The Mech Touch novel Chapter 213

By the time the Barracuda finally landed at Cloudy Curtain’s spaceport, he just released the DarkSpear. The storm this model unleashed in the local virtual community still required some time to come into fruition.

At this time, Ves mostly concerned himself with logistics. The new equipment he ordered from Leemar had been loaded in a jumbo transport ship that still took a few more weeks to arrive in Bentheim. The shipment had been delayed due to the need to adhere to the schedule of fixed convoy routes.

Naturally, the shipping services passed on the costs to their customers.

"Business keeps getting more inconvenient." Ves shook his head.

The Rimward Star Herald and all the other news portals had been hammering their subscribers with dire predictions about the state of the economy. The first major businesses that had been hanging on for years had already been tipped over into bankruptcy procedures due to the ongoing rise in costs.

Fortunately, his Living Mech Corporation only operated for about a year. It hadn’t developed long enough to develop the massive overhead that older companies usually ended up with. He paid more for security than any other non-production expenses such as payroll, taxes and interest payments.

Ves hoped to change that over time when he finally expanded his workshop’s production capacity. While he still had to wait for his alloy compressor and CTM, with the hacked processors in his possession he could finally put the finishing touches on the reconstructed Dortmund printer.

He already looked forward to working with an industrial printer. Ves already had a taste of it when he worked with the stellar machines in Master Olson’s Apprentice Workshop. If the Dortmund printer worked as advertised, then Ves could expect to speed up his fabrication phase by as much as seventy-five percent!

In particular, the Dortmund massively sped up the fabrication of uncompressed armor plating. Its increased speed and precision allowed Ves and any other fabricator like Carlos to automate the fabrication of any component up to a certain level of complexity without any worry.

The Dortmund could even fabricate more advanced processors that his current printer couldn’t handle. Actually, the mini printer collecting dust in the Barracuda’s workshop possessed even more capabilities in this regard, though it needed a lot of time to fabricate a single chip.

Once Ves disembarked from his corvette with Melkor and Lucky, a small fleet of shuttles from Sanyal-Ablin awaited his presence.

"Sir, please enter the center shuttle."

They boarded the only shuttle with the hatch left open. Once they secured themselves into the seats, the entire arrangement started to move. Even a casual trip from Orinoco to Freslin required an armed escort these days. Ves lamented the necessity of it all and the extra charges he’d receive from Sanyal-Ablin.

"The mercenaries and the security companies must be making a killing these days."

"It’s not without reason." Melkor commented. "The security industry is able to deter most threats by brandishing their superior gear. Even then, the occasional clashes result in a lot of wear and tear. It takes a massive amount of money to keep their assets functional."

The smaller mercenary corps had a particularly rough time trying to keep afloat. A single ruinous battle could result in massive repair bills that ruined their financial outlook.

"Did you enjoy your stay at Abelard?" Ves asked, changing the topic. "I can imagine the standard for mech pilots is a lot higher in Coalition space."

"It’s actually not too far apart. Abelard employs a lot more simulations as well as real mechs so they can insure that every graduate will at least reach the level of advanced pilot. However, even then they can’t insure that any of them will advance into expert pilots."

Normal mech pilots made up the rank-and-file that usually ended up piloting frontline mechs. Advanced pilots received better treatment due to their ability to bring out the full strength of standard humanoid or animal mechs.

Yet even then, a state wouldn’t shed a tear if they lost them by the thousands in a single battle. As long as a state had sufficient time, they could replenish such pilots with relative ease.

Only when a pilot advanced to the rank of expert pilot did they truly become elite. Even the extended Larkinson Family only boasted of a couple of expert pilots, almost all of whom retired due to old age or injury.

His grandfather Benjamin happened to be one of them, and used the respect afforded to him to transition into a career in the Ministry of Defense. Even Rittersberg’s career politicians had to sit up and pay attention to a former expert pilot. _{freeωebnovēl.c૦m}

"How far are you from reaching this rank?"

Melkor chuckled at his question. "You have no idea how difficult it is to achieve a breakthrough. What I’ve learned at Abelard has made it even clearer to me how much of a gap I still have have close."

"So even second-rate states have difficulty training expert pilots."

"They have more options. Their standard training doesn’t produce much better results, but as long as they’re willing to allocate unlimited resources to training a couple of important scions, they’ll be able to reach the necessary standard by force. Even then, there are several shortcomings, as they often have shaky foundations. The bad habits they haven’t corrected will become critical weaknesses at that point."

Ves didn’t fully understand what it meant to be an expert pilot, much as Melkor didn’t understand the ranks of mech designers. If Ves ever wanted to move up to designing elite mechs, he had to learn what made expert pilots so rare and valuable. Fortunately, Ves had plenty of time before he reached that point.

First, he had to take care of his more immediate concerns. Once his guarded shuttle arrived at the landing pad inside his workshop’s premises, he hopped out with a spring and entered his familiar abode. Carlos already waited for him at the entrance.

"Good to see you here!"

"I’m back now. How’s the workshop while I was gone?"

"Nothing really comes to mind. I’ve already told you everything you needed to know from the reports. The main thing that’s really bad for business is that the costs of raw materials is continuing to rise. Right now, the total cost of production has ballooned to 20 million credits."