The Mech Touch

Chapter 6791 Unredeemed Warship Tokens

After setting the initial design choices for the Final Glory Project, Ves and his collaborators soon began to make quick progress.

This was not a complicated design project. The design of the 'mech' had to be as simple as possible. It only really amounted to a man-controlled rocket. The degree of complexity was so low that Ves could design a basic version of it in a single day.

However, a proper job required a lot more work than that. Ves wanted to design a pair of proper mech templates that could work fairly well no matter what materials people used to make the suicide mechs.

Ves and the rest of his design team needed to take variables such as aerodynamics and interactions with different gravities in order to make sure that the mech launched from ground to space in the least amount of time.

It should only take them days to devise a solution that fulfilled 80 percent of their target goals. Yet in order to secure the missing 20 percent, the four mech designers needed to work hard for at least a month in order to get close enough.

Every individual percentage of improvement after that demanded disproportionate work and effort to acquire. They could spend months iterating on the mech designs just to raise the performance by just 5 percent.

Naturally, neither Ves nor anyone else aside from Gloriana was crazy enough to think that this was a worthwhile tradeoff.

Ves merely settled for target goals that were 'good enough' from a professional perspective. The quality of the mech designs had to be high enough O pass certification at the Red Association.

This would dictate how much time he invested in the mech design. As soon as the quality surpassed the minimum threshold, then that was time for him to pack up the project and publish the mech templates as soon as possible.

As far as Larkinson products were concerned, the mechs of the Final Glory Project would probably be a huge step down in terms of quality.

Ves found it painful to compromise his brand by releasing such shoddy products, but he could not afford to care so much about maintaining quality standards in a time of total war.

Necessity trumped quality.

Unlike Gloriana, Ves understood that the right product did not always have to be the most exquisite product.

Of course, he had collaborated so often with his wife that he had acquired a few of her tendencies. He understood the value of quality and had witnessed first-hand how his wife made mechs stronger by polishing their designs to an obsessive degree.

Her pursuit of perfection was her greatest strength as well as her greatest weakness.

Even Ves hadn't been able to avoid this fever entirely. He too valued the ability to design mechs that could more easily produce masterworks. He also wanted to invest in his future and gain the ability to create his own grand works sooner rather than later.

The approach chosen by Gloriana was probably the fastest way to earn the qualifications to produce a grand work!

This was why he tried to align the desire to maintain high quality standards with his design goals whenever possible.

Alas, this was one instance where he could not compromise on his duty as a mech designer.

Ves naturally tried to avoid any mention of the Final Glory Project whenever he was in the presence of his wife.

Gloriana was more than happy to pretend that the Final Glory Project did not exist.

As the two worked on the Minerva Mark II Project, his wife grew more and more content.

Ves still managed to keep his promise by not lowering the amount of work he managed to get done each day. He had to push himself to do more work and cut back on the time he spent on other affairs, but he managed to persist due to the urgency of the times.

He could slack off and take a vacation when red humanity was not being pushed to the brink of extinction!

There were many soldiers at the frontlines that had to fight a battle every day. The moment that any of them surrendered to their own exhaustion, their mistakes might cause the attacking aliens to gain the upper hand and dismantle the fifth defensive band even further!

He had watched enough live feeds of the ongoing battles in the frontlines to understand that mech designers like himself had it so much easier.

Ves could dictate his own schedule under the comfort and security of his own territory. New Constantinople was still fairly secure. The threat of alien raids or more serious assaults remained fairly low so long as the frontlines held.

The Upper Zones remained the most secure regions of human-occupied space.

Even if the Middle Zones collapsed on a large scale first as he predicted, it would still take time for the native alien forces to pivot towards the Upper Zones.

That should give Ves, his family and the rest of the Premier Branch to evacuate from the Monroe Upper Zone should it ever become the next staging grounds of the Red War.

The only issue he was concerned with was the delays in gaining possession of the starships that were supposed to make up his new first-class fleet.

The Vulcanites were definitely taking their time with the delivery of a first-class fleet carrier while his own E-66 Experimental Yard was not able to speed up the conversion process of the Tortuous Scream any further.

In fact, the greater spacetime bubble enveloping the Yernstall Central Star Node had inflicted such a considerable shock to the logistical network of human-occupied space that the Larkinson Clan's first proper warship might take a week or so longer to complete!

The only good news up until now was that the Premier Branch at least managed to accrue a modest but serviceable collection of first-class combat carriers.

Although they were only rated to carry 30 first-class multipurpose mechs, their quality and tech were both in the upper boundaries. The vessels were faster and far more robust than second-class combat carriers. Their workshops also contained just enough state-of-the-art superfabs and materializers to handle any repair or reconstruction jobs.

The only complication now was that Starfarer Berth was not in a condition to supply more first-class combat carriers for the foreseeable future.

This was because the high-quality orbital shipyard was located in the Yernstall Central Star Node!

