What's Junk? (The Mech Touch)

[lost star]

Logically the series of events made sense. Bolt really didn't want to actually try to decipher it all. It made his head hurt. The stupidity involved was so endemic that he wanted to scream.

"So, you saved these kids on your infiltration job, attempted to run away, and ended up with the local resistance?" Bolt summarized the issue.

"Correct." Venerable Willow confirmed.

The woman had seen far better days. Truthfully Bolt wasn't even sure how she was alive at the moment. Fully half her body was gone. She had a singular functional hand, and had to be hooked up into several devices because she was missing most of what was needed to digest food. Fixing this was possible with their technology, but it'd take months. Months that she didn't seem to have.

"Several radical Hexxer groups have a tendency to kill the male side of the population in various types of purges. They're usually harshly punished for it, but it's far more consistent than the upper echelons like." The woman seemed serene despite her injuries. "Rescuing them was the correct thing to do. It was easy actually. It's one of the larger dividing points between many factions inside the nation."

"But that broke your cover and caused the officials on the Friday side to deny help." Bolt filled in.

"It helped that the result of my escape did this." Willow indicated her body with her one good hand.

He suspected that there were other factors too. Experts were valued. Willow, with her specialty in stealth related actions, was probably one of the most valuable people in their lineup. Her getting cut off like that and forced to rely on local and unreliable help smacked of politics.

"They're good children." The woman commented into the silence. "Keep them safe. Don't blame the theft on them or the others either. Some people thought a mech would make me feel better."

"You've not piloted in awhile." Bolt observed before nodding and getting to his feet as he made a decision. "All right, I'll get the mech ready for you."

Willow gave a soft smile. "Like I told them, that won't help me. I vowed to serve the Friday Coalition. With no use for me, this is not the worst fate."

The designer flicked her forehead. As she stared at him in consternation he did it again. "No. Bad cat."

"Cat?" The expert repeated with bemusement.

"Bad cat." Bolt repeated with a nod. "No curling up in the shadows to die." He pulled out his comm. "Lilly, talk some sense into the woman giving up if you would? I'm getting Cheshire ready for her."

All teasing aside, this was an issue known to the MTA that he wanted to prevent. In the more restricted briefings there was information on various afflictions experts could have. One of them fit here. When experts suffered a severe mental hit related to how they'd ascended they tended to wither and die. If Bolt was right, Willow had devoted her life to the Friday Coalition, and them cutting her off had caused a fatal and poisonous blow. The physical side could be repaired. The mental side couldn't.

Really this was a bad situation all over. Taking the local resistance force, Willow's supporting staff, and the ship crew into custody was a bit of a problem in many respects if it got out. They couldn't cut anyone loose right now either. The resistance force could probably be left once they were ready to leave, but the rest would cause trouble or be in trouble if they left them behind.

Getting Willow up and running was therefore a mix of altruistic and selfish reasons. If they could get her active then her relations with all the involved groups would smooth things over. The word if was holding a lot of weight though. The restricted information didn't really have official ways of helping someone with a broken will. It was a psychological issue that required a quick and precise evaluation and a substitute reason for the expert to pick up. The latter was highly dependent on circumstances, and also had to be done carefully, because experts were not people that responded well to manipulation.

Lilly had an advantage in this case that made him believe they could do it. She could read people and was genuine. Bolt was setting up their other advantage. Cheshire wasn't a combat mech, but she was a very special mech in a spiritual sense. She was serene in a way no other mechs were. The combination of the two should stabilize Willow and get her mending instead of fatalistically dying.

In a way the next few hours resembled someone getting physical therapy. They had to carefully get Willow into the cockpit, and then practically beg her to take control of Cheshire before taking her out. They stepped out into the open fields of one of the many empty areas on the planet and watched as she took a few steps.

"I fail to see the point here." The woman said with good humor as Cheshire moved, if no real enthusiasm.

"Really, you haven't piloted in over a year and you say that?" Lilly asked back with an audible eye roll. Morning Star picked up a rock and threw it her way.

Willow dodged reflexively. "Rocks, really?"

"You're so rusty that I could kill you with anything better." The other woman shot back and threw another rock.

A delicate sniff followed and Cheshire disappeared from sight. Bolt stifled a small chuckle from his observation position. He'd put a few monitoring tools in the mech before doing this just in case, but Lilly didn't have access to them. Not that she really needed them.

"Gentle." That's was Lilly's response as she flapped Morning Star's wings slightly. "I didn't think I'd ever see a gentle expert, but here we are. Yer really soft."

"That sort of description is a first." Willow replied placidly as Cheshire prowled around.

"Yep. Met a lotta experts by now. Naoto thinks of himself as a blade, and he's at peace with that. Pup is a guard dog. You? A quiet ghost. How'd you ascend?"

"I'd rather not speak of it."

Bolt glanced at the battlefield, if you could call it that. Cheshire had been quite before, but as time passed she was getting even quieter. The little mech wasn't an expert mech, but Willow was certainly making it seem like it. It was even making the monitoring tools slightly glitchy.

