The Mech Touch

"I miss you, mommy."

"I miss you too, Kirian."

Ketis embraced the virtual projection of her son in a hug.

Meanwhile, Joshua watched on while holding their little girl in his arms. Mayra giggled as she reached out with her smaller arms towards her mother.

"I miss you as well, my darling girl."

After showering the physical projections of her two children with kisses, she continued to cuddle with them for a few minutes before Joshua gently shooed them to the side so that he could speak with his wife in earnest.

"You are almost about to reach New Constantinople VIII, right?"

"I am." Ketis confirmed. "And you have just arrived in the Arvest Lima System. How is the expeditionary fleet doing?"

"Everyone is doing fine as far as I can tell. The fighting in the border system has not broken out in earnest, so everyone still remains in high spirits. The native aliens that arrived first are continuing to receive reinforcements, though. Their numbers are continuing to swell, but they are not yet committing to an assault. This is making our strategists worried because it shows that the alien commander is patient enough to gather all of the alien forces he can before he throws them all out at once. Once the fighting starts… death will rain everywhere. Both human starfighters and mechs will take a huge beating."

Joshua clearly did not see much reason to feel as optimistic about the coming battles as the other Larkinsons. He was just a high-tier expert pilot. He was unable to prevent much of the human casualties from falling because he and the Everchanger could only do so much under their own power.

Ketis looked sympathetic. "You cannot save everyone, Joshua. This is war. Casualties are a fact of life. Only when the stakes are high does war have meaning. This is a lesson that I myself have learned recently. Do what you can within your own power, but do not forget that you are merely an expert pilot. In the battles of the past, that was enough to dominate the battlefield, but at this level of warfare, you are barely more than a footnote on the battlefield. How many mechs and starfighters are you expecting to be deployed during a major engagement?"

The expert pilot threw up his hands. "I don't know. I don't pay too much attention to all of the numbers. There should be around 100,000 starfighters and three to four times as much mechs. I get what you mean, though. A single expert mech will get drowned between all of that hardware. Only ace mechs are able to stand out and affect the battle on a large scale. If I broke through on the surface of the planet back then…"

"Don't think about that idiocy any further." His wife snarled. "You were engaged in doing something worse than what Isobel has done to herself. I know that pilots such as yourself are willing to do anything for a breakthrough, but almost killing yourself is definitely not the solution."

"Okay, okay. I won't think about it anymore. I will figure out a different way to improve my willpower." He promised.

They chatted a bit more. There was too much that Joshua could say over the galactic net. He simply did not possess a lot of information to begin with, and he was not permitted to share more up-to-date intelligence on the ongoing reorganization of the Arvest LIma System.

"I have a hunch that many mech pilots are about to break through during the upcoming fighting." Joshua softly said. "There are so many peak expert pilots in our clan. There are also many mech pilots and expert candidates who have been waiting for an opportunity to combine all of their accumulation into the upcoming battles. This is one of the first proper large-scale military actions that we are participating in. All of the prior battles amounted to short-lasting skirmishes, ambushes, raids and so on. The Larkinson Army has never been testing for anything like this. I am afraid… the men may not be able to bear the pressure."

The expert pilot heard a rumor that if the Arvest Lima System continued to remain contested for weeks on end, the Red Two would continually direct more reinforcements to this key industrial and logistical node. As much as a million mechs and starfighters may end up appearing on different parts of the battlefield at once!

What amazed Joshua even more was this would not come close to the record of the largest battle in the Red War. There were other defensive sites where even more small craft were being deployed at the same time!

"I know you want to save every pilot that enters the battlefield, but don't try to bite off more than you can chew. Just focus on taking care of the Larkinsons and our direct allies. It is not your responsibility to save everyone else. Those other pilots all understand the risks. They should look to their own brothers and sisters first if they need any assistance."

"I know, Ketis. I will try to avoid doing anything unnecessary. It is not my time yet. If I want to do more, I need to have the power to back up my ambitions."

Joshua clenched his fist as he spoke those words. He obviously grew more frustrated at his lack of strength and his inability to break through. He desired to become an ace pilot more than ever after seeing how much more Saint Tusa was able to accomplish after gaining his own Saint Kingdom.

Ketis could do little more than to say a few encouraging words. She herself had come little closer to becoming a sword saint herself, so it was not as if she could share any sage advice.

The two ended their call shortly afterwards. The two had remained in frequent contact while they remained separated, so it was not as if they had fallen out of contact for a long time.

After Ketis was left alone in her cabin aboard the courier vessel she was traveling on, she fell into a contemplative mood.