If Ves was unlucky enough, then by the time the people of Yernstall managed to unravel the greater spacetime bubble, Starfarer Berth may have fallen already!

"I need more ships.

In order to pursue this topic further, he scheduled a meeting with his RF liaison.

As soon as he got teleported to the Babylon Excavator up in orbit, an aide led him to a secure office where the highest-ranking officer greeted the new arrival in person.

"Welcome back to the Babylon Excavator" Commodore Zonrad Reze said as he waved Ves to take a seat. "I received word that you wish to talk about our Warship Quota Program!"

"That is correct. Our clan and I have killed a bunch of phase lords as of late. Saint Tusa has been especially prolific with his tier 3 Destroyer spear. So far, he has claimed the lives of 1 greater phase lord and 6 lesser phase lords. While he was only able to kill those alien powerhouses with the help of other forces, Tusa has played an instrumental role in each successful killing attempt. His ability to make his Dark Zephyr Mark III bypass any energy barrier makes it much easier for him to land his killing blows"

"We are aware of his illustrious record during the past year! The human vessel of Sigrund said. "Each of his feats are public. There is no dispute that he has materially contributed to the deaths of the Arena Lord of Ya'gwasa and so on. You have a number of notable kills under your belt as well, and so does Saint Davia Stark. On top of the spoils of war and merits that the three of you have earned through your deeds, you are also entitled to receive RF Warship Tokens. Would you like a list of our

current redemption list?"

"Sure!

The RF commodore projected a simple shopping list.

It became clear that the fleeters had refined their redemption rules.

Killing a lesser phase lord corresponded to a Frigate Token or Destroyer Token.

The fleeters used a long set of criteria to determine which kind of token to hand out. If a Larkinson managed to kill a weaker lesser phase lord with the help of lots of external assistance, then he would only receive a pitiful Frigate Token.

If an ace pilot managed to challenge and kill a stronger and better-equipped lesser phase lord through single combat, then he would definitely earn a Destroyer Token!

The same terms applied to killing phase whales as well. However, most of them were substantially stronger than typical phase lords, so they should always award the best available rewards.

"So what has our clan accrued so far?" Ves asked.

"I Light Cruiser Token and 6 Frigate Tokens. All of them are restricted unless I mention otherwise."

Ves loudly snorted. After killing all of those phase lords, the Larkinson Clan was only able to redeem the lowest available awards according to the rules!

The RF was as stingy as ever. The fleeters hated the thought of handing other parties the right to field formidable first-class warships.

While the second-raters and third-raters were able to field auxiliary warships due to the RF's lack of fear towards these inferior hulls, first-raters still had to jump through a lot of hoops in order to field

their own true warships!

"Are there any options to merge them into bigger tokens?* Ves inquired.

Zonrad Reze smiled. "You are not the first individual to ask this question. Due to growing demand, we have amended the rules of our Warship Quota Program to allow for conversion. You can convert 5 RI Warship Tokens of the same naval class to 1 RF Warship Token of the next naval class by tonnage. In short, if you choose to do so, instead of fielding 5 frigates, you can choose to field 1 light

cruiser instead.

"That... is a questionable deal."

"There are pros and cons to both choices." Commodore Reze said. 'As a senior naval officer, I can wax

for days about the benefits of forming a wolf pack of 5 fast and nimble frigates as opposed to having a stronger light cruiser that can inflict superior damage onto larger threats. I can advise you if you wish. You can also choose to postpone the redemption of the RF Warship Tokens. This is what. I

recommend!

"Oh? Why is that, commodore?"

"Nobody is in a condition to supply warships to your clan. Think about it, Professor Larkinson. Many

battles are taking place at the final defensive band. This is a matter of life and death to many states and powerful groups. Money cannot repel invaders. It is an abstract number that possesses no combat power. Now that the war is encroaching upon us all, the demand for warships has skyrocketed. It is nearly impossible for you to acquire warships from external sources. The only viable means to expand your collection of warships is to trade them for large quantities of superdimensional matter or build them yourself."

Neither solution sounded acceptable to Ves.

"I will see what I can do!" He tersely replied. "If I don't manage to get my hands on a working warship,

then may be better to leave it be. They are no use to me at the moment."

Ves really hated the limited shipbuilding capacity of red humanity.

The Great Severing took place too soon. Ves bet that if the aliens waited a decade before pulling off

this stunt, red humanity's shipbuilding capacity could have easily quadrupled!

The additional territories also would have been nice to have.

Commodore Reze stared at Ves for a few seconds before he decided to make a choice.

"If you see little value in our Warship Tokens, you may choose to exchange them for alternative

rewards."

"Really? Is that part of the rules as well?"

"This is an informal offer to valued friends and allies such as yourself. If you wish, you can choose to exchange varying amounts of Warship Tokens for access to exclusive technologies or the acquisition of small amounts of super-class materials. Think carefully about what you need.'