What's Junk? (The Mech Touch)

[lost star]

"Burn in righteous fire!"

Ascension hadn't changed much for Mary. That was odd to say, but it was the truth. Her breast burned with fire, her mind was sharper, and she was a better pilot. The job was still the same. Burn the enemy and provide moral support. She did have a new church, and the mental bandwidth to think of it while doing this.

Lasers flowed out like the wrath of god. Her beautiful mech wiped the enemy from her sight and sensors within seconds. The Shining Maiden had been remade and reborn, fit for an expert. Across her armor prayers had been carefully etched by the faithful. Each one was a hope for living another day. She would not disappoint.

Such was her firepower that the sandman could not approach at all. A sphere of sand had formed around her, and not a spec of matter could get past a line. Jeanne's approach to upgrading the mech had been relatively simple. She'd simply made it better at its job. Why change something the pilot was used to? For that matter, experts who used artillery were considered a special sort of horror to deal with. The king of the battlefield was still artillery, just in expert form.

Mary alone could outright annihilate a sandman given proper setup. Against a group she'd falter, but she was not the only one to ascend. She was in the odd position of having brother and sister of the same faith, with the same purpose, with the same mechs. This was unheard of in times of peace and only came about in wars when there was a unified front and mindset, like her nation had in this crisis.

The front was on fire and the Sandmen burned and died until there was nothing but void. Mary shifted to look for more and found herself confused. This had felt too fast. The lack of enemy was almost disorientating and rather unusual.

"Did they flee?" Mary asked over the channel.

"No Venerable Mary, there are none left. The MTA has finally made their move and the fronts are reporting that the Sandmen are consolidating."

Mary stared at the empty space and frowned. After a moment she shrugged mentally. The larger view was beyond her. All she knew was that there was nothing more in front of her. She shifted to standby mode.

"Namaste Venerable." A nearby mech floated in after a few minutes and Mary's eyes narrowed.

"You are one of the experts from the Temples." She noted coolly.

"Venerable Huang is pleased to meet a fellow expert." The man answered serenely.

Now that she was focusing on other things she did recall that they had been doing a joint defense. The front had been large enough that she hadn't had to care that much and had put it at the back of her mind. Mary was still unsure why the other expert was approaching her now though. The makeup of his mech was strange enough to make her curious too. Why that model?

"Huang, that is a modified Last Prayer?" The woman indulged her curiousity.

"Indeed. That is why I approached. I see you have taken up the talented man's mechs as well." The mech gestured to her own.

"It's not unusual in our either of our areas I believe. You have had similar ascensions using this model." The woman saw no trouble admitting that. "The model we all use has resulted in some unusual patterns to my understanding.

"The ones ascending in them have usually been exclusively trained in specific mechs as showpieces yes. Would you believe it has actually become a minor issue? There are too many artillery mechs now." Huang gave a small polite chuckle. "I may switch out after this, but I find the Prayer oddly fitting myself and will likely get something similar."

"You look like they stripped out even more parts." Mary said bluntly after some examination.

"Attachments are the root of suffering, if one is to reach nirvana one must learn to be without. I find the bare minimum freeing in a way. It has resulted in a counterintuitive performance increase. Fear not the man that has a thousand techniques, but the one that has practiced one a thousand times." The modified Last Prayer crossed its legs and floated serenely. "I wonder if the designer thought of the symbolism behind these mechs, and if so how much? The Last Prayer feels like a distinct statement."

"I believe he likes theme more than anything else. His other mechs lack religious overtures." Mary said after some thought.

"Yet, did you read the documentation on the Heart Crystal? Did you not feel it after ascension?" Haung asked intently.

Mary paused. Not from any desire to lie or anything, but at the fact he'd openly asked that. Her brothers and sisters in ascension had all quietly kept their Hearts. It felt private in a way and they'd never discussed it openly.

"My crystal feels hot to the touch though it lacks heat." Mary admitted slowly.

Huang had his mech nod. "I believe he has touched on an immutable truth and harnessed a small glimmer of it in the crystals. It is a fragment of self, and I wonder what it will become if we nurture it or pass it onward?"

The woman paused and connected to the crystal. The documentation had been helpfully stored inside it and it was very easy to review this way. Like flipping through a mental book. There were vague mentions of psionics and how it retained the spirit of the mech. Putting his thoughts into context in that way brought up interesting thoughts. What was the Heart Crystal? Some inner instinct made her certain it was important, but why?

"In this case all I can have is faith that it will work out." Mary concluded after a moment. "You have given me much to think on though and I believe this conversation does need to be had with my fellows."

"Indeed, but I'm afraid I must add more. With the war winding down I have heard rumors on the wind. The Friday Coalition is attempting to force experts to aid them. Have you heard of it?" The expert asked seriously.

Mary froze. "They would dare?" She asked incredulously. "They would try to strip our people of their protection?!"

"There will be bribes involved, and we will likely have our mechs upgraded to Second Rate as part of that bribe, but they are needful enough that they will likely manage it." Huang reasoned out. "Yet even in that need I fear that we would be considered lesser. Your master is likely the only one that could prevent this."

"Master Jeanne could. She would probably not. She dislikes getting involved despite her status and as foul as the idea is, it will likely make too much sense to everyone." Mary's thoughts raced. "I can see the reasoning now. The witches have mauled the Fridays, and no one wants them to succeed. We are new and lack the ability to resist politically. As new experts we haven't established ourselves in our homes as reputable soldiers. It'd be easy to loan us out and if we were lost, well it'd be worth it in some eyes."

She might have been a PR piece, but Mary knew church politics, and they were brutal. Now that her thoughts were going down the path she saw it as inevitable. The difference between Second and Third Rate was enough that they wouldn't be able to resist. Enough bribes and pressure and any nation would fold.

"Your conclusions are likely similar to mine." The expert said as she finished thinking.

