The Mech Touch

"You're right. It's personal." Finlay admitted when Ves probed the disguised nobleman yet again. "It's the only way to teach the Nyxian pirates a lesson. They're so used to brutality that they rarely pay attention to ordinary threats."

"Even so, the modifications you have in mind are very gratuitous. Replacing the regular ballistic cannons with specialized nuclear cannons is more than enough to turn your Spyre Helixes into highly destructive mechs. Adding the gamma lasers and nuclear missiles to your mechs is excessive."

"Nothing is excessive when it comes to the opponent we are targeting." Finlay glowered darkly. "The Spyre Helixes that you are modifying will only be put to use in a single operation. Once they have finished the job, we will immediately dismantle and break them down so that no trace of them are left. They won't ever show up again, Rho-Sigma. I promise that."

Ves pursed his lips behind his helmet. He sat impassively as he tried to judge whether Finlay actually spoke the truth.

His shadow attire made it very difficult for Ves to glean clues out of the nobleman. His spiritual senses caught nothing as Finlay did not possess any spiritual potential that could give away any clues.

All Ves could rely upon was his intuition and his logic.

His intuition didn't sense anything egregious about Finlay, but then again his intuition didn't have much to go upon. Plenty of people had lied to Ves before and got away with it. Spies and nobles adept in social manipulation tended to be highly trained in the art of deception.

Though Ves probably figured that most of what Finlay said must be true, the Sentinel might have taken some liberties with some crucial details!

What if Finlay deployed the doom crawlers against a Peacekeeper base?

What if Ves woke up one morning and read a devastating news report about several cities in the Sentinel Kingdom being laid to waste by a bunch of mystery doom crawlers?

The doom crawlers possessed enough firepower to wipe out billions of humans by launching all of its nuclear weapons in quick succession!

Not a single defensive force would be able to react in time if the doom crawlers were smuggled into place without tripping off any alarms!

A huge shadow loomed over Ves. This job sounded extremely sketchy to him. Even if Finlay truly believed that the doom crawlers he acquired would merely be put to use against a bunch of pirates, he was just an errand boy.

The people who truly possessed the power to decide where to employ the doom crawlers stood above someone like Finlay! Ves doubted that the young nobleman knew every detail about the intended use for the modified doom crawlers.

Who knew if the owners of the Spyre Helixes held different ideas from Finlay?

No matter how much sincerity Finlay tried to convey, Ves couldn't put much stock in the nobleman's words.

The more he thought about it, the more Ves feared that the doom crawlers would be put to use against targets that didn't deserve to die in a sea of nuclear fury!

"You said that you've already approached other Journeymen, right? They made the right decision. The changes that you demand is too abominable to see the light of day."

"I already told you. Their only purpose is to annihilate a heavy-defended pirate fortification! That is all!"

"Not even pirates deserve to die with the cruel and inhuman weapons you wish to mount on your Spyre Helixes."

"Heat is heat! Explosions are explosions! Who cares whether the heat and explosion comes with a dose of radiation? Someone who is directly struck by a laser beam will die regardless whether it's radioactive or not!"

"If there is little difference in lethality, then there is hardly any point in replacing the Spyre Helix's conventional weapon systems."

"As I said, regular weapons aren't enough! We have to send a forceful message!"

Again, Finlay repeated this ostensible goal.

"Is it personal?" Ves boldly asked.

"...Yes." Finlay admitted. "I'll be honest, Rho-Sigma. A few years ago, one of our elite Peacekeeper outfits deployed in the Nyxian Gap fell into an ambush. A lot of mech pilots died, but those who survived ended up in the clutches of the pirate alliance that orchestrated the trap. Those who survived… did not meet good ends."

"I take it there were very important people among those survivors. Those of noble blood."

"..Yes. This is not a secret. If you check the galactic net, you can read the public news articles."

"Let me think for a moment."

The Circle of Mota did not offer a connection to the galactic net, so Ves had no way of confirming the incident.

He didn't think that Finlay was lying, though. Ves could easily confirm the news by asking bystanders about this ambush.

However, even if the ambush actually took place and provoked some nobles into plotting revenge, Ves still maintained some suspicions.

How could a pirate alliance determine the precise route of a premier Peacekeeper outfit and set an ambush that the scouts failed to detect in time?

Ves suspected that the pirates had help. Inside help.

What if the avenging nobles not only acted on the same suspicions, but managed to pinpoint the traitors within the Sentinel Kingdom, who knew if the doom crawlers would be deployed against their strongholds instead?

The pirates may have done the deed, but they may have merely been the knife wielded by the actual masterminds!

If the masterminds happened to be a noble house in control of a planet, then smuggling eighty doom crawlers onto the surface was a good way to tear them down from their lofty height!

Perhaps it was just his paranoia going overboard again, but Ves seriously believed it was plausible that the modified Spyre Helixes would actually be put to use against 'civilized' opponents!

