The Mech Touch - Chapter 7429: Strengthening Relations

Chapter 7429: Strengthening Relations

Chapter 7429

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The Terrans rolled out the red carpet for Ves.

He received dozens of visitations and attended numerous gatherings in the next two days.

Personally, he quickly grew tired with all of the tedious social obligations, but he did not exert any influence to curtail them. He knew that this was a necessary sacrifice to earn the respect of the Terrans.

Though much of the meetings lacked substance, Ves still benefited from getting to meet with some of the movers and shakers of the Terran Alliance.

From business magnates to Master Mech Designers, he had many opportunities to chat with the people who actually ran the colonial star empire.

For the most part, the Terran Alliance was doing pretty well in some facets but poorly in others. The recent crises and upheavals disrupted many supply chains and exerted pressure onto others.

Now that the Larkinson Clan had reached a certain scale, it had become an increasingly more interesting business partner for the Terrans.

Sure, the Larkinsons had yet to establish a strong foothold in first-class space, but the Premier Fleet had already made a name for itself.

Months of participating in numerous battles at the Terran frontlines enabled the locals to gain a first-hand look at the strength of the clan.

Ves was no longer the only notable individual who propped up the clan.

Saint Commander Casella Ingvar together with the amazing Minerva Mark II swept up entire battlefields.

The force multiplier of her impressive Command Field was so astonishing that no conventional native alien force could persist for long.

Though her Commandeered and Enfeoffed units had issues with resisting greater phase lords, Saint Dise and the First Sword Mark III neatly compensated for this shortcoming.

The Decapitator had already claimed the lives of numerous stubborn greater phase lords.

These astonishingly short duels also yielded a lot of bounty for the Larkinson Clan!

Every intact and recoverable phase lord body contained massive amounts of phasewater.

Though much of it spilled into open space, salvagers could still find extract of precious fluids from the giant

carcass.

More importantly was that greater phase lords became increasingly better equipped, thereby turning into much more valuable bounties once beaten.

Saint Piercers had become particularly more prevalent among the native gods. The Red Cabal had definitely managed to establish a means of mass producing these powerful and lethal arms.

The more well-connected alien leaders also managed to get their hands on Saint Armors. They were still a lot less prevalent due to their high material cost, but any phase lord clad in a full set became a lot more difficult to defeat!

Even the superdimensional First Sword Mark III struggled to defeat them. The hardware was powerful enough, but the user had yet to catch up. Saint Dise’s willpower was still too weak and underdeveloped to sustain a lengthy and extremely energy-intensive fight.

That did not mean that Saint Dise was weak. She could overpower practically every phase lord without superdimensional protection, and she possessed a fair chance of beating those equipped with Saint Piercers.

As a consummate duelist, Saint Dise had managed to outfight and outmaneuver multiple phase lords equipped with the iconic alien-built lances!

The fierce weapons not only possessed the unnatural capacity to pierce straight through an ace mech’s Saint Kingdom, but also possessed the capacity to slice through ordinary matter as if it was made of clouds.

Yet under the exquisite control of Saint Dise, the First Sword Mark III barely if ever got struck by the extraordinarily sharp tip!

In fact, unless the enemy phase lord managed to land a momentum-fueled thrust at a near-perpendicular angle, it was extremely unlikely for the relatively low-quality weapon tip to penetrate straight through the ace swordsman mech’s superdimensional armor.

Even if the First Sword Mark III could not outright defeat a formidable and well-equipped alien champion, it was no problem for the living ace mech to stall her opponent or retreat in good order!

Relying on their respective strengths, Saint Commander Casella Ingvar and Saint Dise always managed to steal the show. Their synergy was already top-notch to the point that they received thousands of invitations from the Terrans.

Of course, the rest of the Premier Fleet was no slouch either. The Tortuous Scream and the first-class multipurpose mechs served as the Saint Commander’s personal arms.

The crew and pilots had become increasingly more accustomed to operating under the direction of a powerful ace command pilot. The more they fought under her direction, the smaller the inefficiencies!

Due to the Premier Fleet’s excellent performance, the Terrans harbored even more respect and appreciation towards the Larkinsons.

This was why the Saint Commander and certain other senior leaders of the Larkinson Clan could replace Ves at a number of events.

Both Ves and Casella kept themselves busy and barely had any time to take a break.

Though the constant meetings and social gatherings strained their patience, the pair did not try to reduce their busy schedules.

The more they showed their faces, the friendlier the Terrans became.

More friends translated into tangible benefits. Casella became especially enthusiastic about taking advantage of the situations to secure favorable deals and complete favorable transactions.

By doing so, she not only strengthened the clan’s growing industrial interests, but also ensured that the Premier Fleet and the expeditionary fleet of the Golden Skull Alliance continued to receive ample goods and services.

When the pair of representative leaders finally approached the end of their schedules, they both met with each other aboard the Tortuous Scream.

The converted orven battleship had changed since Ves last resided on the vessel. The Tortuous Scream still retained much of her alien architecture, but he noticed that the crew had spent a bit more effort to make the enormous hull feel like home.

