The Mech Touch novel Chapter 6873

Chapter 6873 Completion of the Final Glory Project

Everyone was waiting for the day the Premier Fleet could completely assemble.

That day should not be too far away. The Larkinson Clan and its allies tried to speed up the timetable and rush through the necessary steps whenever possible.

In the meantime, Ves and other mech designers continued to make a lot of progress in their mech designs. The SF-02 constantly showed its value by allowing the Design Department to complete its projects faster and in a better state than before.

One of the projects that Ves managed to complete was the Final Glory Project.

"It's done."

Ves, Kelsey Ampatoch, Ariana Roux and Jovy Armalon all gathered together to examine the finalized mech templates of the Final Glory Project.

Jovy had done a decent job at converting the final iterations of the mech designs into two mech templates, one for the Middle Zones and one for the Lower Zones.

Regardless of the versions, the Final Glory designs closely matched what Ves originally envisioned.

The Carmine mechs were basically shaped like rockets. They possessed enough boost power to overcome the gravity wells of most planets. In order to reduce their cost, the 'mechs' did not possess any limbs. It was not as if they would need them in order to reach their targets and self-destruct.

Although the Final Glory designs looked simple, the mech designers put a lot of work and effort into making it as efficient and explosive as possible. This was not easy to do as the mech designers had to work hard to make it as cost effective as possible.

Ves looked pretty satisfied with the results. The mech templates made by Jovy were adaptable enough that any mech designer could develop a localized variant of the Final Glory.

There was enough tolerance in the material choices that his 'customers' could choose to construct their machines from cheap to slightly more premium alloys.

Not that it made that much of a difference. The Final Glory mechs were designed for one-way trips only. Whether they got shot down with ease or required slightly more effort to eliminate ultimately shouldn't make that much of a difference.

"Are we actually going to publish this mech?" Ariana Roux asked.

Ves turned to the female Journeyman. "Are you having cold feet?"

Ariana, who had been responsible for designing and programming the cheap hacking module that should hopefully interfere with the targeting of the Final Glory mechs, clearly looked troubled by their work.

"I understand the usefulness of this mech, but… I still find it difficult to stomach the fact that I have worked on a mech design that is expressly designed to kill its own pilot."

"The rules are outdated." Ves stated. "The Red Association won't give us any trouble over this. Jovy wouldn't have played such an indispensable role in the design project."

He already knew that a lot of professionals might try to accuse Ves for breaking an unforgivable taboo. Making it known that a genuine RA Senior Mech Designer like Jovy worked openly on the Final Glory Project should instantly cut off this line of attack.

People were already used to the mechers being hypocrites. This was hardly the first time the Association trampled its own rules and violated its principles.

Ves actually found that the RA was a lot more flexible than people assumed. The mechers deliberately cast themselves as rule bound enforcers in public, but privately they were open bending or outright erasing any rules that got in their way.

Their stance reminded Ves a lot about himself.

"Does anyone else have any ethical concerns they need to voice at the moment our project is finished for whatever reason?"

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"Okay, since none of you are bothering to voice any more useless objections, we will publish the mech templates to the public." Ves declared. "Since this is not a product that has undergone validation through the Red Association, we can't sell it through regular channels. I think it is best just to publicize the mech templates as well as the default mech designs through our own channels. Our clan is popular enough that plenty of people are paying attention to our every move. The media will naturally pick up our new Final Glory designs and figure out their purpose."

"That sounds minimalistic, sir." Kelsey objected. "Shouldn't we market the mech design more actively?"

Ves shook his head. "I don't think it is a good idea. We are all familiar with the controversies surrounding this suicide mech. The last thing I want to do is to tarnish my reputation by making it look as if I am deliberately trying to found a suicide cult. I also don't want to earn the impression that I think that red humanity is all doomed, so we might as well go out with a bang."

"The public will ascribe motivations to you regardless of what you say." Jovy pointed out. "Publishing a brief statement will at least provide a measure of clarity."

Ves looked skeptical. "Maybe, maybe not. I don't think people will be particularly swayed by my words. My supporters will easily buy my arguments, while my detractors will always think that I am lying. I don't intend to say anything. I will let our works speak for themselves. Once my products are being used, I hope that the public will eventually recognize the good that I am trying to do with the Final Glory Project."

"I think you are being too optimistic about the public, Ves."

"I have better things to do than participate in a popularity contest. If there are serious problems related to the public adoption of the Final Glory mechs, I may change my mind and intervene directly. I don't think it is necessary, though."

The mech designers talked a bit more on how they could promote the Final Glory Project among the increasingly more desperate space peasants of the Upper and Middle Zones.

He found it rather sad that far too many colonists still got wiped out because they continually failed to secure a spot on an evacuation ship.

"What an imaginative name." Ves flatly replied.

"It is not as big or powerful as the Bluejay Fleet. The Red Three doesn't have so many warships and first-class multipurpose mechs to spare, and they do not want to draw too much attention in my direction."

"I don't think that is possible, Ketis. Your role in opening up a passage to the Blue Dimension is public knowledge. The cosmopolitans definitely leaked your details to the native aliens. If the Red Cabal is smart, it will try to dispatch a strike force consisting of multiple ancient phase whales to snuff out your life. You are directly responsible for turning god pilots such as the Fist of Defiance into a much more implacable foe. It makes too much sense to eliminate the source of superdimensional matter."

"I do not intend to withdraw." Ketis affirmed yet again. "A swordmaster belongs on the battlefield."

"A mech designer belongs in the rear." Ves retorted.

"That rule never applied to you. Why do you think I am any different?"

"This is a serious matter, Ketis. I hope you are not relying on the charity of the Heavensword to protect you against retaliation."

Her expression told Ves that this may be exactly why she did not fear any ambushes.

This was not a healthy mindset. Ves hoped that his former student at least had contingency plans in place.

"Once you have finished the First Sword Mark III, what will you be working on next?" Ves inquired.

"I haven't thought about it yet, to be honest. My Stormblade Samurais already perform well when deployed against the native aliens. I do not recognize an urgent need to update any of my existing works. I also do not think that I can make a large enough contribution by designing yet another swordsman mech that is meant to fight the native aliens. I need to come up with a more inventive idea."

"You don't have any in mind?"

"Surprisingly… no." She said. "I can't come up with a killer swordsman mech concept that can fight more effectively against alien phasefighters and warships than the Stormblade Samurai Mark II. Any alternatives I can come up with are either too expensive or too difficult to pilot effectively. I may have outdone myself when I designed that mech. Stormblade technology is just so useful. It is difficult to find weapons tech that can surpass its performance or do something different that is also useful."

"Well, if you aren't in the mood to design a new swordsman mech, why not design an update to one of your existing works?"

"Most of my works are still fairly current." Ketis said with a frown. "Which one of them needs an upgrade?"

"The Everchanger for one…"