The Mech Touch novel Chapter 642

"Still.. With great risk comes great reward. What If I turn this equation around?"

Another way of looking at this risky opportunity was that Ves held the key to the Skull Architect’s lifelong obsession!

If Ves wielded his absolute advantage in this poorly understood field with finesse, then he might be able to extract a lot of concessions from the Skull Architect!

As an influential mech designer in a region of space where Masters didn’t exist and capable mech designers were in short supply, the Skull Architect should be one of the region’s peak characters.

Gaining access to this channel should be a boon to him. It added another contingency option to him should his other channels prove to be useless. Forming a relationship, however faint, to the Skull Architect would enable him to establish a foothold in the frontier.

He needed to be exceptionally cautious, of course, and it wasn’t a given that he could arouse the Skull Architect’s interest. Ves had to balance between offering something of interest while keeping suspicions to a minimum.

While Ves contemplated his this thorny issue, elsewhere various people gathered.

In the secured conference room aboard the Shield of Hispania, a small gathering of Vandals and Swordmaidens held their breaths as their leaders brought out a number of hand-sized encrypted data chips from a locked container.

For some reason, Lord Javier of House Eneqqin was there as well. The lone Vesian noble’s presence should have been a cause for alarm, but right now it appeared he had shed his shackles entirely.

"Hurry up and place them together." He impatiently urged. "I want to see what all the fuss is about!"

Major Verle and Commander Lydia placed each of them onto the table in a certain way. Each data chip was shaped like a pie slice with a truncated tip. A magnetic force slotted them next to each other, forming a bagel-like circle that hummed as if hidden mechanisms roused themselves from sleep.

The Flagrant Vandals contributed five encrypted data chips, while Lydia’s Swordmaidens surprisingly brought out six of them! The Vandals labored so long to gather this much data chips, yet the Swordmaidens seem to get their hands on them without too much issue!

Certain goods were much easier to obtain in the frontier than in civilized space!

"Something is happening."

Glowing purple lines emanated from the circle of data chips. Strange digital sounds beeped from the amalgamation, and suddenly the seams between the stupendously resilient housing of the data chips started to melt and fuse together!

They had tested the durability of the external housing, and according to their estimations, it was strong enough to survive a supernova! Yet now it easily gave way to each other!

It was as if this device had once been whole. The appearance of the fused circular object radiated a sense of completion, enchanting everyone present in this meeting. After a couple of seconds of internal adjustments, a projection sprang into being from the circular object.

"What is this?" Mayra asked with furrowed brows.

Lieutenant Commander Soapstone gestured for calm. "Be patient. The projection may be in a transition state. We have no way of knowing what advanced technology is at work here."

"Whatever is going on, that sure as hell doesn’t look like a star chart." Lord Javier said with a sardonic smile. "Maybe it’s a giant middle finger from the Starlight Megalodon."

Major Verle furrowed. After all their efforts into gathering eleven encrypted data chips, they did not appreciate any pranks.

The projection cycled through incomprehensible geometric shapes. Perhaps they formed lines of codes, perhaps they could only be interpreted through math, but whatever the case, nobody present understood a single piece of what was being projected.

Finally, the stream of shapes and symbols disappeared. What emerged out of the fused object was a single shape whose meaning was clear to everyone.

"It’s an arrow." Lord Javier stated the obvious. "Where is it pointed at?" _{freewebnoveℓ.com}

"It’s pointed towards the frontier." Commander Lydia stated. "This isn’t a star chart. It’s a star compass!"

The Vesian noble snorted. "For a compass, it’s rather wobbly. Did you bump the data chips around or something?"

"The only other answers are that the location is in flux, or that the shaking is intentional." Captain Rakeshir said.

Everyone took in the implications of these possibilities. The crashed battleship didn’t make their hunt any easier!

Eventually, Major Verle sighed. "The purpose of this star compass is clear. We need to bring to follow its direction and bring it closer to the coordinates of the Starlight Megalodon."

At this point, if the people present recorded the wobbly arrow and extrapolated the direction it pointed at, it would have included an expanding cone of space that was roughly two degrees wide!

A cone of two degrees didn’t sound very much if the compass pointed at something a couple of meters away. It was sufficient to pick out a single person out of a small crowd of people.