.

He unfolded the Amastendira and wielded it with his gauntleted grip. He felt dangerous wielding such a prized mastercrafted weapon. The sheer amount of luxury and class exuded by the ornate laser pistol contrasted sharply with his utilitarian-looking hazard suit.

The last thing he did before he left his bunk was to put Lucky's egg inside a padded crash safe. After that, he stepped out and intended to link up with Melkor and the rest.

"I'd be a fool to walk down to the lower decks."

He wondered why the alarm hadn't been sounded as of yet. By now, the crew of the Happy Jelly should have figured out if they'd been boarded.

Suddenly, the entire ship shut off. Every light and every system ceased to function. Moments later, a handful of backup systems went online. The ominous red lights cast the corridors in a dangerous light.

Much of the existing life support systems remained offline. If the ship couldn't get its ventilation and oxygen generators back online, those without a suit would suffocate within a day.

"Damnit! They got to engineering!"

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The only way a group of hostile boarders could disable every system at once was if they had taken control of the bridge or engineering. Ves guessed they'd taken the latter.

Communications fell out as well. Ves tried to contact anyone on the short-range bands, but all he met was static. "They're jamming us as well!"

Ves had been reduced to mustering up the panicking crew members that had been running around like headless chickens.

"Get your heads back together! This is no time to give in to your hysteria!" He shouted at the clueless the men and women in the nearby compartments. His hazard suit amplified his voice for further reach. "Get into your hazard suits and grab a weapon! Take up your battle stations and wait for someone to take charge!"

That set the nearby Whalers back on track. One of the deficiencies of the Whalers was that the rank-and-file rarely had a clue what to do in the absence of solid leadership. Most of the senior Whalers such as Walter and Fadah hung around in the mech stables or the upper decks. That left much of the middle and lower decks with a critical absence of direction.

Frankly, even a six-year old kid could take charge if he pretended to be authoritative enough.

Ves did not attempt to browbeat them into following him. He was not a proper leader and he did not wish to be responsible if his decisions led to their deaths.

He jogged towards the stairs and went down to the workshop first. He repeated the same actions as he had done last time whenever he met a confused assembly of crewmen. It hadn't truly sunk in yet that they'd been boarded and sabotaged.

Once they realized the Happy Jelly had partially succumbed Mech Legion, Ves had to be firm in his tone in order to avoid infecting the crew with his concerns.

Even though he warned them time and time again to prepare for an attack, the Whalers aboard the Happy Jelly never expected the Vesians to go for a boarding action. That threw them completely off-guard. How could they have sneaked aboard their ship without getting spotted on approach?

Whatever the case, the enemy had already managed to get onboard. His main priority should be to contain the Vesians and prevent them from dealing any catastrophic damage to engineering.

Once he reached the workshop compartment, he finally met with Melkor. He wore a light combat suit this time and wielded a borrowed rifle. He looked much more prepared to square off against the enemies than the Whalers themselves.

"Melkor! You're here! Good."

"Ves, it's dangerous for you to be running around without Lucky! Get inside the workshop and hide in a locker or something!"

"Not this time. I can fight, and you need me to figure out if anything is wrong at engineering."

The two had a brief argument about it but Ves convinced Melkor to let him go along. "If I die, then it's my own fault, but I won't accept sitting on the sidelines while the fate of the Happy Jelly is at stake!"

"We can still eject, you know." Melkor pointed out. "The escape pods run completely separate from the ship."

"I don't think you're okay with back down without a fight. So am I. We lose this ship, we lose more than a couple of mechs and some ores. This is the heart of Walter's Whalers. Besides, there's no guarantee that the ships flying next to us aren't compromised as well."

Ves lost the ability to check up on the situation out in space when most of the systems shut down. The Mech Corps and the Mech Legion could be embroiled in an epic clash and he had no way of telling it went on. Without a better picture of what was happening throughout the entire fleet, Ves refused to give up on the Happy Jelly.

The lack of communications made coordination extraordinarily difficult. Eventually, Fadah came around and gathered a couple of mech pilots and brave men into an impromptu squad.

"This will do. We are running out of time. Let's move out immediately." Fadah said as he walked up with his own light combat suit.

While these lightly armored suits failed to measure up against proper exoskeleton suits, they offered much better protection than hazard suits.

Ves saw that everyone else wore hazard suits, which disappointed him somewhat. They'd be torn down by enemy fire.

At least Ves still had his old shield generator to back him up. It still held an eighty percent charge, which was more than enough to fend off two or three attacks by a mech.

As Ves followed the squad while holding on to his Amastendira, Melkor slowed down his pace and came to his side. "Where did you get this gun?"

"Uh, it's a gift."

"It looks powerful and expensive, like an import from the New Rubarth Empire. Do you even know how to use this gun?"

"I passed my basic training course when I studied at Rittersberg!"

Melkor shook his head inside his helmet and held out his gauntlet. "That thing will kill you if you handle it poorly. Give it to me. I can make much better use of this weapon."

To be honest, Ves really did not wish to relinquish the Amastendira. He had just received it a couple of days ago and looked forward to putting its impressive capabilities to the test.

He wanted to shoot the Vesians himself and save the Happy Jelly like a hero from the dramas. This was his gun. Why should he give it away?

Eventually, his logic and reason overruled his ego and desires. As much as he wanted to play the hero, he had no illusions that he could wield the pistol effectively. It might have been different if Pierre Femento incorporated aim assist into the Amastendira, but the man only had master marksmen in mind when he designed the gun.

A weapon only reached its potential when used by someone with the skill to back it up. Ves knew that more than most due to his profession as a mech designer.

Thus, with extreme reluctance, Ves handed over the Amastendira to Melkor. His cousin holstered the laser rifle to the back of his light combat suit, which magnetically held it in place.

"It's locked."

"Oh, let me program you in." Ves replied and took back the Amastendira long enough to add Melkor's biometrics to its security systems.

Not anyone would be able to take off with his valuable possession. The Amastendira had a nasty surprise in store if an enemy attempted to pick it up. Supposedly, the weapon was smart enough to distinguish between allies and enemies, though Ves had no clue how the automated systems inside the weapon accomplished such a feat.

Once Ves added Melkor as an authorized user of the gun, he carefully handed it over.

Melkor treated the weapon like a lover and a piece of art. The way he deftly navigated the weapon's projected display and rapidly skirted over its specs made it clear that he was no slouch with infantry weapons.

"This weapon is crazy. This is the kind of toy a noble of the New Rubarth Empire would wield!"

"I know. It's actually a replica of some sorts. Compared to the original, this copy still falls a little short."

"A little short? Hah! I can carve my way through an entire pirate ship with this gun!"

Ves frowned as Melkor visibly grew more excited about the Amastendira. It was as if Melkor seduced his wife!

"Hey, try not to fondle it too much! This is still my gun. I'll lend it to you whenever we're together, but make sure to give it back to me when we're out of danger."

"Oh, uhm, sure."

After walking down a lot of flights of stairs, the group of motley Whalers arrived at the deck that led to engineering. Fadah, who took the lead, slowed down.

"We're lucky we haven't met the Vesians yet, but it's highly likely the Vesians are on this deck. Let's crawl forward and take it slow."

Ves immediately interjected. "We can't afford to take it slow. The Vesians have control over engineering and who knows what they're up to. Once they decide to destroy the FTL drive, we have no way of returning home unless we abandon ship. We have to move faster!"

"Look I respect you, but you're a nerd. I'm the one in charge around here." Fadah pushed back. "I'm not about to waste the lives of my men by moving too fast. We need to scout them out first and figure out if they've split up."

All of it sounded too conservative. Ves did not know where Fadah's characteristic daring had gone to. The man acted like a daredevil in the cockpit. Without the comfort of his mech, the older Whaler turned into a timid mouse.

"Fine. I'll do it myself." Ves turned to Melkor and opened a private communication channel with his suit. "Remember the time when we got ambushed in the streets of Bentheim?"

"Yes. You pulled off something remarkable with your comm. Can you do it again?"

"I can stealth us, yes. It will last shorter than last time, though. Do you think you can make use of five minutes worth of complete stealth?"

His cousin considered the matter for a few seconds. "It will be tough. We can make it to engineering from here in that time, but we won't have enough time to scope out the enemy. We'll have to go into action immediately."

"Time is of the essence. I'm really worried at what the Vesians are cooking up in engineering. The Happy Jelly's FTL drive can't take any abuse."

They decided to move out immediately. Ves spent a couple of seconds to inform Fadah of their intentions before he engaged his stealth augment. Ves and Melkor's armored suits turned invisible before Fadah could let out a word of protest.

"Damn these Larkinsons and their toys!"

Despite their hasty movements, the stealth augment muffled all of their sounds and vibrations. If any pirates had been in the way, they would have been completely oblivious about the presence that ran past their bodies.

They reached the hatch that led to engineering with roughly a minute to spare. The only problem was that the boarders had locked it shut.

"Damnit!" Ves cursed. "I should have figured the Vesians barricaded this compartment! This is one of the best-protected portion of the ship. There's no way I can circumvent this barrier in a couple of minutes. A plasma cutter will take at least half a day to get through the hatch."

Melkor suddenly pulled Ves away from the hatch. "Stand back. Let me take care of hatch."

"What are you doing?! Don't shoot it at high power inside a ship!"

Sadly, his cousin didn't listen to him. Melkor dialed the power setting a couple of notches away from maximum power and fired a bright golden beam that burned a hole straight through the hatch and continued on to damage anything placed behind.

The pistol continued to emit a beam, and Melkor quickly aimed the weapon in the rough shape of a box before the weapon ran out of steam.

"Huh. I underestimated its power. This is a really fine weapon." Melkor praised the Amastendira before he kicked down the cutout he made from the hatch.

As the alloy block fell down, a number of menacing black exoskeleton suits trained their weapon on the entrance.

"There's only forty seconds left on my stealth augment! It's running out of power!"

"There's nothing to it, then. Follow me when I move in."

Even though Melkor just fired a massively overpowered pistol, the stealth field still worked as usual. One of the best aspects about the Amastendira was that it shunted almost all of its excess heat into its dimensional heat sink. It only worked up to a certain point, but it was more than capable of absorbing the heat of a single high-powered beam.

"Alright, let's go!"

Ves and Melkor sneaked through the hole as the exoskeleton-suited assailants puzzled over whether someone would still show up. Neither their visuals nor their other sensors revealed the source of the intimidating laser cannon that had cut through the hatch.

They had no idea what kind of danger slipped inside engineering.

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When Melkor and Ves barged into engineering, they turned slightly and approached a ramp which gave a commanding view of the entire compartment. While Melkor took up a prime position to shoot down all of the huddled exoskeleton-suited intruders, Ves looked around the chamber for any signs of sabotage.

He spotted two alarming observations.

First, they placed something that looked a lot like explosives on the FTL drive. Ves found it funny that the boarding party went through the trouble of affixing its exterior with explosives when they could easily wreck it with a hefty kick from their exoskeletons.

Second, a Vesian tech specialist seemed to be digging deep into the central control console. The corpse of the previous head engineer bleeding out next to the console must have granted them access to the controls. Or, they might have hacked its outdated security settings.

Whatever the case, Ves had to deal with both these dangers quickly. The reason why he accompanied Melkor into engineering was because he was deeply afraid of just these kinds of tricks.

The moment the hostiles realized they couldn't hold their position, they wouldn't hesitate to destroy the power reactor or the FTL drive, or induce them in a manner that would blow up the entire Happy Jelly.

Ves bumped Melkor's combat suit and gestured towards the FTL drive. He held up his old laser pistol to show his cousin that he could handle himself. Even if Melkor held some misgivings about his presence here, the stealth augment had almost run its course.

No time for second guesses.

"Go!"

Once the stealth augment ran out of power, Ves sprinted for the FTL drive while Melkor pulled the trigger of the Amastendira.

Another massive, long-duration laser beam extended out of the barrel of the mastercrafted weapon. Melkor ran the entire beam along the engineering bay like a scythe cutting through wheat. More than half-dozen armored boarders lost their lives when the super-powered laser beam cut right through their military grade exoskeleton armor.

Entire bodies split in half along with their armor and any gear they carried. Instantly, Melkor neutralized over two-thirds of the threat in the compartment!

To their credit, the survivors responded swiftly to Melkor's sudden appearance. They snapped their rifles and wrist-mounted lasers at his position and barraged his position until the ramp became filled with holes.

"Agh!"

While Melkor had already begun to run, he still got hit by their uncannily accurate return fire. His light combat suit suffered a nasty series of burns and crater marks, wearing away the thin layers of armor until he dove into cover behind a thick enclosure.

One of the Vesians lifted up a launcher and fired a series of grenades at Melkor's position, causing him to jump away in haste. All the while, he fired shorter bursts of high-powered beams straight through the cover of his opponents.

At this power setting, nothing could stand in the way of the Amastendira. Though its power reserves rapidly drained and its heat capacity started to get overwhelmed, Melkor icily took out one exoskeleton soldier after another.

If he had to resort to his standard laser rifle, he might have needed to strike the same location five times in a row to get through the thick infantry-scaled armor.

Though the Vesians put up a good fight, their numbers rapidly dwindled to the extent where they sought to activate their failsafes. The commanding officer of the boarding party sent out a signal and expected and explosion, only to be met with nothing of the sorts.

