The Mech Touch

When the Flagrant Swordmaidens finally found a way to discharge the remnant energy inside the god crystals in the form of electricity, they quickly got the ball rolling.

Two days after the first successful test, they managed to stabilize the output of the god crystal. It wouldn’t discharge all of its energy in a single instant anymore and could be commanded to release a stable output.

Another day after that, the god crystal project managed to get a god crystal to release its energy in the form of heat, electromagnetic radiation, sound waves and more.

While the researchers hadn’t managed to find a way to shape the output of a god crystal into an antigrav field or something similar, it was only a matter of time before they found the key.

A week after the initial test, the god crystal project finally managed to solve their most important goal, which was to get the god crystals to siphon energy from the astral winds!

A single god crystal only called down a thin line from the skies, and filled up its energy reserves extremely slowly.

Even though that was a pathetic result, it finally presented hope to the Flagrant Swordmaidens! No longer did they have to rely on their meager amount of power generators for a continued source of energy!

"One god crystal isn’t enough! We have to use them in unison!"

The more god crystals that activated at the same time, the easier the siphoning occurred. At some point, enough god crystals called down an energy tornado that drastically increased the charging rate!

With over fifty god crystals in their possession, they possessed enough god crystals to feed the daily needs of the Flagrant Swordmaidens!

"Once we build the surrounding infrastructure, we’ll finally be running an energy surplus!"

In truth, they barely maintained the status quo, and that was only when they didn’t increase their energy usage through combat. Still, as long as they kept running a deficit, all of their empty batteries and energy cells would no longer be useless anymore. They’d be able to build up a healthy reserve of energy and expend them whenever the situation demanded!

"I’m really glad we finally cracked the code." Chief Dakkon sighed when he met with Ves again. "Captain Byrd has been hounding me every day for a solution. I can finally get a good night’s sleep for once."

Ves looked on as the god crystal project worked on an abomination of a machine. Ten god crystals rested on some kind of giant cage with masses of fleshy tissue locked inside the cage. It looked extremely unsettling and only the exobiologists dared to get close!

"How many dwarf brains are inside that fleshy mass?"

"Twenty, two for each god crystal. It’s always good to have a spare."

The Vandals kidnapped twenty dwarves from the storm lands and cut off their brains from their bodies to make this unholy abomination. Even to Ves, that sounded extremely gruesome.

Yet to the god crystal project, this god crystal generator represented their salvation. It was at least several times better at generating energy than a conventional power generator!

With five of them, the Flagrant Swordmaidens wouldn’t have to worry about running short on energy for a very long time!

Ves witnessed them at work many times. Over the last two weeks, the god crystal project rapidly developed the god crystal generator and cobbled together five of them at a time.

They still encountered a couple of problems though. The dwarf brains weren’t very good at passing on instructions, as the Vandal researchers possessed a poor grasp in the field of reprogramming a mind.

"These dwarf brains think about all kinds of stupid thoughts even when they are separated from their heads! They’re filled with chaos!"

This was why it sometimes took a while for the god crystal generators to get going. Still, all of these problems could be solved in time.

The main issue was that the Flagrant Swordmaidens no longer had to be so conservative with their energy expenditure!

Even simple luxuries like cooked food and extra projectors for work or entertainment made a lot of difference among the men. Having marched for so long on land, the mindless travel was starting to grate on their patience.

The only reason why they hadn’t acted out was because the storm lands were filled with danger. Any mech or person who wandered off would be vulnerable to the wild gods and the large wildling tribes that regularly roamed these parts.

The only snags they hit was that they still hadn’t found a way to generate an antigrav field with the god crystals and that the breakdown effect became steadily more impactful.

The 3D printers the Vandals heavily depended on already started suffering breakdowns as well. They had to shut down the machines and open it up to fix whatever broke. Due to the size and complexity of these machines, it always took at least half a day to solve a problem, which significantly delayed repairs to mechs.

Fortunately, with Ves at the helm, the mechs didn’t actually break down faster. "Prevention is better than cure! There’s no way I’m going to let the same problem happen five times in a row as if I’m a stupid bot!"

The modifications he imposed on the mechs gave the mech technicians a lot of extra work. They grumbled and whined, but did not dare to do so openly in front of Ves. Since he often inspected the workshops, the mech technicians didn’t dare to slack off.

It didn’t take long for his modifications to yield results! There was even a period of time where the Vandals suffered less malfunctions than before.

Of course, the breakdown effect steadily grew in strength, so they only enjoyed a brief reprieve.

Over at the Swordmaidens, Mayra had already instituted these changes long ago. Unlike the Vandals, the main mechs of the Swordmaidens such as the Devil Razor and Silver Valencia had all been designed from her hand.

As the developer of these swordsman mechs, Mayra was able to design much more comprehensive modifications that addressed the problem much more effective than what Ves had done.

