The Mech Touch novel Chapter 4363

The Larkinson Clan along with its allies earned a huge windfall of money, phasewater and other resources from raiding Pima Prime.

It was enough to raise its strength by a small but noticeable margin.

Ves spoke with General Verle and others to discuss how they could best convert their liquid assets into real benefits that could increase their chances of surviving the new frontier.

"We can spread the money around and use it to buy large amounts of goods, but it will be hard for anyone to notice the difference." General Verle told him over the comm. "It can also take weeks for us to purchase and ship all of the extra goods from many different vendors. Given the short timeframe available to us, I suggest that we should focus on investing in a single, powerful product that can massively improve a specific capability of our expeditionary fleet."

The general's argument was sound.

"I suppose you already have an idea on what we should buy, am I correct?"

"Yes, sir. Let us consider our situation. We are about to embark on the Trailblazer Expedition in earnest. This will take us far away from Davute and other bastions of civilization and bring us to lawless regions of space where piracy, rivalries, alien incursions and even pockets of hazardous anomalous regions can overtake our fleet. Most serious battles that may occur during these encounters will pit us against technologically or biologically advanced adversaries. What sort of measure can we take that can ease our pressure?"

Ves rubbed his smooth-shaven chin. "Hm. At first, I thought about giving a mech like the Amaranto a massive upgrade, but it is difficult to increase its combat effectiveness considering that its Instrument of Vengeance rifle is already powerful. If we want to increase our ability to defeat many different threats, we should probably go for a more universally applicable boost."

"Those are my thoughts as well." General Verle concurred. "This is why I have instructed my staff to inquire with the local tech companies in Davute whether they have developed any tools that can help our fleet deal with the more troublesome enemies. We have obtained information on many different experimental and prototypical products that may or may not fit our needs. Each of them promise drastic effects, but what they all have in common is that they cost an astronomical amount of money and phasewater to obtain."

That interested Ves. After cooperating with several different development companies over the past five years, he had become quite familiar with their operations and their activities.

Companies such as Melmen Advanced Systems engaged in a dozen or more R&D projects. The smaller and more practical projects usually centered around developing mature and commercial-oriented products that were relatively cheap, efficient and reliable.

Then there were the more radical and fanciful projects that were much more ambitious. The success rate of these projects rarely hovered past 20 percent, which meant that the companies could easily waste hundreds of thousands of MTA credits as well as multiple kilograms of phasewater on failed research!

Though the companies could compensate for those massive losses by using the lessons they learned on completing the few daring projects that just happened to be viable and earn a huge amount of profit as a result, there was no doubt that the barrier to entry was prohibitively high.

The biggest problem these companies faced was obtaining the massive amount of phasewater needed to sustain their ambitious research projects. No matter whether they succeeded or not, it was inevitable that they would use up a lot of phasewater.

This was why the development companies had become so welcoming to the Larkinson Clan after it had returned from the Purgatory Campaign.

Anyone who possessed a massive amount of phasewater and conveyed the willingness to trade this resource turned into their favorite customers!

Ves just recalled that his clan managed to plunder at least 37.2 kilograms of phasewater from Pima Prime.

Since his clan did not expect to receive such a massive haul, there were no special reasons why he should hold on to this stash. Aside from reserving a sufficient quantity to support the development of the Dullahan Project, he was more than willing to spend the remainder on a powerful combat asset.

"So what do you have for me, general?"

"Our scientists and engineers have filtered out the more dubious and impractical inventions from the list. They have also left out the products that are too large and complicated to manufacture in a short amount of time. That leaves us with only a handful of options, but we have thoroughly vetted each of them to ensure that they will deliver on their promises."

The general proceeded to present the inventions to Ves one by one.

A projection of a large, cube-shaped machine appeared into view.

"The first tool is the SPM, which stands for Super Phase Monitor. It is a new long range phasewater detection machine developed by RISMIN, an institution that we have never conducted business with before." General Verle introduced.

"We already have plenty of phasewater detection devices in our fleet. They're mandatory equipment to every pioneering fleet."

"That is true, sir, but the equipment we have are fairly standard products that do not give us a competitive advantage. Their effective ranges vary depending on environment, interference and many other factors, but even our best detectors will struggle to pick up phasewater past 8 kilometers and less if there is a lot of solid matter in the way."

Ves nodded in understanding. He learned enough about phasewater to know that searching for it was an ordeal in itself.

Basically, most prospectors had to perform carpet searches in areas suspected to contain phasewater deposits. This was a tedious and extremely time-consuming activity for both aliens and humans.

The only exception appeared to be the mysterious phase whales. There were rumors that their sensitivity towards phasewater was so high that they could even detect a deposit on the other side of a star system!

"I take it this SPM breaks the mold of the phasewater detectors that are generally available on the market, or else you wouldn't have bothered to bring it up to me." Ves guessed. pan(da-n0vel.c)om

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