"I disarmed the explosives!" Ves yelled to Melkor as he detached the last explosive charge from the exterior of the FTL drive and threw it in a random corner.

Though the charges still posed a threat, he successfully disabled their receivers. Right now he ran towards the console and shot at the tech specialist who had been forced to disengage from the controls.

"Damnit, this gun is really no comparison to the Amastendira." Ves cursed as he engaged in a stale and anemic standoff against the specialist.

The Vesian tech specialist obviously received more training than Ves, and he slowly got the upper hand. He already struck Ves' hazard suit a number of times, which melted away a significant slice of civilian-grade armor.

Compared to how Melkor systematically dismantled the Vesian soldiers, the fight between Ves and the tech specialist resembled a kiddie fight.

Ves became increasingly suppressed to the point where he didn't dare to emerge from cover. "Melkor! Help me out here!"

Seconds later, a bright beam of gold punched through the tech specialist's cover and vaporized his entire torso. His combat suit posed no impediment at all against the fury of a mastercrafted weapon.

The casual shot had taken almost no effort at all, though Melkor got into a sticky situation when the survivors tried to retreat from the engineering bay. As he chased after the stragglers, Ves approached the command console and tried to restore power to the Happy Jelly.

"Come on, don't tell me you've given up the ghost!"

Though Ves only understood half of what the command console spat out, he still figured out that engineering had become a mess. The tech specialist had been rooting through the core settings doing who knew what.

In addition, the earlier battle also ruined many secondary systems in the engineering bay. It was a miracle that Melkor's liberal use of the Amastendira hadn't struck anything vital like the engine, fuel supply or FTL drive.

Still, his work aboard large vessels like the Happy Jelly and the Gregarious Wrath had given him plenty of pointers on how these vehicles worked. After a couple of minutes of kludging, he managed to spool up the power reactors and reconnect them to the rest of the carrier.

As Ves worked the controls, the motley crew led by Fadah finally showed up. The Whalers stopped in their track as soon as they saw the carnage. Wide stretches of scorch marks and molten alloys crisscrossed the entire chamber.

What upset them the most was spotting the fallen corpses of the intimidating exoskeleton soldiers. Ordinarily, an entire squad of heavily armed Vesians would have chewed up the Whalers pretty good.

The fact that Ves and Melkor took them out alone while getting only scratches in return spoke wonders.

"Fadah, stay here and reinforce the engineering bay. I don't know if this is the only batch of Vesians aboard the Jelly. Remain alert."

"On it." Fadah nodded. He didn't quibble with Ves because he knew that their survival relied on holding engineering.

The lights switched from red to neutral aboard the entire ship. The Happy Jelly woke from her forceful slumber.

Not only did Ves restore the lights and life support systems, he also restored communications. He instantly contacted the bridge.

"Walter here! What's going down at engineering?!"

"Everyone's dead here. The Vesians kill everyone off and tried to sabotage the entire place, but Melkor and I have taken care them. I don't know how many Vesians remain, but engineering is safe for the time being."

"Good work, Larkinson. We're getting our bearings back on the bridge, but as far as we're aware of there are still a couple of uninvited guests aboard the ship. We're already sending out some men to sweep them up."

"What's the situation outside?" Ves suddenly asked.

"Not good. The Mech Legion has shed all pretences. Many ships are drifting away without power, while their missile mechs are pounding upon the fleet carriers of the Mech Corps."

Ves summoned up a plot of the local space and saw that the formerly neat arrangement of fleets had descended into a very divergent picture.

The Mech Legion largely maintained cohesion, but much of the allied ships of the Mech Corps suffered from sabotage. A handful of ships regained control, but dozens more blew up as their power reactors overloaded.

While the Vesians had caught the Mech Corps flat-footed, the Brighters launched their own surprise.

A handful of ships at the vanguard of the Mech Legion fleet ran into deadly stealth mines. Though the Mech Legion fleet swiftly changed course, the mines followed with them and turned into impromptu missiles that felled a number of smaller combat carriers.

The mines briefly disrupted the Mech Legion's tempo, allowing the Brighters to catch their breath. The battle transitioned from an ambush into a messy slugging match.

The Vesian Grand Chasers led the charge and clashed against the Brighter Volari Starhawks in the middle of the No Man's Land. Other mech regiments stuck to their fleets and engaged in a heated exchange of long-ranged fire.

From his limited tactical knowledge of battles in space, Ves tentatively concluded that neither side had gained a decisive lead.

Though the Mech Legion maintained a substantial advantage, their starting gambit focused mostly on the rabble that surrounded the ships of the Mech Corps. It mattered little if some tiny outfit like Walter's Whalers lost control of their ships, as the core strength of the Bright Republic's fleet still remained intact.

"The battle has turned into a slugging match! This is madness!"

If Ves was in charge, he would have pulled away. Neither side benefited from the losses they suffered. Ships lost propulsion and mechs continued to be obliterated in the cruel millstone of generational hatred.

Neither side had issued a formal declaration of war, but already they were going at it as if their entire state was at stake.

Walter growled on the other side of the communication channel. "Madness or not, we're in the thick of it now. The first thing we need to do is get back in formation. We've drifted off-course and we need to turn back around. Can you take charge in engineering?"

"I'll do the best I can, but I have no clue what I'm doing."

"Hang on for now while I round up all of the engineers who are still alive. Make sure that nothing breaks in the meanwhile!"

That was easier said than done. The Amastendira had inflicted a lot of collateral damage. Ves called over a floating toolbox and began to clean up some of the damaged systems and prevent them from degrading even further.

In the meantime, a couple of engineers stationed elsewhere on the Happy Jelly entered the engineering bay and took stock of all of the damage.

Ves looked up from his repair job. "How's the damage? Can the Happy Jelly still fly?"

The ship engineers reluctantly nodded. "If we divert some power from other systems, she can still keep up with the fleet. I'm not so sure about jumping into FTL. The system that's responsible for calculating our navigational plots is cut in half."

That didn't prevent them from transitioning into FTL, but if they made any mistake in calculation, they risked getting lost in the sea of higher dimensions. They could end up thousands of light-years away from their original destination, or get sucked into a random stellar body like a star or a black hole.

"Let's worry about that later. For now, we have a ship to repair and a battle to survive!"

Everyone proceeded to put out the fires and assess the exact damage. From what Ves had seen so far, the Happy Jelly still had a lot of fight left in her. Most of her basic functions such as her in-system thrusters and her FTL drive sustained no damage, so there was no need to evacuate as of yet.

Once Melkor returned, Ves put down his tool and approached his cousin. "How's the rest of the ship? Did you catch the stragglers?"

"We cornered them in the cargo bay. Because of all the reactive exotics stored in that compartment, I couldn't shoot off my laser pistol willy nilly. It took a decent amount of effort to flank them and assault them from multiple directions."

Melkor had no need to tell Ves how that final stand ended. With the Amastendira, the Vesians stood no chance even if they took a couple of containers of exotics hostage.

"I think we don't have to worry about hostile boarders at this point. Both fleets are hammering each other apart with mechs right now. I'd feel safer if you hopped inside the Stanislaw and station yourself at the hangar bay's hatch."

The idea sounded a bit weak, but they couldn't employ the Stanislaw in any other way since it lacked a flight system. Melkor nodded inside his helmet and turned around. "I'll get on it."

"Wait a moment. Give me back my Amastendira!"

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With only a little less than half a day away until they could transition into FTL, the two military fleets had already fallen out.

The amount of damage inflicted on both sides surpassed a value of billions of credits. Mechs continued to be destroyed at an unsustainable rate.

Sometimes, a combat carrier or two sustained major damage that caused them to drift out of formation. These losses were much more severe because the carriers had been constructed with premium materials that made them many times more expensive than a regular mech.

The loss of so much strategic assets on both sides grew more frigid once the expert mechs started showing up. The handful of expert pilots like Venerable Stanton Drake fought above the the general battle as their mechs possessed the capacity to inflict ruinous damage against a group of standard mechs.

The Fire Worm especially received a lot of attention from the Vesians. They couldn't afford to let the Fire Worm devastate a huge swathe of the Mech Legion's ships with its wide-area flamethrowers.

Despite the intense clashes, neither side expected the battle to end quickly. Most fights between expert mechs lasted at least an hour or more if they held back their trump cards. For now, the experts mainly tried to constrain their counterparts from the other side.

This put the onus of the battle on the masses of regular mech pilots.

Melkor who stationed his Stanislaw next to the opened hangar hatch of the Happy Jelly mainly stood by and shot down any stray missile that flickered in his view. As a small and rusty converted carrier, the Happy Jelly hardly attracted any attention from the Mech Legion.

The two average mechs that guarded the carrier also impressed no one. Dietrich piloted his old Harrier and kept his mech's rifle in a tight grip as he looked at the explosions happening in the distance.

"This is crazy!"

Walter's Whalers experienced a handful of large battles before on the Glowing Planet. The pirates never really put up a decent fight due to their lack of discipline, training and quality.

This was different.

The Mech Legion consisted of several ducal regiments of similar quality to their counterparts of the Republic. Highly ambitious commoners made up the rank-and-file while officers trained from birth to command and lead these mechs were hungry to earn merits.

As long as commoners destroyed ten mechs without losing their own, they'd be elevated to knights, which was the first and lowest rank of nobility within the Vesia Kingdom. Once a commoner became a knight, many privileges and opportunities fell into their laps.

Thus, the mech pilots of the Mech Legion fought with much greater passion than the Mech Corps. The Bright Republic's mech pilots mainly served out of duty, and while they enjoyed a fair amount of rewards for each mech they took out, they paled in comparison.

"Larkinson! Focus on the squad of cannoneers. They're trying to take out our carriers!"

Ghanso Larkinson listened to the instructions of his captain and shifted the Vhedra's rifle until it lined up with the cannoneers. Even from this distance, he managed to cripple two mechs at once before they pulled back.

"Man, your aim is getting better and better!" One of his colleagues praised. The shots of the rifleman mechs barely scarred the armor plating of the cannoneer mechs.

Another volley of lasers spat out of the Vhedra's laser rifle. This time, Ghanso managed to nail a swordsman mech in the back just as it was about to assail a defenseless mech from the Volari Starhawks.

To be honest, Ghanso could barely explain why he improved all of a sudden. Many of his peers gained an edge after cutting their teeth against the pirates, but Ghanso had changed more drastically than most.

Everytime a mech pilot asked him how he did it, he responded with the same answer. "Shooting down a regular mech is easier than trying to scratch an expert mech."

Compared to that expert light mech that got chased away by the Fire Worm, every other mech moved so slow to his senses. It was as if every mech had collectively decided to cut their speed in half. In those circumstances, Ghanso had been able to nail down every moving target no matter what kind of tricks they pulled off.

Unknown to him, a handful of observant officers of the Volari Starhawks marked him out as a possible expert pilot candidate.

Still, no matter how many mechs he mowed down, Ghanso was only one pilot among tens of thousands. His contribution hardly shifted the tenuous balance between the sides.

The battle between the Grand Chasers and the Volari Starhawks grew increasingly more heated. As the only two mech regiments to clash against each other in close range, the amount of casualties quickly piled up on both sides. All it took was one mistake to take out a mech.

The differences between the two regiments quickly became apparent. The Grand Chasers had left their bulky heavy mechs behind to guard their motherships in the main fleet of the Mech Legion.

Freed from the burden of their sluggish ships and heavy mechs, the mechs of the Grand Chasers tried to fly in circles around their adversaries. Their squads primarily consisted of light mechs. Each of them might not pack a lot of punch, but as long as enough mechs focused their fire upon the same target, they could systematically dismantle their opponents in quick succession.

Still, the Volari Starhawks refused to be their punching backs. Medium mechs made up most of their numbers, so they used that to their advantage to bull through the harassing fire and disrupt the rhythm of the circling mechs.

Meanwhile, the Happy Jelly sneakily slipped back into formation. The Mech Corps had assigned them in the periphery of the main fleet along with the rest of the ships from the Whalers and the Blood Claws.

Some of those ships suffered various mishaps due to sabotage. The Whalers lost one ship entirely while the Blood Claws lost six.

This frustrated the two gangs to no end. Many of those ships had been laden with exotics that could have been sold for a decent fortune. Their profitability took a sharp dive after sustaining such a loss.

"How is it possible for us to loose so many ships?" Ves asked in the open. "Only fifteen or so exoskeleton soldiers boarded our carrier. I doubt the other ships faced more than that. How could the Vesians get the drop on us with such a minimal investment?"

No one in the engineering bay dared to answer his question. In truth, everyone knew that they'd been complacent at the possibility of a stealth insertion. They paid dearly for their lax approach against stealth insertions.

The battle had raged over an hour now. Thousands of mechs had met their end along the trail the fleets left behind. A couple of stray and derelict ships spun off into nowhere, though in many cases their crew and cargo had been transferred onto other ships if they survived.

As a mech designer who'd been raised away from the Larkinsons who'd been indoctrinated into serving the Republic, Ves increasingly grew disgusted about the battle.

Neither sides fought for any strategic reason other than to try and take their adversaries down a notch.

It was as if the Mech Legion and the Mech Corps consisted of two school children with an unreconciled grudge against each other. No matter how many times you tried to lecture them, they still came to blows if they were put in the same room.

