The Mech Touch

5984 The Strength of Mech vs Mech Pilot

The time of upgrading the Dark Zephyr drew closer.

Ves and Gloriana did not begin their work right away. They conscientiously retired for the evening and enjoyed a good night's sleep.

Once they woke up, they both regained their peak condition.

Anticipation surged in their bones as they looked forward to creating a completely different mech than they had ever worked with in the past.

Breakfast became a happy affair as Tusa took a seat next to Ves and his immediate family.

It had been a long time since the children last saw and spoke with their uncle in person, so they immediately began to chat with the expert pilot.

"Meow." Lucky rubbed his body against Tusa's arm before flying away to eat a few chunks of hypers and exotics.

"How are Doria and Giovanni doing?" Aurelia politely asked.

"My children are doing okay." Tusa smiled when he recalled their faces. "It has been hard for them to grow up without their mother in their lives, but there are so many other nice ladies over at the expeditionary fleet that they do not lack for aunties."

"Can their mother contact them while still remaining connected to the EdNet?"

"She can, but the mechers do not recommend it." The expert pilot said. "The difference in the passage of time within the EdNet and outside of it is so great that she will perceive everything we say and do in slow motion. We can use technology to compensate for that, but it will lead to long and awkward delays in conversations. There are also other psychological issues related to breaking the relative isolation between different realities. This is why we limit these contacts to a handful of times a year. The more frequently Ranya tries to connect with her children, the more she becomes disassociated with the EdNet. This will increase the load to her brain to an unacceptable level."

It was difficult for many of the Larkinsons that started their own families to endure the years-long separation with their young children.

Parents such as Ranya were making an especially difficult sacrifice by subjectively spending up to 20 years in a reality where they could not hug their children!

However, this opportunity was too precious for them to miss. They would regret it if they missed out on a free opportunity to advance to first-class professionals.

This was an especially crucial transition period for the Larkinson Clan. If they did not become first-raters by the time the clan was ready to participate in the first deep strike operations, they would lose their leadership positions as they were unable to keep up with the demands of their current positions.

It was not fair for Doria and Giovanni to grow up under these circumstances, but the Larkinsons fostered such a strong communal family atmosphere that the damage shouldn't be too great.

Ultimately, Ranya should be able to provide a lot more for her children once she returned and resumed her responsibilities as the director of the Larkinson Biotech Institute.

"You look different." Andraste said as she stared at Tusa's more worn and rugged face. "You used to look so young, but now you are beginning to look closer to grand-uncle Ark."

Tusa chuckled in a good-natured manner. "I am not a young man anymore. Everyone ages. I am no exception to this rule."

"I thought that expert pilots age slower than other people."

"That is partially true, Andraste. A stronger will and a greater obsession in one's appearance can indeed make expert pilots look younger and more pleasing, but only to an extent. I have never cared too much about my appearance. I am fine with looking older and more appropriate to my current age. I am a father, after all, though he is doing a much better job at clinging onto his youth."

"My body is much more radically altered and enhanced than yours." Ves mentioned. "I never really paid any attention to this, but now that I am looking at you, I can tell that your body is barely augmented. That is quite rare in the Larkinson Clan these days. Your wife runs an institute that is performing a lot of augmentation procedures and is becoming better at this job with each passing year."

"I became an expert pilot fairly early on. As a third-rater, I never depended on implants and genetic modification to improve my performance. Once I settled in as an expert pilot, I found plenty of ways to improve my combat skills. Diligent practice along with frequent enough combat has allowed me to become better to the point where I never felt the need to augment myself. At most, I only installed a fairly basic cranial implant so that I can improve my ability to handle tech."

The children all looked impressed at Tusa. Each of them were well aware that they were very far removed from baseline humans. They did not think it would be that difficult for them to rise to greatness, but it was different for Tusa!

"Augmentations matter less for expert pilots." Gloriana explained to her children. "One of the definitions of apotheosis is the transformation from human to a god. The mech community has adopted this word to emphasize how much expert pilots have transcended the limitations of ordinary humans. As their resonance strengths grow, they will continue to improve in many different aspects, some of which overlap with the benefits of artificial implants and gene mod templates. As long as Tusa fights well enough without relying on the advantages bestowed by augmentations, he can become just as successful as second-class and first-class mech pilots who are always augmented with very few exceptions."

"So is it possible to become a god pilot without ever making use of augmentations?" Andraste eagerly asked.

"Not always." Ves shook his head. "The less you rely on augmentations, the more you have to compensate in other areas. Talent, hard work, luck and other factors must fill up the gap. You will also have to accept the fact that there are many strong and useful benefits brought by pilot-oriented augmentations that cannot easily be replicated through other means."

Tusa seriously nodded. "He's right. I am not as precise, and my reaction speed is not actually the highest. My body cannot withstand as many shocks and cannot go without sleep for too many days. There are many useful improvements that I am missing out on. It is not all that bad, though. I am comfortable in my own skin. I don't suffer from any compatibility problems. I don't need to change my habits or diet."