It was one thing to employ taboo weapons against scummy pirates who had forsaken their human rights. It was another thing entirely to employ prohibited weapons of mass destruction on a civilized target like House Laterna or House Gin Tefa!

"I think we are done here." Ves spoke and stood up. "I will not entertain your proposal any further. It is sheer madness."

"Rho-Sigma! Please don't go yet! The auction hasn't even started yet! The Circle of Mota always offers a lot of highly unusual goods in their auctions! If you truly want to obtain something but don't have the firthals to outbid the other bidders, I can still help!"

Ves momentarily halted in his attempt to stand up. Though he found Finlay's proposed commission to be extremely problematic, who knew what he might miss out on if he left the private box.

At best, the objects that attracted his attention might not be as expensive as he feared.

At worst, he could just decide to forgo the spiritually-reactive objects entirely.

With some reluctance, Ves decided to remain after all. Leaving would only deprive him of an opportunity while giving nothing in return except for cleansing his conscience.

The value of the former was much greater than the value of the latter.

If Ves had to put a price on his conscience, then 1 billion firthals sounded kind of cheap. He had the feeling he might be able to milk Finley out of even more money if he stringed the fellow along.

Finding a Journeyman willing to perform the modifications he demanded must be very challenging.

While capable and experienced Apprentices could also do the same job, they required a lot more time to implement all of the modifications. The results wouldn't be as good as Ves could manage, as all of those powerful weapon systems required more space and more power to accommodate their prodigious firepower.

Therefore, Ves was at least assured that Finlay wanted him for his skills and didn't target him for some other reason.

As time passed by, Finlay kept chatting with Ves. Though they didn't talk about anything sensitive, the disguised nobleman put some effort to ingratiate himself.

Ves learned a fair bit of useful information, particularly about the Circle of Mota and the Nyxian pirates. This kind of information was very hard to come by as only nobles were exposed to the bigger picture.

"Do you know why we've never attempted to wipe out the Nyxian pirates despite the cancer they pose in our region?" Finlay asked.

"Too difficult and costly."

"That's true, but the Sentinel Kingdom could have done much more to suppress the pirates. Aside from the Peacekeepers, we can also bring our military and all of the household troops to bear against the Nyxian Gap. Even if we can't root them out entirely, we can bleed them enough so that they won't be able to launch any attacks against us for the next fifty years. To some people, that is still worth it. Yet each time a proposal is put forward, it's always shot down. Don't you find that interesting?"

Ves crossed his arms across his chest. With his understanding on how society was run, he formed a very solid guess.

"The current status quo favors the royals and nobles. The Nyxian pirates exert considerable pressure against the state, but not to the point of threatening its sovereignty."

"Right. The Nyxian pirates can't be wiped out, but also aren't that bad to have as neighbors. We grew strong as a state because of how the Nyxian Gap changes the dynamics in its surroundings. Destructive wars are much less common, though small-scale raids are still rather frequent. The damage is tolerable, though. Instead of damaging the lifeblood of our kingdom, the pirate attacks instead serve to remove the rot from our state."

Perhaps the decadent nobles who did not invest enough in defending their holdings deserved to fall. Ves wasn't so sure if the commoners toiling for their masters and suffering the brunt of the pirate attacks deserved the same.

He should never mistake pirates as benign!

"Is this the prevailing opinion among the nobility?"

"Yes. Our conflict against the Nyxian pirates has raged for centuries that we've settled on a tenuous balance. Our state not only founded the Peacekeepers to organize our resistance towards the pirates, but also modulate our counterattacks to a level that is tolerable to the pirates themselves."

Ves narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "The state is afraid that a greater attack against the pirates will provoke a more destructive response."

"Right."

This put the commission that Finlay offered to him in a whole new light.

"The doom crawlers that you have bought. If they are upgraded according to your demands before being put to use against the pirates, then that will break the balance you are talking about, right?"

"Hehe." Finlay chuckled inside his helmet. The distortion made his laugh sound considerably more ominous! "That's right, Rho-Sigma. Destroying a single pirate fortification in the most barbaric fashion possible is not our end goal. It is a catalyst. The Nyxian pirates have sat on their comfortable thrones for too long. Launching an attack while employing a judicious amount of outrageous weapons is a provocation that no pirate can ignore!"

The implications sounded explosive! What Finlay just said had wider implications towards the entire region!

"I do not understand. The status quo is beneficial towards your class. Why provoke the Nyxian pirates to such an extent?"

"You're partially correct, mech designer. While it's true that the status quo is not that bad for us, both sides involved require some shaking up. The ambush that felled our elite Peacekeeper outfit has gone too far. The pirate alliance responsible for torturing and killing our fellow nobles has grown too comfortable in its seat of power. If we wish to topple them and make room for a new power structure, we have to resort to drastic action."

"It's not just about taking revenge for a single ambush, then."

"Yes. We have accumulated other grievances. While our state is willing to keep the pirates aren't, it doesn't matter which pirates are in charge. Some have outlived their usefulness. We are merely helping them retire."