"So many people are killed and so many mechs are destroyed at this moment." He lamented to himself as he kept an eye on the information being fed to the command console.

The engineers had made some critical repairs that brought back the functionality of some of the more salvageable damaged components. The Happy Jelly now regained ample power to keep her thrusters active at full capacity while keeping enough juice to run her other systems like life support.

Ves didn't even need to lend a hand with the repairs anymore, so he stuck to the command console and paid attention to the battle outside while he inspected the various incomprehensible databases for any signs of sabotage.

"I don't know what the tech specialist did, but I can't track down anything that looks amiss."

His Computer Science Skill mainly focused on mastering the programming of a mech. The programming that ran a large vessel like the Happy Jelly might use the same type of languages, but its structure was at least ten times more complex. Every element of the Happy Jelly's programming had been applied in a different direction from what Ves was accustomed to with mechs.

In short, Ves had no clue what he was doing. Neither did anyone else, for that matter.

When Ves asked someone to take over his post, the engineers replied that only the head engineer figured the system out. Everyone else treated the programming like an alien artifact.

He shook his head. "Idiots."

To be fair, the Happy Jelly did lost most of their most competent engineers. The remaining survivors lacked the experience and knowledge to work in engineering.

Instead, they'd been tasked with watching over the less important systems like the oxygen replenisher and water recycler. These kinds of figures yearned for simple jobs where all they had to do was to sleep on the job or play some games on their comm.

The only times they got off their lazy butts was if something had actually broken down.

Thus, Ves had no choice but to remain at the engineering bay for a time. While the surviving engineers required no further motivation as their lives were already at stake, he occasionally had to warn them if they tried anything dangerous or wrong.

The relative lack of excitement continued for another hour. The battle outside died down as the Volari Starhawks and the Grand Chasers pulled back at the same time. They sustained too many casualties in one bout, and most of their mechs had started overheating from the intense exertion of their weapons and flight systems.

Ves suddenly received a comm message.

"Get over to the hangar bay! The Harrier has just returned and it's in really bad shape!"

"Dietrich!"

Ves left the command console and walked out of the engineering bay. He ran through the corridors in his hazard with his Amastendira kept safe within a pocket. Once he reached the hangar bay, he took a look at the steaming mess of junk the Harrier had been reduced too.

A handful of mech technicians brought in heavy cutting tools and started grinding through the cockpit area.

"What happened to the Harrier?! Is Dietrich still alive?"

"He's alive, but the data says he has a concussion!" A mech technician responded quickly as he tried to bore through the cockpit.

Ves shook his head and made a choice. "That will take too long. Let me try something."

Once he floated above the cockpit, Ves mentally recalled the schematics of the mech. The Harrier featured a typical reverse-V cockpit system where the thick, robust chest pating swiveled outward. This left open a gap near the neck area where a mech pilot would be able to enter and exit the hatch at the top of the cockpit.

This type of entry system gained a bad reputation because it was easy to jam the swivel procedure. Right now, the Harrier not only missed an arm and a leg. It also suffered severe explosive trauma evidenced by the cratering frontal armor.

"This is going to be a little tricky."

Ves did not bother with a plasma cutter. Who needed those heavy tools when he already had possessed a much more potent weapon?

He retrieved his Amastendira and dialed the power setting to a medium-intensity burn. He aimed the barrel of the pistol at the damaged chest armor and pulled the trigger.

The laser slowly melted through the Harrier's uncompressed armor plating. Even though the uncompressed armor lacked any notable attributes, the mech technicians still called out in alarm.

"How powerful is that gun?"

"Is this a new type of laser cutter? Where can I buy one?"

"You idiot. It's not a tool, but a weapon! Do you think any compact laser pistol can outperform a plasma cutter?"

"Ouch! You didn't have to hit my head!"

Once Ves carefully burned through the frontal plating, he called over a couple of aging bots to remove the excess debris. Once the bots peeled away the last layers, Ves came face-to-face with Dietrich's limp body.

"Hang on there, Dietrich! Help is coming."

A pair of homegrown medics climbed on top of the prone Harrier and carefully crawled over to the cockpit. "He's suffered more than a concussion! We need to take him to the medbay!"

The medics efficiently removed the unconscious Dietrich from the piloting seat and laid him down on a floating stretcher. In less than two minutes, they secured the Little Boss and guided his stretcher towards the medbay.

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In a battle between forces comprised of over one division, the worth of a single mech had been reduced to almost nothing.

Mechs continued to fall and ships sustained more and more damage. The willingness to fight on and inflict more casualties to the opponents continued to burn unabated.

From the initial explosive start, the battle had turned into a lower-intensity battle of attrition. The two fleets widened the distance between each other and started rotating their spent mechs in and out of their carriers in order to replenish or perform some emergency repairs.

Even though the Mech Corps and the Mech Legion worked their mechs and mech pilots to the bone, they only had each other in their sights. No matter how much they suffered, as long as their enemies suffered with them, their willingness to get back in space remained steady.

The momentous battle had a profound effect on Ves, especially when Dietrich returned with wounds.

"Will he make a recovery?"

"He's still in one piece." Someone said. "That's good, right? When a cockpit is breached, the pilot is always dead. Dietrich only got away with a couple of hard bumps so he should be back on his feet in no time."

Ves truly hoped his friend would recover. The Whalers had suffered enough on the Glowing Planet and losing another ship from the Vesian sneak attack put them in a very somber mood.

He left the hangar bay and returned to engineering before stepping up to the command console again. Once he activated the plot of the local space, he noted that the two fleets still hadn't shown any signs of retreating.

From his observations of this battle, he made two conclusions.

First, the mercenary corps and gangs stood no chance against a military force. While the mechs of the Mech Legion didn't always trump over the mechs of the private sector, the level of training, discipline and coordination became a huge force multiplier that mowed down any undisciplined group of mechs.

"No wonder Dietrich hadn't made it. As far as the Mech Legion is concerned, he's a lone wolf with nobody else to back him up."

Second, the battle also showcased that the best mechs didn't always prevail. Some of the bigger outfits like the Blood Claws fielded advanced mechs piloted by their best champions. These mechs cost about the same as the Bloodbeak and featured compressed armor and a robust flight system.

They should have stolen the show when they faced a squad of cheaper Vesian mechs, but in actuality the opposite happened. The Mech Legion had no scruples in ganging up on these elites with an abundance of frontline space mechs.

These frontline space mechs utilized designs that barely looked like mechs. They resembled spacecraft with arms, as their legs had been made redundant entirely. Instead, the designers extended the waist and stuffed some extra thrusters to enhance their forward acceleration.

Ves estimated that frontline space mechs like these shouldn't cost more than 15 million credits. On the plot, eight of them managed to isolate an advanced mech from its escorts. They pelted the unfortunate mech from all sides and quickly overwhelmed its defenses, shooting it into pieces.

The unlucky mech pilot managed to eject in time, but the Mech Legion didn't let it off and sent out a single frontline space mech to tear it to shreds.

"Numbers and skill matter more than quality in a large scale battle like this. The value of an advanced is marginal in these circumstances."

At best, a comech with compressed armor lasted a little longer in battle. If they pilot didn't possess the skill to back up his daring, even a comech wouldn't be able to save his life.

Ves understood now why the Mech Corps and the Mech Legion utilized frontline mechs and employed regular mech pilots with no prospect of advancing into a higher tier.

He also understood why the military let go of the advanced mech pilots who possessed some talent.

"It's better to form a large, cohesive force than a smaller number of unruly elites."

The entire battle lit up a light inside his mind. His conception of mechs and their use on the battlefield evolved to take into account a new kind of situation. Even though Ves had read the theory on the use of mechs in massive battlefields, he almost entirely forgot about it. Only when he truly came in touch with mass death and slaughter did he admit that he'd been wrong.

He kind of understood the System's insistence on proliferating his designs. A top mech designer should not only aim to design the most exquisite mechs for the most elite pilots, but they should also be able to design affordable mechs for the common mech pilots.

Witnessing hours-long struggle fanned his desire to design a cheaper mech. The quality and performance between the different bottom-tier designs varied wildly.

Ves had already seen the worst in the mechs of the Whalers. The designs utilized by the Mech Corps and Mech Legion possessed a lot more refinement without letting the cost get out of control.

Seeing them in action taught Ves a lot about how the mech pilots squeezed every bit of potential out of their modest mechs. From moving in unison to focusing their fire, the importance of teamwork could not be overstated.

He also understood why mech pilots enjoyed much more prestige than the mech designers who made their machines.

"The differences between mechs don't matter that much compared to the training of the mech pilots who use them.

Just when Ves thought this battle would continue until the losses grew to an unsustainable level, a sudden accident on the battlefield changed the entire equation.

The Mech Legion occasionally launched a volley of torpedoes at the ships of the Mech Corps. Most of the time, the Volari Starhawks and the other regiments of the Mech Corps whittled them down before they impacted a ship, but the extended engagement had reduced their number to half.

In those circumstances, the Mech Corps still expected to be able to shoot down the torpedo volleys.

Yet the Mech Legion didn't send out a regular volley this time. They held back beforehand to lull the Mech Corps in a sense of complacency.

Their next volley carried fifty percent more torpedoes this time.

The moment the Vesians launched their latest volley, the Mech Corps knew they'd fallen into a trap.

Many mechs of the Volari Starhawks tried to disentangle from their dance with the Grand Chasers, but failed to break away. The Grand Chasers knew that this was their coup-de-grace and did all they could to bind the Starhawks in place.

The other regiments that hovered close to the fleet went in action to take out the torpedoes. While they felled a fair number of explosive payloads, it was never enough as the surviving torpedoes filtered through the dense rain of fire.

Even though a handful of ranged mechs hastily emerged from the carriers to help out their comrades, a couple of torpedoes still made it through in the end.

Four ships suffered severe damage. One torpedo missed its mark due to being subjected by an intense amount of ECM.

However, its programming forced it to continue on with its terminal flight and just happen to strike a nearby ship.

The damaged ship just happened to be a transport carrying a large-scale dimensional smoother.

The moment the ship blew up, a strange pulse of spacetime wracked the impact site. The immediate area around the wreckage deformed in some way. The mechs nearest to the damaged site splintered apart into tiny hand-sized pieces as if their mechs ran through an indestructible net.

The disaster spooked the Mech Corps, and the brass quickly issued a call for a general retreat.

The massive fleet comprised of the ships from the Bright Republic finally moved away from their Vesian counterparts.

The Volari Starhawks pulled back as well. Though some of the Grand Chasers showed signs of moving in pursuit, they received orders to pull back as well.

As the distance quickly widened, the mechs stopped shooting each other as their shots increasingly missed the mark.

"Why did they retreat all of a sudden?"

He understood why the Mech Corps retreated in the face of such a disaster. Without the dimensional smoother keeping the local spacetime stable, they risked getting felled by another anomaly. They had to rearrange their formation as quickly as possible and that took time.

The Mech Legion should have pushed their advantage and exploit the opening revealed by the Mech Corps.

Then, he looked at the live feed of the area in space where the dimensional smoother had been torn apart. Debris thrown away from the explosion halted their outward expansion and started to reverse.

The site of the explosion thrummed and vibrated as if a singularity came into being.

Instead, something more miraculous happened. Time seemed to reverse as the broken parts converged into one. A blast reappeared, but this time it started outwards and compressed inward like an implosion. The debris lost their deformations and slotted back into a single whole transport as if it had never been destroyed in the first place.

The torpedo that struck it got restored as well, but it traveled away from the previously-doomed ship as if time continued to rewind.

"What?!"

Ves scratched his head. Had the ship really been restored to whole, just like that?

Then the torpedo slowed down mid-flight, before travelling forward as if time had been flipped in the right direction again. The torpedo juked back and forth as if it dodged a storm of counterfire and made a drastic turn as it got affected by ECM before impacting the transport yet again.

The exact same explosion happened and the ship got destroyed in the exact same way. Besides having been left behind by the fleet, nothing appeared to have changed.

Moments later, time reversed yet again, and the debris pulled back together until the ship came back to life. The torpedo that felled travelled outwards again as hale as if it had just been launched.

A spike of fear ran through his spine as Ves continued to watch the same event happening over and over again. Of all the things he expected when a dimensional smoother got destroyed, he never realized it could actually lead to a strange loop in time.

"What the hell is a dimensional smoother made of?"

Ves had the conception that humanity had been playing with fire when they came up with such a device. Although its ability to force space and time to remain stable proved useful, the dangers resulting from improper use scared the living light out of his soul.

When Ves thought about the attempts to overload the dimensional smoothers aboard the Gregarious Wrath, he broke out a nervous sweat.

No wonder the Mech Corps pulled out so quickly. Even the Mech Legion wanted nothing to do with the anomaly despite already passing it by. Their excessive caution indicated that the anomaly might expand and engulf others into this seemingly endless time loop.

"At least they stopped fighting."

The battle might have made sense to the higher ups, but Ves always worried about getting the Happy Jelly shot out from underneath him. As a former transport vessel, it lacked the toughness and structural integrity of a purpose-built combat carrier. Even a single mech acting out alone would be able to cripple the Jelly.

The two fleets continued to drift apart, going in slightly different directions as they made their way out of the Glowing Zone.

One remarkable thing happened as they made their final leg of the journey. Rescue parties from both sides flew back and descended on the debris field to pull out any survivors that had been left behind. A handful of transports also grabbed some of the smaller intact containers and brought them back to their fleets.