Ves decided to pay a visit to her workshop during the next long break for the day. As the legged transports halted, the men and women rapidly erected a handful of temporary prefab structures to make camp. Everyone had done this so many times that they became extremely practiced in assembling and disassembling these structures that served as a temporary barracks, mess hall, workshop and more.

After he crossed over the the Swordmaiden side of the camp and entered one of its workshops, he greeted Mayra.

"Hey!"

"Ves."

"How is Ketis doing lately?"

"She’s been around." Mayra said mildly. "I appreciate the experience you granted her. She’s much more respectful of the mech workshops now ever since she worked alongside some real mech technicians."

Looking at Mayra’s calm expression as she sat behind a terminal in her combat armor made Ves mistake her as an officer. Everytime he met her in person, he became impressed by her poise.

This trait alone turned her into an anomaly among pirates! Her self-control must be leagues ahead of Ves!

Ves smiled. "I’m glad to hear that Ketis is better. As a former teacher of her, I can’t help but see a lot of promise in her. As long as she keeps up her current work ethic, there’s no way she’ll remain stuck at the bottom."

Both of them looked at each other with mutual understanding. Even though Ves didn’t know Ketis all that long, he really wanted her to succeed, if only because she was his first serious student!

"Why have you come here? I doubt it’s just to chat. You don’t visit very often."

"I’ve been wanting to talk to you about the breakdown effect." Ves said. "From what I’ve observed from the Swordmaiden mechs and from what I know of my own capabilities, we’re only able to cope with the situation for a month or two. If the breakdown effect keeps becoming stronger at the same rate, then there comes a point where we’re unable to catch up. By then, we’ll have to take much longer breaks in order to repair all of the mechs."

"The problem is weighing on our minds as well, you know. However, our research capability is much less impressive than that of the Vandals. We know how to fight and how to maintain our mechs, but dealing with these unusual phenomena is outside of our reach."

"I thought you Swordmaidens visited all kinds of dangerous and exotic planets."

Mayra smiled ruefully at Ves. "Even in the frontier, we only pick the low-hanging fruit. There is a lot of riches to be gained in these restricted planets, but the risk of getting stranded or annihilated through sudden circumstances is too great. The only people who dare to visit a planet as dangerous as Aeon Corona VII are the hardcore treasure hunting expeditions. Our courage may be great, but we aren’t impulsive enough to throw ourselves straight into a disadvantageous situation."

"What if you encounter something like the breakdown effect?"

"We would just give up on our objectives and leave. Who cares about obtaining spoils when we won’t live to enjoy them? Commander Lydia never hesitates to pull back if the situation turns shifty."

"I think those same criteria apply right now. Isn’t everything that is happening to us dangerous?"

"We have no choice this time." Mayra sighed and lowered her eyes. "The treasures people believe is locked inside the Starlight Megalodon is invaluable to the backers of Lydia’s Swordmaidens."

Ves noticed a subtle point in her words.

"You believe we won’t find anything aboard the Starlight Megalodon?"

"Go figure." She shrugged. "How long has it been since she crashed on Seven? What did the surviving crew do? It would be pointless to keep anything useful inside the battleship. If I was in charge, I wouldn’t hesitate to dismantle her into useful components that could be used to build a city. Perhaps the survivors actually did so. Don’t you think the ancient cities look like they could have been made out of the hull of the battleship?"

Ves reluctantly shook his head. "I don’t think so. We’ve scraped some samples of the alloy structures in Mulak and Samar, and their alloys are composed of mundane metals mined from the planet. We even dated them and everything and they’re roughly three-thousand years old. Still, I don’t think your sentiment is wrong. A CFA battleship of that time is as large as a city. There’s no question that the survivors brought out equipment and valuables. However, according to our clues, several splits might have occurred among the survivors."

"Oh?" She raised her eyebrows. "What are your thoughts on the matter?"

"I think the survivors definitely disagreed on some matters. More than that, I can’t say. All the ideas I’ve come up with is baseless speculation. Yet it’s undeniable that the Starlight Megalodon still possesses some functionality. We all know what happened when the Caged and Red Tongs attempted to bombard the surface. Do you think that we’ll still be welcome if we arrive at the battleship?"

This event still weighed heavily on the Flagrant Swordmaidens even after a long time had passed.

Mayra pursed her lips. "I can’t say. What I do know is that there is at least someone on this planet who sent out FTL-capable shuttles to reveal their presence and draw us to this planet. It can’t be the blessed people or the wildlings who led us to the Aeon Corona System."

The FTL-capable shuttles piloted by cloned individuals were cast out as bait for some reason. Like moths to the flame, the Flagrant Swordmaidens and a handful of other rivalling forces managed to win the competition over the keys that allowed them entry into this star system.

Yet why would anyone on this planet do so? To ask for rescue or a way out of this primitive planet? Or for something else? Ves still couldn’t ascertain the motives of those who lured them all here.