The Mech Touch

”So both the Ramza and Cavendish Families are out to get me because Iʼm in your camp.” Ves summed up while directing an acrimonious look towards Miles. ”This is your fault. Fix it. NOW!”

”We are doing the best we can! Senator Tovar is personally contacting anyone who can countermand Ghansoʼs orders. However, it isnʼt proper for a legislator to influence the military. Not only do the Cavendishes have deep roots in the Mech Corps, there are only a few military officials outrank General Ulrich Cavendish!”

The wartime situation wasnʼt helping them either. The military possessed the most say right now. The civilian government could only cede ground in order to make sure the Mech Corps had what it needed to defend and save the Republic!

”Tell me what you can accomplish, then.”

”Give us at least three to four hours.” Miles spoke. ”Senator Tovar informed me that he needs at least this much time to access the right officials and countermand the orders. As long as you can stay out of the clutches of the Mech Corps, we can probably deprive Venerable Ghanso of his authority!”

”Three hours? This is way too long! Donʼt you see how close the combat carriers are? They can be on top of us in less than an hour!”

”This is the best we can do, Mr. Larkinson.”

While Ves appreciated the help, it wasnʼt enough to bail him out. Should he play hide and seek or something in order to stall out his capture?

With his stealth toys, this might actually be a viable plan. It was just that Ves was not very confident about it. His stealth and sensor shielding drained a lot of energy, so he could only hide himself from the Mech Corps for only so long.

The main difficulty was that it was too late to go into hiding. The Mech Nursery was isolated, but that also made any departure extremely obvious to enemy scans.

Right now, Cloudy Curtainʼs ever-present cloud cover was very helpful in obscuring most orbital scans. That did not mean the military possessed no solutions, however.

There were doubtlessly some assets in the vicinity that kept an eye on the Mech Nursery. Perhaps Spotlight placed a lot of watchers in and outside of the company to stare at him specifically.

When Ves shared this suspicion, Leland immediately concurred.

”This is likely the case. Spotlight and Searchlight has never given up on keeping you and the LMC under observation. Even if youʼve cleaned out their spies a few months ago, it isnʼt in their nature to give up after a single setback.”

”Great. And I take it Flashlight canʼt help?”

”We are all on the same side, Ves. We never act directly against each other.”

”Is there anything Flashlight can do thatʼs actually helpful?”

”Our organization may be vast, but most of our resources and personnel are dispersed. Our headquarters might be able to make some small actions, but you are better off relying on the Tovars to solve your problems.”

”I see.” Ves flatly replied.

Whether Leland lied to him or not, clearly Ves could not rely on Flashlight in this situation, which was a massive disappointment.

Leland noticed Vesʼ disappointment. ”Please keep the precariousness of our situation in mind. Two founding families have moved directly against an ally of another founding family. Two spy agencies are directly entangled in this confrontation. A detachment of the Mech Corps is acting under secret orders that canʼt be countermanded on a whim.”

Different institutions and factions of the Bright Republic opposed each other at this time. It would be very bad if relations between each other deteriorated over this spat. Each side had to act with restraint and play by the rules in order to avoid any undesirable escalation.

This was why no one ever seriously thought about opposing Venerable Ghanso and his comrades with force!

Yet what most people considered taboo, Ves thought differently.

”We need to buy time.” He concluded after understanding the complete picture so far. ”I have only less than an hour of time to remain free. I might be able to extend this time if I go into hiding, but itʼs obvious our opponents have prepared for this operation for a while.”

He strongly suspected that the Ramzi and Cavendish Families might have laid the groundwork for this operation a few months ago!

These clever and well-prepared opponents probably took most of his possible actions into account. They likely had a countermeasure ready for any decision he might make.

It was as if his opponents put him in checkmate before he even became aware that he was playing a game!

Their plan was almost airtight! Just an expert pilot of the Mech Corps alone was enough to suppress every open opposition!

Ves was not willing to accept defeat! There had to be a way to resolve this impossible situation!

The only way for him to outfox his opponents was to flip the board or make an illegal move.

Perhaps he wasnʼt strong enough to flip the board at his current state, but he happened to be an expert when it came to illegal moves!

He first thought about messing with Ghansoʼs spirituality. By himself or with the help of an F-stone, he could probably inflict considerable mental damage to his stuck-up cousin.

Ves experimentally concentrated his mind and cast a piece of himself in the imaginary realm.

He had a very strong impression of Ghanso Larkinson, and the expert pilot also happened to be pretty close to him. It did not take much effort to find his spiritual presence in the imaginary realm.

Unfortunately, Ves could immediately tell that attacking it was unlikely to succeed!

The spiritual presence was not only active and in its most guarded state, but its strength and resilience was also far stronger than anything he had seen before!

After exploring it from a distance, Ves understood why Ghanso looked so spiritually unassailable.

Ghanso was interfacing with his expert mech!

Ves had never succeeded in messing with a mech pilotʼs mind when they interfaced with a mech!

The man-machine connection was so strong that Ves had a much easier time attacking expert pilots in isolation rather than affecting the combined strength of a regular mech pilot paired with a regular much!

If the regular man-machine connection was already that bad, then the bond between an expert pilot and an expert mech was far more formidable!

