The Mech Touch novel Chapter 4657

The plan to refit the Spirit of Bentheim into a quasi-first-class factory ship received lukewarm support from the other leaders of the Larkinson Clan.

Ves knew quite well that the main reason that people such as General Verle and Director Ranya Wodin supported the initiative was because the patriarch wanted this to happen.

No other pioneering organization would squander half of the immense windfall of MTA merits on transforming a factory ship of all things into the most luxuriously equipped vessel of her kind in second-class space!

The fact that the planned refit upgraded her so much that she could justifiably be classified as a quasi-first-class vessel already said much about the insane level of spending required to make her this good.

Sure, spending over 300 million MTA merits as well as 84 kilograms of phasewater on a factory ship sounded crazy, but it was exactly the kind of crazy that enabled Ves to produce one fantastic innovation after another!

Though it was possible to fund the refit plan using money instead of contribution tokens, even the most modest versions could cost the clan billions of MTA credits!

What was more problematic was that the clan would have to commission a shipyard belonging to a normal first-class power such as the Yorul-Tavik Clan. No matter how much these ordinary first-raters invested in their shipyard facilities, they would never be able to match the quality of the MTA's state-of-the-art technology.

When it came to his personal baby, Ves only wanted the best for her. His flagship was the safe haven where he could shelter in when everything else around him became hostile and dangerous.

People like Gloriana who kept pushing the idea of colonizing a nice planet fundamentally misunderstood his mentality.

Ves had no desire to found a colony and rule over an entire planet.

The Spirit of Bentheim was his colony. Its 'surface area' might be smaller than the smallest moons, but every single part of it belonged to him and remained under his control!

When given the choice between owning a planet that was permanently stuck in a fixed orbit around a star and a tiny corvette that barely offered enough living room for a few crew members, he would pick the latter any time!

This was because a corvette could at least move around and travel anywhere in the cosmos as long as she was well-equipped!

Of course, the Spirit of Bentheim was much more than a tiny corvette. She was a genuine capital ship that not only functioned as a large manufacturing complex on the move, but also contained first-class lab and workshop facilities.

Mech designers such as Ves could make excellent use of these luxurious facilities to conduct their research and design their mechs, and the comfort of having them around in his travels ensured his productivity remained high.

In short, spending half of his gigantic stash of MTA merits on the factory ship was not a stupid decision in his eyes!

"Make no mistake." Ves said as the meeting wound down. "We are not wasting the huge sums put into her extensive upgrade and overhaul. We are not only gaining a powerful defensive asset that can play an immensely useful role on the battlefield, but we are also future-proofing our most important capital ship. Later on, we do not have to invest a lot of money or replace the Spirit of Bentheim with a brand-new first-class factory ship, because we already have a quasi-first-class vessel in our possession. It won't take much effort to remove the word 'quasi' from that designation."

The hard work of upgrading the foundation and half of her essential systems had already been done by that time. It would become a lot easier to replace the remaining second-class components and ship systems that had fallen behind such as the superdrives!

Chief Minister Novilon Purnesse remained one of the few people who maintained his objections over this spending plan. He maintained his stance that the opportunity costs of pursuing this plan was too great. There were many other highly useful goods and services that the clan could exchange from the MTA instead.

Still, as long as Ves remained at the helm, his opinion outweighed everyone else's. Besides, he already won over the support of the majority of the leadership of the clan, so he did not bother to pay attention to the remaining naysayers.

"What of the remaining 360 million or so MTA merits that we have left?" General Verle asked.

"I am open to other proposals." Ves made an inviting gesture with his arms. "My main concern is the refit of the Spirit of Bentheim. I do not have any other pressing needs at the moment. Each of you can continue to come up with your own plans and bring it up for discussion. If enough people think it is a good idea, then we will implement them. Just make sure that increasing our short to medium term combat power takes priority. We will be heading back into the deep frontier sooner or later, so make sure we are ready to deal with anything thrown in our direction."

After the conclusion of the meeting, Minister Shederin Purnesse stayed back and approached him for a private chat.

"What's up, old man?"

The aged diplomat's impeccable control over his body ensured he did not display any adverse reaction to the patriarch's overly informal greeting.

"Word of our latest deeds have already begun to circulate, sir." Shederin quietly informed Ves. "Not only do they dramatize our operations against the Palace of Shame and the Fractured House of the Collapsing Star, they also mention how many MTA merits we have received for our heavy contributions."

"What?! The news has spread already?!"

Shederin nodded in confirmation. "The exact sum of MTA merits are on every headline related to our actions. The stories are just starting to appear on the smaller news portals, but it is only a matter of time before the major ones will publish the same articles. By the time we arrive in Davute, we will be swamped with attention, both good and bad."

"Ugh. That is just what we need. Let me guess. The Mech Trade Association had a hand in publicizing our deeds."

"We don't need to guess. One of the MTA's official news bulletin has published a highly condensed summary of our positive contributions less than an hour ago. The mechers have even managed to insert the exact sum of MTA merits that our Golden Skull Alliance earned in total."

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