Her Bloodsinger floated in front of her, prompting Ketis to hold her greatsword by the scabbard and feel out her weapon.

"Can you feel it, Sharpie?"

"Sharpie!"

Ketis did not sense any apparent danger related to her visit to New Constantinople, but she felt restless anyway. This was a powerful indication that her life was about to change in a massive way. Ves did not summon her to his location for a trivial reason, that was for certain.

She wondered numerous times what was so important that he had to share it in person with her. None of her guesses sounded close to the truth, so she simply gave up on speculating and decided to let the situation play out without forming any preconceptions.

Ves at least shouldn't be plotting anything too dangerous or detrimental to human society. He deserved the benefit of the doubt.

Hours went by as Ketis eventually shook off her uncertainty and went back to her usual routine. There were always mechs to design, and she needed to spend several hours of her day on swordsmanship practice in order to keep her skills and body sharp.

A smile appeared on her face as she gazed at her almost complete design of the Stormblade Samurai Mark II.

Not only did she painstakingly upgrade the initial version to the Hyper Generation, she also took steps to commercialize it. This meant that she removed a lot of expensive components that were not cost-effective and replaced them with more affordable substitutes. She also changed a lot of design characteristics to make the Stormblade Samurai more universal, as the Larkinson Clan had developed a very specific set of standards for its own mechs.

The work had been surprisingly more comprehensive than she thought, but that was a good thing as the Mark II version possessed a very clear separation from the older and already outdated Mark I version.

The original Stormblade Samurai was her first successful implementation of stormblade technology. She fell in love with the tech and recognized how well they performed against transphasic energy shields.

Now, the Stormblade Samurai was poised to provide melee mech pilots with similar options. Stormblade technology was designed to be commercialized from the onset, so it was not difficult for her to adapt the tech to a true mass production model.

Aside from the technical improvements, Ketis also spent a lot of time on refining and optimizing the swordsmanship that she specifically designed to work in tandem with an electrified blade. She wanted the weapons to destabilize enemy transphasic energy shields more effectively. The effect should be great when combined with space suppressors!

As she continued to work on refining the Stormblade Samurai Mark II, she unknowingly entered a period of heightened concentration. Her mind entered into a zen-like state as she thought about how she could further enhance the effectiveness of her mech's ability to overcome the powerful alien defenses.

The original version of the Stormblade Samurai wielded their twin stormblades well enough, but she always had the feeling that there was something missing from their performance.

It was as if she was on her way to design a great mech, but stopped short at the last few steps.

What did she miss? What had she overlooked?

Although the Stormblade Samurai Mark II was already shaping up to become a good commercial offering, Ketis was not satisfied with releasing a serviceable product!

She knew that if a Journeyman like herself wanted to gain enough traction in the mech market, she needed to be a lot more creative and inventive in order to produce a unique and compelling package.

In other words, she needed to be a lot more like her mentor Ves!

The Larkinson Patriarch always managed to wow the crowd by presenting a completely new gimmick or feature. Such additions were usually so powerful or useful that it was practically assured that his work would turn into bestsellers!

If Ketis wanted to enjoy the same degree of widespread success, then she needed to take her design a step further.

She knew how Ves would react when he saw her current mech design. He would call it boring before proceeding to propose a radical change that could easily cast the mech design in a different light.

What would Ves do in this situation?

"Wait."

An idea suddenly came to mind.

She thought about his Energy Weaver Mech Ecosystem and how it had begun to produce results on a large scale after the introduction of his most recent hyper mechs.

By grouping multiple living mechs together, they were actually able to manipulate ambient E energy radiation as a collective. So long as they coordinated their efforts well enough, it was not impossible for them to produce pseudo-domain-like effects!

The reason why she became inspired by this design application was because she recognized the potential for her Stormblade Samurai II to combine their powers as well.

What if the mechs could all pool their currents together and produce a much more powerful electrical blade that could cut or annihilate through transphasic defenses much more effectively than what the mechs were able to accomplish by themselves?

"This is not going to be easy to design." She frowned.

It reminded her a lot of Ves' battle networks. The conditions that mechs and mech pilots had to meet in order to execute them were harsh, and Ketis was afraid that her potential new application would end up far too convoluted for his customers to bother with the newly introduced option.

"That means that I need to put more effort into designing this new feature."

She grew more fiery and passionate at the thought of implementing such a promising new feature into her commercial mech design.

Only by adding a killer feature to her swordsman mech would she be assured that it would catch on in the mech market!

The market was fair in that regard. No matter what, the stronger and more superior mechs always ended up getting sold in greater numbers!

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!