"Shouldn't light mech pilots supposed to possess higher reaction speeds than others?" Andraste looked confused. "Why don't you augment your ability to react to rapid changes on the battlefield? Won't it make it easier for you to evade attacks?"

"You are not wrong, little girl, but reaction speed alone does not make for a good light mech pilot. Do I hate getting hit? Yes. Who wouldn't want to avoid harm? I pilot one of the most fragile expert mechs in the Larkinson Army. I have to pay constant attention to my movements and the actions of the enemy in order to prevent my expert mech from getting struck. Since I cannot rely on super-duper reaction speed and other superior physical traits, I have taken to relying on another strength to make sure that my Dark Zephyr remains untouched. Can you guess the answer?"

Andraste furrowed her brows for a few seconds. "Is it intuition?"

"Correct!" Tusa grinned. "The combat intuition of an expert pilot is celebrated for good reasons. It is one of our most powerful advantages as far as I am concerned. However, what not everyone knows is that intuition can be trained like a muscle. By repeatedly subjecting my Dark Zephyr to enemy fire, it is up to me to help my expert mech thread through all of the dangerous attacks. My intuition is constantly being tested to its limits each time I face enemies. When this happens often enough, my intuition has become so practiced at this that I can evade all of the attacks launched by a couple of hundred ranged mechs without putting in too much effort."

"That… that is awesome!" Marvaine exclaimed! "Intuition is so strong!"

"So out of all of the Larkinson expert pilots, you are by far the best at evading attacks?"

"Yes. I am the champion in this as far as I am concerned. I will challenge anyone else that thinks he or she can do better. My closest rival is Venerable Pedro Rodrigo. His newer and much more powerful Bloodripper is truly a fast and agile expert mech. I do not think that it is all good, though. It is exactly because the Bloodripper's mobility is so high at the start that Venerable Rodrigo isn't able to exercise his intuition as much as myself. He will never be as good as me in evasion. He is much more accustomed to letting his expert mech's tech save his hide."

"Are you suggesting that we shouldn't make our expert mechs so powerful for recent breakthroughs?" Gloriana asked with obvious concern in her voice.

"I wouldn't say that, madame. The enemies we are fighting against are much more powerful than the Fridaymen and other rabble that we faced in the past. A single direct hit from the primary cannon of an alien battleship can easily tear up a weaker expert mech. It takes years of constant training and repeated exposure to dangerous combat scenarios for me to refine my intuition to where it is today. Venerable Rodrigo doesn't have that luxury. Intuition is not the only factor that makes expert pilots strong. He can make it up in other ways."

Ves nodded in agreement at Tusa's explanation. "I agree. A stronger mech pilot can compensate for a weaker mech. A weaker mech pilot can still be saved by a stronger mech. You should never evaluate the two elements separately. Mechs and mech pilots make up for a single composite combat unit. It is not necessarily wrong to rely more on the superiority of technology than human capabilities. You just need to be careful not to take it too far. A good mech ultimately facilitates the growth of a mech pilot. It is never meant to inhibit a person's growth."

Personally, Ves valued Tusa's intuition a lot more than the alternatives. This was a trait that could never be bought or acquired by spending lots of money. The only way to improve intuition was by training and actual usage in combat.

If Tusa had learned how to anticipate and evade lots of enemy attacks while piloting a relatively weak expert light skirmisher, his ability to avoid getting hit would definitely skyrocket once he gained access to the Dark Zephyr Mark III!

Risks were proportional to the rewards. This rule applied to high-ranking mech pilots as well.

The harder they needed to work to overcome the limitations of their machines, the stronger they became in the later halves of their careers!

Of course, all of this was dependent on whether the expert pilots in question were able to survive while subjected to all of their handicaps.

Ves was glad that Venerable Tusa managed to stay alive while fighting under challenging conditions, but it could have been different.

"The upcoming version of the Dark Zephyr is ridiculously more mobile than the current version. What used to be an act that required you to dance at the edge of the knife will suddenly become as easy as walking down a flat bridge." Gloriana stated to Tusa. "I hope that once you obtain your new and improved machine, you will not let your highly trained intuition atrophy. It would be a shame for you to forget what brought you so far and become a slave to advanced technology."

The expert pilot did not take this warning lightly. "I will not let myself go like that. I won't be able to become an ace pilot with that mentality. Rest assured that I will still do my best to challenge my limits. Every light mech pilot is a daredevil in some fashion. If my mech has become a lot better at avoiding danger, then I will seek it out with much greater effort than before. From what I have learned about the new 'Dark Wind Module', I will not lack opportunities to dance at the edge of a knife once again."

That was not an understatement. Tusa and the Dark Zephyr could easily kill themselves if they failed to utilize the Dark Wind Module correctly. This risk was present even if they only fought against a single opponent!

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