More banners and markings lined the bulkheads, each of them proclaiming the glory of the Larkinson Clan or the human race.

Numerous open spaces had been converted into small gardens that featured distinctive flora derived from Old Earth.

Cats almost roamed freely across the corridors. The clever felines never got in the way of the human crew and settled in one of the numerous cat-specific niches built into alcoves, ceilings and other structures.

Ves felt a sense of comfort that he never experienced at the Tarrasque.

All of the recent changes signified that the Tortuous Scream unquestionably belonged to the Larkinsons.

The Tarrasque remained a vessel of the Red Association. Ves had no control over her hull or her crew.

Ves likened the difference between the two warships as residing in an odd grandparent’s home as opposed to staying in a high-class hotel.

Neither of them were perfect, but Ves still appreciated the former over the latter.

“I like what you guys have done with the place.” He casually remarked.

“We are human.” Casella responded with an upturned lip. “We cannot abide by alien sensibilities. The extensive overhaul of the hull has already made the ship friendlier for us, but there are still too numerous alien characteristics to fully erase the foreboding feeling of residing in a place where humans do not belong. The changes are necessary to raise morale and prevent psychological problems from deepening. If red humanity was not suffering from a perennial shortage of warships and particularly capital-grade ones, I would not want to keep this hull in our possession.”

“Are you thinking of selling the Tortuous Scream?” Ves asked with a frown.

“The thought has crossed my mind more than once.” The current matriarch of the Larkinson Clan admitted. “Human warships of the current generation are superior to alien ones. The gap has closed among contemporary hulls, but there are still essential differences that make ours more effective. Our inability to fully understand the many alien ship parts and systems that still exist has turned maintenance and repairs into a nightmare. Maintenance is taking at least 3 times longer while the costs have doubled at a minimum. We can only operate complicated alien software by using a flawed human-developed shell, which means that our control over the alien battleship is permanently impaired.”

It was a good thing that the Tortuous Scream was a massive battlewagon as opposed to a much smaller and nimbler vessel where fast reactions became paramount.

Delays and imprecisions in the operation of her many systems should not affect her overall performance too much.

“You know better than I that building our own battlecruiser is still a major endeavor that is years away from completion, Casella. I have no doubt that the resulting capital ship will be able to outperform the current version of the Tortuous Scream, but the wait is unavoidable.”

“I am aware, Ves.”

The Larkinson Clan never meant to hold onto the Tortuous Scream for long. Ves considered her to be a stopgap solution, and so did the Saint Commander.

Nonetheless, in a time where massive changes could occur in a matter of months, the Larkinsons felt like they had to wait an eternity before they could finally deploy their promised flagship into the field!

“If we are unable to obtain another RF Battlecruiser Token, we can only sell or mothball this battleship. Do you have a preference?”

Casella briefly furrowed her brows in thought. “Despite her numerous shortcomings, her raw performance is still impressive. I do not wish to rely on her strength in serious offenses, but she can still serve as an adequate centerpiece in a second-line fleet. My greatest preference is to retain her and designate her as the flagship of a garrison fleet at our core colony.”

The mention of a colony put Ves on edge. “Are you sure it is wise for our clan to continue to invest lots of resources into building our own colony settlement?”

“You secured the claim to the star system and its planets in one of your past transactions, did you not?” Casella raised her eyebrow. “You are correct that the recent changes have increased all of the risks, but I still have faith that our civilization will be able to stop our alien enemies from going any deeper. Trust me, Ves. The Larkinsons need a fixed homebase that is completely theirs. The Davute Branch is a good substitute, but the clansmen over there are always aware that they are guests residing on another group’s property.”

“Can’t you wait until the frontlines have actually stabilized before building a proper fortified settlement on a planet?”

“We can, but I have decided that it is better to embark on this development sooner rather than later.” The Saint Commander resolutely responded. “It is not as great of a burden to our clan as you believe. Our supply networks are growing as we speak. We have harvested a great amount of excess salvage that can easily be repurposed for the construction of fortress cities and an orbital defense network. Furthermore, we have plenty of clansmen who still prefer to live with their feet planted on fresh soil as opposed to a cold metallic deck.”

Her arguments made sense. While the construction of a colony still served as a major resource drain for the clan, it was not as if the Larkinsons had any better uses for most of them. Casella merely sought to extract the greatest value of them even if that meant building up an entire colony.

Although Ves remained unsure about this entire situation, he did not intend to intervene.

Casella Ingvar had taken over as the leader of the Larkinson Clan. Unless she had violated his trust, he had little reason to doubt her judgment.

“So what do you think of the Terrans?” Ves changed the topic. “I have received… a hint that they are up to something big. Do you have any guesses?”

The Saint Commander shook her head. “My intuition has noticed an undercurrent among some of the leading Terrans that is keeping them nervous and agitated. They are unsettled by what they have wrought. I cannot tell you anything more specific than that. You are overestimating my capabilities if you think I can deduce their secrets by studying conduct.”

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