The Mech Touch

Once Secret Keeper Closier-17 guided Ves to complete a small but solemn ritual where he made an oath of secrecy, the secret briefing finally commenced.

The gray-clad man preferred to stay on his feet, so Ves looked up at the man as he sat on his soft and comfortable puelmer leather office chair.

"You may be wondering where we came from and why our department is already so well-established despite existing for less than a year. The secret is… that our organization existed many decades prior to the establishment of the Secret Department."

"What?!"

"Very few individuals outside of our department are aware of this, chief councilor, but we originally served at the Evolution Witch's behest. We still do in fact. Many of the core leaders and cadre of the Secret Department come from an intelligence agency that the god pilot founded on her own initiative several decades ago. We are not a part of the Transhumanist Faction or any particular group for that matter. We come from multiple walks of life, but we have forsaken our citizenships and past ties when we agreed to serve as the eyes and ears of Her Divinity."

"I… see." Ves struggled to process this massive revelation. It turned out that the Evolution Witch was not as hands off as he thought! "How did you manage to subsume the Secret Department?"

"It was not too challenging for us. When the process to create the Red Collective has begun, she has pulled the strings to ensure that we are able to form the core of the Secret Department, all without exposing ourselves to others. Currently, we are still operating under her supervision, although we are normally instructed to serve the Red Collective in a normal capacity. We originally intended to keep you in the dark about this secret, but Her Divinity has instructed us to reveal ourselves to you. We have been informed that you have earned her trust and favor, so you may issue limited requests to us. Whether we agree to fulfill them is at our discretion."

"..."

Ves became speechless for a moment. He thought the Secret Department would remain completely mysterious and inscrutable to him. His chief of staff painted the department as a group that operated with very low accountability. Perhaps its members even had the right to shoot first and ask questions later!

A part of him couldn't help but feel suspicious about this matter. What if this was the Secret Department's attempt to test his loyalty to the Red Collective? Was anything Closier-17 said even credible?

Ves hated the uncertainty of it all. The strong jamming generated by all of the active devices made it harder for him to think and read the Secret Keeper. The man's cultivation was also remarkably effective at obscuring his spirituality.

This left Ves without his usual means to gauge another person's personality, emotions and sincerity.

In the end, he decided to shove aside all of his messy and convoluted thoughts and simply trust that Closier-17 was telling the truth.

Ves would be able to learn the truth from the Evolution Witch herself in 3 days. He could wait that long to obtain confirmation.

"Okay. I get it. I will be sure to confide in you guys if I have noticed any problems that are sensitive enough to bring to your attention. I hope that we can cooperate to keep the Red Collective moving in the right direction."

The Secret Keeper shook his head. "We prefer you approach the Secret Department as little as possible. We do not want to expose your connection with us. It is best you treat us with vigilance and suspicion, which is the typical reaction that others exhibit towards our department. If you must truly contact us, then you must use one of the indirect methods that I am transmitting to you. The Evolution Witch wishes you to establish your foothold in the Red Collective without relying on her backing."

"I am already doing that, I guess. I have made good strides, but I think I am about to hit a ceiling. I don't think I can expand my control over the RC as the other players have already carved out their own territories. Placing my clansmen into the administration will help, but they will not be able to do much if they become a part of the middle management."

The spy maintained an expressionless face.

"It is not necessary for you to gain total control over the Red Collective. Merely keeping your current level of power is acceptable. What is important is that you stay long enough to establish a leadership position that becomes increasingly more unassailable in the long term."

"I will try to stick around and avoid getting booted early." Ves promised. "I cannot guarantee I can do a good job as a chief councilor, though. I lack the time to commit to this position."

Now that the Secret Keeper had made this clear, he moved on to share another secret to the chief councilor.

"One of the heaviest secrets that I bear at the moment is that the leaders of red humanity have refused to pin all of their hopes on victory." Closier-17 solemnly spoke. "Even as we prepare to bolster our defenses against the Red Tide Offensive, several groups have split off and converged on a secret location where our potential escape vessel is being built."

The man carefully retrieved a fragile sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolded it to Ves.

The paper depicted a sketch of a titanic biomechanical construct. Ves could clearly recognize that it was the carcass of an ancient phase whale that was undergoing a radical transformation.

The moon-sized body was being hollowed out in order to make room for a huge amount of internal structures, both metallic and organic.

The addition of a lot of thrusters across the exterior of the gigantic body indicated that there was a strong drive to make the repurposed carcass mobile, and not to a small extent!

"So the vision is true. There are a bunch of cowards among us who are diverting a huge amount of phasewater and other precious resources to develop a moon-sized inter-galactic warship. I bet that she is designed to transport her passengers all the way to a nearby galaxy like Messier 87."

This answer successfully caught the Secret Keeper off-guard. "How did you acquire this information?"

"Prophecy. Peering into a potential future timeline. Don't ask me how it works."

Closier-17 frowned. "That should not have happened. According to our own intelligence, the project leaders have employed measures that prevent strong forms of divination from producing accurate results."

