The Mech Touch novel Chapter 479

Some time later, Ves sat behind a terminal in the data center. More than two-dozen other rebels or Vandals performed their own tasks behind their own terminals in the partially enclosed space.

The hunt for Lord Javier continued. The rebels needed everyone they could spare to follow up on suspicious footage and anomalous signals. They had accumulated a vast amount of observation data, but possessed too few means to process them all in a timely fashion.

Thus, the need for Lieutenant Burke and some of her more computer-adept Vandals to check through mounds of data, just to obtain a tiny clue about the noble’s whereabouts.

The manhunt for Lord Javier certainly took a toll on everyone. Forget about the Flagrant Vandals, the Detemen League which staked their all in taking down the man was nowhere close to pinning his location.

Addy explained the dire necessity of capturing Lord Javier to Ves at the end of the briefing. "Our rebellion is fighting against the Vesian way of governance. Many fellow rebel groups based throughout the Kingdom is paying attention to what is happening here. We’ve loudly proclaimed that we intend to take Lord Javier down. To that end, we’ve taken advantage of a so-called pirate attack and we are even working in concert with Brighters such as you. After so many sacrifices, failure will finish the Detemen League."

In other words, the Detemen League wanted to redeem the deaths and chaos that ensued in these chaotic days by taking down their most hated tyrant. As long as Lord Javier died in their hands, the public would willingly if grudgingly accept the enormous damage done to their planet.

Of course, Ves did not quite think that such a trade was worthwhile. Having roamed the streets of Neron City in person, the devastation was much more extensive and ruinous than the rebels initially thought.

Still, no matter how much the citizens suffered, the Detemen League were already riding the back of a tiger. They couldn’t get off at this point without being savaged.

"This entire operation is stupid. Too much hinges on hope and desperation."

What irked Ves the most was that the Flagrant Vandals made overly rosy projections. Every single step of the plan was met with delays or setbacks. The original timetable for this operation no longer applied, and Ves got the feeling that most of the Vandals did whatever they thought was best right now.

Ves truly wanted to applaud Lord Javier for being such a decisive coward. Loathsome he may be, merely by going into hiding, he ruined most of the plans by the rebels and the Vandals. As long as Lord Javier remained out of reach, he would be able to destroy the foundations of both the Detemen League and the Flagrant Vandals.

Compared to letting half his planet burn, the little bastard probably thought the price would be worth the suffering.

Who was Ves kidding. Only the citizens suffered while Lord Javier leaned back and drank champagne or something.

"He needs to be taken down a notch."

What Lord Javier did in his own territory didn’t matter too much to Ves. He sympathised with the righteousness of the rebel cause, but as a Brighter he preferred it if the Kingdom was plunged into turmoil. Perhaps if every Vesian planet rioted, then the Mech Legion wouldn’t be pounding so aggressively on the Bright Republic’s gates.

"Well, let’s get back to my job. How will I be able to find the Loquacious Raphael?"

The rebels gathered a decent amount of surface intelligence on the Raphael. While they hadn’t been able to get their hands on the juiciest files such as its design schematics or its spec sheet, they did get their hands on Constantine Reeve’s maintenance instructions.

A highly advanced mech was a lot harder to maintain than a run-of-the-mill mech. Replacement parts consisted of difficult to work with alloys and needed to be reproduced to an exact degree in order to repair an advanced mech.

From the maintenance instructions that Reeve provided to Lord Javier, only the lesser components of the Raphael should be reproduced at home. For the more sophisticated components such as the power reactor and engine, Lord Javier had to request a replacement from Reeve’s mech company.

"That’s a shame."

From what Ves determined from the intelligence on the Loquacious Raphael, much of its fake resonance revolved around its powerful energy reactor. Without any schematics, descriptions or images of the hero mech’s reactor, Ves had nothing to base his starting point on. He needed to fill the gaps with his imagination in order to progress.

"Okay, since the energy reactor is a black box, what about its lesser components?"

Ves quickly turned his attention to the arms. The asymmetrical arms incorporated a lot of sophisticated systems depending on what weapons they wielded. However, their propensity for damage and manageable complexity led Mr. Reeve to delegate the maintenance and repair to House Eneqqin’s mech technicians. The arms didn’t need to be reproduced in the most advanced fabrication environment. Just a normal premium production line would do.

The arms played an important role for the Loquacious Raphael. The effects of the fake resonance needed to be channeled from the power reactor in the torso to the weapons held in the hands. This demanded special channels to be run through from the base of the arms to the tips of the fingers.

The only problem was that Ves didn’t immediately spot these so-called channels. He looked at the maintenance schematics of the sword arm and rifle arm but couldn’t spot any obvious section which served as resonance channels.

It was like staring at a bundle of identical ropes. How could he determine the one that behaved differently from the norm when he had never seen them in action?

"These files are woefully incomplete."

It quickly became clear to him that the rebels hadn’t managed to snag the complete set of maintenance documents. They only nabbed the most relevant documents to maintain the Loquacious Raphael on a day-to-day basis. Ves didn’t have access to the documents related to the more substantial repairs.

"Is it even possible for me to make any progress at this point?"