The Mech Touch

"The Red Fleet does not like to work with uncertainty." Sigrund explained to Ves. "What you did to the Dominion of Man back then violates all sorts of rules. Fleet Admiral Argile may have decided to put his faith in you, but what he did was ultimately an exception to the rules. We do not have it easy such as mech designers like yourself. You can freely experiment and take calculated risks as the price of failure typically only affects a single mech and possibly a mech pilot. If we conduct an experimental process onto a dreadnought, any catastrophic failure will affect a priceless warship, all of the crew members who are stationed on it and the rest of the Red Fleet that relies on the great vessel's might to fulfill demanding missions that can otherwise only be handled by god mechs."

Now that the fleeter officer put it this way, Ves understood a lot more clearly why the Red Fleet felt reluctant to let another dreadnought undergo a similar transformation as the Dominion of Man.

If anything serious went wrong, the Red Fleet would not only lose one of its 8 irreplaceable dreadnoughts, but also fail to meet all of its obligations during the Red War. The devastating loss of strength would cause more frontlines to collapse and more fortified star systems to fall.

The aliens would gain a lot of momentum as they suffered less losses and were able to deploy more forces to other beleaguered star systems.

At worst, the loss of a critical dreadnought may ultimately lead to the fall of red humanity!

"I see." Ves responded. "I suppose the RF is already feeling pretty nervous due to the Red Cabal managing to put the Dominion of Man out of play."

Captain Zonrad Reze grimly nodded. "I cannot tell you how damaging it is for our most powerful dreadnought to remain missing all of this time. Many of us were counting on her to prove that warships have come back and that our one and only god ship is able to perform just as well as an actual god mech."

"If she is playing such a critical role, then why did you guys transfer her to Bridgehead One in the first place?"

"The Red Two obtained valuable clues that the native aliens were plotting to destroy the greater beyonder gate. In order to minimize the chances that a sudden alien incursion would fulfill this objective, both the RA and the RF decided to bolster the defenses of the star system. One of the requirements of this plan is to do so as discreetly as possible. The less movements, the better. The mechers chose to dispatch the First Flame, as he is arguably the most powerful god pilot and also a proven ancient phase whale killer. We on the other hand chose to dispatch the Dominion of Man, both because she is far more powerful than our other dreadnoughts, but also because she has remained out of sight during all of this time."

Ever since the Dominion of Man had turned into an unprecedented god ship, the fleeters took her to a secret location in order to study the hell out of her miraculous transformation.

The fact that she remained out of the public eye all of this time turned into an advantage as very few people would be able to track her subsequent movements.

Sneaking her into Bridgehead One was an excellent way to quietly reinforce the critical star system!

As long as the fleeters did a good enough job at it, neither the native aliens nor the cosmopolitans would find out that the star system they had designed upon was actually a lot harder to attack than they initially thought!

To Ves, this was actually pretty good news, as the defenders stood a much better chance of preserving the crucial greater beyonder gate.

Of course, Ves doubted that the addition of the dreadnought in Bridgehead One could help that much in trying to break the spacetime bubble. The amount of brute force required to break this system-wide anomaly far exceeded the energy generated by Furia!

As far as Ves was concerned, the removal of the Dominion of Man from the board not only disadvantaged the Red Fleet.

It also damaged his own interests, as the fleeters were much less reluctant to transform their other dreadnoughts.

They were only down to 7 massive hulls. If one of them became indisposed for just a few months, the consequences to the war effort would definitely be severe!

Then again, the successful transformation of one of the dreadnoughts into a god ship could do wonders in relieving the pressure on the frontlines. It was equivalent to adding another god mech to red humanity's defensive lineup.

If Ves was put in the position of the Red Fleet, he would have been more than willing to take this gamble.

The Red Admiralty disagreed. They did not dare to engage in an exceedingly bet where they could obtain a slight to moderate advantage if they won, but potentially lose everything if they lost!

Not even a friendly supporter like Fleet Admiral Stanley Argile dared to make such a risky decision, especially now that the fleeters understood much more clearly how exactly they put their valuable dreadnoughts at risk this time.

The horrendous lightning tribulation attracted by the Dominion of Man had almost destroyed the dreadnought at numerous points!

The intervention of the Subjugation King turned out to be a mixed blessing. Though the god king directly weakened the lightning tribulation to the point of draining the immense energies reserved for the ninth and most devastating round of tribulation challenges, a tribulation event controlled by one of the most powerful beings of Messier 87 still tested the Dominion of Man beyond her limits.

Ves did not know if a second dreadnought would be able to make it through the krelion god king's tests the next time, especially now that the alien powerhouse had enough time to process the Dominion of Man's performance and figure out more appropriate counters against such a vessel!

