The Mech Touch novel Chapter 2737

2737 /7079

Chapter 2737 - Poor Mech

"Patriarch Ves!"

The observation room of a private testing facility became a lot more boisterous after Ves, Lucky and his usual entourage of guards stepped inside. The members of the design team monitoring the current testing session all looked up from their consoles and stood up to convey their respect.

Ves casually waved his hand. "Proceed with your work. Don’t stop on my account. Who is in charge at the moment?"

"That would be me, sir." Catherine Evenson remained standing.

"Give me an update on the latest iteration of the Blinding Mech. How is it performing?" He asked as he approached the front of the room.

She proceeded to do so. Catherine summoned various projections of graphs and tables filled with data to detail the current performance of the mech design in question.

The large transparent windows looked down at an extensive pit where over fifty mechs moved according to a predetermined plan.

All of the mechs belonged to the Larkinson Clan. An entire mech company’s worth of prototypes moved in formation.

Each of those late-stage prototypes carried the thick and ungainly form of the Blinding Mech. Its utilitarian, masculine appearance lacked the elegance of female Hexer mech models.

What made the model look even more remarkable was that it did not wield any weapon at all. Neither its arms nor its frame boasted any armaments of any kind.

The Blinding Mech was actually quite capable of wielding weapons in battle, but that was not its primary responsibility. Its performance with either melee weapons or ranged weapons was rather poor due to budget constraints.

Auxiliary mechs didn’t necessarily need to be armed. Their primary purpose was to support other friendly units in battle. If they were forced to carry the battle, then something must have gone horribly wrong.

The materials needed to fabricate the mech consisted of ubiquitous low-grade exotics and ordinary metals. The bulk of the Blinding Mech was deceptive as an ordinary knight mech of the Hex Army could easily withstand several times more damage!

Even the mech pilot was supposed to be disposable. Ves already received word that the Hexadric Hegemony were in the process of conscripting hapless male potentates whose genetic aptitudes were too low to qualify for regular military service.

It would have been great if the Hexers were on the winning side, but since the opposite was the case, the state could no longer afford to squander its resources. Boys had to be put to work no matter the cost!

Being aware of this reality hadn’t made it easy for Ves to design this mech. Yet it was the only way he could think of to counter the unfair advantage the Friday Coalition held. As the Battle of Reckoning had brutally emphasized, it was incredibly costly to resist an opponent who brought additional expert mechs!

Ves did not wish to see the Hexadric Hegemony collapse. The state was the Superior Mother’s greatest backer at the moment. Gloriana would also become hysterical if the Hexer people became homeless all of a sudden.

He also did not wish to let the Friday Coalition enjoy the satisfaction of winning an existential war. The Fridaymen targeted him several times and a lot of good clansmen had died due to their aggression.

The bad blood between him and the Coalition ran very deep! There was no way Ves was going to allow something as inconsequential as his conscience get in the way of his revenge!

In order to fulfill this greater goal, Ves simply shut out his complaints and diligently designed the Blinding Mech without adding any additional frills, which was exactly what the Hex Army sought.

The Blinding Mech was not like the Blessed Squire. While the latter was also a male Hexer mech, its design was a lot more noble and benign towards its mech pilot.

The Blinding Mech could only put up a shield and pray that an armed Hexer mech came to the rescue.

The Blessed Squire was able to tank quite a decent amount of damage, which was pretty different from the Good Boy that it was originally meant to supplant.

The Blinding Mech was a fake defensive mech. It possessed the bulk but not the defensive capabilities to withstand aggression from hostile military-grade mechs.

The Blessed Squire was designed to be deployed as an individual mech supporting a larger unit of mechs. In turn, the other mechs would automatically do their best to coddle and protect the supportive knight mech so that its valuable glow would be preserved.

The Blinding Mech was supposed to be deployed in mass formations numbering hundreds of identical copies or more. This was all necessary because a single mech was not enough to achieve the desirable effect.

This last point was the most disturbing aspect about this mech design. No good would come from grouping so many flimsy, slow and pathetically-armed mechs together.

If even a single Fridayman mech company entered their midst, then a massacre would quickly ensue!

Ves could only hope that the Hexer military commanders weren’t heartless enough to deploy so many Blinding Mechs without providing adequate protection to them. With a production cost of 145 million hex credits a copy, it still cost billions of valuable hex credits if entire squads got trashed at once!

While Ves looked down at the Blinding Mech exposing the luminar crystals embedded on the surface of their uncovered tower shields, Catherine finally concluded her report.

"...as it stands, a mech company of Blinding Mechs has only proven to be marginally effective at debilitating ordinary mech pilots but has not been able to hinder any expert pilot. I do have to mention that these are only preliminary results that are subject to several caveats and limitations."

Ves glanced at the former Sentinel noble. "Tell me about the caveats."

"As you can see right now, we have only been able to fabricate 40 copies of the current iteration of the Blinding Mech. While we have never fabricated so many prototypes of any single mech design before, this is still a sparse amount when you consider how it is meant to be fielded."