Ves found it remarkable that the rescue parties went out of their way to avoid each other. Not a single mech or shuttle clashed against each other.

It seemed that even if the Republic and the Kingdom hated each other's guts, they still possessed some sense of humanity.

"This should be the end of this campaign."

After seventy days of traveling, fighting, and making a profit, the survivors would finally return home with their booty.

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Ves half-expected some kind of surprise to spring in front of his face. Maybe a fleet of pirates would transition out of FTL nearby, or maybe the Vesians wanted to go for a second round.

Only until the entire fleet flew beyond the edge of the Glowing Zone and transitioned into FTL did he relax.

"It's really over now."

The motley Republican fleet had split up into smaller detachments that each flew in a different direction.

Most of the ships of the Mech Corps navigated towards Bentheim, including all of their transports that had been stuffed with high-value ores.

The Happy Jelly received the same navigational data and jumped with the diminished fleet along with many of the other outfits that chose to join in. Right now, none of them looked to be in a shape to fight.

Everyone was bone-tired and they used up too much of their mechs and supplies to defend their own valuable cargo.

After half a day of travel, Ves finally left the engineering bay and sought out Walter. He found him on the bridge, wearing a pensive face.

"Hi, Walter."

"Larkinson. What are you here for?"

"I wanted to ask how we are dealing with the cargo. We made it out with a lot of exotics."

Before they went on this expedition, Ves had negotiated a ten percent cut on the earnings. Naturally, as he offered his services as an individual, the money would flow in his personal accounts instead of his company accounts.

Walter nodded in response. "I just got off the line with the Mech Corps. They want me to sell my haul to them once we reach Bentheim."

"What kind of prices are they offering?"

"I had someone check the market prices. They're lower than the official prices and the black market prices. We'll be forced to sell the goods at a thirty percent discount if we take this deal."

Ves frowned at that. "That sounds scummy. What are they offering in return?"

"Nothing. Well, there's one thing. We can get rid of our hot potatoes. Don't forget that everyone already knows we've made it off with billions of credits worth of exotics. What do you think will happen if we want to wait for a better price and store it in some kind of warehouse in Bentheim or Cloudy Curtain? A whole bunch of untraceable mechs will descend on it and steal all our hard-earned valuables away!"

Too much wealth wasn't always a good thing if you didn't have the strength to protect your assets. With how prolific the campaign had been, a large number of vultures must have already gathered in and around Bentheim.

Any outfit that showed any carelessness would instantly be robbed of their possessions.

Walter's Whalers had never been anything more than a gang that ruled over a single rural planet. They lost a large portion of their men and mechs so their strength was at an all-time low just when they made it off with an enormous harvest.

Such a combination easily bred disaster.

"Isn't there any other party who will offer a better price for our goods?"

"They all shut me down when I called." Walter admitted with furrowed brows. "Even the black market is refusing to listen to my offers."

There was only one reason why no one else dared to engage in the trade. They'd been warned off by the Mech Corps.

Ves understood what went on as he listened to Walter. "The exotics we've harvested from the Glowing Planet are strategic materials. Even if the Mech Corps won't incorporate them into their own mechs, they can still make a handsome profit by selling them to the Friday Coalition or some cross-star sector trading company."

"The Mech Corps doesn't want us to sell our exotics to the Vesians or the pirates. It will strengthen their enemies even further if we trade with someone outside of the Republic."

They really had no choice but to accept the unfair conditions proposed by the Mech Corps. Ves actually admired them for pulling off this stunt. They extorted them out of their exotics, but at least they didn't offer too much of a discount.

As Walter put it, "Thirty percent is not worth falling out with the Mech Corps."

The Mech Corps offered different rates on different types and qualities of exotics. While it had been easy for the Whalers to tally the amount and variety of exotics, it was a lot more difficult to judge their quality. They'd need a professional to nail down their exact value.

Even if Ves knew a thing or two about exotics, he wouldn't claim to be a specialist in raw exotic ores.

Due to the differences in quality, Ves and Walter found it hard to estimate a final price on their harvest.

"Depending on how much higher grade stuff is mixed in with the junk exotics, we can earn around seventeen to thirty-five billion credits."

This was a massive profit, and it could have been more if the Whalers hadn't lost a ship. The Whalers instantly turned into billionaires while Ves could look forward to a decent payday as well, not that he needed it. He already received the most important rewards from the System.

Still, the euphoria of earning all of those credits quickly made way for skepticism. "Your gang is one of the smaller outfits that profited from the Glowing Planet. The Blood Claws must have earned at least ten times as much, and the Mech Corps themselves at least a thousand times this sum."

"What's your point?" Walter scratched his greying head.

"A lot of people and a lot of organizations are getting rich overnight. They also happened to have lost a lot of mechs and men. As you just mentioned, getting into possession of a lot of wealth but not enough means to defend it all will only invite calamity. The first thing everyone will do is spend all of their money on strengthening their forces."

Now he understood the point that Ves was trying to make. "Everyone will jack up their prices. Hah! That's bad for us, but good for you!"

Now that they were on their way back to civilized space, Ves began to think like a businessman again. He knew that the aftermath of the campaign would have profound effects on the local economy.

As he left the bridge to return to his bunk, Ves thought about who ultimately gained an advantage of the brief campaign.

The biggest winners should be MTA who lent the dimensional smoothers to the Mech Corps and the Mech Legion. Ves suspected that the price of these things shouldn't be small.

As the Glowing Planet became known when it drifted through the Republic's territory, the Mech Corps was able to mobilize more forces and more allies. In turn, this meant they made more profit than their Vesian counterparts.

"Losing a dimensional smoother should hurt a lot."

Even if the Mech Legion was at fault for destroying the loaned device, the ultimate responsibility lay with the Republic who lent it in the first place. The MTA would demand a lot of compensation for their lost machine.

"No wonder they're so overbearing this time. They want to make up for their losses."

Still, all these things happened in the background. Despite the pain, the Mech Corps and the Mech Legion would definitely begin to invest their earnings into improving their battle capabilities.

The other gangs and mercenary corps would follow suit as well. What was the use of a padded bank account when then they only returned with half their mechs and ships?

Still, Ves predicted that a lot of people would retire in the coming months. Why would these mercenaries and gang members continue to fight like beggars when they already received enough money to retire like kings?

He expected many of them to apply for citizenship at the Friday Coalition. Some of the partners of the Coalition like the Carnegie Group and the Vermeer Group welcomed immigration from the poorer states as long as they brought enough benefits.

"That's going to be bad." Ves thought grimly as he walked down the corridors of the Happy Jelly. "Fewer mercenaries means less customers."

Still, he didn't think that a lot of people would succeed in applying to the Coalition. All of that money had to be split up in the group. The larger the organisation, the more they earned, but the more they had to split up their booty as well. Only the upper ranks should earn enough to retire in the Coalition.

Thinking about the ripple effects of all of this major influx in spending gave Ves a headache. Besides predicting a rise in inflation and a couple of other consequences, he didn't dare to make any further assumptions.

"That reminds me, the LMC should have setup a robust financial department by now." His CFO Mackarie should have already analyzed the upcoming shifts in the economy. "Now that there's no restriction to using the galactic net, I should check up on how my company is faring."

Ves vaguely thought that his company should be making a brisk amount of sales. Even though he hadn't kept tabs on every Blackbeak that had been deployed on the Glowing Planet, if he took Fadah's Blackbeak as a measure, then the model line should have performed well.

Even as the cheap and rickety mechs of the Whalers started to fall apart from all of the stress and fatigue, the Blackbeak still performed close to its prime. This should be a given, as Ves had explicitly designed the Blackbeak to excel in long, gruelling wars.

Once he returned to his bunk, he checked up on Lucky's egg before jumping into his bed. He brought up his comm and searched the latest news on the LMC.

"LIVING MECH COMPANY RISING LIKE A ROCKET - REVENUE IS ESTIMATED TO SURPASS 4 BILLION CREDITS"

"IN BED WITH THE LMC - VAUN INDUSTRIAL SIGNS LICENSING CONTRACT TO PRODUCE THE INCREASINGLY PROMINENT BLACKBEAK DESIGN"

"WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE? LET THIS MECH EXPERT TELL YOU THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE BRONZE, SILVER AND GOLD LABEL MECHS OF THE LMC"

"WHAT A STEAL! PREVIOUS OWNER OF A LIMITED EDITION MARCUS AURELIUS MECH DESIGNED BY VES LARKINSON SOLD FOR 250 MILLION CREDITS!"

In between the trivial bits of news, Ves came across an alarming piece of news.

"They signed an agreement with Vaun Industrial!"

When the topic came up in the previous board meeting, Ves firmly rejected the option to allow Vaun to produce his bronze label Blackbeaks.

The LMC eventually partnered up with Mr. Neverland's Elemental Mech Engineering instead. Although their first copies of the Blackbeak suffered from a couple of faults, they eventually straightened out their production and produced mechs worthy of his name, if only barely.

"At least the EME puts some heart in their products."

What he saw at Vaun Industrial's massive manufacturing complex didn't disgust him, but they came close in doing so. Vaun pursued the limits in scale, precision and efficiency, and did everything in its power to eliminate the human factor out of their high-volume fabrication processes.

"That's not to say it's the wrong approach, but it doesn't fit with my design philosophy."

Even if he designed a couple of cheaper frontline mechs, he would still try to fabricate them according to his preferred methods. Ves wanted the LMC to be known as a company that sold mechs that came to life. Producing lifeless lumps of alloys directly contradicted the vision he laid out for his company.

"What should I do about this?"

He knew that such a decision must have been approved by an overwhelming majority of the board. His grandfather Benjamin alone should have been able to stop this decision in its tracks.

Since the company went through with it anyway indicated that the Larkinson Estate at least tacitly assented to the move.

"They don't understand my intentions."

It might have been his fault for not conveying his vision properly. The Larkinsons had never really been short on money, but they probably started seeing the benefits once they realized they could milk their twenty-five percent shares in his company.

He didn't blame them for being greedy.

"I'm going to have to set some rules when I return."

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When Ves delved into the galactic net and called up a limited summary of the LMC's earnings, he became surprised how much it had earned since he left for the Glowing Planet.

The LMC itself made a good chunk of profit by selling over thirty silver label Blackbeaks at elevated prices. The profit margin went up over time as Marcella likely took advantage of the increased demand of the silver label model.

Right now, the company made around 30 million credits per mech in gross profits! To put that into perspective, if Ves extrapolated this performance to an entire year, the company could easily rake in over 5 billion credits in profits with its own production alone!

"It's too bad we aren't producing the Blackbeaks fast enough." Ves shook his head.

Even if the LMC possessed a fantastic production line, it could only do so much. Fabricating one comech like the Blackbeak was the best that the LMC could achieve.

"I should consider adding another production line in the near future. This bottleneck is really starting to annoy me."

He also wanted to reduce his reliance on third-party manufacturers, though he guessed he'd never be able to get rid of them. The more his designs caught on, the more people wanted to buy his products.

Many other manufacturers possessed a head-start compared to the LMC in investing in their production capacity. In the short and medium term, it made more sense to license his designs to third parties.

However, Ves believed that ultimately the LMC would catch up when it reinvested its profits into adding new production lines.

"The profits I'm earning from the licensing deals will help a lot."

Compared to the insane profit margins of the silver label Blackbeaks, the bronze label versions obviously earned the LMC a trickle of money.

Elemental Mech Engineering sold just over a hundred mechs each month and paid the LMC 2.5 million credits per sale.

In a business perspective, the EME profited big at the expense of the LMC, as the third-party only had to handover a flat fee per mech while being able to jack up its prices to take advantage of the increased demand for the entire product line.

Ves, Marcella and his company had done the heavy lifting to promote the Blackbeak design. He risked his reputation and Melinda's life by accepting a public design duel against Michael Dumont.

Still, as much as Ves could harp on EME's freeloading, the company at least produced decent mechs. The reviews and comments on their products had generally been positive, and nobody complained about the minor imperfections they still hadn't been able to eliminate.

The LMC would be set to earn about 3 billion credits per year in licensing fees from the EME. This was a very tidy income stream considering that Ves and his company didn't need to lift a finger to earn this sum.

If the EME already made a modest contribution to his company's earnings, then the newer income stream from Vaun really ratcheted it up.

Vaun Industrial had hit the ground running as soon as they signed the licensing contract about a month ago. They allocated a significant amount of production lines to the first batches of Blackbeaks.

Impressively enough, almost none of the copies featured any faults or imperfections. This enabled them to sell their bronze label Blackbeaks at a slightly higher price than EME.

More remarkable was that Vaun Industrial skipped the local markets entirely. Instead of selling their mechs in Bentheim alongside the offerings of the LMC and the EME, Vaun had made the bold decision to export it across the Republic's borders.

Vaun had actually managed to sell the Blackbeak in the Ylvain Protectorate of all places!

"I thought those religious nutjobs always turned up their noses against foreign mechs."

Bordering on the far side of the Bright Republic's borders, the Ylvain Protectorate was a rather peculiar third-rate state. Similar to the Hexarchic Hegemony, the government instituted a strong religious regime, practically brainwashing its citizens from birth.

The Ylvainans grew up to be a closed and xenophobic bunch. This happened to make their state a favored recruiting ground for the CFA, who constantly needed new blood to crew their warships.

