The Mech Touch novel Chapter 241

Their stay in Cava City came to an end. Ves, Raella and Lucky boarded the Nautilus of the Deep with memorable moments of their stay.

"The play is fun and all, but I don’t get why it’s so highly rated."

"With parodies, you have to look underneath the surface to get the message." Ves responded to Raella. "Have you noticed how the humans appeared more dimwitted than the aliens in the performance? My take on the play is that if humans for whatever reason lose their drive for war, they’ll eventually turn into harmless monkeys who are only good for comic relief."

"Hah! As if that will ever happen. Too much blood has been shed for us to go all lovey dovey all of a sudden."

"You never know if the prevailing winds will change. There’s always a portion in our society who are advocating for peace and understanding."

"That sounds pretty bad for you. Without all the fighting, who’s going to buy your mechs?"

Who would buy his mechs indeed, Ves thought. For better or worse, the mech industry depended on the continuation of humanity’s thriving martial culture. The amount of mechs that got wrecked and needed to be replaced in the Komodo Star Sector reached an astounding sum.

"Did you enjoy the holiday?" Ves asked.

"Well, it’s not an adventure, but it’s okay. Moira’s Paradise is so different, it’s like the people here are aliens. I don’t get their fascination for living under a fragile dome all year long. The moment it cracks, all of that water will come crashing down on their heads! I’d rather live underneath the open sky."

Ves enjoyed the holiday as well. Besides the inspiration he received, it also felt refreshing to forget about his job, if only for a couple of days.

After the Nautilus returned to the surface, a large number of passengers departed the luxurious cruise ship. Ves and his entourage spent a short time on the artificial island before boarding the Barracuda.

"Back to Cloudy Curtain?" Captain Silvestra asked.

"Yup. Take your time, you don’t have to hurry."

Before he returned to his workshop, Ves intended to do some market research as a final preparation for his draft design. While he could start to draft a design right now, he risked a disappointing reception if he disregarded the demands of the market.

"What do people in the Republic want from a knight mech?"

Ves already read up on the subject. Marcella had been very helpful in sharing some of her market research and industry reports. To make the long story short, the private market mainly geared up for a brutal slog against the Vesians.

Everyone expected the upcoming war to proceed in the same vein as the previous conflicts between the two rival states. The Bright Republic would be put on the defensive while the highly motivated Vesians did their best to break through.

The irreconcilable hatred between the Vesians and the Brighters ensured the war could drag on for up to five years or more. The mercenaries and company security forces that made up the bulk of the private market demanded robust designs that could potentially last them the entire war.

This fell into his niche, as his phoenix concept centered around extending the life cycle of his upcoming design. Still, his knight needed something more in order to distinguish his product from the masses.

Ves took inspiration of the late Jackknife Jake. While his dauntless personality made a profound impression in his mind, he also admired the semi-modular nature of his fish mech. To design a mech that continued to function bereft of most of its surface components took a lot of guts and skill.

He wanted to adopt such a feature into his own design to complement its undying nature, but practical concerns prevented him from going through with this idea.

"It’s a lot easier to pull this off in the water than on land. The diminished form will have to come with its own miniature engine and power source, as well as a form of mobility."

Such demands took up too much space to make the concept feasible with the means at hand. Nesting mechs like the fish mech became more prevalent in the galactic center, where superior technology and materials brought about significant gains in performance while requiring relatively little space.

He turned his newly invigorated imagination in another direction. What do mech pilots want in their knight mechs? Ves poured into his research materials to look up the answer.

Ves spotted a tiny detail hidden beneath the personal testimonies. Besides the usual demands for power, armor and speed, the mech pilots wanted to own a mech that could dig.

He played a clip of an interview with a veteran mercenary pilot.

"How often did you find yourself huddled underneath the ground?"

"More often than I liked. The noble armies of the Vesians generally consists of a hodgepodge of designs, but one thing that’s very consistent is that they bring lots of artillery, particularly missiles. They ship them in by the bulk and fire off their entire magazines in our direction to soften us up. Sometimes, the Vesians don’t even care if they don’t hit anything, because the bombardment has already frayed our nerves."

"If you know that they will be throwing missiles at you, why not prepare a portable bombardment shelter?"

"Those things work well, but they’re only good for a single time. The cheaper ones weigh a lot so it’s a massive pain to lug them around. The more expensive ones don’t last long enough to pay for their expenses. It’s better to take advantage of the natural soil around us and put a lot of earth between your mech and the missiles raining down in your sector."

"What about bringing in a digger module?"

"Are you kidding? Those things take up even more space, and they’re finicky as hell! No, forget about those stupid gadgets. The only thing I need is an old-fashioned spade."

The veteran proceeded to detail the intricacies of digging a makeshift shelter. Different planets and climates led to different soil conditions. It took a lot of technique to dig out a semi-enclosed trench in a reasonable amount of time.