The Mech Touch novel Chapter 3187

Chapter 3187: Another Pitstop

After finalizing the Vanguard Project and the Decapitator Project, the four Journeymen of the Larkinson Clan were ready to embark on their next fabrication attempts. They gathered in the design lab where they decided on a course of action.

"We need to get these two expert mechs in action as soon as possible." Ves told the others. "We've almost reached the Smiling Samual Star Sector where I need to fulfill a certain task. Now, I'm not going to explain to you why we have to head into the Vulcan Empire, but I'm sure you know that the dwarves over there aren't exactly the friendliest bunch. If we can add two more expert mechs to our lineup, we will gain a bit of additional deterrence."

"Will the dwarves really dare to touch us?" Juliet quietly asked.

"You can never know." Ves honestly shrugged. "Our expeditionary fleet is already strong and we have a history of wiping out military strike forces and we are also entering their territory with the blessing of the MTA. There also shouldn't be a compelling reason for them to attack us. That said, the dwarves have a general hatred towards the so-called 'tall folk' and they are whipped up by their odd faith of theirs."

Ketis snorted. "The Vulcan Faith is one of the most contradictory religions that I've encountered, and trust me, I've seen some crazy stuff. How is it possible for a dwarf-centric religion to worship a tall folk as their revered god of all of the possible choices? Whoever came up with this dumb idea practically set up the dwarves for failure! From what I've read about the Vulcan Empire, the infighting between those who believe Vulcan to be a human and those who think he's a dwarf has been raging on for many decades!"

"Ahem!" Ves loudly coughed. "Ketis, don't talk about faiths in such a disrespectful fashion. Who knows whether you'll slip up in front of a dwarven delegation and draw a lot of trouble to us. We need to be more tolerant of the beliefs of others. This applies both inside and outside of our clan." _{fɾēewebnσveℓ.com}

Ketis crossed her arms. "I still think it sounds stupid. The dwarves might as well worship a giant lizard god or something. At least they aren't revering their historical oppressors who continue to discriminate against them in many ways."

"You know, there might be a ploy behind the Vulcan Faith." Ves suggested. "It could be a clever, no genius ploy to keep the dwarves in check. Think about it. Dwarves have always been unruly due to their admittedly justifiable complaints about their ill treatment. Rather than deal with this headache across multiple star clusters, why not gather them up in a single star sector and rid the surrounding regions of their kind? In order to make sure they don't have any ideas about expanding outwards, introduce a source of conflict in their most sincere beliefs and voila, the Vulcanites are locked into constant internal strife that mostly keeps the dwarves occupied against themselves!"

It sounded pretty devious now that he thought about it. As far as he was concerned, the inventor of this brilliant and effective plan deserved a pat on the back!

Unfortunately, Ves was the only one who felt smug about what he said. The other three Journeymen did not look so convinced.

"Uhm, we're not here to talk dwarves today, so let's move on." His wife said after a while. "The fabrication of a single expert mech is a strenuous event. Fabricating two of them at the same time or in quick succession is a great burden to us. Even if we take periodic breaks, we still have to work at least twelve to fourteen days in a row in order to complete these offensive machines."

"What are you suggesting?" Ves frowned.

"We should pour our total concentration into fabricating just one of the two expert mechs. This way, we won't get distracted by ideas that are only applicable to the other one. Our expert mechs deserve our full concentration. We should take at least a few days but preferably a week off before we embark on fabricating the other expert mech."

"That will impose significant delays to our schedule."

"We have to do this, Ves. I don't want to rush either of these projects. Venerable Orfan and Venerable Dise deserve better."

Ves sighed as he activated his comm and called up the schedule. "Hmmm, I guess it won't hurt that much if we make another pitstop. I'll tell the chief ministers to make the arrangements and have our fleet stop at a port system near Smiling Samual where we can replenish our supplies and pick up another batch of recruits."

After leaving the Pelsa Ryndover System, the expeditionary fleet pretty much traveled non-stop across the remainder of the Bardo Star Cluster as well as a significant portion of the Fermi Star Cluster. This was a huge amount of distance and it was inevitable that some of the vessels accrued a bit of wear and tear.

This wasn't necessarily a big deal. Ships were built to last and they could travel on for many more light-years before some of their systems started to creak in a worrisome manner.

The expeditionary fleet was already quite close to the lesser beyonder gate that was just a star cluster away, so the state of the Larkinson Clan's sub-capital ships took on less and less importance. The only reason for the Larkinsons to preserve their integrity was to keep their resale value as high as possible.

What Ves did care about was the state of his fleet's capital ships. The only newly-built capital ship was the Spirit of Bentheim. Every system and module was still brand new and even the extended-range FTL drives pilfered from the Auralis were also relatively young.

It was too bad that the engineers were still in the process of disassembling, inspecting and rebuilding these Fridaymen devices in order to make sure they were completely reliable.

Aside from his flagship and the nearly-completed Gorgoneion and the Diligent Ovenbird, the remaining capital ships of the Larkinson Clan were second-hand goods. Each of them had already been in service for a couple of decades to half a century. This meant that they had around fifty years or so left where they were able to operate at their peak before many aging ship modules started to degrade in efficiency and reliability.

This was a nearly unavoidable process and only a lengthy and expensive overhaul could stave off this process to an extent.

What people weren't necessarily aware of was that constant or heavy use of ship systems wore them out a lot faster when they were supposed to. If they did not receive timely and frequent preventive maintenance, then multiple decades could easily be shaved off their total lifespan. This was especially dangerous in situations where a single major battle pushed many of these ailing systems beyond their limits.

In short, the more his clan took care of its essential assets, the more they would have the Larkinson Clan's back when his clansmen needed them the most!

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