"I managed to get this information long ago before those divination wards ever went up." Ves shrugged. "The entire process is unique, so I can't replicate the process. Let's just say that I am not surprised that people are secretly trying to secure a way out of this cursed dwarf galaxy. I can't really blame them, because I want to secure a ride on the organic supership as well. I want to bring along my clan as well if there is enough room."

"The Whale Ark is designed to accommodate the best and brightest of red humans. Unless your clan is able to prove itself further or if you are able to make greater contributions, it is unlikely you can bring more than 10,000 members of your clan on her inaugural journey. Her construction has hardly progressed, but the secret competition for living space has already reached a hot stage."

A quota of just 10,000 members was way too few!

While it was enough for Ves to bring the best talents and the people he truly cared about, he felt bad about abandoning millions of Larkinsons in a Red Ocean that became increasingly more unfriendly towards humans.

If red humanity ever lost the Red War, then he vowed to fight tooth and nail to save every single surviving member of his clan!

"About the Whale Ark… am I expected to contribute to her construction?"

"Not as far as I know." Closier-17 replied. "Our judgment is that the participating groups can complete the construction of this unprecedented organic warship by relying on their own resources and expertise. There is little desire to make this bioship alive, as it risks the revival of a formidable ancient phase whale."

That was indeed a scary prospect! On second thought, it may be best to keep the massive organic ship 'dead'.

Ves focused on another angle to this revelation. "Since the Red Two and other major powers are so enthusiastic about developing the Whale Ark, I do not see any reason for the Red Collective to stay out of this party. Will we be able to dispatch our own men to expand our participation in this secret project?"

"We will undoubtedly be able to do so in the near term. It is unlikely for you to get involved, so do not get your hopes up, chief councilor."

There was little that Ves could bring to the table. He would just have to wait like the rest of the people in the know.

"How long do you expect construction to last, Secret Keeper?"

"The estimates vary greatly. This enormous construction effort has never been done before. Setbacks and delays are to be expected. We can only rely on the parameters of much smaller organic ships to extrapolate the data. We have loosely confirmed that it will take between 10 to 25 standard years for the vessel to complete construction and become space worthy."

That was a lot of time!

Though Ves personally thought that an upper range of 25 years was extremely exaggerated, it was probably correct that constructing a bioship of this size while the Red War was intensifying put an enormous strain on resources.

However, even the minimum estimate of 10 years was already way too much for his liking. If the native aliens succeeded in breaking through the defensive regions in the next few months, then red humanity would meet an early demise.

The construction of the Whale Ark needed to speed up, but Ves could not come up with any ideas that could make this happen.

The slow progress of building up this means of escape meant that both the cowards and the fearless needed to join forces and resist the attacks launched by the native aliens!

Perhaps it may have been better if he lacked solid proof that the bigshots had actually attempted to begin the lengthy process of constructing the Whale Ark.

After the Secret Keeper shared what little details he knew and was permitted to share with Ves, the man moved on to the next secret.

"A more concerning secret that you should be aware of is the extent of infiltration by the Cosmopolitan Movement." Closier-17 spoke. "We have always been aware that their agents and sympathizers have hid among us. We previously tolerated them because our civilization was at our height during the Age of Mechs. There was no chance for the cosmopolitans to threaten our previous order. The MTA and CFA even took advantage of the cosmopolitans to secretly trade and offer assistance to the alien empires that lived on the other side of the Milky Way Galaxy. This collusion occurred at the highest level, so even god pilots, Star Designers and grand admirals are guilty of this crime."

"What."

"We dominated the Milky Way. We did not fear the threat posed by the aliens even if they stole our technologies and attempted to imitate our best practices, which they cannot possibly do. Their opportunity to make a comeback has come and gone a long time ago. They cannot possibly withstand the combined fury of a hundred god pilots and hundreds of thousands of CFA battleships. The leaders of the Big Two treated the surviving aliens as pets, experimental subjects and whetstones. There was more benefit to maintaining the status quo than exterminating them in their entirety."

"I see." Ves gradually looked thoughtful. "Now that you put it that way, it doesn't sound too bad if the bigshots occasionally colluded with the cosmopolitans."

"Our concern is that such actions have much severe consequences to red humanity after the start of the Age of Dawn. Now that we are in the weak, any transactions with the cosmopolitans will result in much more negative outcomes to our race and civilization. We no longer enjoy the advantages we previously took for granted. In order to prevent misguided leaders from continuing to collude with a much more dangerous Cosmopolitan Movement, we have finally formed a consensus on completely eradicating their hidden presence and influence among the core groups of red humanity."

"This should have happened a long time ago. You guys are taking way too long to make use of my kinship networks." Ves complained as he thought back on the Battle of Mazepan.

"Your kinship networks have proven to be an effective and reliable solution that can be applied on a wide scale. We are working on expanding them to reduce the breathing space of the human traitors, but there is still resistance. Not all opposition is based on the premise of protecting the cosmopolitans. There are valid privacy reasons that have led to growing resistance. However, the current war environment does not tolerate half-measures. Treachery has already set us back far too much in the Red War. We cannot tolerate any further setbacks.."

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