The Mech Touch

Ves and Gloriana specifically cleared their schedule in the following few days so that they could devote enough time on the Dark Zephyr.

As the first ace mech of the Larkinson Clan, the machine held great significance to the Miracle Couple. The Dark Zephyr received a lot of experimental design applications. Neither Ves nor Gloriana had been entirely certain that their solutions would work out as anticipated.

Now that a bit of time had passed since the birth of the current version of the ace mech, the two Seniors expected to gather a lot of useful data from the lightly used machine.

The first-class ace light skirmisher had gone through multiple major battles. The Dark Zephyr had fought against both lesser and greater phase lords, destroyed a multitude of alien capital ships and eliminated thousands of alien phasefighters.

The Dark Zephyr did all of that while getting targeted by lots of enemies. Though his Solus Gas integration made it a lot harder for enemy systems to target the elusive machine, the machine still incurred plenty of hits in a time when the 3rd defensive band increasingly crumbled apart.

Fortunately, the Dark Zephyr managed to resist most of the damage by relying on a combination of a Saint Kingdom, an azure energy shield and a physical frame that was strengthened by archetech.

None of the damage managed to inflict any critical damage onto the ace light skirmisher. The Dark Zephyr owed much to Saint Tusa's skills as well as the pilot's strong determination to keep his machine as untouchable as possible.

Though it would have been an interesting challenge for Ves and Gloriana to examine and learn about how the Dark Zephyr performed in a much more degraded condition, neither of them could stand the thought of their precious creation incurring so much damage.

The pair of mech designers had begun to activate their diagnostic tools and scanning tools.

They quickly found out that the Dark Zephyr's mech frame resisted most of the attempts to scan his interior.

"All of the Solus Gas particles integrated into the mech frame is turning this step into a nightmare!" Gloriana complained. "Our only effective means of deep scanning the interior of the Dark Zephyr is to disassemble his mech frame. That will add so much more work to our schedule. We will have to skip sleep in order to remain on schedule."

"Then let us do that." Ves said. "Examining this mech is important. We can't plan out any quick improvements if we do not possess a full overview of the current state of our pride and joy."

That was how they ended up partially disassembling the Dark Zephyr.

Naturally, there was no need to break the ace mech down into his individual components entirely. That took too much time and may actually kill the living mech. They just peeled off a lot of exterior plating and archemetal components so that they could get a good enough glimpse of the internals.

It was important for the pair to observe every corner of the ace light skirmisher because Master Benedict Cortez was the last mech designer to work on the machine.

As much as the two Larkinson mech designers trusted their older and much more experienced friend and business partner, it was always a good idea to verify the work done by another party.

So far, neither Ves nor Gloriana saw any need to conduct a very awkward conversation with Master Benedict. The Cross Clan's lead designer had upheld his word and did not take advantage of his access to the Larkinson Clan's most powerful machine to slip in any suspicious devices.

Although there were aspects about Master Benedict's fabrication methods that did not sit well with either Ves or Gloriana, the older man had tried his best to respect the original intention of the Dark Zephyr. His work was fairly clean and very tight for the most part.

Gloriana finally shut off the projected screens from a workstation. "I have seen enough. Master Benedict has indeed done a good job at upgrading the Dark Zephyr to the current edition. Saint Tusa has pushed certain parts to their limits too often. While I may have designed the archemech to be able to withstand this abuse, his tendencies to stress the components of his machine on such a frequent basis has already resulted in the accelerated degradation of a number of sensitive archemetal parts."

"Do they require an early replacement?"

"Not necessarily. It is helpful, but the benefit is too marginal. The Dark Zephyr can still withstand at least a year or two of hard usage before he requires deep servicing."

At that point, the ace mech should be close to suffering from breakdowns, but the Larkinsons never intended for that to happen. It was actually better to service and repair the powerful mech a bit sooner in order to reduce a lot of risks. Prevention was always better than curing after the fact.

Though the Dark Zephyr was no longer in his best physical condition, most of his archemetal parts held up well enough that Ves and Gloriana simply didn't think it was worth their time to replace them so early.

They instead brought out their tools and quickly made a pass on them. They only solved the most glaring problems that could be fixed in a short amount of time.

All of these hasty repairs should restore a bit of the combat power that the ace light skirmisher had lost after participating in so many chaotic battles.

More importantly, the fixes also extended the time it took before the Dark Zephyr would suffer any unexpected failures due to overstressing the machine.

Ves and Gloriana did not completely try to restore the ace light skirmisher to his original condition.

As Senior Mech Designers, they were more than capable of analyzing potential problems and coming up with minor solutions on the spot. They slightly tweaked and adjusted the design in order to accommodate Saint Tusa's highly active piloting style to a better degree than before.