Compared to their passion for warships, the Ylvainans were less impressed with mechs. Even though they understood their necessity and oriented a significant part of their society to mechs, they only maintained a robust defence force and had never shown any signs of aggression.

This pretty much made them one of the best neighbors of the Bright Republic. The Ylvainans would never ally themselves with the Vesians and attack the Republic from two fronts.

"Vaun isn't satisfied with exporting the Blackbeaks to the Ylvainans alone. They're also starting to break grounds in other foreign markets."

Ves didn't know what to think about their ambitious actions. They basically pre-empted the LMC by expanding into the foreign markets first. Would the LMC still have room left to sell their own products once they finally got around to exporting their own products across the border?

The conflicts of interests that resulted in such a clash might upend their entire relationship. On the other hand, Vaun also did the heavy lifting in creating a demand for the product line outside the Republic.

"It feels weird for my company to be the freeloader this time."

In any case, the relatively high volume of production already netted the LMC a lot of money. Regardless if the mechs sold or not, Vaun had to pay the licensing fees upon producing a model.

This already netted the LMC around 700 million credits. Vaun already showed signs of ramping up their production even further, but even if it maintained the same level of production, they still had to pay over 8 billion credits to his company on an annual basis!

Compared to what Ves earned from his contributions on the Glowing Planet, the LMC generated at least five times as much money!

"They didn't even need to risk their lives." He muttered.

This was such a drastic rise in profits especially since the LMC didn't incur that much expenses. The LMC would have earned a multitude more money if it didn't have to rely on third-party manufacturers to compensate for its inadequate production capacity.

Considering the ridiculous amount of licensing fees that Vaun Industrial transferred to the LMC, Ves found it hard to stay angry at the board.

While it didn't appear that Ves was short on money, he knew that things might change once the war started in earnest. In addition, he also needed to accumulate a lot of money to take part in the introduction of the next generation of mechs less than nine years from now.

The first licenses always cost the most. Even a warchest of 100 billion credits wouldn't be sufficient to get ahold of a single nextgen component license.

License costs usually halved after a year or two, but by then the initial investors had gained a decisive first mover advantage in the rebooted mech market. Once these investors gained a lead, it was hard to knock them down from their pedestals.

Still, thanks to his earnings, the LMC was well on track to take part in the coming race.

"All of this is thanks to my Blackbeak design."

Without his skills and his expensive and exclusive component licences, he'd never be able to design a mech that could stand on its own in the mech industry. Both of these factors comprised the core ingredients to the success of his design.

He didn't grow too conceited at his design's amazing performance. It had taken a lot of work to gather all the ingredients. Without risking his life on Groening IV, Ves would have likely continued to piddle in the mud with the increasingly aging Marc Antony Mark II design.

Only by stepping out of his comfort zone and do the jobs that others were afraid of doing did he elevate himself above his peers.

"I kind of understand Master Olson's perspective now."

He always understood that going on expeditions increased a mech designer's perspective and polished their skills.

Yet enriching his perspective only formed half of the benefits.

The other half consisted of material rewards. The harvest made on the expedition along with the rewards given by others for completing a mission played a crucial role in accelerating his career.

Right now, besides padding his personal bank account with a couple of extra billion credits, Ves also fulfilled a mission from the Clifford Society. He already sent the logs of the Whalers to one of their addresses.

Once the Society confirmed their authenticity, Ves would be credited with another 200 merits. He could do a lot with such a generous amount of merits, from acquiring exclusive Coalition licenses to buying premium production equipment.

He also earned big from the System. While the golden lottery tickets were a bit iffy, he did gain the amazing Amastendira laser pistol from the random draw.

That weapon alone was worth more than the annual profit of a major mech manufacturer. Although the System hadn't managed to recover it to its prime state, its ridiculous power and capacity meant that Ves feared no threat on foot.

The Transcendence Pill also formed a unique reward. Ordinarily, he should have only been able to get his hands on such a pill much later on when he became a Journeyman Mech Designer. To be able to upgrade his mental parameters beyond the human limit so early would definitely help him advance much faster.

As for the mysterious Special Upgrade Voucher (Machine), Ves browsed his Inventory and scanned its description again.

[Special Upgrade Voucher (Machine)]

This voucher can be applied to any object that fits the definition 'machine' and will comprehensively upgrade them to a higher rank. The smaller the machine, the more extensive the upgrade. This voucher is less effective on advanced and complex machines.

From what Ves understood of the brief description, he could apply the voucher to anything from his Amastendira to the Barracuda. It just wouldn't be very effective if he used the voucher on those two machines.

"The Amastendira is so advanced the System categorizes it with the rank of Supreme. I've never seen a Supreme-ranked item before in my life. Even the old Lucky is only rated gold by the System."

As for the Barracuda, she consisted of several millions of tons of both regular and exotic alloys. Perhaps the entire energy of the voucher would only be able to improve its acceleration by one percent or something.

In conclusion, the voucher failed to match his expectations. "As expected of the System."

From the golden lottery tickets to the limited capabilities of the upgrade voucher, the System really pulled the wool over its eyes. It surely profited big when it absorbed the strange diamond-like jewel that Ves had recovered from the skull of that long-dead giant.

"What's up with the giant, anyway?"

The entire Glowing Planet had been weird from the start. From destroying ships with spacetime anomalies, to messing up the energy cells with the overcharge phenomenon, everything about the planet pointed to a sense that it didn't welcome any visitors.

Its temper tantrum upon stealing the jewel only reinforced that idea.

All of these happenings prompted Ves to ask a very absurd question. "Is the planet… alive?"

Ves didn't dare to guess the answer. He had only scratched the surface of the Glowing Planet's origins and didn't wish to make a faulty assumption.

At least he left all of its horrors behind. Of all the awful things that happened to him, meeting the ghost that wore his mother's face was the worst. He never really made up his mind about his mother.

Malicious or not, the dead should have moved on from this reality, or at least stay out of sight of their descendants.

"I'm glad I won't have to see her again."

The Happy Jelly travelled several light-years away from the Glowing Planet by now. There was no way he would encounter the ghost again.

Would he?

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Traveling to Bentheim took a lot less time and effort than trying to navigate towards the Glowing Planet.

A lone planet swinging through space without a star or anything else that could act as a lighthouse meant that ships had to be really close to make the final jump.

In contrast, the Bentheim system formed the largest lighthouse in this stretch of space. Even an outdated ship like the Happy Jelly could easily fix in its coordinates from the border of the Bright Republic.

The journey lasted six days in total. When the Mech Corps and many of the outfits that allied with the Republic arrived at the edge of the star system, everyone let out a relieved breath.

They had finally reached safe harbor.

Anything could happen in space. An unlikely chance still existed that an unknown group figured out their route and intercepted them midway by disturbing the local space along the route with a strong and intense gravitic field.

Just like how the passage of the Glowing Passage had pulled a trade convoy out of FTL, an artificial gravity field could achieve the same effects.

Nothing of the sort came to pass, which let many people put down their worries. Their ships and their harvests also enjoyed the protection of the Mech Corps within the System. Virtually every outfit accepted the same deal the Whalers had signed, so their cargo already belonged to the Republic.

A handful of ships refused to follow the vast majority of the ships towards the inner system. Instead, they jumped back into FTL as soon as their FTL drives finished cycling.

"The idiots. They're going to get ambushed a couple of light-years away I bet." Ves remarked to Melkor as he transferred to the Barracuda.

"They might have something up their sleeves. Those who are confident they can sell their payloads by themselves won't be taking the standard trade routes. Pirates will have a hard time trying to predict their routes."

Now that they arrived to safety, Ves parted ways with the Whalers. The Barracuda flew close to the Happy Jelly in order to receive the Stanislaw and a shuttle carrying the two Larkinsons.

During the previous campaign, the Mech Corps employed the Barracuda as a forward scout. They stationed the corvette in the surrounding star systems in order to keep tabs of any ships that used those planets as their stops.

The job didn't sound glamorous, but it had to be done. At least it put the Barracuda well out of the way of any battles. Nimble as she might be, she could not take a lot of hits.

Ves first entered Captain Silvestra's office. Besides listening to her report, he also wanted her input on something else.

"Captain, you and your crew have been exemplary employees to me so far. Considering the rapid growth of the LMC, your responsibilities will only increase in the future. Therefore, in addition to the hazard pay you're owed, I'm also setting aside a pot worth several million credits to be spent on training. I have plans, and I need a capable crew to run my ship."

The woman blinked. "That's very generous of you, sir. This is much more than what we are owed."

"Nonsense. I've already dragged the Barracuda into two perilous expeditions. I can't promise you there won't be another one in the future. Even if she's mainly used as a scout, it doesn't change the fact that I'm subjecting you to a lot of danger."

"Admittedly, this isn't what we've expected when we initially agreed to work with a mech designer." The Captain reluctantly said, though Ves faintly suspected she acted timid on purpose. "We started our careers in the civilian sector by entertaining men aboard yachts. At no point have we ever trained to serve in a war theater."

Ves extended his hand. "Hence the training. If you agree to keep working for me, I'll promise you and your women won't be earning a pittance in my service. While I considered doubling your salaries, I think it's better for all of us if you shore up your skills."

The captain wrapped her fingers on her desk. "I'll have to discuss it with the girls. Even if you haven't approached us with an offer, I was planning to suggest something myself. Not all of us are cut out for the battlefield."

"You won't be able to avoid a fight. The Bright Republic and the Vesia Kingdom is already in a state of war, they just haven't declared it yet. That battle between the two fleets…"

His memories of that day sometimes gave him nightmares. He became especially spooked when he recalled that strange time loop that came into being when a torpedo destroyed the transport carrying a dimensional smoother.

"It will take some time for us to consider our options. I'll have a final answer for you within a week."

"That's fine."

Once he finished his discussion with Silvestra, Ves left her office and entered the tiny observation room that served as a lounge. Melkor had thrown his body onto a sofa and currently stared at the stars shining from beyond the transparent panels covering the upper deck of the corvette.

"Melkor."

'Ves."

"There's something I'd like to talk to you about."

Melkor turned his head, facing Ves with his opaque blue visor. "What do you want to know?"

"When the Larkinsons sent you to serve as my bodyguard, did they give you additional instructions? For example, if I do anything that would severely harm their interests, are you obliged to do something about it?"

"Nothing of the sorts." Melkor firmly shrugged his head. "What do you think we are, the Gauge Dynasty? Raella and I have only been assigned to protect you and guard your life, something which is hard to do when you are constantly throwing yourself in reckless adventures by the way. As far as I'm concerned, you're the biggest danger to yourself."

"Thanks for the compliment. I think." Ves chuckled. "While I'm not sure whether you are pretending or not, I do want to say that I trust you regardless. You don't seem like a guy who'd stab me in the back."

His cousin smirked at him. "Are you sure about that?"

"I am. Even though you don't talk all that much, you never shed the impression that you're a man of honor."

"I'm not a knight mech pilot, you know."

"You're a perfect fit for a knight if you aren't so good at ranged combat."

"I take it you didn't come here to talk about my loyalties and mech inclinations. Spit it out. What do you really have in mind?"

"Alright, I have two priorities in mind, and they're kind of connected. As you might have heard, the LMC is doing really well now. The truth is that it's entered into an explosive growth phase. I'm expecting the company to earn well over 10 billion credits in the current fiscal year."

"That's some serious money!" Melkor replied with awe. "This is only the second year you began to do business, right? Are all mech designers so rich?"

"Of course not! I'm something of an outlier here. I'm really good at my job."

"Right."

Ves couldn't say he had the System to thank for his rapid growth. This allowed him to catch up and exceed his peers who studied in prestigious schools in second-rate states like the Friday Coalition.

If not for the System, Ves would have gone bankrupt almost immediately after receiving his father's indebted assets. While that wouldn't ruin his life, he'd be forced to toil as a factory supervisor or something instead of fulfilling his dream of designing mechs.

He unconsciously recalled the time he visited a museum on Moira's Paradise. The oceanic planet's museum featured an amusing exhibit of a mirror that purported to show the viewer of his reflection from another reality.

Ves came across himself as a loser.

He quickly shook his head. That dready future hadn't come to pass. Instead, he became a successful mech designer and businessman who earned more than ninety-nine percent of the rest of the Republic.

He truly belonged to the upper echelon of the Republic now that he helmed a multi-billion credit company. And this was just the start. His ambitions stretched much further, and to accomplish his plans, he needed reliable people at his side.

"Let me get to the point." Ves pulled his mind back to the present. "Currently, I've signed a contract with Sanyal-Ablin to provide security for my premises. They've done a decent job so far and they're also involved with designing and constructing the LMC's new manufacturing complex. However, I can't take them along whenever I go out on another 'adventure' as you say. They don't offer those kinds of services. It's too risky, they say."

It also embroiled the supposedly neutral security company in a lot of political messes. Only mercenaries dared to accept these kinds of duties, and only at great cost. Even then, their trustworthiness would always be rather fluid.

"I'm looking to establish a personal force that works solely under my name. I want you to create one from scratch."

This time, Melkor became fully alert. He stopped relaxing against the sofa and immediately sat upright.

"Why are you setting up a personal force?" He asked with genuine puzzlement. "Doesn't it make more sense to slap together a company security force?"

