The Mech Touch novel Chapter 182

Ves entered the conference room with tired eyes. He stayed up late the last two days as he tried to juggle various duties at once. Not only did he had to come up with a way to bring both damaged Ajax Olympians back to fighting form, he also had to devote some time into studying the sensor data the hunting platoon had taken of the Kaius.

The more he studied the Kaius, the more he admired the strange and primal-looking chimera mech. For a mech that had been built more than twenty-seven years ago, it possessed a lot of charm.

Whoever designed the initial incarnation of the Kaius possessed a lot of hands-on experience. However, that mech designer’s skill level didn’t exceed what Ves already mastered. The mech designer must be a senior in age who never made any achievements in the field. Doubtlessly he only reached the level of an Apprentice Mech Designer in his later years.

Still, age and experience brought its own strength. His work might lack in sophistication, but he made up for it with a strong mastery of the basics. The sound design and solid foundation of the Kaius allowed it to remain functional long after the first expedition ended in failure.

Commander Tregis welcomed Ves into the conference room and nodded him to a seat at the side. Since the headquarters of the base featured full climate controls, everyone took off their bulky helmets and breathed in the sterile air.

Ves took a seat next to a handful of exobiologists. They had been studying the same sensors readings as he had, but they focused instead on the incredibly powerful heat organ.

The room already had a handful of other important people present. Captain Kaine sulked next to Tregis, while an officer wearing the uniform of George’s Cavalry conferred with someone from the Stray Phantoms. A handful of other officers whose roles Ves couldn’t guess rounded out the gathering.

Commander Tregis clapped and gestured everyone to take a seat. "Now that we are here, let us begin with this meeting. First, I’d like Captain Kaine to recap her encounter with Doctor Jutland and his strange biological mech."

Captain Kaine didn’t wish to recount the awful experience, but Tregis put her on the spot. She briefly described the events that took place, and described how a crippling strike against one of her heavy knights forced them to hunker down and wait for rescue.

No one laughed at her. They all knew that she did her best under the circumstances. The power and endurance shown by the Kaius exceeded every other mech in the expedition.

After she sank back into her seat, Tregis turned to Ves. "Before we go into Doctor Jutland, let’s start with the Kaius. Mr. Larkinson, please relay your analysis on the chimera mech."

Ves dutifully described his initial results and threw out a guess on the identity of the mech designer. "One thing to note is that the Kaius shows definite signs of cross-discipline collaboration. At a minimum, a mech designer and a specialist in biology have had a hand in its initial design."

He summoned up a projection of the chimera mech’s wireframe model. Sections of it had been shaded in blue while a lot of other areas had been shaded in red. "That’s living tissue. The chimera mech isn’t so much a mech but is more like a carcass brought to life with the help of technology."

The Kaius told a story of its own. The mech hadn’t been designed and fabricated in a well-stocked workshop. It looked more like a product that a mech designer came up in the field. The lack of facilities along with the limited amount of supplies necessitated some compromises.

The survivors of the first expedition must have started hollowing out a hexapod king carcass. It’s powerful on its own and Doctor Jutland must have done something in order to preserve the heat organ which acts as the power reactor for the Kaius. They then augmented it with parts salvaged from other mechs in order to turn it into a controllable war machine.

"Isn’t the beast supposed to be dead for over two decades?" Captain Kaine suddenly asked, expressing the bewilderment of much of the mech pilots present in the room. "How come it hasn’t rotted to the point of becoming a useless mess?"

"That’s something for the exobiologists to explain." Ves nodded to the exobiologists who patiently remained at their seats. "I don’t have a clue how Jutland managed to stretch the longevity of the Kaius’ muscles and organs, but there’s obviously been some failures over the years. You can see in the readings that there’s a lot of gaps and places where salvaged parts have taken the place of living tissue."

"So the mech is failing?" Tregis honed in on the most important point.

"The state of the mech is fairly awful at this point." Ves stated carefully. "That doesn’t mean it’s a pushover. The design is incredibly robust. The mech designer, whoever he may be, had built it to last for years, perhaps in anticipation that a second expedition will arrive twenty-seven years later. However, the patchwork repairs over the years has not been very effective in maintaining the full capabilities of the design."

"In other words, the mech designer is dead?"

"He’s either dead or is unable to help with the maintenance and repair of the mech. Whatever the case, these repairs appear to be done by someone who is inventive, but is not an engineer. The current version of the Kaius has already drastically drifted from its original design, to the point of performing around twenty to thirty percent worse."

Captain Kaine shuddered at his words. If her hunting platoon faced the Kaius at its peak, then they would have been smacked down hard.

"This sounds promising." Commander Tregis smiled viciously. "While the Kaius represents an enormous threat to this base, we still have a chance to turn the tables on Doctor Jutland. Doctor Mellow, please report your findings on the biological aspect of the Kaius."

A prim and proper middle-aged woman with her brown hair tied in a neat bun stood up from her seat. "Our studies of the hexapod species and its various properties are still ongoing. Though we lack a direct comparison of an apex hexapod, our studies of the smaller hexapod adults allow us to extrapolate the properties of this chimera."

Doctor Mellow slowly explained her findings in a simplified way. None of the people present had a background in the biological sciences, so she skimmed over much of the details. _{fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm}

"The Kaius takes advantage of the remarkable capabilities of the heat organ, as you call it." The doctor frowned for a moment, as if she disdained the layman’s term of such a powerful example of life’s ingenuity.

"The role of this marvelous organ is first and foremost to draw in power from ambient heat and radiation. It is incredibly capable of doing so, to the point of absorbing the energy from any form of direct energy weapons with near-complete efficiency. What is even more remarkable is the role the monoexurite plays in this system. It’s part of a complex organic structure that’s compressed all of that energy into a space the size of your palm."