The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1265

As Ves followed the MTA mech officer to the end of the huge but barren underground hall, the woman started to explain the nature of the Pit.

"I am Lieutenant Rezzie Ferct. You can call me Lieutenant Ferct." She began. "As for the Pit, the simplest way to put it is that you’ve an informal trial ground." She began.

"What makes it informal?"

"Because the MTA isn’t officially involved in the running of this place. It’s actually established by the Rim Guardians, which is a fraternity within the Compliance Department. Pilot Hoffmeister who issued your invitation card is a new member. She received a card immediately upon entering our ranks."

Ves scratched his head. All of this was completely new to him. "What’s the deal with the teleportation portal? Couldn’t you have just allowed people to enter the Pit through an old-fashioned tunnel?"

"We can’t do that. You see, the Rim Guardians aren’t the only fraternities within the Compliance Department. Our most hated rivals are the Prime Humans. Their beliefs are completely opposed to ours, and we’ve clashed against each other plenty of times. Keeping the location of the Pit a secret will prevent those snobby brats from crashing the party."

Uh oh. It sounded as if Ves got dumped in the middle of another political dispute.

Every organization was plagued with division. Even the most outwardly cohesive states or companies had to deal with certain levels of opposition.

The MTA was so powerful and so huge that it was impossible for every member to agree on everything!

Even in the Ylvaine Protectorate where every citizen believed in the same religion still exhibited a lot of political infighting!

For an entity that was countless times larger and encompassed all of human space, the MTA must be rife with internal rivalry!

This played an especially huge problem to the MTA due to its more open and diversified recruitment policies.

In contrast, the CFA didn’t suffer nearly as much from this problem because every human they recruited all shared similar backgrounds!

Seeing that he might have gotten involved in something, Ves needed to shed his ignorance as quickly as possible!

"What do these fraternities stand for?"

Lieutenant Ferct smiled. "The Rim Guardians of which I’m a part of is a fraternity that stands for equality. I’m sure you’re aware that the MTA recruits from all over the galaxy, right? It doesn’t matter whether a mech pilot or mech designer is rich or poor, the MTA should stand up for all of humanity. Yet.. in practice I think we’ve fallen short in practicing our ideals."

"The MTA cares a lot more about the galactic center than the galactic rim. Everyone knows that." Ves bluntly said.

"I agree. It’s a sad reality that the MTA pours a lot more funding, resources and manpower into maintaining their standing in the galactic center instead of funneling them towards regions which are deprived of protection. Do you think the Terrans and the Rubarthans even need our protection?"

This must be one of the reasons why the MTA had been rather absent in the Komodo Star Sector. It was so unimportant to them that they didn’t allocate sufficient resources to maintain a stronger presence in the local region!

"So I take it the Rim Guardians stands up for deprived areas like this star sector?"

"Correct. Specifically, we stand up for the entire galactic rim from where we originated." Lieutenant Ferct declared. "While some of the members of the MTA abandon their roots as soon as they obtain their new identities, mech pilots like Charlotte and I will never forget our old identities. We do our best to defend the interests of the people living in the galactic rim against those who take a dim view on them. Just because we aren’t as prosperous doesn’t mean that we deserve to be treated as serfs!"

"Is that what the so-called Prime Humans are advocating?"

The mech lieutenant chuckled. "Sounds obnoxious, right? The problem for us is that their ideology is actually part of the mainstream within the MTA. Our organization has always focused its attention towards the center of the galaxy rather than the periphery."

Ves frowned. He had always heard that the Big Two were stuck-up, but it sounded as if the problem was actually a lot more severe!

"Is it because they see us as a burden or something?"

"That’s a good guess, Mr. Larkinson. The Prime Humans mostly consists of old bloods and recruits who originated from the galactic center. They advocate that the MTA shouldn’t be wasting so much energy trying to cover the huge but barren galactic rim. The Association is forced to allocate a disproportionate amount of resources to maintain a barely adequate presence in star sectors that could never afford so much protection."

Centerpoint System was a case in point. While Ves marveled at all the vast megastructures and planetary engineering projects, the cost of transforming and maintaining Centerpoint must have been immense!

"There are a lot of star sectors in the galactic rim." Ves noted.

"That’s true, and that’s what makes this problem so acute. A single MTA branch in the galactic center is effectively forced to subsidize dozens of branches in the galactic rim! Do you think the MTA’s Komodo branch can sustain its military might from all of the earnings it makes off the trade taking place in Centerpoint? It’s not enough!"

A single star system, no matter how busy it appeared, could never maintain so many expensive mechs, ships and defensive installations!

"What do the Prime Humans want, then?"

"They want to abandon the galactic rim outright. Pull the MTA out and focus their resources on maintaining control over the galactic center and the galactic heartland."

"What?!"

The lieutenant sardonically chuckled. "I reacted the same way when I initially heard that. The Prime Humans consider us parasites and don’t want to waste any money on enforcing their rules to a bunch of smelly space peasants."