"Another war right after our initial one and the best we can do is sell ourselves high." Mary muttered. "You have a reason to bring this all up though I assume."

"We shall be allies in the near future, but I would request that my Heart Crystal be returned should I fall." Huang said as he pressed his mechs hands together in a small prayer. "I would do the same."

That was something she barely had to think about agreeing to. "That will be done. I will speak to my brothers and sisters to have them do the same."

Last wishes and testimonies weren't sacred to her people, but they were close.

 

[lost star]

As the Sand War wound down, it revealed a changed sector. Countless planets were graveyards now. More than a few Third Rate nations were either outright gone or teetering on the edge of breaking. The list of deaths could stretch around a planet. Some nations would take decades to recover. Some were ascendent.

Of those ascendent, the Empties was probably the one nation that came out unaffected. Thanks to Jeanne and a series of fortunate events involving the CFA the nation had taken practically no damage and was actually more stable after the fight. Sector wise, this was considered a mostly good thing. The Empties were historically isolationist and had shown no indication of any sort of offensive stance even in the face of the losses others had had. If that were it, people would be relaxing and leisurely attempting to recover.

The problem was that Vessia had also suffered relatively little in the war. Worse, the Bright Republic was tottering on the very edge of death. One false move from them and Vessia would vassalize the other nation. Since the Bright Republic was Vessia's favorite punching bag, this would end up with them looking for more things to fight. Vessia was one of the more expansionist nations in the sector.

Political officials were frequently self-serving, stupid, and selfish, but even they could see the writing on the wall. Finding a way to avoid the foreseeable future pitfalls was difficult. There was another complicating factor. With the Sand War done, the war between Friday and Hexxers came to the forefront of everyone's minds.

At this point in time the Hexxers were winning. They'd kicked the Friday's teeth out, sucker punched them, and then stomped on them while they were down. The Fortress worlds had been taken, and they'd struck deep into the Friday's territory.

For the Third Rate nations fearful of the future, this was an opportunity. The Friday Coalition was offering very good deals to buy or loan experts. Most nations were in negotiation for it, with Vessia leading the pack. While many experts wouldn't come back, the bribes being thrown around made that thought slip many a person's mind. It helped that a lot of nations sincerely needed anything they could get to repair themselves.

Notably, the Empties were offering the least to the Friday Coalition. The isolationism cut multiple ways, and the highly religious nation didn't particularly like either Second Rate nation. They hated the Hexxers more, so they were helping, but it was a cold and clinical help. The Land of Serene Temples also sent help, but their help was mostly hindered by the fact that they'd been hit hard enough to need time to recover.

Both nations could already see how things would go in the future. If the Friday Coalition won, they'd reward the suckups Vesians. The Vesians would then push to grab as much as they could, with support.

Countering this was harder. Jeanne and the Empties would rather die than side with the Hexxers. Some of their women had literally burned themselves to death rather than aid the 'witches.' So, the Empties broke from a traditional stance and reached out to a neighbor with a proposal.

Several days after the MTA swept their area free of Sandmen, a group made up of Serene Temple and Empties forces began heading out to survey the destroyed planets. It was grim, unpleasant, felt like looting graves, but ultimately necessary. There was a lot of suddenly free real estate out there. Expanding to a few planets and exploiting them quickly would accelerate development and recovery.

This, notably, wasn't considered a good solution. These had been Third Rate planets with relatively little exotic resources and they had also lost all the industry they'd had constructed. You'd have to take every single destroyed planet to match a few good Second Rate ones. It was grasping at grains of rice while the Second Rate nations had silos of it. It also sadly, actually needed to be done. Unsettled planets capable of supporting life were going to be repopulated eventually. The Empties were ahead of the pack only because they currently had the free manpower to secure them.

Leading one of those groups was a young man named Jun. He'd advanced since he'd played in Iron Spirit what felt like ages ago. He was piloting an Undertaker still, though it had been modified for this particular operation. Attached to a sort of militia / unit, he was half government and half mercenary, as was tradition for the Serene Temples really. He led the unit and took orders but had to handle a lot of the stuff himself. It only worked because the logistic lines could be handled in house with fabricators and the mech's he'd picked were low maintenance.

"I really can't believe you sent a request to Lilly, and she actually responded." His fiancé said with bemusement.

Jun shrugged. "You know how she is."

"Yes, I do." The woman said with a small laugh. "Can't say it's inappropriate in this case either."

"Careful with that beam!" The Wrench Rat that had been hired shouted out to the construction crew. "It ain't load bearing, but I'll be damned if ya wreck the church pulling it out."

Getting a few men used to salvage and handling ruins was surprisingly hard. The Wrench Rats associated with Bolt had found themselves in surprising demand in this new after-war landscape. Not only were they good at their job of ferreting out the stuff, they were good at salving the morale part of the work. So they'd found more than a few jobs simply hiring out as consultants.

Jun glanced over the area. You didn't know how painful it was seeing a dead planet until you were there. The streets were fractured. The buildings gone. Some places you could see skeletons. One man had broken down crying after entering a day-care. Morale had started out cautiously hopeful. It had not stayed that way. Only the most hardened psychopaths could walk through a city-turned-graveyard and be unaffected. Their Wrench Rat consultant was managing simply because he'd focused on 'preventing ghosts' more than anything else. In a dead planet like this, that sort of desire felt a lot more urgent than it would elsewhere.

"Ok, we got the church clear. We got the last rights ready?" The Rat asked. "Pick up the block." He ordered.

'The Block' was one of the day-cares, blocked up with quick walls to cover the tragedy inside on the Rat's orders. It was lifted by one of the mechs and set down next to the church. After a bit of shifting, another one was added to it. Jun wasn't going to ask exactly what was in them. He'd seen too much already.

"Contacts on horizon." Jun's fiancé called out.

