The Mech Touch (Web Novel)
Chapter 6873: Completion of the Final Glory Project

Everyone was waiting for the day the Premier Fleet could completely assemble.

That day should not be too far away. The Larkinson Clan and its allies tried to speed up the timetable and rush through the necessary steps whenever possible.

In the meantime, Ves and other mech designers continued to make a lot of progress in their mech designs. The SF-02 constantly showed its value by allowing the Design Department to complete its projects faster and in a better state than before.

One of the projects that Ves managed to complete was the Final Glory Project.

"It's done."

Ves, Kelsey Ampatoch, Ariana Roux and Jovy Armalon all gathered together to examine the finalized mech templates of the Final Glory Project.

Jovy had done a decent job at converting the final iterations of the mech designs into two mech templates, one for the Middle Zones and one for the Lower Zones.

Regardless of the versions, the Final Glory designs closely matched what Ves originally envisioned.

The Carmine mechs were basically shaped like rockets. They possessed enough boost power to overcome the gravity wells of most planets. In order to reduce their cost, the 'mechs' did not possess any limbs. It was not as if they would need them in order to reach their targets and self-destruct.

Although the Final Glory designs looked simple, the mech designers put a lot of work and effort into making it as efficient and explosive as possible. This was not easy to do as the mech designers had to work hard to make it as cost effective as possible.

Ves looked pretty satisfied with the results. The mech templates made by Jovy were adaptable enough that any mech designer could develop a localized variant of the Final Glory.

There was enough tolerance in the material choices that his 'customers' could choose to construct their machines from cheap to slightly more premium alloys.

Not that it made that much of a difference. The Final Glory mechs were designed for one-way trips only. Whether they got shot down with ease or required slightly more effort to eliminate ultimately shouldn't make that much of a difference.

"Are we actually going to publish this mech?" Ariana Roux asked.

Ves turned to the female Journeyman. "Are you having cold feet?"

Ariana, who had been responsible for designing and programming the cheap hacking module that should hopefully interfere with the targeting of the Final Glory mechs, clearly looked troubled by their work.

"I understand the usefulness of this mech, but… I still find it difficult to stomach the fact that I have worked on a mech design that is expressly designed to kill its own pilot."

"The rules are outdated." Ves stated. "The Red Association won't give us any trouble over this. Jovy wouldn't have played such an indispensable role in the design project."

He already knew that a lot of professionals might try to accuse Ves for breaking an unforgivable taboo. Making it known that a genuine RA Senior Mech Designer like Jovy worked openly on the Final Glory Project should instantly cut off this line of attack.

People were already used to the mechers being hypocrites. This was hardly the first time the Association trampled its own rules and violated its principles.

Ves actually found that the RA was a lot more flexible than people assumed. The mechers deliberately cast themselves as rule bound enforcers in public, but privately they were open bending or outright erasing any rules that got in their way.

Their stance reminded Ves a lot about himself.

"Does anyone else have any ethical concerns they need to voice at the moment our project is finished for whatever reason?"

"..."

"Okay, since none of you are bothering to voice any more useless objections, we will publish the mech templates to the public." Ves declared. "Since this is not a product that has undergone validation through the Red Association, we can't sell it through regular channels. I think it is best just to publicize the mech templates as well as the default mech designs through our own channels. Our clan is popular enough that plenty of people are paying attention to our every move. The media will naturally pick up our new Final Glory designs and figure out their purpose."

"That sounds minimalistic, sir." Kelsey objected. "Shouldn't we market the mech design more actively?"

Ves shook his head. "I don't think it is a good idea. We are all familiar with the controversies surrounding this suicide mech. The last thing I want to do is to tarnish my reputation by making it look as if I am deliberately trying to found a suicide cult. I also don't want to earn the impression that I think that red humanity is all doomed, so we might as well go out with a bang."

"The public will ascribe motivations to you regardless of what you say." Jovy pointed out. "Publishing a brief statement will at least provide a measure of clarity."

Ves looked skeptical. "Maybe, maybe not. I don't think people will be particularly swayed by my words. My supporters will easily buy my arguments, while my detractors will always think that I am lying. I don't intend to say anything. I will let our works speak for themselves. Once my products are being used, I hope that the public will eventually recognize the good that I am trying to do with the Final Glory Project."

"I think you are being too optimistic about the public, Ves."

"I have better things to do than participate in a popularity contest. If there are serious problems related to the public adoption of the Final Glory mechs, I may change my mind and intervene directly. I don't think it is necessary, though."

The mech designers talked a bit more on how they could promote the Final Glory Project among the increasingly more desperate space peasants of the Upper and Middle Zones.

He found it rather sad that far too many colonists still got wiped out because they continually failed to secure a spot on an evacuation ship.