"Since the goal here is to get you moving I think I'm going to take it up a notch." Lilly had Morning Star manifest a dozen small stars. "These won't do much to anything, but let's play tag with em." She flicked one through the air.

Willow was forced to dodge. Completely invisible, obscured from all the senses, she was still forced to dodge. Bolt truthfully had no idea how Lilly was seeing her at first. After a few movements he figured out that she was watching the ground. No matter how invisible and padded the mech was, there was still going to be a bit of a shift.

That was until there wasn't. Lilly paused when it happened and made a guess. "Using the boosters? That's not gonna last forever."

"Please don't confuse me with an amateur Venerable Silica." Willow responded softly.

"Oh, is that a hint of will?" The other expert immediately said with cheer.

"Professional pride." Willow muttered with a hint of emotion.

Truthfully Bolt was quite impressed. Seeing the trick didn't make it any less impressive. Cheshire was stepping on solid ground and places she'd already flattened to keep her movements from being seen while boosting periodically to get from point to point. It was a cat playing hopscotch invisibly and silently. The little mech had managed to do all of this and approach Lilly.

"Ya don't gotta say it, but I think yer getting a bit back into it." Lilly said after a few seconds.

Willows response was simple. "Tag." Cheshire appeared with a paw on Morning Star's back leg.

"Hah!" Bolt's wife said with a laugh. "Ok, that tears it. Bolt do your magic and Cheshire. Willow's perfect for that."

Bolt exhaled loud enough that the mic probably caught it. "Ya know that'd be a bit pointless if Willow hasn't decided to live yet." He pointed out. "And magic, really?"

"Don't care." Lilly responded. "I want ta see her in something special even if she dies. Someone like this deserves to be remembered at her peak."

"I am still here and on the public channel you know." The woman they were speaking of reminded them.

"Like that matters." Lilly said flippantly.

Bolt really sympathized with Willow's long sigh there. He really did.

 

[Luckless21]

Everyone here got a cat distributed, Willow got the Cheshire and The Rats got Willow.

 

[eersc]

Was she the expert from the arboreal planet? Or was that someone else.

 

[lurkingkraken]

Willow gave a soft smile. "Like I told them, that won't help me. I vowed to serve the Friday Coalition. With no use for me, this is not the worst fate."

Click to shrink...

You can tell how much the rag-tag group of kids she saved loves her that they would dare steal a mech to try and make her feel better.

That's a good sign for her being a good person.

 

[Cybershadowninja2]

Cheshire wasn't a combat mech, but she was a very special mech in a spiritual sense. She was serene in a way no other mechs were. The combination of the two should stabilize Willow and get her mending instead of fatalistically dying.

Click to shrink...

Cheshire is now a therapy cat.

 

[Luckless21]

Cheshire is now a therapy cat.

Click to shrink...

They always have been, so that isn't new.

 

[Jordisk]

Was she the expert from the arboreal planet? Or was that someone else.

Click to shrink...

Completely different person. Willow was a Fridayman plant in the Hexxers.

 

[lost star]

It was all well and good to say they needed to make Cheshire into an expert mech and another to actually do it. The mech was small. The stealth system occupied most of the available space as well. Truthfully Bolt wouldn't have bothered at all had the entire design not really clicked with Willow. Had Willow not shown improvement upon piloting the mech he might had delayed some as well. Might have. There was a distinct possibility that he would have tried anyway. He knew himself well enough to acknowledge that.

Adjusting the mech to make it viable in combat was actually going to require a lot of rather delicate work. If it were anyone else it wouldn't have been possible, Bolt had to acknowledge. The best adjustments he could do to make Cheshire a proper offensive mech was add some armor, add a singular weapon with a little bit of ammo, and resonant material. The latter had to be the main offense. Willow, when using the mech would have to burn willpower to really deal damage. This would be completely non-viable designing conventionally. Only Bolt's skill and the fact that it was a stealth mech made it possible.

The offense would be achieved with a particularly rare, but also relatively cheap exotic that produced an entropic effect. The reason it was both those factors was because the exotic had entropic properties. Properly preserving it was a pain in the ass, and it held very niche uses. Hence relatively cheap and annoyingly rare.

Cheshire would be using it to create 'bad luck.' She'd tap her paw to an enemy and they'd be marked. How bad it would be would be up in the air. Aside from that untested weapon she'd also be able to set small sticky bombs that'd explode on a timer. Getting something high yield enough would be costly, but necessary.

Other than those changes, the mech would get more armor and some tweaks here and there by changing out the salvages parts with more expensive and more efficient parts. Cheshire was going to be a very pricy cat! She'd also hopefully be a decent sapper mech. They'd have to test the bad luck after the changes were done to see how good that was. Ideally no one would even notice the cat was there at all.

Thankfully rushing everything wasn't really needed. Willow would need months to recover enough to properly pilot, assuming she reassembled her willpower. The woman was improving, but it was a slower process. Regular walks with Cheshire in space and on the ground when they could would hopefully fix her. After the changes were done there was a decent chance that the mech spirits hiding in Mechalla would be able to sim the bad-luck for added practice as well.