Jun's expression went flat. Somehow he felt like his mech was enraged. He certainly felt a bit of it. Looters were expected. They couldn't really stop them because a planet was big, and there was theoretically a chance of something worthwhile. All the empty planets were going to have vultures.

That didn't mean he had to like it. He was sanctioned. He was looting too, he knew. He was also trying to lay people to rest. There was a distinct difference in his mind. He'd ignore them if they were too far away, but approaching meant a very particular and vile type even worse than standard looters.

"Approaching mechs. This is a sanctioned operation from the Serene Temples and Empties. Identification codes sent. Respond or be declared hostile." Jun said and was unsurprised to hear nothing back to his warning.

To his side his fiancé shifted her mech's stance. The modified Vermillion looked dramatic as always. It was entertaining how much that helped everyone focus on the upcoming fight.

He was dithering. There was still no response even after he broadcast again. That meant one thing. "All forces, prepare for combat." Jun ordered with a mental sigh as he slammed a grave-token into the ground.

If the jamming was more potent today, he couldn't tell you why.

 

[lost star]

Gary sometimes wished he had his normal life back. The times when he'd just spent days designing in a little hut in the middle of a blizzard. Those were good times in retrospect. Sure he'd been in sub-zero temperature, but he'd never been in any real danger. His parents had been careful about safety, and the little hut had so many backups that he would have had to deliberately sabotage things to get in trouble. Things had been simple then. Not like today.

"Close the blast doors. Everyone inside!" He ordered. "We're going to need to isolate several of the rooms if we want this to work!"

"Who's idea was it to fly into a star?!" Someone screamed.

"Blame the damned captain and his insanity!" Gary shouted back. "Pray that the shielding holds out too!"

The one young man wasn't swearing was because he didn't have the breath for it. Instead he moved back to the device he'd hastily made and stapled onto the only thing keeping them alive. The coolant was flowing right, energy was running as expected, fuel was right. He was going to have to figure out a way to dump the heat, but that was not as urgent as the rest. Right now he needed it on and running at full functionality. If it dropped a second they'd be ash.

"Doors are sealed." Someone said.

"The Solar Shell is functional and holding up." Gary noted with a laugh that had a tint of hysteria. "I'm thanking Bolt for the salvage lessons later."

"Do it after you curse him out for giving us the job." Another person muttered with a half joking tone.

"It's not the clients fault we're running face first into the star! That's on captain!"

Gary kept a very close eye on the device while he listened to the joking and shouting. There wasn't much else to do now. So long as the device was running they were safe. Everything showed green, but he wanted to solve the heat problem sooner rather than later. Delaying was a bad idea.

"I am going to jury rig a few of the mechs we have in storage as additional heat sinks." The designer muttered.

"Won't that melt them?!" An engineer asked.

Gary shook his head and pulled his hood down a bit. "No. The heat that's accumulating isn't from the star. It's from the device running. It's deflecting everything somehow." He glanced at the sensors. They were starting to be blinded by the proximity to the radition, but they were already far closer to the star than they could be without shielding.

"Where the hell did that insane bitch get this?"

"That is a very good question." Gary replied and thought briefly on it as he got to work.

Cynthia had the attention span of a squirrel on crack and the intelligence of a rock with googly eyes. Tracing her path had found a half a dozen aborted projects, a dozen drug dens, and some insane actions that only a drug fueled Second Rate Scion could think of. The Solar Shell was one of them. Some sort of First Rate experimental tech, the woman had used one of them to surf around a star in a joyride. She'd let it behind half ruined and barely functional. Gary had managed to get it working, but hadn't really wanted to test it. Their captain hadn't wanted to either, but when you had few options you took what you could get.

Gary snorted to himself as he examined his work. Heat vents went this way. Coolant flowed that way. Connect it all up, let it run. Be sure the insulation was all fun. It was a silly little rhyme that he'd done as a kid. Temperature management was integral to every sort of technology. It was an immutable law that even First Rate tech had to obey. Gary had turned management of it into an artform for his Journeyman project. He was fairly sure that he was one of the best at it in the sector, barring any masters with similar specialties.

You could do some very physics defying things with heat and cold if you were careful with exotics. Gary's only real limitation was that he couldn't eliminate heat yet. He could push and pull it however he wished. Using the mechs as heat dumps wasn't ideal. The heat would have to be expelled somehow eventually and with the star outside the ship there really weren't many options. They didn't have fancy First Rate zero point heat dumps that threw the heat into a side dimension. He could make due. He had to make due. If that advanced toy faltered a second he'd be dead before he could realize it.

"What do you think that woman was chasing this time?" Someone asked as Gary finished laying the lines that dumped the heat into the mechs and got back to monitoring.

They weren't safe, but the only thing they could do was wait for the ride to end in about an hour. It was nerve-racking and boring at the same time. So people talked about anything they could think of.

"This time a thrill. Pretty sure we're going to find her dead soon." Another person said.

"Oh? Thought the bet was she was alive?"

"That was before the latest pic. She's overusing something in it. Can see signs of it in the analysis, and it's not one of the gentle drugs. By this point she's cut off from money, ain't got any more contacts, and is desperate for a fix. She's either going to take a risk that will kill her or get something that will do worse."

Gary nodded along with that reasoning. "Don't count her out yet though. She's probably done at least one more insane thing. She has a talent for finding strange stuff. Could have been a treasure hunter if she weren't such a junky." He indicated the one thing keeping the alive at the moment.

One of the engineers nodded in agreement as he stared at the device. "Again, where the hell did she get this!?"

"And why use it for a joy ride?!"

"Don't try to make sense of her actions." Gary advised. "We don't want to spend another day rooting through trash again."

The faces his companions made at that and the glances they gave around the area indicated that some people would have preferred that. Which was fair. The trash diving hadn't resulted in more than empty drug containers, but it had been safe. Gary made sure to keep an eye on the gauges as people broke out the local digital games.

