The Mech Touch novel Chapter 3129

Chapter 3129: A Second Rifle

"Miaow~"

Clixie laid comfortably on both Ves and Gloriana's laps. Two different hands tweaked her ears and rubbed her belly at once. Her lovely fur felt soft and smooth to the touch.

Lucky was nowhere to be soon. The mechanical pet was spending most of his time with Calabast in order to inspect every single system aboard the Blinding Banshee. The Black Cats with the help of a different cat were making brisk progress in verifying that the ship could be trusted to function as advertised, but she was still a capital ship for a reason. Five kilometers was still a long stretch even if the volume of the ship was actually not that large.

Fortunately, the Black Cats didn't need to scour the vessel from stern to bow in order to get her to move. The Blinding Banshee's power reactors, sub-light propulsion systems, FTL drives, life support systems and so on had all passed the required inspections and were ready to bear the stresses of regular space travel.

The other new capital ships were in a similar condition. As civilian-grade vessels, they were designed with lower standards in mind. Their performance might not be stellar, but that also meant it wasn't as difficult to work with them. The expeditionary fleet would probably be ready to depart within a week.

"I'm glad nothing has happened during our stay here." Ves remarked as he tickled Clixie's paws. "The last time we stopped at a star system, we got caught in one of the stupidest civil wars that has ever broken out in the star cluster. The Life Research Association is still paying the price for their shortsightedness."

"Miaow!"

Gloriana leaned comfortably against her husband's side. Her mind was not on the LRA at the moment.

"I love all of the work you have done on the crystal rifle. I had hoped that you would be able to come up with a surprise, but I never expected you to go all the way and utilize luminar crystals as the principal material for the weapon. I kind of want to see it in action already."

Ves took a deep breath, causing his nose to sample a liberal dose of her pleasant fruity scent.

"I feel the same way, but we have to be patient. We can't expose too much to the public."

Compared to his wife, he placed greater importance on maintaining the confidentiality of the combat capabilities of his clan. Their perspectives were different so the way they treated powerful tech was also different.

To her, all of the tech she dealt with were mainly tools to be used to make her mech designs stronger. As a purer mech designer, she cared less about the consequences of her decisions as long as they didn't get in the way of designing a better mech.

To him, tech was associated with advantages. Powerful new applications held most of their value if the enemies of the Larkinson Clan didn't know about them yet. The Larkinson Clan managed to defeat many enemies by unleashing surprising new tricks that their foes had no way to predict beforehand!

Now that the Battle of Reckoning had exposed the existence of prime mechs, the Transcendent Punisher and the power of battle networks, Ves was sorely in need of a new batch of trump cards.

This way, anyone who specifically targeted the Larkinson Clan and already accounted for the existence of the former would definitely see their plans go astray!

Though Gloriana wasn't happy with this answer, she let it go. The wait wasn't so long anyway. _{freёweɓnovel.com}

Still, now that the topic of the luminar crystal rifle had come up, she wanted to talk about another expert mech that could take advantage of this new development.

"Ves?"

"Yes, honey?"

"Once we have completed the Sentry Project and fully verified that your new weapon system can deliver on its promises, let's work on adding it to the Star Dancer Mark II as well! I suddenly find the dual-type laser and positron rifle that we initially planned for this machine to be tasteless."

Ves frowned. "The Larkinson Clan's expert mechs come first, Gloriana. Also, even if we are working on the same project, this is my work. The strongest versions of my luminar crystal rifles can't be made without my personal involvement."

"Don't be so stiff about it, Ves." Gloriana leaned closer and planted a kiss on his smooth-shaven cheek. "Brutus is family now that we're married. Will you deny your brother-in-law a powerful new weapon that can not only increase his own survival chances, but also help with defending our clan? Don't forget that my Glory Seekers are on your side. Helping them is helping us. There is no reason to deny this powerful new rifle to my brother."

As Gloriana continued to plant kisses on his cheek, he softened his stance. "I… suppose you're right. The Golden Skull Alliance doesn't have that many expert ranged mechs to begin with, so boosting the performance of one more will go a long way in overpowering our future foes."

He decided it made good strategic sense to equip a luminar crystal rifle to Venerable Brutus' upcoming expert mech. The logic was simply too strong. Even Aristotle would agree to her impeccable arguments.

He definitely did not allow Gloriana to get her way because she melted his resolve by bombarding him with kisses.

"I'll have to design a different rifle model for the Star Dancer Mark II." He said as he began to envision the weapon. "The current luminar crystal rifle model that I have developed is completely configured towards high-powered precision fire. It's a sniper rifle that is not meant to be employed in medium-range run-and-gun firefights that your brother excels at. At the very least, I have to find a way to crank up the firing rate, which will probably come at the expense of single-shot firepower."

"That's okay, Ves. I understand the limitations. If one shot isn't enough to do the job, then multiple shots will. The weapon needs to be a little smaller and more compact so that the Star Dancer can handle it with great control even as it performs intensive movements. A heavier weapon will not only slow down its acceleration, but also make it more unwieldy."

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