The Mech Touch novel Chapter 4894

Two weeks went by after Ves came up with the Rainbow Shield concept and handed over Object 431 to Venerable Jannzi to practice with. He and his wife spent a lot of time on bringing the Dullahan Project and the Ghost Project closer to completion.

Everything proceeded smoothly. If not for the need to accompany their children after they were done with their daily tutoring sessions, the married couple could have made even more progress on their mech design projects!

As Davute continued to settle down and transform into a proper state after the conclusion of the founding festival, an important event took place on a certain day that forced Ves and many Larkinsons to break from their routine.

This was why they all boarded their shuttles and moved to a medium-sized town located a moderate distance away from Kotor City.

The town was based around a large military base. The entire economy was centered around servicing and accommodating the military units that would be stationed in this location in the future.

This was the site where the mech division that General Ark Larkinson led would formally be established.

It would not be the permanent home of his mech division. The Colonial Federation of Davute had become a rather expansive star territory, but its main problem was that an excessive amount of military units were concentrated in the Davute System.

The port system already enjoyed a sufficient amount of protection. What the newly founded colonial state needed the most was to increase its presence and military control over the vast tracts of space in the surrounding regions and provinces.

Many corners of Davute were not that well developed. The colonies there were years behind as lack of population and investment severely inhibited their growth.

The colonial government hoped that stationing more mech units over there and setting up regular patrols would vastly increase the security level of the region. Trade, immigration, industry and investment would subsequently flow into these underserved regions.

In addition to that, Davute also needed to establish more strongholds throughout the provinces. This was vital to create a robust military infrastructure in preparation for the upcoming war.

One way or another, General Ark Larkinson and his new mech division would become embroiled in the bloody and relentless competition between Davute and Karlach.

Ves had no desire at all to get caught up in a petty war between two greedy colonial states. All of the fighting and killing was completely pointless in his opinion.

Still, not everything was bad. War was great for mech designers. As long as their products were good enough, they would get sold in large numbers as many different groups desperately sought to strengthen their troops in order to tilt the numbers in their favor.

Although the Living Mech Corporation did not really sell any real military-grade mechs at this time, its machines were still incredibly attractive to the large number of paramilitary units that had signed on to fight for Davute.

Technically speaking, General Ark's new mech division was classified as a paramilitary unit. Much of its ownership and control were in the hands of outsiders. Its rules and regulations only partially followed the federal military's code.

This wasn't meant to stay this way. If not for the fact that a war was brewing in the short term, Davute would rather take its time to raise proper military mech divisions and maintain tight control over them from beginning to end.

Ves wasn't sure whether Ark's mech division slowly transitioned from the External Group to the Internal Group of the Federal Military of Davute.

There were huge differences between the two. The former maintained a small distance from the colonial state while the latter was completely integrated into its military apparatus!

He shrugged. This was not really his business. It would be up to the Davute Branch to decide how extensively it wanted to cooperate with the state.

The founding ceremony for Ark's new mech division was not too grand. It was 'just' a paramilitary mech division for a time being. The Federal Military already attracted a lot of outside parties and promised to give them a piece of the pie so long as they made military contributions.

Within a section of the large base, hundreds of mechs had gathered into neat columns.

The majority of them consisted of familiar living mechs such as the Ferocious Piranha and the Crystal Lord.

Curiously enough, the new mech division did not include any mechs that were exclusive to the Larkinson Clan or any group. The conspicuous absence of the Bright Warrior and the Transcendent Punisher caused General Ark's new unit to look awfully unbalanced.

Over ten-thousand servicemen had also arrived. Each of them formed into ranks and stood in front of a large podium.

Many of the soldiers consisted of eager mech pilots, but there were also plenty of other professionals among them. General Ark and his staff had already put a lot of effort into recruiting mech officers, mech technicians, starship spacers, construction engineers, medical personnel and more.

When Ves swept his gaze across these people, he could immediately recognize where they hailed from based on their connections to different kinship networks.

Roughly a third of the personnel consisted of Larkinsons. Another third originated from the Cross Clan. The remainder had likely been recruited from outside sources.

The proportions looked so even that Ves was convinced that this was a deliberate arrangement.

"Wow. There is so much already." Andraste spoke as their group continued to move forward. "Does all of this belong to Uncle Ark?"

"Not exactly." Ves explained. "Much of this belongs to the state. General Ark and his people have the right to shape the mech division according to their ideas, but they can only do so with the authority bestowed by the higher ups of the government. It's complicated."

Since the colonial government funded and provided much of the infrastructure for the mech division, it did not want General Ark to turn everything into his own private army.

It was remarkable how much personnel General Ark had gathered under his banner. From the start, his mech division had become more attractive than the alternatives due to a combination of factors.

The popularity of the Larkinson Clan, the hero worship of Patriarch Reginald Cross, the confidence in General Ark's leadership ability, the extensive use of living mechs and other reasons all made it so that this had become one of the the hottest mech divisions that Davute had founded as of late!

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