At least this entire fiasco was giving him good ideas. The shielding for this was sublime. There were precious few things that could get a ship this close to a star. He'd barely had to install the thing. It simply created a shield through some First Rate principle and exotic.

Gary was sure that with some study and some examination of the logs that he could create something for his own mechs. That was assuming he survived, which wasn't a guarantee. He was working with enough energy to turn the entire ship into less than dust at the moment and some of those connectors were looking hot.

"I'm going to have to break some materials out of storage." The designer muttered.

He could probably jury rig another heat sink. It wasn't going to be pretty. It would give him more leeway safety wise.

 

[lost star]

Gravity shifted and deepened. It swirled around the ship. It focused as the power generators ignited and fed into the devices around i. It flowed. Then something cracked. A shear appeared in space and time. The ship split in two in an instant that lasted a minute to outside observation.

From the viewing deck Gadget frowned minutely. At her side a small drone fluttered on little wings like a bird before doing a circuit around her head like an eager puppy.

"Failure, failure!" It chirped.

"Yes, failure." Gadget repeated and turned away. She already had the data in her spiritual computer. No point in watching more. "Gravitonic shielding experiment 901022 failure." She verbally reported to the automated systems.

She got a beep. "Notated. That ends required work. Private project time allotted, two hours. Warning, you are advised to take four hours of social time today, and your rest time has been observed to be just above minimum. Take care of yourself Cadet." The computer reported verbally.

Gadget nodded slowly. The drone gave a buzz. "Social!" It said.

"Buzzy, are there any social events matching my desired parameters on the ship?" The girl asked with a small frown on her face.

The drone paused midair and gave a bleep. "Two! Gadget should visit one of the singles gatherings instead though."

Gadget gave a loud sigh at that. "Please tell me I'm not hitting up against the expected behaviors again." She said with some exhaustion.

"Close." Buzzy bobbed in midair. "Estimation of CFA evaluations indicate that Gadget is currently in the anti-social grouping. Attempts at finding a significant other should alleviate that evaluation. Social aspects are weighted heavily at lower levels."

That got a small grumble. Gadget flicked a finger. "Put the singles gathering on my schedule and switch to silent mode." She ordered.

Buzzy gave another bob, but didn't reply.

In the silence Gadget closed her eyes and thought. Buzzy was meant to be a sort of visible 'toy' of sorts. He was an experiment bed, an AI in progress, and an aide. He was also meant to predict CFA evolutions and game the system. Which was perfectly within regulations, and even encouraged slightly depending on department.

Experimental ship building and construction was one such department. To get good scores and promoted Gadget had to be at the top of everything. This meant she had to be seen as social and approachable rather than a mad scientist cooped up in a lab. As much as it hurt to admit it, she had not been doing that very well. There were reasons for it aside from wanting to learn everything.

Gadgets main problem was that she had Bolt's potential. Her body was developing into something rather attractive, and she was apparently a 'good catch.' This meant the line of suitors of both sexes was getting rather extensive even with her being a borderline recluse. Encouraging them in any way could spiral into drama that she would very much prefer to avoid.

That was something she'd have to deal with later though. Contemplating her need to increase her social ability could wait. Until someone actually interesting appeared she was just going to have to go through the motions and deal with the stupid love struck ones. With a mental command a few screens opened up around her and Gadget focused on her side projects.

What to do now? She had several small things in the words. Well, small by CFA standards. By other standards they were expensive and massive. For instance, she had a Second Rate mech carrier in the works and could have it built as a present to her brother. She brought up the blueprints and looked them over and was reminded of why it was still a theoretical.

It wasn't really special in anyway. It wouldn't really perform much differently than your standard mech carrier. Part of that was because she was rather limited to what she could use tech wise. If she could use everything she had access she could give him something spectacular, but the CFA was very harsh on tech sharing. She was also still learning, so she couldn't really make something great within the limitations she had currently.

"Error. Brother Bolt has a Second Rate carrier." Buzz interrupted her thoughts.

"Ah." Gadget breathed out in disappointment, and then something occurred to her. "You were on silent." She said with narrowed eyes. "Diagnostics report."

Buzz projected a hologram containing his code and the teenager narrowed her eyes as she examined it. He was supposed to be a self iterative AI, but that sort of thing tended to run rather wild and hit walls quickly. Historically it was a complete dead end. It was a bit of a tradition to make one like him and then dispose of them once you understood why the technology couldn't become proper AI. Gadget had naturally added a bit of custom spiritual touch to him, and this seemed to be a result.

The adaptive coding was adapting 'correctly.' It had ignored the silent mode because new and relevant news had just been reported. This was interesting.

"Diagnostics done. Give me the package about Bolt." Gadget ordered and examined the information, then sighed. "Of course."

Her brother couldn't do anything normal could he? A Third Rate designer shouldn't have been able to get a Second Rate carrier without some serious intervention. He'd gotten one through luck and was thinking about selling it.

"Request a line to Lieutenant Harry." Gadget gave the direction, and then blinked as the call was accepted immediately. "Sir!" She saluted even if it was audio only. "This wasn't urgent, sorry for the interruption."

"Gadget, you can be a bit less formal when it's just us." The man said with a trace of amusement. "What did I say when you first started?"

"Take it easy and let the inspiration flow sir." Gadget repeated before letting herself sigh slightly. "I will try sir. To get back to the reason for the call, I was going to request a few days of leave. My brother has gotten a ship that I'd like to remodel for him."

"Oh?" The man paused a moment, likely to look something up. The line went silent for a few seconds before he came back. "Ehe, yes. You can go ahead and visit him. Leave approved cadet, and please try to actually relax. The mad scientist archetype is a warning, not something to emulate."

Gadget nodded. "I will try." She said as she hung up. "Buzz, silent mode off."

"Talking!" The drone said with a bob. "Seventy five percent certain that Harry was laughing at the situation."