Unless Ghanso stepped out of his cockpit, Ves could forget about messing with his mind and spirituality!

He pulled back his concentration and began to contemplate another solution.

”Is Ghanso leading this operation?”

”The commander of this unit is probably a confidante of General Cavendish. However, if you manage to affect the Venerable in some way, he might be able to hold back his comrades.”

”Hmm..”

This was what Ves wanted to hear. He hardly had any options left. The only one he could turn to was to make full use of his Devil Tongue.

Of course, he wasnʼt stupid enough to think he could convince Ghanso to change his mind. Expert pilots were extremely strong-minded and rarely flinched from their decisions!

The only possible way that Ves could make him halt was to employ the one thing he cared the most aside from his duty!

Ves waved both Leland and Miles to silence.

”Be quiet. I need to address the family right now.”

He first took care of his appearance. He sat up straight behind his desk and adopted the most serious expression he had ever formed. He mentally thanked himself for wearing his Pride of Dusk ensemble today. Of course, he had kept his cat ears in his pockets. He could not afford to paint himself as a fool this time!

In order to make himself more impressive, he activated his comm and activated a function before patting his palm against his chest.

A projection of all of his medals appeared in place. The Darkness Eater, the Plasma Spark, the Torchbearer, the Golden Mech and so on shone so realistically that no one would be able to tell if they were illusionary!

”Alright, itʼs showtime!”

He entered the communication section of his desk terminal and selected every Larkinson on his contact list. He initiated a one-sided broadcast to every Larkinson at once, no matter if they were on Cloudy Curtain, Bentheim, Rittersberg or anywhere else!

At least half of the connections failed to go through! The Larkinsons on the other end were either asleep, under communication blocks or simply didnʼt want to accept his call.

No matter what, Ves still managed to reach hundreds of Larkinsons, enough to sway the family!

As no new connections emerged, Ves centered himself and began to employ some tricks to boost his stature!

He concentrated his mind and began to envision the Desolate Soldier design!

He made contact with the Solemn Guardian, which had grown even stronger than Ves had last seen.

Yet no matter how much it had grown, it still remembered its creator. It didnʼt take much to convince the Solemn Guardian to allow Ves to borrow its strength!

Right now, Ves did not appear casual or selfish at all. His straight but empathic bearing highly resembled that of exceptional Larkinson veterans!

”Fellow family members. Let me begin by apologizing for you for bringing up this ugly incident to you. Today is a day where our Larkinson Family is beset by division. The conservative and tradition-minded members of our family have acted against me and our mech company without going through the rest of our family! Our latest source of prosperity is at risk because some people in our family donʼt want us to enjoy nice things!”

Ves could immediately sense a wave of disgust from the other end of his broadcast.

There was a reason why he addressed the Larkinsons first! Hopefully, Ghanso was in the dark about this little move of his. Since Ghanso was such a stickler for the rules, his communications were probably restricted!

Knowing this, Ves addressed his family with confidence!

”If you have not heard about what is going on, then let me fill you in. Two of the founding families, the Ramzas and the Cavendishes, are conspiring to take down the LMC and remove me from my home in order to stop me from enriching and empowering the Larkinsons! This is despite the backing Iʼve secured from the Tovar Family!”

The mention of three of the founding families probably shocked many of the Larkinsons! Anything involving the three foremost groups of the Bright Republic was bound to be explosive!

”Make no mistake. Under my efforts, our Larkinson Family has started to rise from a middling military family with little influence into a prosperous power with enough money to make every Larkinson rich! However, the Ramzas and Cavendishes donʼt want us to rise! They want to keep us under their thumb and continue to volunteer our mech pilots to the Mech Corps as obedient dogs!”

He was probably touching a lot of nerves right now. In ordinary times, he would never disparage the familyʼs noble mission, but Ves could not afford to mince any words! He needed to convey the gravity of the situation in the most dramatic way possible in order to make every Larkinson feel as if they were in a monumental crisis!

”A supposedly-respected mech general from the Cavendish Family has directly abused his authority, employed spies to confuse the headquarters of the military and issued fake orders to hoodwink me into surrendering everything I have done for the family!”

Ves painted a very big and dangerous vortex. While this might scare away some Larkinsons from getting involved, he wasnʼt finished!

”What is worse is Venerable Ghanso Larkinson willingly sided with these snobby elites and betrayed the interests of our Larkinson Family! Is this what our family stands for?! Is this what constitutes honor to us?! I fought and bled for the Mech Corps just as Venerable Ghanso has done!”

His medals appeared especially eye-catching right now!

”While I may just be a mech designer, I have done more for the Larkinson Family than Ghanso and his conservative faction has ever done! After four centuries of continued service, no expert pilot managed to elevate the wealth and status of our Larkinson Family! As for me, it took less than five years for me to enrich the Larkinson Family to the point where all of you can buy your own mechs with plenty of money to spare!”

Ves was right! Even the neutral Larkinsons agreed with his argument!

”Let me ask you this, my fellow Larkinsons. Do you believe that Ghansoʼs vision of our family is better, or mine? Is tradition worth giving up all of the wealth we are entitled to? Is service without reward for four more centuries worth our continued sacrifice?!”

Each of his questions landed like a bombshell among the Larkinsons he addressed!