The difference between the two was that one force worked for an individual and the other owed their loyalties to the entire company.

The Bright Republic treated the two very differently. A company security force often followed a strict regime and they always followed orders from a group of decision makers.

Mech pilots considered a career into company security forces to be a stable, low-risk track. While they didn't earn as much as mercenaries, at least they'd be able to live with their families all year round.

In contrast, the Republic often treated a personal security force as a group of thugs. To be fair, personal forces often ended up proving their bad reputations as they enforced their employer's private dealings.

And now, Ves just suggested that he had need of his own group of ruffians. This did not inspire a lot of confidence in Melkor.

"It's not what you think." Ves quickly added. "The reason why I want a personal force is because I'm planning to go on my own expeditions in the future. It's hard to compel a company security force to follow me into far-flung territories."

"That makes a lot of sense. But why are you so insistent on raising your own force?"

"Because I'm a big shot now. I should act like it. I'm tired of being left out of the loop. I've also had it with being treated like a footsoldier. Since I have all of this money, I figured why not invest in my own mechs and ships? I want to take back some control over my life. I don't want to be left at the whims of the mistakes that other people have made."

Ves already laid out a vision for his small but promising personal force. He'd put Captain Silvestra in charge of the ships and Melkor in charge of the mechs. With the two of them working together, Ves had a lot of faith they'd be able to whip a crew into shape.

"This is really big, Ves. I have to think about it. I never considered going down this route after I left the Mech Corps."

"Look, Melkor, I know you're reluctant right now, but think about my success so far. This is only my second year of operation. What heights do you think I'll be able to reach ten years from now? What about twenty years?"

Even Ves hardly dared to dream so big. By the time the next generation came into being, he'd almost certainly be a Journeyman Mech Designer.

The mech industry widely considered this stage as the first, formal start of a mech designer's career. Novices and Apprentices were still considered underage. The chances of someone getting stalled in these stages were extremely high.

Only those who reached the enviable height of Journeyman would finally be treated with consideration on par with an expert mech pilot.

This put Melkor to thought. Even if he didn't hold much hopes to advancing to expert mech pilot himself, working for a Journeyman would open up a lot of doors for him. Perhaps he'd even be able to borrow Ves' influence to help him in his breakthroughs.

Unlike Captain Silvestra, Melkor needed no further consideration. "I'll do it. You can count me in."

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In the Age of Mechs, wealth meant nothing on its own. The ability to leverage your wealth mattered more, because anyone could take it away by force.

Many affluent people either formed their own fighting forces, or they joined an organization which already did. True safety lay in the power of the mech and the gun.

Troublemakers sought out easy targets. Those with an abundance of wealth but not enough guards often parted with their assets rather quickly.

Ves had a number of groups to rely on. First, as the founder and CEO of the Living Mech Corporation, Ves enjoyed a significant amount of protection from Sanyal-Ablin Security Services.

Their contract primarily tasked them with escorting Ves as he travelled within secure Republican space. They also guarded the LMC's fixed assets such as the old workshop and the newer manufacturing complex under construction.

While Ves had an amiable relationship with Sanyal-Ablin, he never trusted them quite completely.

"Even if SASS is a security company known for their neutrality, they're still a subsidiary of the Konsu Clan of the Coalition."

If Ves ever fell out with the Konsu Clan, then the consequences for the LMC would be dire. It would be better for Ves to fold the company entirely.

SASS also worked primarily for the company and not to Ves as a person. While he could still ask for their assistance in company-related matters, they wouldn't oblige him if he wanted to go on a personal errand. Security companies firmly drew a line between security activities and mercenary activities.

The only way to bolster his personal power was to raise his own force, which declared their loyalty to him and him alone.

While he could also employ a mercenary corps, he'd never be able to insure their loyalties. It was the easy way out. Hiring a reputable mercenary corps saved him a lot of trouble, but the expenses added up the longer the contract lasted.

Their main use was to fill a hole in your lineup and to take care of some short and medium-term tasks. Anyone who relied on mercenary corps as their primary line of defense was woefully naive.

Many people these days dreamt of piloting mechs. If they lacked the required neural aptitude, then they dreamt of being able to own or command a group of mechs.

Right now, he had the will, funds and talent necessary to make this dream into a reality. With Melkor and Captain Silvestra at the helm of his mechs and ships respectively, Ves hoped to establish a small but capable personal force within the next six months.

"We're already in an unofficial state of war. With everything the Mech Legion is capable of, it's never too soon to raise my own force."

Ordinarily, he'd have to file for a lot of permits and licenses to do so. This might hinder ordinary people, but with his current status, Ves did not expect the government to put up any significant roadblocks.

This was also the time where his favored status with the government made itself useful. This status allowed him to skip a lot of red tape and expedite the registration process of his own force. He easily filled in a couple of forms on the galactic to get the ball rolling.

He only stopped when the form asked for a name.

"It's gotta be something cool or professional."

Those who wanted to cultivate a lot of contacts and wished to enter the nexus of power went for professional names that incorporated words like Guardians, Knights or Defense Force.

Ves found those names to be bland and uninspiring. As a younger mech designer in the prime of his life, he could be forgiving if he used a more daring name for his personal force of mechs.

"It's not like I want to hobnob with all the politicians and business magnates. I'm not cut out for social influencing."

If he wanted to gain someone's favor, he'd send someone else make connections on his behalf. What Ves should be focusing on was designing mechs or doing stuff that improved his ability to design mechs. Anything else formed a distraction to him on his ambition to reach the pinnacle of mech design.

"A mech designer's personal force reflects his ideals on how his mechs should be used. It serves as an example to be admired and emulated by my customers."

As such, the name should incorporate an aspirational aspect. Much like how ancient humans invented mythical characters such as Heracles or and let themselves be inspired by them, so did Ves had to come up with his own myth.

"This sounds kind of familiar."

He already possessed a fair amount of experience with coming up with myths to blow some life into his images. The X-Factor drew its strength from the imaginary realm, so Ves always came up with vivid ideas to empower his mechs.

"Forming my own force is similar to designing a mech. It starts with a vision. The name will fall into place once I have a solid idea on what my force should be doing."

He wanted his own personal force of mechs and ships in order to enable him to form his own expeditions. He had to admit he had taken a liking for adventure. As long as the rewards sounded attractive enough, he was not afraid of taking risks.

Through his adventures, he also wanted to see his designs at work. His personal force should employ as much of his designs as possible. He wanted his mech pilots to showcase the potential of his mechs under the most difficult circumstances.

After all, much of the current momentum for the sales of his Blackbeak came from the model's excellent performance on the Glowing Planet.

"Even with all of the hype and marketing, real examples remain the best driver for sales."

He didn't want to spend too much time on forming a name. He picked his mind for possibilities and settled for one that sounded the coolest without going too far on the tacky side.

Ves chose to go for a name that reflected his design philosophy. He already did so for the LMC, and as his force would ideally be composed around his company's models, the two should definitely share a common bond.

He decided upon a name. "The Avatars of Myth."

The name referred to his aspiration that his mech pilots could connect with the images attached to their mechs and commune with each other. In the most ideal case, his mech pilots became embodiments of myths and heroes that previously only existed within his mind.

"Thus, they are never fighting alone in their mechs."

After he entered the extravagant-sounding name, Ves quickly finished the rest of the forms. Now the government had to go over his application and provide the necessary permits. The next step happened after that.

"For now, I need to go back to business."

The Barracuda flew ahead of the main fleet. With her tiny cargo space, she carried no cargo at all other than the Stanislaw. This posed no risks to the ship, so Ves ordered Captain Silvestra to deliver him to Bentheim as fast as possible.

Once the ship touched down on the planet, Ves took an armored shuttle from SASS to Marcella's office.

While the LMC opened up a branch on Bentheim, Ves knew no one who worked at that office, so he would rather consult a familiar friend.

Once the shuttle and its escorts arrived in front of the office, Ves entered the front doors, upon which a receptionist directed him directly to the elevator.

"Took you long enough to come back home." Marcella remarked as she swiveled her chair from the impressive view out the window. "A lot has happened while you were gone."

Ves nodded lightly as he took a seat across her desk. "I've heard."

"I suppose you want to talk about Vaun Industrial."

The mere mention of that name soured his mood. "Did you agree to extending a licensing contract to Vaun?"

"I did, after some persuasion." Marcella admitted as she took on a slightly regretful expression. "You have to know it makes a lot of business sense to supplement your company's inadequate production capacity. There is no shame in admitting that the LMC is in the early stages of its growth. Every mech manufacturer that rose up to become behemoths have started small as well."

Ves thought that Marcella understood his vision, but he was wrong. He closed his eyes and shook his head. "My designs are not commodities to be copied blindly. What do the reviews say about Vaun's products?"

"They're mechanically sound. They are quite a hit in the Ylvain Protectorate, you know."

"That's what you think, but in my eyes they are defective. They are missing a crucial ingredient that is characteristic in my products, and that is the human touch."

"Ves, craftsmanship is overrated. This is the Age of Mechs. The time where we need to commission a weapon from a blacksmith and expect a work of art is long past. I know that you want to do things in your own way, but if you want to be a successful businessman then you need to make some compromises."

"I don't believe that." Ves replied. "There is a definite demand for quality mechs, and no, I don't consider anything that comes out of Vaun Industrial to be of high quality. Many other mech manufacturers already pursue efficiency and standardization above all. My company doesn't have to follow suit."

As they argued back and forth, it became evident that Marcella would never see eye-to-eye with Ves. She always treated mechs as commodities. She merely pretended to appreciate them in order to woo her customers.

"Mechs are products in our line of business." She said with a tone of finality. "Your job isn't to change the galaxy or upend the entire mech industry. Your job is to serve the mech pilots that fight on our behalf."

"My ideals don't conflict with that demand."

"Well, you sure don't act like it. Just face it that you need Vaun's help to tide the LMC over. You can always reinvest the fees you've received from Vaun to expand your own production capacity."

"That's already in the roadmap. It's not as if I can spend my profits elsewhere at this time. I don't think I will need to divert a lot of money to design my next mech."

Marcella's eyes shone. "So are you finally ready to design your next mech?"

"I am. I've seen a lot of things on the Glowing Planet. I've got a number of designs in mind. Right now, I'm thinking about designing a rifleman mech."

"That's great news!" The mech broker enthusiastically supported the idea. "Although they're not easy to design, rifleman mechs occupy the largest share of the mech market. It's about time you take a slice of that pie."

In truth, Ves did not choose to design a rifleman mech because he wanted to increase his sales. The LMC already had their hands full with the Blackbeak and it would take months for demand to peak and decline. Unless the LMC quickly added new production lines, their production capacity remained at full capacity for the foreseeable time.

Instead, Ves wanted to design a mech for Melkor. If his cousin were to lead the Avatars of Myth, then he needed to pilot a mech worthy of his future stature.

The Stanislaw supplied by the Larkinson Estate was more of a workhorse mech than something that evoked prestige. It made for a fairly poor symbol and impressed nobody if they glanced at it. Rifleman mechs like these were a dime in a dozen.

"Since I'm planning to design a rifleman mech, what can you tell me about the type, and what does the market want?"

Even though he formed a vague idea of his next design, it didn't hurt to hear from an expert in the business.

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"Ah, rifleman mechs. I can tell you a lot about them." Marcella smiled as she leaned back on her comfortable chair. "Ranged mechs form the dominant types of mechs in this day and age. Do you know why that is so?"

"The advantages and tactical flexibility afforded by these weapons are too convenient. If not for the proliferation of heavily armored mechs that could close the gap and take them out up close, every mech would be a rifleman or a cannoneer."

Despite this caveat, rifleman mechs formed the core of today's mech doctrine. The rifleman mechs among a unit of mechs dictated their actions.

"Rifleman mechs work best at medium range. Since they explicitly wield external rifles, they have the flexibility to drop their weapons and take up a backup knife, although it's highly inadvisable for them to do so. It's best they take our their opponents before they close in. And unless they are built to snipe, they aren't able to take out distant opponents."

At that range, it would be easy for the target to hide behind cover or dodge incoming shots. Ves tapped the desk with his fingers as he summed up his thoughts.

"Rifleman mechs can be divided into two general categories. You have the run-and-gunners that are meant to fight and shoot on the move, and you have the marksman types that fire their weapons behind cover."

"A fair amount of people in the mech industry believe that's a false dichotomy. Rifleman mechs are vulnerable up close, so the best and most reliable way to fend off any melee mechs is if you can run and remain out of reach of any approaching mechs. Also, it is not as if these high-mobility mechs can remain stationary and use any existing cover to their advantage."

"I don't believe a mech can excel at both, and neither do I believe that a slow and sluggish rifleman mech is automatically a bad design."

He once designed the 2-star Old Soul rifleman virtual mech, which became a cult classic among the local gaming community. The Old Soul's rifle only possessed enough heat capacity to unleash a couple of shots, but all of them landed with a lot of power. Combined with its moderate stealth features, it functioned well in its niche as an ambush predator.

Still, the Old Soul never caught on outside of Cloudy Curtain due to its extreme design choices.

The way Ves intended the mech to be used diverged too wildly from what everyone else thought rifleman mechs should be capable of. Even though Ves had developed a love for this type of mech, it did not fit with what Melkor and the market demanded.

He could only give up on developing a real and modern version of the Old Soul.