"Why would he laugh?" The girl asked with bewilderment.

"Several internal CFA message boards have notes on Bolt's current actions and his previous adventures. There are three separate movies from the Serene Temples on him that have been exported to the Empties and Vessia and have been watched by fleet members who are noted to be interested in Gadget. His appearance in the Friday Coalition Arena match is in the top thousand most watched episodes in the series." The robot reported dutifully.

Gadget stared blankly at the robot. What? She knew for a fact that her brother preferred to have a low profile. "How is he so famous?! And what was that about people interested in me?!"

"There are ten thousand people more searched in the sector. Based on search terms Bolt Silica would be considered a cult classic. The internal CFA results are likely due to suitors doing a standard search and finding publicly available information." Buzz said with certainty.

"I am fairly sure that's the wrong term for it." Gadget muttered as she rubbed at the bridge of her nose. "Is there anything else I should know?"

"Lilly Silica is expecting a second child. Female." The robot said with a bob. "There is a betting pool that her name will be either Chaos, War, or Disorder."

Gadget decided she really didn't want to think about that particular tidbit after a moment trying to figure it out. She was going to see about getting something for the kids though. First Rate devices and companions meant to defend children were specifically authorized for family, and she was quite sure that Bolt and Lilly's children were never going to be normal.

 

[lost star]

Mech design in the galaxy was a very complicated affair that balanced a massive number of factors. The MTA controlled a lot of it, though not by choice. They had been fairly hands off in the early days and the galaxy had paid for it. Without regulation people went non-standard and mechs became less a war machine and more a vehicle with strange technology. They had therefore been forced to regulate the standard parts in the main galaxy, and did updates every few decades when they believed enough new technology had accumulated to be significant. These updates were considered new generations and the details were typically fairly known about several years in advance. Nations planned around them, military tactics were adjusted based on the latest and greatest technologies, and a host of industries rose and fell with each announcement.

Olympus met the newest generation with subdued interest. As a place revolving around the technology, they were quite aware that it had been incoming, but the Rats in general had never been particularly impacted by it. Most of the technicians were involved in salvaging the stuff, not riding the cutting edge of new design. This was the first time ever that they'd actually had the ability to use the latest tech and most of the people weren't exactly sure what to make of it.

At the moment, the plans involved mostly lessons. There'd be a few seminars where the technicians would work with the new parts physically. The new tech this generation was mostly laser focused, so there'd be a lot of that. The enthusiasm was, as said, mostly muted.

The new upgrade of several of their facilities to Second Rate was considered more interesting. Bolt had returned by this point and had decided to splurge some money on creating several Second Rate bays, including a singular biomech bay. It was expensive as all hells, but it was also a significant step up that surpassed almost all of the local machine bays. The prestige of that alone was high. If any of the techs managed to get the certificates for Second Rate it'd make them one of the best workshops for lightyears.

Of course this was not a guarantee. The bump from Third to Second Rate mech construction wasn't particularly easy. If one were to take the propaganda at face value, it should have taken years to do so. It was therefore a small surprise that some of the Wrench Rats could almost qualify already. Apparently decades of working with the basics covered a lot of the standard educational needs for Second Rate mechs. They just needed some lessons on standard Second Rate alloys, and information on some more niche parts, and they'd be set.

There were a few issues with trying to break into the Second Rate market aside from the skills that needed to be sorted out first though. The demand was fine. Second Rate mechs would be bought, in the Friday territory especially. The trip there would be costly but feasible. Getting the supplies would be harder. The transportation cost alone would hurt, and getting any sort of Second Rate resource out of the state it was found in was typically prohibitively expensive.

Solving this was possible through multiple ways. Licensing would likely play a large part once they got a few prototypes off the ground. The material cost for local construction would still be horrible, unless they found a way around it. That was solved due to another announcement that accompanied the new generation. That one had been met with absolute disinterest by most of Olympus, but was still a big deal to everyone else.

Humanity was venturing into another galaxy. Apparently, the MTA and the CFA had spent the past decade or so venturing into the nearby Red Galaxy and clearing it just enough for everyone else to give their own shot at it. They'd then presented rewards for those traveling there and getting them something called Phase Water. The MTA had basically almost manufactured a modern day gold rush.

Olympus did not care about this. It was an announcement that had been met with absolute disinterest. Getting to that other galaxy required jumping through a half-dozen MTA held hoops. It was also, well a gold rush. Anyone knowledgeable about history knew how those worked. Some people would get rich, the rest would get dust. The Rats knew who'd get the dust if they went and their interest was therefor non-existent. It was hard to get excited about other people getting opportunities really.

The ones really getting rich would be the MTA and CFA, because they essentially charged for the trip and would buy the Phase Water. The next group getting rich would be ship builders and the like. The second the announcement went through they'd been swamped.

Bolt decided that he'd take advantage of the firesale on ships and mechs that wouldn't make the trip. The Wrench Rats would salvage and refurbish old mechs! It was a relatively easy decision, and played to everyone's strength. The people risking everything on the trip had limited tonnage available to them, so they had to drop ships and mechs at a low price before they left. Used Third Rate ships and mechs in particular were going at less than material cost now, simply due to the sheer amount of things glutting the market.

Olympus gained a small fleet overnight. It also got enough Third and Second rate mechs to make mountains. Literal mountains. Most of the mechs were impossible to deploy. The designers behind them were leaving, and they'd start degrading. This was frankly perfect for Bolt and his people.

The discount on these mechs was so sharp that the planet was set for years with salvage alone, and after some income had come in they'd likely be set for decades. There was that much metal being sold and that would continue to sell. It was genuinely hilarious in a way.

Material wise this solved the immediate supply issue. His second solution for the long term was a bit more unusual. It was half an experiment and half intuition. He first had a lot of the less useful mechs blended. Literally chopped up into small chunks. Then they'd mixed that with dirt and planted a few of the trees he'd taken from his trip.

