The Mech Touch novel Chapter 2861

Chapter 2861 - Total Sincerity

"How could this happen?"

Commander Rivington — who recently received a promotion in order to increase his authority — helplessly shook his head.

"The feeder pools inside every growth hall are controlled by a centralized regulating system. In theory, only a single authorized supervisor is able to control every aspect about the pools. In practice, someone above the supervisor implemented many restrictions that limit abuse. In the case of filling the feeder pools with a corrosive formula, the central system should have refused to implement the new instructions unless someone with greater authorization arrived to inspect the situation."

"Then why did that not happen?" Ves asked as he continued to look upset.

"These safeguards never fired off because we hacked the central system, sir. We are not authorized to run this facility since we are not part of the original staff. Our only option to make use of the feeder pools is to break the security measures. During this process, our staff also inadvertently removed the additional safety precautions. We basically returned most options back to their factory setting, which is much more permissive than we’d like."

"I see."

They were working with borrowed hardware. There were bound to be problems. Ves just didn’t think it could lead to such a major incident.

Ves and Commander Rivington stood behind an observation window that showed a typical interrogation room.

Just hours ago, a disaster had taken place inside the captured biomech production facility. A biomech designer who had recently joined the Larkinson Clan deliberately ruined twenty valuable organic machines by replacing their regular feeder stock with an alternative formula that just happened to be highly corrosive against many substances!

The fact that someone was able to circ.u.mvent every safeguard, escape the suspicion of several people and even overpower the compulsion from the Larkinson Network led to one of the first true acts of treason within the clan since its founding!

No Larkinson had ever acted so brazenly against the clan! Not only did the traitor rob the airfleet of twenty valuable biomechs, but also aroused a lot of unrest and uncertainty within the airfleet.

Ever since Ves started raiding, he and his fellow leaders took exceeding care in selecting their targets. They searched a lot of databases, inquired many people and performed multiple scouting attempts before they committed an attack.

With the help of these preparations, the Larkinson Clan and its allies always achieved a clear victory!

The constant successes not only caused the airfleet to gain momentum, but also raised the morale of the participants to an unsurpassed height!

Everyone believed that they could win every battle while doing no wrong! As long as they stuck to their current approach, the Larkinsons believed they could easily survive this crisis!

This was a far cry from before where their groundside presence was much smaller. With just a couple of dozen mechs at their disposal, they constantly had to worry about getting squashed by a stronger force.

Now, through the actions of a single traitor, Ves felt as if his forces had gone back to this state of mind. The material damage inflicted to his forces was much less significant than the drop in morale!

It would have been better if his forces maintained their high spirits, but at this moment, the d.e.s.i.r.e to continue their string of raids had diminished.

Instead, more people began to think that it would be much better if they just stayed put and settled for their current conquest. After all, a full-sized biomech production facility already provided them with most of the amenities they needed.

Ves was very annoyed with this growing sentiment. He wanted to conquer more facilities! How else would he be able to gain more loot and rescue more highly-skilled biotech experts who might accept the offer to join the Larkinson Clan?

As long as the civil war continued to be fought across the surface of Prosperous Hill VI, he could continue to perform raids with his airfleet!

Ves peered through the observation window. He did not have a good impression of the culprit on the other side of the window. Despite Dr. Nigel Redmont’s obvious guilt, the older man smiled and looked as if he did not do anything wrong!

"What do you know about the accused?"

"He’s a mediocre biomech designer, I would say." Commander Rivington said. "Instead of designing biomechs, he took on a lower job of a biomech technician and started to work his way up. The reason why we put him in charge of the feeder pools was because he has a lot of experience in optimizing feeder stocks for different biomech models. Dr. Redmont knows more about feeder stock than anyone else in our clan, so he was the natural candidate to take full control of the hacked regulating system."

His clansmen had been too complacent. Even though Ves put a lot of stock in the Larkinson network, that did not mean it was infallible.

He always insisted on being careful and not relying on trust to assume that everything would go right.

"Have you found any clue whether Dr. Redmont is a member of the ultralifers or another extreme organization?"

"His record is clean. We have not found any mention that he belongs to some dangerous organization, but then again, records can often be wrong or incomplete."

"That’s true. I guess we won’t be able to find answers until we ask."

"The suspect might not choose to answer."

"Then we have to make him talk."

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