The Mech Touch

role to question the orders handed down to us from above.
Even if we are acting on dubious intelligence, someone has to go, because the consequences of missing an amazing opportunity is too dear to miss.
Might I remind you that the Vesians have sent out their own expedition here, one that is both stronger and more costly than ours. ”

That reminded him of the strange battle that took place after he isolated himself in his work.
It had been a stroke of luck to the Vandals that the Vesians fell prey to the vagaries of the frontier.

Major Verle quickly lost his patience and shooed Ves away.
After orienting himself in the corridor, he decided to return to his office.
It appeared that due to the sudden ambush by the forces aligned to the Church of Haatumak, the Vesian fleet decisively halted their pursuit to the half-crippled Flagrant Swordmaidens.

Both of them suffered from the aftermath of the Church of Haatumak ’s aggression.
Neither the Flagrant Swordmaidens nor the Vesians ever expected the low-key cultists to abandon their centuries-long neutrality to plan a surprise attack on both forces.
They must have thought that the price must be worth it.
Ves keenly noticed that Major Verle deftly skirted around the question of what drove them to such lengths to reach the fabled Starlight Megalodon.

”So many forces have gone through so many extremes.
What is driving them so mad? ”

Life-prolonging treatment serum? Advanced technological data banks? Tons of high-grade exotics? All of them sounded attractive, to be sure, but Ves had an inkling it might be more than that.
Whatever drove the big players so mad, it must have been something truly substantial.

”Well, in a few hours, we ’ll finally be on our way. ”

Ves returned to his office.
Right now, Ketis was off-duty and asleep so Ves had some time to himself.
He nursed his head and thought about the problem with his bent design philosophy.
As he came out of his most reject assignment, he had some time to rest his mind and take stock of his current mentality.

It didn ’t look good.
It appeared when Ves kept playing with fire, eventually his fingers might sustain some burn damage even if he thought he ’d been careful.

His design philosophy lost some of its luster, and it had suffered quite a bit from all the abuse Ves subjected it too.
He felt a little guilty at his recent appalling behavior.
Even if he did some of them out of necessity, those were merely rationalizations that could only convince his mind, but not his heart.

”I can lie to my mind but not my heart. ”

He ’d have to brainwash himself to achieve such an effect, kind of like what he attempted to do to Venerable Xie.

”Well, I could give it a try if only my genetic aptitude isn ’t so abysmal. ”

He chuckled to himself.
He seriously contemplated putting himself under the same circumstances as his latest guinea pig.
If not for the impediment of being unable to interface with a mech, then it might have worked!

He couldn ’t cheat his way out of undying the damage he inflicted upon himself.
He acted like a crook, and now he had to pay for it.
”I still don ’t regret what I ’ve done. ”

Perhaps being unrepentant may not be the best course of action towards recovery, but starting with honesty was a necessary step.
The fact of the matter was that he willfully schemed against an expert pilot who piloted the expert mechs the Venerable had entrusted to the Flagrant Vandals.

As the head designer, Ves bore the responsibility of ensuring that they functioned safe and well.
It was one thing to neglect his duties and let them rot due to lack of maintenance, but it was another thing entirely to deliberately turn them into a brainwashing machine that slowly sapped their mech pilot to death!

The only reason why his design philosophy hadn ’t cracked was because Ves performed these modifications for a client who became a danger to himself and the Vandals.

Treating his latest customer like an enemy instead of a valid client helped soothe some of his ethical conflicts, though strictly speaking the MTA wouldn ’t think of it that way.
They always took the side of the expert pilots over the mech designers.

”A true mech designer doesn ’t care whether his customers are friendly, neutral or hostile.
Their only job is to design mechs.
How they are distributed or sold shouldn ’t matter to them.
Even if he ends up arming his own enemies, the mech designer ought to celebrate because his mechs are so good even his foes can ’t help but favor his machines! ”

This kind of example expressed the dominant viewpoint the MTA liked to espouse.
Mech pilots fought for power, politics, ideals and more.
They were the stars of the show that decided how the galaxy should be run.

Mech designers acted as their support crew.
They provided the most important tool for the mech pilots to exert their power.
A mech designer was not meant to wield power for themselves.
The mech industry tolerated a certain amount of influence gathering as long as their ambitions remained within the scope of the mech industry.

A mech designer ought to be detached from politics.
If the Vesia Kingdom by some miracle successfully conquered the Bright Republic, Ves should feel no compulsions about working under the Vesians.

The MTA was delusional if they believed that would happen.
Mech designers loyal to the Bright Republic wouldn ’t accept their new rulers, and the Vesians would certainly favor their native mech designers over their newly-conquered subjects.

In essence, they key to solving his wounded design philosophy was to recognize that Ves did not harm his own client.
Rather, he needed to convince his heart that he instead followed orders to sabotage a potential enemy, thereby neutralizing a ticking time bomb that could have exploded in everyone ’s faces.

While he had a fiduciary duty to deliver a safe product to his clients, he had no such obligations to do so to an acute threat to his life!

Ves felt out his heart and found that his design philosophy had grown a tiny bit less agitated.
”Maybe I ’m onto something here. ”