There was only so much about Saint Tusa's piloting approach that the mech designers could predict in advance. The fact that Tusa loved to push his ace mech further beyond the machine's already impressive upper limits threw off their initial estimates.

By the time the pair of mech designers put the entire Dark Zephyr back together again, the subtle machine radiated a sense of contentment.

"I FEEL GOOD. IN HUMAN TERMS, IT IS AS IF I JUST RECEIVED A MASSAGE."

"I am glad to hear you are doing better, buddy." Saint Tusa said shortly after he entered the private workshop.

"THE TWO MECH DESIGNERS TELL ME THAT YOU HAVE BEEN PUSHING ME TOO HARD IN RECENT MONTHS."

"Hm? Is that the case? I thought I maintained a good balance between performance and preservation."

Ves shook his head as he approached his cousin. "The senses that you rely upon are not precise enough. That, or they are not calibrated correctly, which is not unusual given that you jumped from piloting a classical mech to an archemech. Even we don't quite understand everything that makes archemechs special and different. This is why periodic checkups like these are so important to your ace mech. The Dark Zephyr is our first ace mech as well as an archemech. We have no idea how either of them will perform in the medium or long term, so we are making this up as we go. In this instance, we merely underestimated how much stress you induce on the mech frame."

"I NEVER NOTICED THIS." The Dark Zephyr remarked. "WHY DID I NOT FEEL THAT I WAS SLOWLY FALLING APART?"

"I don't know. Maybe the decay was too gradual, or maybe you instinctively perceive it as a normal occurrence that does not require your conscious attention. It is much like how many people's bodies begin to degrade as they suffer the onset of the aging process. It is only when something breaks or falters in a painful and obvious way that people truly realize how much their conditions have worsened. Checkups are meant to catch these processes before they produce any potentially fatal accidents."

"I SEE. I WILL TRY TO PAY MORE ATTENTION TO THIS, IF ONLY TO STOP MYSELF FROM EVER FAILING MY BATTLE PARTNER."

While Ves and the living mech talked, Saint Tusa grew uneasy about this situation. He understood the logic of easing up the pressure, but he really could not bring himself to hold back at all. The very notion sounded antithetical to his very being.

"Are you telling me I should not push my mech as hard anymore?" Saint Tusa frowned while his Saint Kingdom radiated an unsettling aura. "I do not like to act under too many restrictions. I prefer to fly free and fight however I want. If I have to start holding back in order to prevent my own machine from falling apart, then I don't know if I can keep this up for long."

"Oh, it's not that. We are not ordering you to hold back or anything. We have already learned a number of lessons from examining and fixing your machine. The Dark Zephyr should be able to tolerate the specific stresses you induce on the mech frame a bit better than before. Even if your penchant for extreme movements will still wear out the mech frame, it is fine as long as you remember to come back and allow us to service your machine. It has to be one of us, though, so make sure you can get back to either me or my wife quickly if an accident ever befalls your machine."

The ace pilot eased up. His Saint Kingdom grew less tense, which caused Ves to relax.

It was always hard to deal with an angry ace pilot.

"Understood. I won't hold back. It is not in my nature, and our enemies are too many for me to act with any restraint. The harder I push my machine, the more native aliens I can defeat. I can save more lives and help preserve the 4th defensive band better as long as I am doing my best. In fact, I might push my ace mech even harder now that I know how fast the archemetal parts are wearing down."

That earned a scowl from Gloriana, but she understood Tusa well enough that any complaints on her end would fall on deaf ears.

It sounded as if Tusa's tour across the defensive lines shifted his mentality and approach towards the Red War. He assumed much greater responsibility towards defending red humanity as a whole.

Whether this was for the better remained to be seen. Ves only really cared that Tusa had become a lot stronger and wiser due to tempering himself in numerous different star systems in the Upper Zones.

His exposure to true first-class combat also acclimated him to the big leagues. Ves still wanted to interview Tusa to gain first-hand accounts and insights on how battles were fought between first-class forces and their alien equivalents.

"It is actually not a bad idea for you to deliberately push your Dark Zephyr to his limits and beyond." Gloriana remarked after she adjusted her thinking on this matter. "Now that I think about it, many of the observations we made and the solutions we have devised earlier can also help us improve our other high-ranking mech design projects. The Amaranto Mark III Project, the Riot Mark III Project and the Minerva Mark II Project will all see minor improvements based on the trailblazing that you have done, Tusa. If you continue to stress test your machine, we can perfect our subsequent high-ranking archemechs even further."

That was a good argument. Tusa certainly took this as a license to continue to press the limits of his powerful machine!

"I will certainly make sure to give you more data. I guess this is the price of being the first to become an ace pilot."

"At least you get to enjoy all of the coolest toys before all of the others.".

"That's true."

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