Root-steel trees took forever to grow naturally. His idea wasn't really new. There were a few planets that had them growing already. Bolt had a suspicions about them though. The plants could be grown fast enough to be used as weapons by aliens. That meant they likely had a trigger to grow. Considering that it hadn't been found yet, that meant it was likely a spiritual trigger. With some work he could probably find it. It'd just take some time.

Bolt was rather fine with that. Simply developing a field of Root-steel trees was enough basis for the future. The Farming Rats were happy to have something novel to work on, and they'd try a few things here and there to refine the process while he tried to crack their spiritual construction. If nothing else, they seemed to be growing right with just the minimum already. In a century they'd be usable!

In the meantime the mountain continued to work and deal with jobs as they came. Bolt's second child arrived. Gadget came to visit and helped revamp the Second Rate carrier that the two had inherited and been unable to sell. It was a good bit of family time, and involved trying more spiritual construction. The results were mostly inconclusive, but they did try out a lot of ideas for it. The ship felt like a second home now at least. They'd also stripped out all the damned bugs, backdoors, and monitoring systems in it.

The young woman left after gifting them two presents for the kids. Called Crib-guards, they were CFA approved approved guardian robots. From a distance they looked like stuffed animals in their default appearance. Up close they were nearly identical in look and feel to your standard fluffy thing. They could shapeshift into whatever the user liked if needed due to the highly advanced makeup.

Crib-Guards weren't just shapeshifting stuffed animals. They were high-tech First Rate machines that could project shields around their charges, shoot lethal and non-lethal weapons, and had extremely high quality scanning capabilities. They were in the top 100 most potent galactic defensive items. One of them could likely fight a Second Rate mech if needed, though it'd be ruined in the process.

Bolt and Gadget had reviewed their programming together and then laced the machines with spiritual construction as well. They'd then activated the shapeshifting features to see which shape the kids liked the best. Ruckus loved the small dog like shape. His newborn daughter loved the long-eared bunny. It was a very lovely present that the new parents sincerely loved.

It also ended up giving them the name for their newest child. Bunny. (Which apparently broke several betting pools.)

 

[lost star]

Things might have been peaceful at Bolt's world, but they weren't peaceful elsewhere. One place in particular had a lot of changes happening. The Bright Republic was in a very tight spot, and it was only getting worse. This meant tensions and tempers were rising, and things were starting to come to a head. All of it revolved around one person.

Ves Larkinson was that one person, and his name was considered hot at the moment. He was in fact considered radioactive socially. Ves had already been somewhat famous for having designed several integral mechs in the Sand War. That alone would have made him a central point in his nation. He'd accumulated fame, renown, riches. Then he'd attracted the attention of a Hexxer heiress and had his name become poison in a singular day. Worse, he'd done a design for the Hexxers, and it had proven popular. This had made him an enemy of several states and his newly poisoned reputation had tainted others by proximitiy.

To give some backstory, Ves was a Larkinson. The Larkinsons were an old military family that had served the Bright Republic since its founding. He'd heavily relied on them to help with his company, and in turn funded them significantly. The family was reputable, honorable, dutiful, and humble. They were known inside and outside the nation for being a very solid military family. They weren't unique, but honorable warriors like them were always appreciated in the frequent wars that the galaxy dealt with.

In contrast Ves was basically a product of his nation. He wasn't shy about grabbing an advantage, he had no trouble with corruption, and he could lie as easily as he breathed. The young man would happily reach for any advantage possible without a care for the blood he spilled. The only reasons he was able to work with his family was because he was charismatic, he had money, and his unique design philosophy had enough power that people couldn't disregard him. (He also did have some principles and treated family fairly, he just wasn't particularly shy about burning people unrelated to him.)

A person like Ves was frankly incompatible with many other people. He was especially against those that would try to control him, like the Bright Republic politicians. This was where the conflict started. It was also what drove the nation off the edge and into full decline.

Quickly summarized, in the aftermath of the Sand War, the Friday Coalition had room to pressure Third Rate Nations in a variety of ways. They offered a mix of bribes, threats, and outright blackmail when necessary to outright drain everything they valued out of the lesser nations. Ves was in the way of this. He'd been very reluctantly dealing with the Hexxers as a matter of survival, because a Third Rate man couldn't say no to a Second Rate woman easily, and was considered a valid target by the Fridays.

Pressure had therefore been applied to the Bright Republic. The Republic had capitulated quickly, and attempted to 'deal' with Ves in anyway possible. Ves had pushed back, violently when needed. This had escalated the problem and led to a small war of sorts between Ves and his home nation.

It should have been absurd. A Journeyman Designer had a limited amount of power usually. Ves was far from the standard designer. He gave the nation a black eye and fled while remaining very alive and very free. Part of this was because the Bright Republic was rather weak militarily due to the Sand War. Part of it was because he had a lot of favors to call in.

The actual series of events weren't particularly relevant to Bolt and his family. What was relevant was that the Larkinson Family broke in two over Ves' feud with his home. They'd been slandered in public and persecuted by the same people they'd served for lifetimes simply due to their association with him. This ongoing persecution and uncertain future caused them to flee the nation, and half of them blamed him. The other half aligned with him.

In another world they would both groups have traveled out of the sector. Here Bolt's family learned they were on the outs and offered them a home. It was a fairly safe bet on their end. Lilly could vet them, and their longstanding morality and military tradition would be extremely useful in their budding planetary government. What was even better was that they were familiar with Ves' mechs.

Bolt had cribbed a lot of his initial spiritual ideas off Ves' work. He'd long since gone his own way, but the similarities made things familiar in a way. The Larkinsons had heard of Bolt's Last Prayers as well, so the two groups communicated a fair bit and then an agreement was reached.