Marcella collected some reports from her terminal and transferred them to his comm. "Read these when you have the time. They contain all of the recent sales charts and market trends for rifleman mechs. Right now, ballistic rifleman mechs are surging in sales."

The second way to distinguish rifleman mechs was to look at their weapon types. In the Bright Republic, rifleman mechs either wielded lasers or ballistic rifles. Both of them took an equal share of the market.

Some rifleman mechs possessed optimizations to wield either types without penalty. However, this typically resulted in slightly lower overall performance while costing drastically more, so most of the times, only elite mechs might come with this feature.

"That's odd." Ves rubbed his chin. "The next generation of mechs will be the golden age of lasers. Won't these outfits be better served if they can hire and train their laser specialists?"

"These forces don't have the luxury to dream about their future. They have to secure their present first. Right now, mechs that incorporate laser-resistant armor plating are selling like hot cakes. Your Blackbeak is among their number. Can you tell me why you chose to go for the Veltrex armor system?"

"That's because I'm trying to future proof my design. The Blackbeak won't be too much out of date once the new generation of mechs arrive."

Marcella pointed a finger at him. "Well, you're not the only mech designer who thinks so. Every recent design is future-proofed against laser that it's quite a challenge to find a new design that's geared against withstanding kinetic and explosive damage."

Now he understood her point. "I see now. There's such a slant on laser-resistant mechs that ballistic rifleman mechs must be having their greatest time."

"If you aren't concerned with designing a mech for long-term viability, it's a good idea to design a mech that specializes in ballistic rifles."

Ves firmly shook his head. "I can't do that for the moment. One of the reasons why I'm designing a rifleman mech is because I want to design the perfect machine for one of my relatives. He pilots a laser rifleman mech."

"I see. So you are doing it for another Larkinson."

"I do have a friend who's a decent shot with a ballistic rifle, but he pilots aerial mechs, and that's not something I've got a lot of confidence in designing at this moment."

Dietrich's Harrier was in bad shape, and while it could be repaired, it would never return to its prime. Ves would be more than happy to gift him with a mech of his own design, but the technical challenges of tackling this advanced scared him off.

Even though one of his earliest virtual designs also consisted of a ballistic rifle-wielding aerial mech, the Seraphim was based on a four-hundred year old primitive Fantasia 2R design.

Aerial Mechs had come a long way since then. The vastly increased complexity of a currentgen aerial mech was not something that a dabbler of the arts could dip their toes in. Ves first had to learn to crawl before he could learn to walk.

"Maybe it's easier if you laid out your vision. What kind of rifleman mech are you aiming to design?"

What kind, indeed. "I admit I don't have a solid vision as of yet. I'm still figuring things out. For now, I've only set a couple of parameters. It's going to be landbound, so no fancy flight systems with all the complexity associated with it. It also has be mediumweight but it should be fairly fast and agile. Finally, it should come with compressed armor."

That final portion raised Marcella's interest. "That's going to be fairly controversial, depending on your price point. If you are aiming for the same price tag as your Blackbeak models, then it's only barely acceptable."

"I know. It's not quite cost effective to clad ranged mechs with expensive armor when they hardly form a hindrance due to their lack of thickness. Still, even a thin layer adds a lot to a rifleman mech's survivability. I think the tradeoff is worth it even if the dominant market trend advises against such a design choice."

"So long as you are aware." She said. Marcella didn't seem very eager to argue the point even if she knew it didn't entirely make sense in the current market. "Just be aware that the private market is used to spending up to 40 million credits for a premium rifleman mech at most. You can't charge the same exorbitant prices you charge for your knight models because your buyers already know it costs a lot to add all of that armor."

"I'm not looking to design a mech that conforms to the market. This is a mech that I want my relative to excel in. As long as I succeed and design a good enough rifleman mech, I believe the market will be able to swallow a base price of 50 or 60 million credits."

"Good luck with that."

Ves sounded fairly ambitious when he made that boast, but he fully believed he was capable of reaching such a height. He possessed an abundant amount of Skills and saved up an enormous amount of DP to spend on additional Skills and Masteries.

He particularly looked forward to the latter.

Their discussion lasted for another half hour before he had to go. As Ves stood up and walked back to the elevator, he turned around and left some final parting words.

"About the decision to extend a licensing contract to Vaun, I'll forgive your complicity this once. Don't let me hear you lead the LMC astray again. As a shareholder, I know you are only acting on behalf of your own interests, but don't forget who owns the majority."

Ves turned away and disappeared in the elevator, leaving Marcella slightly perplexed.

Previously, if Ves spoke at her with that tone, she'd dismiss it out of hand. In her eyes, he was a kid after all. It was impossible to feel threatened by a toddler.

This time, Ves had changed.

It took a lot of guts to put a former mech pilot and war veteran like Marcella on guard. Ves somehow managed to make her pressured, if only slightly.

She grinned long after Ves had left her office. "Looks like the kid is growing up."

Ves had little else to do once he left Marcella's brokerage. He figured he could pay a visit at the LMC's branch office, but he had no involvement with what went on there. He remembered from his talks with Jake that the branch office primarily dealt with marketing and after-sales support.

"That's not something I can stick my head in at this time."

He returned to the Barracuda and proceeded to set course for Cloudy Curtain.

At this time, the grand return of the mass expedition to the Glowing Planet had riled up the entire Komodo Star Sector. The incredible harvest made a lot of other states jealous, especially the territories that the Glowing Planet had previously drifted past.

Many states were green with envy at the Bright Republic and the Vesia Kingdom to occupy a majority of the early harvest of the Glowing Planet.

Prices of a number of exotics had already dropped a fair amount. Meanwhile, a large number of newly enriched outfits started placing mass orders for new mechs to replace their losses and bolster their numbers to reflect their newfound wealth.

This newfound surge came just in time for mech manufacturers who feared that the previous spike of sales had already run its course. This new and explosive surge in demand shifted Bentheim's mech industry into a newfound renaissance.

"Everyone is going crazy right now." Ves said to the egg that held Lucky. He stroked its solid bone-like surface with care. "How long are you going to take to level up? It's already more than a week."

Hopefully, Lucky wouldn't take months to finish his evolution. He needed his pet to stand guard when he finally used up his Transcendence Pill. Even though it was a little premature, Ves looked forward to increasing one of his mental attributes past 2.0.

Despite the excitement in the Bentheim System, the Barracuda effortlessly transitioned into FTL at one of Bentheim's Lagrange points. A brief journey later brought the corvette at the edge of his home.

A short time later, the Barracuda finally touched down at Cloudy Curtain's spaceport. Once he entered the armored shuttle, Ves ordered it to bring him to the upcoming manufacturing complex.

Once the shuttle and its escorts flew halfway around the rural planet, they eventually reached an expansive construction site.

A massive site had been cleared in the middle of a lightly forested plain. Picture-esque mountains surrounded the site in the distance, providing the location with an ample amount of peace and harmony underneath the planet's everpresent cloud cover.

Dozens of contractors from Bentheim worked together with the security and construction specialists of SASS to erect a majestic set of offices and fortifications aboveground. Naturally, bots of various shapes and sizes did all the heavy lifting.

This was merely the tip of the iceberg. Ves knew that a lot more bots and people excavated and reinforced the chambers dug underneath the soil. All of the actual production happened several kilometers below ground, more than enough to shield the vulnerable production equipment against incidental raids and bombardment.

"Still, it won't do any good if a giant tunneling machine like the Gregarious Wrath decides to knock on my doors."

There was a limit to everything. Ves believed that a tunneling machine the size of a capital ship should be rather unique. The Vesians wouldn't bother to deploy an equivalent war machine to mess up his production facilities.

Not with Bentheim next door.

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To think that he came so far. The expansive works covering a massive area in the middle of nowhere took away his breath. The great undertaking before him finally solidified the LMC's ascension from a small-time player into a serious medium-sized mech manufacturer.

"Even with billions of credits sloshing around in my bank accounts, it's only a bunch of numbers." Ves remarked to Melkor who accompanied him and acted as a guard. "Only by spending them can we make something of ourselves."

If Ves had been taken aback, then Melkor was practically speechless. It was as if he couldn't believe his cousin earned more money than the Larkinson Estate made in a decade.

Melkor couldn't be blamed. He spent a lot of time keeping an eye on his charge, and all he saw of Ves was holing up in his office all the time and coming up with a magical new design after a few months.

A design that became so successful that fueled an expansive manufacturing complex on a sleepy rural planet.

"How much does this all cost?" The mech pilot asked.

"Well, the plan started at half a billion credits, but this looks a lot more elaborate than that."

This must be another decision the board made in his absence. The changes hadn't affected the aboveground portion of the complex too much. It mainly featured more robust turrets and a few more beautifully designed office buildings. Construction bots also worked on planting an elegant courtyard in the center of the complex leading up to the entrance of the headquarters building.

They stepped on a floater platform and slowly hovered over the dirt and incomplete paths before they arrived at the headquarters building.

Ves looked up at the thirty-story tall building. The building had been completed early on, and looked empty but clean from the outside. The structure looked decorative, but hid a lot defences underneath its wide-windowed and white-walled facade.

When Ves commissioned the original plans to build a manufacturing complex, he wanted the architects to design a headquarters that reflected the company's values. It had look in a way that inspired his employees to value mechs and treat them like assets at the very least.

The architects clearly succeeded. As he passed through the tall double doors that loomed like gates, he entered an expansive atrium lighted from above. The colorful screens on the roof filtered the gloomy grey clouds in a subtle gradation of lights.

Shortly after they entered, an older man arrived at the entrance. Jake Altern had finally tracked him down.

"Ves! You've returned!"

Ves walked back and met with Jake. "It takes more than a freaky planet to kill me."

"I heard you fought directly against the Vesians!"

"Hah, don't worry, Melkor took care of them in my stead. I had some close shaves, but we made it out okay."

They made some small talk as they exited the empty HQ. Jake showed genuine concern about his safety, and admonished him not to go harrying off anytime soon.

"The relations between the Bright Republic and the Vesia Kingdom has hit rock-bottom. The Battle of the Two Fleets caused both sides to suffer a significant amount of casualties. Both are eager to avenge their losses. A declaration of war is imminent."

"I know. I was in that very battle, though only in the outskirts."

He personally experienced the depth to which the two sides hated each other. The bad blood between the two states would never end until one side wiped out the other side.

After Ves assured Jake of his safety, the conversation took an unpleasant turn. Jake noted that Ves was still bottling up his resentment, so he took the initiative to come clean.

"Look Ves, about the licensing contract to Vaun, everyone from the Larkinson Estate was in favor of this move. Your grandfather had actually been the driving force of this decision. The Larkinsons are in need of money."

There was much for Ves to criticize. First, did his grandfather really demand this initiative, or had the old fogies from the steering committee pushed him to support this move? Second, why would the Larkinson Estate be lacking money? They'd gone by since the founding of the Republic without any hiccups.

Still, despite his many questions, Ves felt no need to hash it out with Jake. "I admit I'm very discontented about this partnership with Vaun. I made it very clear that Vaun is not a fit for the LMC. Their manufacturing methods are a disservice to a design like the Blackbeak."

Jake didn't understand what Ves was saying. To a businessman and administrator like him, all mechs were tools to be used and discarded at a whim.

"Ves, can you at least admit that the contract with Vaun has provided us with immediate short-term benefits? The licensing fees they are paying will easily be able to pay for the expansions the LMC desperately needs. We will be able to add two new production lines by the end of the fiscal year!"

Ves really couldn't stand to hear any further rationalizations. "You still crossed the line! This is my company, and my say matters the most. I can understand how much it hurts to miss all of those potential profits due to a lack of capacity, but you should have at least found another manufacturer that is similar to EME. Instead, the entire board and you treated my opinions with contempt and went ahead with Vaun anyway!"

He rarely got angry, but when he did, everyone took notice. Jake halted in his tracks but refused to admit any fault. "Disagree with me if you will, but I stand by our decision. In your sudden absence, the LMC still needs direction. Every member of the board agrees it makes a lot of sense to go to bed with a professional and capable mech manufacturer. The results speak for themselves. We are richer than ever before!"

"That's the only reason why I haven't fired you!"

"Maybe you should!"

After some time, Ves calmed down. He didn't want to harp on this issue because the milk had already been spilled. Instead of continuing to ruin his relationship with his Chief Operating Officer, he'd rather move on and adjust the course of the LMC from this point onwards.

"Jake, you're a good administrator, but you're not irreplaceable. I asked the Larkinson Estate to send some capable people, and I can do it again if needed. Your only value in my eyes is to act as a caretaker of the business side of the LMC. It is not your job to come up with your own initiatives and act outside your boundaries."

"Understood." The man replied with resignation. Jake appeared man enough to shoulder the responsibility of his decision. "I suggest you remain within reach if you don't want something like this to happen again. It's easy to act like you're the boss, but decisions still have to be made even when you're absent."

"I'm not so sure I can follow your suggestion. When war breaks out, everything will change."

Both of them fell silent at the grim possibility. Even Melkor took notice. He'd been leaning to the side and stayed as inconspicuous as possible. All of the business talk hardly roused his interests.

The war was a different matter, however.

They smelled the gunpowder in the air. The first shots had already been fired. Now, they awaited the formal declaration of war which should be very imminent now. Once the Bright Republic entered war footing, many things would change.

