The Mech Touch novel Chapter 2009

Chapter 2009 Lost Kin

Ves visited multiple ships and groups after he departed from the Redfeather.

He visited a civilian ship which housed many of the Larkinsons and their families.

He dropped by a vessel which had been converted into company ships by the LMC.

He even took the time to travel to the Jaded Sword in order to speak with Commander Dise and learn how the Swordmaidens were faring these days.

Ves recalled the immense contribution the Swordmaidens had made during the Battle of Kesseling VIII. Without their crucial assistance in taking down the CRC knight mechs, the battle on the ground might have been lost!

The Swordmaidens paid a very heavy price for that, though. They lost around half of their landbound mechs and a slightly smaller proportion of mech pilots. The former pirates were still very depressed about the losses.

A grim-faced Commander Dise calmly greeted Ves. "Hello."

"Hello, commander."

The dark-skinned pirate commander looked more solemn and focused than he had last seen her. Due to the unusual way she became an expert candidate back on Aeon Corona VII, the vibe she exuded possessed a lot of familiaries to Qilanxo.

It was a mistake to think Dise was of the same mind as the sacred god. As Ves took the time to inspect her spiritual attributes, she still maintained a very offensive focus.

Still, Ves saw some encouraging signs that she was finally beginning to reconcile her own martial path with the strength bestowed by Qilanxo. It seemed that Dise was leveraging her responsibility as a leader and caretaker of the Swordmaidens as a way to find something in common with the protective beast.

Hopefully, this would be enough for Dise to surpass her final bottleneck and undergo apotheosis. After all of the ordeals the Swordmaidens had gone through, they certainly deserved some good news!

"Please don't mind our current condition. We are still adjusting to all of the changes."

"That's understandable."

The Swordmaidens didn't stare and gawk at him as much as he expected. Instead, there were plenty of Swordmaidens who were pretty happy with ignoring his existence entirely!

While it was a bit refreshing to be treated as a normal person, a part of Ves still felt a bit concerned about their lack of enthusiasm.

"You Swordmaidens don't seem very happy with my presence." He observed.

Commander Dise frowned. "Too many sisters died to save your hide. To many of us, this tradeoff isn't worth it. Much of those sisters have been with us for decades. It took an immense amount of effort to train them to the standard that we expect of our mech pilots. To have so many of them fall is almost as worse as losing all of the Swordmaidens on Aeon Corona VII. It doesn't help that these losses happened recently at the same time the Sand War broke out. So far, we still haven't been able to replenish our ranks."

"Are you having recruitment problems? Can I do anything to help?"

The Swordmaiden Commander shook her head. "No thanks. In the previous months, we already picked up a large batch of young women among the refugees. It takes a long time to train them up, though. It might take a decade or longer before we are back to our old level of strength."

That sounded way too long to Ves. While he understood that it was how the Swordmaidens always conducted their training, it might not be necessary to stick to their primitive training methods.

"We have plenty of training resources to accelerate the training of your Swordmaidens. You helped save my life, so the least we can do is to make up for your losses." Ves offered.

"No need, Mr. Larkinson. Calabast has already made arrangements for us. Don't think your mech pilots are the only ones who are looking to promote to second-class mech pilots."

Those arrangements soon became clear when Ves started his tour through the Jaded Sword. Amidst the rigid Swordmaidens practicing their swordsmanship, the younger prospects undergoing hellish training in order to raise them to the standard of the older women and the 'indentured' men performing most of the lesser work, he suddenly realized something very profound.

"Your Swordmaidens share a lot in common with the Hexers!" He gasped.

"Is that a surprise to you?" Commander Dise smirked at him. "To be honest, I never thought she shared so many similarities with the Hexers either. Back when we were confined to the frontier, we never thought about this relation. Civilized space was too alien to us, and a powerful second-rate state has no reason to get involved with a small pirate outfit like ours."

"Are the Hexers really uninvolved with the creation of your outfit?" Ves skeptically asked.

"You'd have to ask Commander Lydia." She shrugged in response and lowered her tone. "In truth, I'm not entirely clear about the circumstances behind the founding of the Swordmaidens. Ostensibly, Commander Lydia shaped the Swordmaidens by herself while relying on secret backing from the Reinald Republic."

"Who exactly was Commander Lydia? She shouldn't have come from nowhere. How was she able to form the Swordmaidens and grow it into an elite outfit in the most difficult circumstances imaginable?"

Commander Lydia started her outfit from scratch. Even though she received a lot of financial support, she started off with no organization, no reputation and few existing assets! She had to build up an entire organization in the frontier, a region where danger lurked in every corner and where potentates and mech pilots were not only rare, but also started off with awful foundations!

In hindsight, the emergence of the Swordmaidens as a force to be reckoned with in the frontier sounded very suspicious. If Commander Lydia was truly responsible for its successful rise, then she was anything but an average leader!

The resilience and leadership abilities shown by someone like her should be very unusual! It was impossible for her to be so competent if she came from the frontier!

"Do you think.. That the founder and former commander of your outfit was a Hexer?"

"Almost every Swordmaiden has bought into this theory." Commander Dise admitted. "There are too many coincidences to ignore this possibility. The fact that many of our customs are exactly in line with the Hegemony's traditions is too obvious, especially now that we have become more exposed to Hexers."

"What does Calabast think?"

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