The Mech Touch novel Chapter 43

When Ves returned to his hotel room, he faced two things. First, a cranky gem cat angrily yowled at him for neglecting his pet all day. Second, he received a notification from his bank account that Marcella sent him the seven million advance for his material needs.

"Sleep can wait." Ves said to himself as he activated a terminal and visited the Mech Trade Association’s online market. He already took note of all the materials he required, so after a meticulous check he put all the items in his shopping list and confirmed his purchase. The seven million bright credits vanished from his account like it never existed.

"At least I paid for express shipping. The goods should arrive by my doorstep by the time I exit from the shuttle."

As he laid down on his bed, he reflected on the tumultuous events he experienced in his trip to Bentheim. In just two days, he put his name on the map by winning second place in a side tournament of the Young Tigers Exhibition. While not as prestigious as the main event, it was nonetheless one of the best prizes a young mech designer could win in the Republic.

Not only that, he enlisted the services of a well-established mech broker. With Marcella Bollinger taking care of selling his products here in Bentheim, Ves could devote his full attention to fabricating his mechs and coming up with new designs. Still, the ripoff twenty percent commission she took out of his gross profit hurt his bottom line. Still, if she could ensure a steady volume of customers, the amount of profit he made over time could be a lot higher than if he wasted time selling the mechs in person.

"Maybe Marcella has a point. If I hire my own people, I can do my own thing and let my employees take care of all the annoying stuff."

Naturally, that was something to consider once his business got up and going. For now, his mech boutique was so small scale that any employee he hired now would just be sitting on his thumbs.

After taking a long and deep sleep, Ves woke up a little late. It barely left him time to shower and pack up his luggage. He was barely able to grab a quick sandwich before Captain Gillian hustled him together with the other contestants to the spaceport.

This time, the crowd of mech pilots regarded him with a different attitude. Some looked impressed by his accomplishments. Others were puzzled why a talent like him settled down in the hinterlands of the Republic.

In any case, Ves knew he’d be stared at like this for quite a while. Of all the graduates who participated in the YTE, only he achieved the best results. The next best pilot only barely managed to scrape into the top fifty.

Ves wanted to focus on his upcoming fabrication project, so he fobbed off most attempts by the mech pilots to spark up a friendship. It wasn’t that he appreciated new friends, but he simply didn’t have the time.

Just after the shuttle flew up and escaped Bentheim’s gravity, he was already pulling up his comm and making a detailed flowchart of his fabrication process. His slapdash way of fabrication might work with Iron Spirit’s modern 3D printer and assembler, but his equipment in the real universe faced a lot more constraints. It might take only one wrong setting to ruin a component worth a million credits. So it paid to be prudent.

He also applied for a production license of the festive cloud generator while he was at it. As one of the two only non-native components of the Marc Antony, Ves couldn’t produce it with the MTA’s approval if he hadn’t applied. Fortunately, as the component was more of a joke than anything else, Ves only had to part with a hundred thousand credits to get a 10-year production license for the decorative part. His cash reserves instantly halved.

The space shuttle leisurely fell behind a spacious queue towards their designated Lagrange point. The heavy traffic to and from Bentheim caused these Lagrange points to be congested, though that was only a relative term considering the vastness of space. Still, only a limited amount of ships were able to depart at the same time without disturbing the local spacetime too much, so each ship had to queue up and wait in line.

When their turn finally came, everyone paused what they were doing and prepared for the FTL transition. The shuttle vibrated a little before the green light was given. No problems occurred when the passenger shuttle engaged its FTL drive.

The return trip took longer to arrive back at Cloudy Curtain. Bentheim’s favorable gravity currents allowed all ships travelling towards the port system to cut back on their travelling time. It provided no advantages when ships departed the system and travelled to a non-port system. Thus, it took about one-and-a-half very precious days off his timetable when the shuttle finally arrived at the edge of Cloudy Curtain’s star system.

The slow, in-system burn from the edge of the system to its interior took up some time as well. Everyone else just relaxed and ate their provided meals, visited the toilets or leaned back their seats in order to take a nap. Only Ves was fidgeting while working on his planning. He went over the same scheme over and over until he forced himself to take a nap.

When the shuttle finally reached the surface, Ves thanked the heavens and disentangled himself from the others as fast as he could. With only a hasty goodbye to Captain Gillian, Ves ordered a priority taxi and zipped back to the outskirts where his workshop beckoned him home.

"Home sweet home." Ves said with relief. Lucky echoed his thoughts as he scurried all the way back to his favorite perch on his couch.

"Let’s see if they delivered the goods already."

Ves spent a substantial amount of credits fast-tracking his material goods shipments from Bentheim directly to Cloudy Curtain. When he exited into his backyard and entered the cordoned off area meant for aerial deliveries, he encountered five stacks of freshly containers. As he personally opened each container and confirmed its contents, he smiled for the first time in days.

"I’ve got everything I need now to begin fabrication."

Marcella even sent him a brief message when he was still on the shuttle. She believed she found a customer for his variant, but the negotiations dragged on. The customer wanted to squeeze as much benefits he could out of his order, so Marcella wanted to slow things down in order to make it appear they weren’t willing to go too low.

Glad that the marketing was taken care of, Ves was just about to start fabricating when he forgot about one very important detail.

"I haven’t started up the Mech Designer System in almost a week. I wonder what it thinks about what I’ve experienced. At least it should give me a reward for taking second place in the Fusion Cup, right?"

Though not entirely sure, Ves booted up the program resting peacefully in his comm. With trepidation, he waited as the loading screen filled up and a familiar menu popped up. The System was back in action.

"Hey System. Did you miss me?"

[Welcome User. You have two impending messages waiting for your perusal. Do you wish to display them?]

"Yes. Gimme my rewards." Ves already rubbed his hands thinking of all the goodies the System might reward him for his great performance.

[You have assembled an original mech design out of a selection of pre-prepared components.]

[Design Evaluation: Drake.]

Model name: Drake

Original Manufacturer: Ves Larkinson

Weight Classification: Medium

Recommended Role: Jump Trooper

Armor: B-

Carrying Capacity: C

Aesthetics: C+

Endurance: C

Energy Efficiency: E+

Flexibility: D

Firepower: B-

Integrity: F+

Mobility: B+

Spotting: C

X-Factor: E-

Cost efficiency: A

Project involvement: 75%

Original component composition: 0%

Overall evaluation: A shoddy mech compared to genuine models, it nevertheless fulfilled its purpose. Put together out of standard pre-assembled components, the Drake is a remarkably cost efficient if it is produced in a large scale. However, its lacking integrity and energy efficiency prevents this model from outperforming any other budget model.

[You have received 1000 Design Points for completing an original design that has no other equivalent.]

[You have received 100 Design Points for designing a mech with a trace of X-Factor.]

"A thousand points." Besides the welcome package, it was the most generous reward the System had ever given him for a single objective. It also indicated that the System appreciated original designs more than variants. "There isn’t anything else?"

[Your design does not fulfill the requirements to earn additional rewards. Please work more diligently in improving the core foundations of your next original design.]

In other words, the System disdained his cheap and trashy design. "You know I only had less than one day to whip up this mech, right? I did a decent job considering I was working with severely outdated parts."

The System acted a if his words were passing clouds and continued on with the updates.

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