The Mech Touch novel Chapter 3218

Chapter 3218: Clash of Prides

Qilanxo only relayed what was taking place inside the struggling expert mech but did not take any further action. _{ƒгeewёbnovel.com}

The battle for dominance had to be resolved by the participants themselves! It was not appropriate for a third party to intervene. Though Qilanxo was more than strong enough to put her foot down and break up the fight between the two squabbling entities, that would only postpone the resolution of this conflict.

For better or worse, the expert mech and expert pilot had to come to an accord on their own. The only way for them to put down their rivalry and work together was to acknowledge each other as equals.

"That's easier said than done." Ves quietly muttered. "These two hardheads don't seem to be easing up anytime soon."

The clash of personalities between the recently-created Vanguard Project and its prideful expert pilot continued to escalate with each second that passed. The true resonance affecting the expert mech grew more discordant and unstable.

Ves and the others gathered a lot of new data in the process, though they weren't particularly happy about it. Who cared about observing a new phenomenon when their hard work could blow up at any point in time?!

"Push the Vanguard Project away from the Spirit of Bentheim! Do we have a tractor beam? No? Then use gravity! Use whatever gravitic modules you have on hand! In fact, activate all of them! It doesn't matter if they're all weak and inefficient at this range. As long as they work together, they can push the mech in question away!"

Hundreds of different gravitic modules began to affect the Vanguard Project. At these ranges, the force of their pushes wasn't much. Still, a single hand might be able to push forward a mech, but several hands pressing at the same time was a different story!

It was quite fortunate that the Vanguard Project was floating in open vacuum and did not engage its flight system at this time. Slowly but surely, the dangerous expert mech continued to eject away from the Spirit of Bentheim and the rest of the Larkinson fleet.

"Be careful about its orientation! Don't turn the expert mech around. If it ever performs a battle charge for some reason, then don't let it blow open a hole straight into my precious factory ship!"

The alert level had risen throughout the fleet. Though no one expected an emergency to arise at this quiet time, the Larkinsons nonetheless responded quickly and professionally.

First, the entire expeditionary fleet moved away from the potentially dangerous expert mech. It was quite troublesome to instruct every single ship in the fleet to move without any sufficient warning or preparation, but no one kicked a fuss this time.

Second, the Larkinson Army began to set up a very wide perimeter around the Vanguard Project. A lot of interference bots flew back and surrounded the problematic expert mech in order to avoid airing any further dirty laundry out into space.

This was quite an embarrassing incident after all! It reflected poorly on Ves and the other designers that they developed an expert mech that couldn't even get along with its own intended expert pilot.

Gloriana did not have good words for this failure. "This is your fault, Ves. I don't think I have ever heard about expert mechs turning against their own pilots until today. Only you could bungle this up because your mech is alive. Why haven't you accounted for this possibility?!"

"I didn't think that something like this would happen!" Ves defended himself. "In almost every case, my living mechs are glad to be used by their pilots. They are programmed not to treat their users as hostile. This instruction should be even stronger when it comes to expert mechs. They're designed to work with one pilot only to the exclusion of everyone else. It doesn't make sense why the Vanguard Project is able to set aside its own programming!"

Gloriana rolled her eyes. "Have you forgotten about something? Life doesn't always work the way it's supposed to. Living humans are supposed to abide by the law and cherish their families, but that doesn't stop them from breaking the rules or hurting their own loved ones at times. Whatever instincts they have been programmed with doesn't determine their actual behavior. This is life!"

Ves had to admit that she made a good point. Anyone who was smart enough to think for himself was capable of going against their own instincts. This applied to both humans and living mechs. As someone who designed a lot of living mechs, Ves was keenly aware that his products didn't always act according to his intentions.

Making mechs alive was a double-edged sword. While these self-aware and self-thinking mechs granted a lot of benefits to mech pilots, there was always a possibility that this could turn into another direction.

The only reason why Ves hadn't put up his guard against this possibility these days was because it never really happened. The Devil Tiger was the mech that had the highest chance of turning against its user, but his mother had hijacked his first masterwork mech before he could see his experimental plan come to fruition.

After that, he never really designed any other mech where he had to take this risk into account. The only edge case was the Doom Guard which was not that big of a deal.

Therefore, he was caught completely unaware this time. The ongoing clash between Venerable Orfan and the Vanguard Project signified that Ves should have been paying a lot more attention on the compatibility and fit between their two personalities!

"Next time, you and I need to sit together and have a good talk on how to shape the personality of the living mechs we design." Gloriana insisted as she continued to glance at the data readouts. "Your living mechs have become stronger, and that's good, but it's like raising a boy without active parenting. If we don't keep an eye on our child, he might grow up to become a delinquent!"

Though her analogy sounded rather silly, it helped Ves gained a bit of perspective. Gloriana approached this issue from the perspective of a parent raising a child. Perhaps that was a good way to put this topic into context.

"I'll make sure it won't happen again next time." He promised.

That was all well and good, but that did not address the current issue. The Vanguard Project was already a finished mech. It was out of the question to soften its prideful character especially as it was still active and out in the field.

Ves had no choice but to remain in the control room and watch the situation play out from a healthy distance.

At this time, the Vanguard Project's resonance shield grew darker while its shape contorted into a spiked ball. Its limbs jerked uncontrollably while its flight system started to release bursts of thrusts that sent it floating in random directions.

"Do I have to carve a hole in this new expert mech in order to pull out Orfan from her cockpit?!" Venerable Tusa asked as his Dark Zephyr hovered closest to the out-of-control expert mech.

Verify captcha to read the contentVerify