Also, while she wasn't fully recovered, Willow was up and working well enough to smooth things over somewhat with everyone. The rebel forces were being placated with a lot of scrap. The Hexxer boys and Willow's support staff were being folded in with the Wrench Rats, and the people manning the ship were being cut loose with a repaired ship and would likely find mercenary work doing something a stealth ship would be good for.

At Willow's instance both of the rebels and the shipmen did not know she was actually recovering. In their eyes she was passing on her last wishes. That was a sneaky reason for that. Bolt wasn't particularly enamored or interested enough to care about it. It would probably be useful in the future. Especially if he was discrete with upgrading her mech. Watching for expert parts wouldn't actually tell people what he was doing in this case! Cheshire had never been seen, and upgrading her to an expert mech was particularly insane from a designer perspective.

Subterfuge aside, the salvage was going well, and they were on track to leave. The next destination would be a Friday fortification world. There was a decent one on the list of places they could retreat to, and it'd be a good place to drop off prisoners. They'd dip in, see about any news or updates, and dip out.

--Elsewhere, in a Friday meeting between high level people--

If one had to say what the largest bane of any real organization was, it was one of two items. Corruption or internal politics. Very typically it was both, frequently intertwined. It was human nature to favor the ingroup and dislike the outgroup and corruption favoring you was hardly real corruption wasn't it?

Takaharu was familiar with all the excuses. He'd used more than a few himself. There was a sort of understanding that so long as the main mission of resisting the witches was kept up, people would look the other way. That didn't mean he liked all of it. He frequently felt like he'd sold his soul several times. But the problem was that sometimes that was what was necessary to keep the war moving.

"Projections are that Larkinsons' next mech will be out within a month or two." The intelligence officer gave the last part of his report. "Rumors are that he was inspired recently."

"Inspired." One of the generals noted sourly. "Is that what we're basing our tactics off now? Scuttlebutt about a singular designer halfway across the galaxy?"

"The Witches are finally starting to take meaningful losses. Would a new mental Glow actually do anything to change that?" Someone else asked. Looked like a lower level officer being used as a mouthpiece.

"Reports are that they're tapped on manpower. I'll leave you all to make predictions." The intelligence officer deflected quietly.

Takaharu gave a small grunt. He didn't blame the man for being less than eager to commit. The tension in the meeting was high despite the relative good news.

"Shall we bring up unit distribution in light of that news?"

If there were fighting words at the moment, it was those. It had not escaped people that the Guager forces were still rather fresh. Officially they'd been held back as a last resort due to the dire nature of the war. Unofficially they'd been very happy to let others take the damage and then push back. With the push back happening they were suddenly far less happy at the entire situation.

"How's our special asset?" The question was directed to Takaharu.

"He's alive." The general said. "We'd know if he died. And no he doesn't want to be moved to a secured facility. Anyone who wishes to push the issue would be best advised to read the designer management advice we keep handy."

Very specifically trying to cram designers into environments they weren't happy with usually ended up with rebellion or worse. You literally couldn't force designers to work for you. Even brainwashing techniques weren't valid, and those had been proposed. The MTA would not be happy with people assaulting someone of Bolt's status either. There were lines you could and could not cross.

"There is an official note of him doing a design collaboration with one of our masters." One of the less poisonous officers noted. "Do we have information on that?"

"Master Olson has been quite cooperative, so we can likely send her requests. She should be able to guide the special asset into something more suited for countering Larkinson at the very least. There's a report of him dropping off PoW's soon?"

Takaharu wished he could have covered that one up, but no. Paperwork had to be filed for something that large, and experts were extremely valuable as trading cards at a minimum. "Yes. The area does have facilities suited for rapid prototyping. I'm sure we can get something done quickly there."

"Good. Leak that he's doing it to the enemy." One of the higher generals ordered. "Place forces ready to reinforce the area, but pull back a few garrisons on the world itself."

"We're baiting the Hexxers?" Takaharu asked quietly.

"Yes. Delay the asset there as long as you can. Give him a few bonuses and request that he help with prototyping the new work. If you can, have them have a few ready. With luck the Larkinson and the Assets mech will counter one another and we'll be able to crush whatever forces the Hexxers pull together to attack it." The leading general said.

It was a good plan. It was also a trap in a lot of ways. Takaharu was quite sure that someone at the planet would be discretely ordered to prioritize their forces, not Bolt and his family. If some of their independence was clipped then they'd be able to quietly pressure the Rats into areas more favorable to Friday forces.

Kami help him, he despised politics.

 

[ThirtySecondStep]

I know I'm reading a story with well-written politics when a politician's PoV makes me feel slimy afterwards.

Blech.

 

[Luker number 5]

Yes make the designer feel unsafe in your territory that'll make him stay in a single place in your territory....

 

[Non-responsiveuncle]

Oh he's going to be stuck on a planet with plenty of parts enough people that he wouldn't be overwhelmed and lots of expert's for testing? Shame he doesn't have a stealth expert that can not only keep him ahead of the hexxers but also spy on how his "friends" are planning to use him, honestly hope he uses this to build lil the biggest most expensive heavy teir two mech ever seen