By this point Ves was planning his way out of the sector and the galaxy. The split in his family was regrettable in the young designer's eyes. It was not hostile, despite the circumstances. Ves, flaws and all, loved his family, and had a deep admiration for their honorable martial culture. He was the precise opposite of everything they cherished, but he loved them all the same. So upon hearing the news the designer decided to research where they were going, and ran across Bolt.

Now it has to be said that Ves was a tad myopic when it came to other designs. He tended to tunnel vision on his own mechs and ignore mechs everyone else had built. He wasn't tapped into local trends, and trusted his own design sense to prove it's worth over any fad. For the most part he'd been very right. Designers typically had a spectrum of profitability. He was at the top of it.

Bolt's designs therefore came as a shock. "What is this?" The young designer breathed out as he evaluated the designs and projected performance. "That thief!"

For a moment the man panicked. Ves had built his fortune and everything else on the back of spiritual power. He'd forged spirits from exotic materials, some sacrifices, and chance. That someone was copying his work was a serious problem. It meant he was less valuable, and several of his personal defenses hinged on it.

Then his mind caught up with his emotions. "Wait." Ves pulled up the designs and cursed mildly. "I need a physical copy of one of them." He muttered. Evaluating with just videos and reports felt like a mistake.

Fortunately for him, it wasn't hard to get a copy of Bolt's mechs. The Last Prayers were everywhere and were rather cheap to boot. Ves was mildly annoyed that the other designer had cornered a market, but comforted himself with the fact that Bolt was almost selling them at a loss.

"The mechs are alive." Ves concluded after he looked over one of them. "He did it differently though."

Ves did his work by visualization during the designing process. That was the framework and what he meant when he called a mech alive. He then used a spirit to back the mech and project power. To put it in simpler terms, he made mirrors (Mechs) that reflected light (Spirits.) It gave him unparalleled power and control over his designs, and resulted in something that was called a glow. The glows gave various mental effects.

Bolt in contrast was using spirit to sort of reinforce a concept without the spirit. It required some very fine control, but not much power. It was actually a lot more efficient in many ways, but also flawed as well. The effects would always be limited to the mech design, the construction itself was rather delicate, and the power one could push through the mech was limited by necessity. Pulling from Spirits meant that there was a large pool and so long as the mech was relatively intact, the effects would happen. Bolt's mechs were vulnerable to damage and very limited power wise. Hence the relatively anemic effect the Last Prayers tended to display.

"How should I feel about this?" Ves asked out loud. "He was inspired by my work, but he did something new with it."

He would have to re-evaluate several plans at least. He no longer had an absolute monopoly. Furthermore, could others reverse engineer his creations? If so, how easy was it? Ves spent a few minutes pondering that before deciding that he should see about adding some sort of security eventually. He would think up something later. Right now he should finish the evaluation.

Eventually Ves reached the center point of the mech. "This Heart System."

He had very mixed feelings about this component. On the face of it, it was very useful. He could tell that the thing had accumulated spiritual power. Ves could do a lot with that sort of raw power. It also fixed one of the flaws with the construction. The delicate spiritual backing was reinforced and enforced by this system. Yet it might not be compatible with his work.

Spirits powered mechs and then were powered in turn. All of Ves mechs worked this way. Spirits got stronger with more pilots. The Heart System interrupted that cycle. Mechs with this would starve the spirits.

"I could probably shift the ratio if I worked on understanding the programming." Ves mused to himself as he pulled everything apart. "This system doesn't seem to be designed to stop spirits, it's to do something else."

It was actually quite strange. It cycled the spiritual power around the mech like a circulatory system. When the mech shut down the power was pulled into the crystal. Ves felt himself becoming genuinely impressed the more he looked into it. It was novel! This was the first time he'd found someone do spiritual work with mechs, and it was completely different!

Ves didn't think it fit what he was doing though. If you removed the crystal you killed the mech. The mechanical aspect wasn't particularly useful to him either. If anything it was a negative, because it gave a physical point where the spirit would interact with. Part of Ves' strength was the fact he controlled the spirits behind the mechs, and that meant no one could use his own tools against him.

With a chuckle at himself the designer put the Last Prayer back together. "Your creator is an interesting person." Ves said to the mech. "I'd love to talk with him in person, but I don't think that will happen."

The FTL paths he'd have to take to get to the MTA portal out of the galaxy didn't bring him close to where Bolt lived. While a conversation would be productive, Ves was also loathe to give up more secrets. He didn't even know how the other designer was still alive! Ves was constantly wondering when the next assassination group was coming and he wasn't being nearly as open as the other designer. Yes, it was best to keep from meeting and perhaps steal some inspiration back if Bolt found something interesting. Turnabout was fair play after all.

Ultimately Ves found himself with mixed feelings on Bolt at the moment. He'd spend a few days pondering what the man had done, and perhaps look over the other mechs. While he resented the fact that the other man had essentially stolen his work, the new path could prove inspiring later. It was probably the first time he'd had someone that could be considered a rival maybe? Ves found himself loving that idea the more he thought of it. He'd lacked a proper whetstone to sharpen his designs on. Would Bolt be that one? Who knew?

 

[lost star]

Benjamin Larkinson was an old man. A grandfather, a leader, and a former expert pilot. He was a dead man walking as well. Dying slowly due to injuries from an old war. He'd seen many things, and his greatest regret was seeing his family splinter apart after the fiasco with his grandson Ves. Yet even with all of that, Lilly Silica still managed to surprise him when they met on the station above their planet.

The girl was small. Tiny even for a woman. Bright red hair reached her thigh and was braided into a long pony-tail. Her figure was almost immature. She had an unfortunate amount of freckles. Her presence was muted. She did not look like a fully grown woman truthfully. If she didn't have a woman's figure she'd come across as far too young to be a mother. Even her bright green eyes didn't show a hint of her ability and those usually showed the person's mettle if nothing else did.