This told Ves a lot about the availability of starships in human space.

There simply weren't enough civilian starships available to fully supply factories with raw materials and transport finished goods to where they were needed.

There were even less starships available for evacuating civilians.

In fact, even if there were enough starships available to evacuate 50, 70 or 100 percent of the population of planets under risk, they probably wouldn't get mobilized for this purpose anyway.

Ves could already see how the increasing amount of planetary cleansing incidents was driving soldiers to a frenzy.

The Larkinson Clan certainly did not lack for soldiers who wanted to volunteer for active combat duties, that was for certain.

Even Ves was not immune to this war fever. Part of the reason why he was eager to drive the Premier Fleet to the front was because he wanted to do his part to stop the alien advance.

After the Larkinson Clan published the Final Glory mech templates and mech designs, the works already generated a small amount of discussion.

Ves did not expect there to be so little discussion. Perhaps he still needed to wait for the issue to ferment in the mech community, but so far it appeared that few people were willing to debate ethics and morality in an age of looming extinction.

Oh well. The relative tranquility freed him from the need to intervene.

He decided to turn his attention to other mech design projects.

"We are ready to fabricate the First Sword Mark III." Ketis' physical projection declared.

"That is fantastic news! It took you a little longer than I thought, but I hope the additional time has helped to refine your work."

"I like to think so, Ves. I have tried my best to turn the First Sword Mark III into an excellent dueling machine, and that was before superdimensional matter came into the picture. With the help of the Mech Supremacists, the new ace mech will be like a dream come true. I cannot imagine how effectively she will be able to demolish enemy phase whales."

"It is a foregone conclusion that the First Sword Mark III will be able to cut apart lesser phase lords with ease." Ves made a guess. "It is a little more questionable whether she is able to defeat greater phase lords with only slightly more inconvenience, but I do not think it would be that simple."

Ketis crossed her arms. "Perhaps. I think that it is possible for the First Sword Mark III to defeat at least some greater phase lords, but we shall see for ourselves. The debut of this ace mech will not be too far away."

"Our Saint Commander has great ambitions for Saint Dise and her upcoming ace mech. Are you sure you want to stay with the expeditionary fleet? It will be really exciting to see the First Sword Mark III test her mettle against all sorts of powerful phase lords."

"No thanks. There are plenty of phase lords in the Middle Zones for me to see." She said while shaking her head. "Besides, my new minders do not want me to step foot on the more destructive battlefields in the Upper Zones. My importance and the importance of the Heavensword to the war effort has grown so much that I already have my own escort fleet, do you know that? It is called the 575th Redwinx Escort Fleet."

"What an imaginative name." Ves flatly replied.

"It is not as big or powerful as the Bluejay Fleet. The Red Three doesn't have so many warships and first-class multipurpose mechs to spare, and they do not want to draw too much attention in my direction."

"I don't think that is possible, Ketis. Your role in opening up a passage to the Blue Dimension is public knowledge. The cosmopolitans definitely leaked your details to the native aliens. If the Red Cabal is smart, it will try to dispatch a strike force consisting of multiple ancient phase whales to snuff out your life. You are directly responsible for turning god pilots such as the Fist of Defiance into a much more implacable foe. It makes too much sense to eliminate the source of superdimensional matter."

"I do not intend to withdraw." Ketis affirmed yet again. "A swordmaster belongs on the battlefield."

"A mech designer belongs in the rear." Ves retorted.

"That rule never applied to you. Why do you think I am any different?"

"This is a serious matter, Ketis. I hope you are not relying on the charity of the Heavensword to protect you against retaliation."

Her expression told Ves that this may be exactly why she did not fear any ambushes.

This was not a healthy mindset. Ves hoped that his former student at least had contingency plans in place.

"Once you have finished the First Sword Mark III, what will you be working on next?" Ves inquired.

"I haven't thought about it yet, to be honest. My Stormblade Samurais already perform well when deployed against the native aliens. I do not recognize an urgent need to update any of my existing works. I also do not think that I can make a large enough contribution by designing yet another swordsman mech that is meant to fight the native aliens. I need to come up with a more inventive idea."

"You don't have any in mind?"

"Surprisingly… no." She said. "I can't come up with a killer swordsman mech concept that can fight more effectively against alien phasefighters and warships than the Stormblade Samurai Mark II. Any alternatives I can come up with are either too expensive or too difficult to pilot effectively. I may have outdone myself when I designed that mech. Stormblade technology is just so useful. It is difficult to find weapons tech that can surpass its performance or do something different that is also useful."

"Well, if you aren't in the mood to design a new swordsman mech, why not design an update to one of your existing works?"

"Most of my works are still fairly current." Ketis said with a frown. "Which one of them needs an upgrade?"

"The Everchanger for one…"

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