Ironically, it would be even worse if the Subjugation King decided to skip out. That would mean that the transformation of a second dreadnought would undoubtedly attract a full 81-strike multi-modal lightning tribulation which was feared for raining down devastating power at the last round of 9 strikes!

Ves believed that the fleeters understood these dangers as well, hence why they wanted to gather as much data as possible to better prep a second dreadnought against the potential dangers.

The fact that the Dominion of Man did not attract this final round made this endeavor a lot more troublesome. The fleeters had no solid data to base their calculations around. They could only rely on dubious theories and imprecise extrapolations to roughly estimate how much power their best warships needed to withstand.

All in all, this priority became so clouded with uncertainty that it had become far too irresponsible to go through with all of this craziness!

"So…" Ves trailed for a moment. "Does that mean that everything stops? Are you fleeters really going to abandon any attempt at obtaining a second god ship?"

"I cannot truly say." The RF captain sighed. "I am not part of that decision-making circle. My rank is too low to have any say on this matter. The reason why I know this much is because I am your liaison. The most I can do is to pass on your words to the Red Admiralty. Can you present me with an argument that sounds convincing enough to make the admirals reconsider?"

"No. Not really." He frowned.

Ves could think of one potential development that might make the high-and-mighty admirals alarmed about their superorganization.

The Starfighter Corps that the Red Fleet pinned a lot of hopes on was a pretty sensible initiative. If it worked as promised, it would provide a lot of substitutes for mechs that could be fielded in much greater numbers at a very low resource and manpower cost.

Yet what would happen if he could finally unveil the Swarm Project to the public?

Norms would suddenly have another option if they wanted to experience action in the cockpit of a small and maneuverable craft!

Given how much mechs had played a dominant role in human culture for the last four centuries, Ves truly couldn't imagine how people would prefer to pilot starfighters over Carmine mechs.

Perhaps only the wannabe fleeters and hardcore haters of mechs would opt to join the Starfighter Corps, but these were such tiny fringe groups in today's society that their influence amounted to nothing!

Ves was not sure how much the Red Admiralty knew about Carmine mechs and the Carmine System.

Just because they possessed a dreadnought that had gained the benefits of the Carmine System did not necessarily mean they understood how it was actually supposed to work in mechs!

It was pretty impressive of the Survivalists and the Transhumanists if they successfully managed to keep the essence of Carmine mechs a secret from the fleeters.

The mechers had always been a lot more avid towards monitoring and spying their fellow humans.

It went all the way back to the original division of responsibilities between the Mech Trade Association and the Common Fleet Alliance.

Although the two organizations did not entirely stick to their own domains, the Big Two had made a general agreement for the mechers to focus on internal threats while the fleeters turned their attention to external threats.

This caused the fleeters to remain a lot more detached from human society. Their purposeful isolationism did not help matters either. They were leagues behind the mechers when it came to uncovering secrets from other human powers!

Since the fleeters were so incompetent at spying, should Ves take the initiative to expose a few key details about the Carmine System to Sigrund?

Ves predicted that it would certainly light a fire among the admirals.

However… the Red Fleet was already incredibly busy at the moment. Ves did not want to add another distraction to their plate when they were already burdened with trying to prop up the frontlines.

Besides, it was not his turn to disclose information about the Carmine System. He may have invented it, but the Survivalists and the Transhumanists had taken effective control over the political and societal aspects of this groundbreaking innovation.

"It is okay." Sigrund ignorantly said. "The Red Admiralty still believes that maintaining the status quo may be enough to hold the line. New developments are in the works that may allow us to push back the aliens without resorting to dangerous gambles. If the admirals have misjudged the situation, then they can always dig up old plans and reconsider the wisdom of taking you up on your offer."

"Maybe they will come to me sooner than you think." Ves cryptically said as he tried his best not to place his elbows on the desk and steeple his fingers in front of his head like a classic villain. "So is there anything else I can do for the fleeters?"

"Nothing urgent comes to the top of my head. I do have to mention that there are a number of proposals related to the Red Collective that the Red Fleet prefers to gain your support. We would owe you a favor or two if you can be more sympathetic or accommodating towards our specific demands."

Ves pressed his lips. "I am willing to listen to you, but that does not oblige me to respond in any way. I might not have asked to become the deputy chief councilor, but now that I am thrust onto this seat, I won't dishonor it by violating my duties."

"Oh, we do not expect you to take specific action. We only wish for you to consider our arguments and weigh them over an ample amount of time. The sessions are too short for you to obtain a clear understanding of the pros and cons of our ideas."

"If that is the case, then that's fine. Let's hear it then, captain."

"Oh, we do not expect you to take specific action. We only wish for you to consider our arguments and weigh them over an ample amount of time. The sessions are too short for you to obtain a clear understanding of the pros and cons of our ideas."

"If that is the case, then that's fine. Let's hear it then, captain."

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