"Can brief me on the changes the company will go through once the Republic is at war?"

Jake filled him in on the drastic changes the LMC would go through. "First and foremost, our ability to import materials will be somewhat curtailed. It's good that we are only producing a single model. Our resource needs aren't that elaborate or extensive, and we can source most of them from domestic suppliers. Prices will rise and quotas may be imposed, but other than that we can still do business."

"What about our sales? I've heard that the Republic will impose a lot of restrictions in this area."

"That's true." Jake nodded as they stepped on a lifter platform that brought them to a massive reinforced gate that led underground. "Depending on the level of war mobilization, we'll be obliged to follow every instruction sent government. Failure to comply comes with severe penalties. They can even confiscate our assets if we flout their authority."

That sounded very serious to Ves. The last thing he wanted was for the government to take away his life's work. "How often does that happen?"

"More often than you think, but it's always the smaller players who fall victim to this scheme. The ministry in charge of supervising mech manufacturers analyze their capabilities and issue work orders such as manufacturing a certain amount of replacement parts of a vital mech design from the Mech Corps."

"Do we get paid for it?"

"Just enough to cover our costs plus depreciation. It's not a profitable venture, but at least we won't be bankrupting ourselves. The only problem is that inflation and resource shortages can run out of control if the war swings against our favor."

Something like this had happened a few times throughout the Bright Republic's history. A lot of previously stable mech manufacturers went bankrupt once their business climate turned sour.

"What about conscription?"

"We don't expect too much of our employees to be conscripted. The Bright Republic doesn't care about the ordinary mech technicians either, but they'll definitely consider snapping up a talented mech designer."

"I'm aware of that. I hope the LMC can continue to operate in line with my interests once I'm gone. I don't want a repeat of what happened before."

"I can't make any promises on that, Ves. You should talk to your grandfather to set some ground rules."

Ves shook his head. "Let's not retread this conversation."

"Agreed."

"Back to the topic at hand, if war erupts, what kind of limits will we face for our sales?"

"We can still sell our mechs to private parties, but they have to be vouched by the government before we can deliver our mechs. If the customer in question is a loyal citizen of the Republic, then they won't face too many restrictions. Even gangs aren't exempt from this as long as they pledge to defend their territory against the Vesians."

Even though the Bright Republic maintained a love-hate relationship with the gangs that plagued their planets, they still recognized their use as an auxiliary force against the greater threat.

Different from the Republic, the Vesians ruled their territory with an iron fist. While this has led to a significant amount of economic stagnation, it also ensured that gangs had no chance of rooting themselves in the underworld of the Kingdom.

Some people argue that the nobles secretly fill in the void left by the gangs. In essence, the nobility simultaneously occupied the light and grey areas of Vesian society.

In any case, the gangs knew that the Vesians would wipe them out in time once they took control over a planet. This forced the gangs to flee or fight. Most chose the latter due to various reasons, chief among them was that they'd be exiled from the Republic if they shirked their moral duty.

"So how will this affect our earnings?" Ves asked.

"It can be volatile. On one hand, the mercenary corps that agreed to work for the Republic receive allowances in case they lose their mechs. Depending on their performance, they'll be shopping around a lot. On the other hand, not every mercenary corps is eager to perform errands in hostile territory. These cowards will try to flee the Republic in substantial numbers."

"So there's going to be fewer customers?"

"Correct, and those who remain will spend a little more."

Overall, that sounded like a net loss to the LMC. Even if the mercenary corps decided to stay and fight the good fight, they'll only get the equivalent of pocket money from the government.

That would be good enough to buy a couple of cheap frontline mechs, but it would take a lot more remuneration to buy an expensive Blackbeak.

"Which market segment will be the most active one, then?"

"If you're able to design a sub-20 million credit mech, then you're well-placed to take advantage of the surge in sales in this segment."

Unfortunately, Ves did not have the time. He first had to design his premium rifleman mech before he considered anything else. Arming Melkor with a quality mech was more important to him than trying to earn an extra buck from mercenaries that had fallen out of luck.

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Ves continued to pick Jake's brain as they entered through the gates and boarded an elevator. The device slowly brought Ves, Jake and Melkor and some guards down into the depths of the tunnel that the construction companies dug out only a couple of months ago.

"What about the Mech Corps?" Ves asked. "Occasionally, they license designs from external mech designers. They don't completely rely on models their research and development teams came up on their own."

"That's a complicated matter. Only exceptional designs fall under their consideration. As much as your Blackbeak has impressed the market, it is still a design that's below their consideration."

As much as Ves believed in his own design, he had to admit that his work paled in comparison to those designed by an entire team of professionals. A Senior Mech Designer helmed each design team under the employ of the Mech Corps.

Such a high number of capable mech designers would always be able to surpass the work of a single Apprentice Mech Designer.

He sighed. "I shouldn't get my hopes up then."

Ves was not so full of himself that he believed he could surpass the collective efforts of these all-star teams. Every member of a core design team boasted impressive track records. They made Michael Dumont look like the school dunce.

They mostly consisted of older mech designers as well. It was generally believed you had to be in your late thirties to be an asset to the team. This meant that the backbone almost always consisted of established Journeyman Mech Designers, each of whom possessed their own unique talents.

The elevator descended fairly quickly. Several kilometers passed by in a single minute, but the inertial dampeners built into the elevator ensured a smooth ride for every passenger.

It stopped once it reached the first underground floor. As they exited it, Ves beheld a huge but largely hollow corridor. Several huge alloy hatches led to other hollow chambers.

"This is the warehouse floor where the manufacturing complex will store the majority of their goods. It's placed in the upper-most floor to facilitate the movement of raw materials and end products."

Ves nodded at that. Some believed that the goods should be stored in the lowest floor, but Ves thought this made more sense. It would take a lot of hassle to ship the goods several more kilometers underground.

Once they looked around the empty chambers for a while, Jake led Ves to the floors underneath. Each single floor had been separated by many stretches of soil in order to isolate each of them in case of an enemy breach. While this added to the cost, the extra safety was worth the added effort.

"I don't remember any of this in the original plan. How much extra will it cost to setup a secure underground complex?"

"The total cost has increased from 500 million credits to 1.5 billion credits. The extra money is mostly spent on extra space and strengthening the tunnels. Not everyone in the board agreed to the price increase, but your grandfather is adamant about turning your little fief into castle."

Again, his grandfather played a crucial role in enacting a change within his company. At least this time Ves agreed with the decision. The company sat on a growing pile of cash. They might as well invest some of it on their manufacturing complex, which would serve as their crown jewel and the seat of the LMC.

Ves reminded himself that he needed to have a good talk with his grandfather anyway.

Over the next couple of hours, Jake led him down the elevator and showed him the other underground floors that needed to be filled up with furnishings and equipment.

The floor underneath the warehouse housed the underground offices. Backup systems ensured that almost any data stored in the offices above would be copied down below. In the event the structures above the ground got bombed, the survivors could still pick up their work in the underground offices.

"This floor can easily accommodate thousands of office workers." Jake boasted. "For now, we won't be able to fill this office up to capacity if we're chased underground, but hopefully it will be a different story a couple of decades later."

The office floor did not contain anything of interest to Ves, so they moved to the next and most important floor.

"This is where the bulk of our manufacturing will take place. The halls are extra wide and deep, and each production line will be segregated in their own halls to prevent any unforeseen accidents from spilling over."

Ves looked at the empty halls and its alloy-plated walls. "All of that cladding doesn't look cheap."

"It isn't, but it's necessary to safeguard the production lines and prevent any vibrations and signals from propagating into the other halls. They're well worth their cost."

"I love the abundant amount of space. A single hall alone takes up more space than double my old workshop."

This would massively ease the fabrication process and ensure that materials could be delivered promptly without bumping into each other.

A special jumbo-sized cargo elevator directly connected the manufacturing floor with the warehouse floor above. It was large enough to transport two heavy mechs side by side.

"The cargo elevator is stable and robust, but its speed leaves something to be desired." Jake said sheepishly.

"That's okay. Instead of making lots of smaller trips, we'll just have to make do with a couple of larger hauls."

Once Ves had his fill of the manufacturing floor, they moved downwards yet again. This time they arrived at what Ves had intended to be his private holy land.

"I'm sure you don't need a description of this floor. It's much smaller than the floors above because only a handful of people will ever make use of the facilities here."

They arrived at the lab and workshop floor. This would be the place where Ves produced his future designs. Even though he didn't necessarily need a lot of space and toys to form a new design, it always helped to have more tools at hand. He shouldn't rely completely on the Mech Designer System to do his design work.

Ves planned to fill half of the rooms with some basic lab and workshop equipment. This alone would cost at least 100 million credits, but both the LMC and Ves wouldn't lose any sleep on such a trivial amount of spending.

The costs only ramped up hard when Ves filled up the other half of the space. Ves had composed a very extravagant shopping list that would cost several billions credits to obtain. This was because the best equipment could only be imported from the Firday Coalition.

Even though the lab and workshop floor took the least amount of space, it featured some of the highest level of defenses. Only the final floor below featured even more extensive security features.

"Let's stop by the last floor before we go."

They had to enter a special, highly secure elevator to go down to the last floor. A massive alloy gate stood before their sights.

"This is the vault. As you can see, the front vault gates alone can withstand a typical mech squad for an entire day. The sheer amount of alloys incorporated in the construction makes it fairly troublesome to open it. Right now, many of the locks and security systems are not yet in place, so I won't be able to show you how it looks inside."

"That's a shame, but I've seen enough." Ves nodded. "Let's return to the old workshop. I have work to do."

Ves planned to utilize the vault to store anything of value that would have been stolen if he placed it on the warehouse floor. For now, he mainly planned to store any high-grade exotics and rare mechs that fell into his possession.

More than an hour later, Ves left the construction site and flew back to the outskirts of Freslin. Compared to the massive undertaking in the forest, his older workshop resembled a doll house. The two couldn't be more different.

Even if Ves was about to retire his old workshop, he would always remember it fondly. He started his business here, and produced his first mechs from these modest halls.

Change was inevitable. Ves and the LMC had to adjust with the times. A modest workshop couldn't keep up with the pace of their growth.

Once Ves arrived at his office, Gavin awaited him in front of the door. He flexed his feet up and down as he seemed anxious for some reason. The moment Ves came into view, he smiled like a glittering sun.

"Ves! I've been waiting for you for months! Do you know how agonizing it is to be without you?!"

"Haha, you don't need to be so happy. I don't swing that way."

The mood suddenly turned a little awkward. "Ahem, the reason why I'm here is because public is interested in you."

"Let's talk about it in my office." Ves said, and turned around to dismiss Melkor and the guards. "Come on in and take a seat."

Once they took their places, Gavin began to babble about the public's interest in Ves. "You're growing into a household name in Bentheim. Even the other major planets in the Republic such as Rittersberg has started to take note of you! You can't imagine how many news portals and publications have knocked on our doors with a request for an interview. You already missed the hottest period!"

Ves regretted missing out on these prime opportunities. Several prestigious publications at the level of the Rimward Star Herald had approached the LMC for an interview or profile piece when the sales of the Blackbeak started to explode.

These opportunities disappeared after the publications found out that Ves took part in the Republic's expedition to the Glowing Planet. It was as if they expected that Ves would perish on the hostile, wartorn planet.

"Can we approach them for another chance?"

"That's not something we can do. They'll ignore us if we approach them on our own initiative. They can be petty like that, and some of the hype has died down by now."

Gavin offered him a list of publications that still showed some interest in him and his company. Most of them consisted of regional and planetary publications.

"I don't see any major names on this list."

Ves sounded disappointed.

"Even if they don't have a wide reach, it's still very useful to engage with the publications that are highly circulated in our target segments. For example, the Bright Republic edition of Mercenary Central is the premier news magazine for mercenaries. Many mercenary commanders avidly read their weekly issue or catch their daily broadcast."

Even Ves had heard a lot about the mercenary publication. "Mercenary Central is a fine choice. Let's add for consideration."

After that, Gavin suggested a couple of other publications. Ves rejected most of them because he didn't believe they would benefit his profile or boost his sales.

"Mech Mothers is one of the more widely circulated news portals in the Republic. It's widely aimed at the parents of mech pilots, and exert a significant influence on the mechs they pilot."

"No. I'm not going to engage with a bunch of parents, even if it's one of the most popular publications."

"Ah here, what about Junior-"

"No."

After rejecting a bunch of tangibly related publications, Gavin finally gave up. Besides an interview with Mercenary Central, Ves rejected every other option.

"Gavin, I don't have the time to grandstand in front of the public. A couple of interviews are enough to put my name in the public sphere. A mech designer should let his designs do most of the talking. My Blackbeak is doing excellently in that regard."

His publicist and assistant sighed in defeat. "Very well, boss. I'll take that under advisement. Do I have permission to allow your officers to be interviewed about the company? Many publications are happy if they can get a hold of your chief operating officer or chief financial officer. These are mostly the dry and boring ones that focus on business, of course."

"That should be okay as long as they keep their mouth shut on certain topics."

"That's great! You can send me a list of the things you don't want them to say, and I'll pass that on to Mr. Altern and Mrs. Mackarie."

Ves fobbed off most of the interviews because he only had a limited amount of time to design his rifleman mech. He wanted to devote his full attention to completing it in three months.

"I don't even know if I have that much time. The war will break out very soon."

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