The Mech Touch novel Chapter 481

It didn’t take long for the commander to change his orders. Breskin issued a new set of orders that forced over half of the analysts to abandon their current investigations and begin to tackle a new one based on detecting one of many different resonance profiles.

The workload seemed daunting. With only a score of people, it would be impossible for them to manually match every signal gathered by millions of sensors scattered over Neron City with the twenty-plus resonance profiles.

The Detemen League sprinkled a lot of different sensors over the city in preparation for this operation. Once it begun, the sensors came online and gathered an enormous amount of raw observation data. It was frankly too much to work with, so the rebels mostly stored them in their databanks to be used selectively when they needed it most.

This was one of those times. They subjected almost four days worth of raw data to a signal matching program that rapidly tried to detect signals similar to the resonance profiles.

The computational load from all of this work put a huge strain on the rebel base’s processors. While the rebels gathered a substantial amount of processing power, that simply emphasized how monumental their newest search had become.

"How long will this take?" Addy frowned as she stood next to Ves.

"Could be hours. Could be days." Ves replied. "It depends on how soon we find a match. We’re currently searching from the first day of the operation when Lord Javier presumably fled with his Raphael. If there was any a time to activate his mech, that would be the moment to look for. It shouldn’t take too long to obtain a definite answer."

While others fretted and tried to contribute their own efforts into searching for a match, Ves really didn’t have anything else to do. The processors did all the grunt work, and the only thing the analysts needed to do was to make a judgement on every edge case the simulations presented to them. They rejected quite a bit of false leads this way.

Not everyone believed this investigation would bear fruit. A Vandal who sat a few seats away from Ves snorted contemptuously.

"That Javier fellow put all of his attention on evacuating from the palace. By all accounts, he fled before the rebels moved their forces to that location, so the noble never needed to fight."

"What’s your point?" Ves asked.

"His mech never pulled out all the stops. There’s no reason for us to be searching for signals that have never been transmitted!"

Ves smirked in response. "You’re wrong in that. You’re right in that the Loquacious Raphael is hard to detect if Lord Javier kept a low profile, but both the mech pilot and his mech are attention seekers. Do you really believe that Lord Javier ran his mech at the lowest settings possible?"

The man couldn’t answer that because he never analyzed Lord Javier and the Loquacious Raphael like Ves had done.

Hero mechs always made a scene wherever they went. Their ability to intimidate and inspire awe was baked into their feature set.

In the vast spectrum of mech types, hero mechs pretty much sat in the opposite dimension of stealth mechs and assassin mechs. The former sought to make a statement, while the latter sought to come and go without a whisper.

Certainly, if Lord Javier possessed some common sense, then he might have done his utmost to suppress every possible signal emanating from his mech. It was what a professional would do.

A spoiled brat on the other hand... even if Javier was a mech prodigy, some habits died hard.

Ves therefore faced the skeptic with confidence. "I’ve studied the Loquacious Raphael in detail. Did you know that when put under a small level of resonance, the rifle arm will begin to glow like a rainbow? It’s meant to distinguish the mech and force others to pay attention to it. I would bet all of my wealth on the chance that he activated this effect by default."

Resonance couldn’t be sustained forever. Besides exacting a mental toll on the mech pilot, it also wore out the resonating exotics. The level of deterioration was directly proportional to the energy level of the resonance.

As fake resonance was weaker than true resonance, the Loquacious Raphael shouldn’t be under too much strain. For a rich man like Lord Javier, the added cost of maintenance shouldn’t even register on his mind.

Thus, Ves remained confident even if others believed nothing could come out of this search.

Ves did not relax for long though. While he initially planned to take it easy and rest, he suddenly slapped himself out of his complacency. "This is the final day of the operation. As long as Lord Javier isn’t in our hands, we can still botch this up."

He needed to be more proactive and prepare for every eventuality.

Thus, Ves prepared for the event that the Loquacious Raphael would be detected. What would happen next?

"The rebels and the Vandals will send as much of their forces as they can to apprehend him. If it’s true that he’s hiding in the neighboring districts, then not a lot of mechs will arrive in time."

The major deficiency of the Detemen League was that they mostly consisted of lower-class commoners. Some of the rebel cadre came from slightly more privileged backgrounds like Commander Breskin, but most of their combat personnel belonged to the underclass.

Still, Ves found it strange that the local rebels hadn’t managed to retain a single mech pilot. He turned to Addy. "Hey, can I ask you something? Why doesn’t your group have any mechs?"

"Mech pilots have no reason to join forces with us." Addy replied simply. "House Eneqqin’s administration may appear incompetent, but when it comes to nurturing mech pilots, they are surprisingly diligent about it. Potentates are wooed from their tenth birthday, and constantly receive many benefits as they go through the academies. Once they become mech pilots, the best of them will join House Eneqqin while the worst of them will still believe that they are the best."

"A small fleet, just enough to trade with the VRF and smuggle in some goods. Room is limited aboard a ship, and we simply don’t have the capacity to bring away all of the war materiel. The most we can do is to evacuate the soldiers without most of their equipment to escape House Eneqqin’s wrath when they eventually retake control over our planet." _{frёeωebɳovel.com}