It was probably for that reason that his son, Ark Larkinson, an expert, and man under an unfortunate amount of stress didn't seem impressed after introductions. "I understand we needed to meet you before we decided. Is my presence not enough?" He asked flat out.

"Hmm, dunno." Lilly bounced forward with a cutesy pose and then circled around him. "Yer interesting, but just an expert ain't that impressive to me."

"Excuse me?" Ark asked incredulously. Benjamin kept himself quiet, even if he felt similar. An expert was a big deal.

"You though. You feel like yer bleeding right bad." Lilly said as she paused in front of Benjamin.

"I do not appreciate being ignored!" Ark snarled out with a hint of protectiveness and his willpower flared.

"Oh, I don't like that feel." The woman breathed out and turned to him with a slightly tilted head and wide eyes. "I don't like that attitude either." She continued in a low tone. "Yer not in command. You are here because we're giving you a chance and offering a home. Never take that tone with me."

"Son." Benjamin tried to interject. Something was going wrong, he could tell.

"Command doesn't matter. I am Ark Larkinson, and I will become a Saint one day. If you can't understand that value, then we don't need a conversation!" The expert snapped out.

Lilly stared at the man with her eyes still wide and almost innocent looking. Their eyes met and nothing physically changed in her behavior or expression. Benjamin's neck hairs still rose up. Something wasn't normal, even for an expert. Benjamin suddenly knew without question the person he was standing in front of was dangerous. Her muted presence was gone. Now his mind was screaming and it was accompanied by an indescribable weight that made him certain that this woman could end him right here and right now. There was a monster in front of him and for the life of him he couldn't tell what had changed.

"Ya think yer special 'cause you have potential?" Lilly asked in a way that made both men step back. "The door's right past there. Yer ship is still fueled. Ya can leave and head out to some other place. I'm sure ya'll can find a good home. You're here because you value family. Is that right or are ya one of those glittering fools that parade around the outside with their heads up their asses."

For a few seconds the size disparity didn't matter. Lilly was here and she was beyond them. She was beyond both of them. Then, like a cat tucking in her claws and curling up, the girl pulled something back and was normal once more. She blinked a few times and gave a small smile as if nothing had changed.

Very, very slowly Ark nodded as he visibly tried to untense. It was a stiff nod. "I have forgotten myself Venerable Lilly." The motions became smoother as he spoke. "Family first. Duty next. Pride last."

"Still need some pride, but I can agree with that." Lilly offered a hand. "Listen to me, Bolt, or Kriff. Ain't going to demand much. We can talk 'bout deployment and such later. Ya bring yer mech?"

"I did not. It had to be sold to pay for the trip." Ark admitted painfully as he shook her hand.

"Oh, yeah, that'd make anyone prickly." Lilly said and did a bounce to pat him on the shoulder. "We got a few sims we can run through to get a feel of your style and we can have Bolt design something after that. We're probably going to need it ta be Second Rate."

"Second Rate?" Benjamin asked curiously as he reintroduced himself in the conversation.

"Yep. Gonna be the next big trouble we have. We ain't recruiting ya because we expect peace." Lilly noted and narrowed her eyes at the old man. "Yer getting into the sims too, and..." She turned and gestured to a green-skinned maid nearby. "Gimmie a spare pair of bracelets." She took the metal bands that the woman pulled out of her pockets. "Wear these."

Mildly confused Benjamin did as requested. The wristbands snapped around his wrists with a small click. The change he felt was enough to knock the wind out of him. It was like he'd been holding himself up and now could finally rest.

"Better!" Lilly chirped.

Ark stared at his father. "Dad?" He asked in a small voice.

"I'm fine. Why do you look like you've seen a ghost?" The old man said with a perplexed expression as he looked at the new jewelry. What was this?

"Ya don't feel like yer bleeding anymore." Lilly noted with a happy expression. "But we can see about that later. First Sims! Also, Ark, you do command style mechs right?"

"I prefer hybrid command type mechs, but you get the idea." Ark replied as he recentered himself and held the obvious questions he wanted to ask.

"After we do a few rounds I want yer help for our other expert. Pup's getting better but he could use someone more aligned than me to teach him the quirks. He's a sensor expert." Lilly explained.

"Could I ask why you want an old man like me to join in?" Benjamin hated to interrupt there, but he felt like he had to. "I cannot pilot anymore due to an injury."

"You'll see!" Lilly said. "We have some VR pods that work for normal people and I wanna say we have something special just fer you. Just keep what you see in there quiet."

Benjamin went along with it reluctantly. What else would he do? When an expert said jump, you jumped. He was a dead expert and couldn't dispute that. He did have to admit that he was curious too. These little wristbands were helping in a way he'd never felt he could be helped. What would be next?

Heading down to the planet and getting into the mountain was a short affair. It wasn't particularly interesting either. The mountain from afar looked like just another mountain. The mist at the base of it covered the approach. It was a quiet trip that let him think too many questions. The old man tried to focus instead on how he was feeling better. It didn't help that much, but he got to the VR pod before he burst. Benjamin laid down and activated it still wondering about everything.

VR connections were not the same as pilot connections. Anyone who used either could tell you that. VR used your own senses and some advanced technology to trick you into thinking you were someplace else. Piloting connections were something far different. It was a unification with the mech. You became the mech in part, and the better your affinity the more firm the connection.

Benjamin felt a trace of disappointment as he manifested in a blank VR realm and nothing was different. Just the same old man. He refrained from letting any of it show. Around him the VR environment continued to build and then a mech formed in front of him. He examined it disinterestedly before something about it made him pause.

There were tales about how the Larkinson family had helped found the Bright Republic. It was historical fact that one of their family had held the line at a critical point in time. They had accomplished a miracle and in doing so established their Republic. The history there was something to be proud of, even if the end had made it sour. The Larkinsons were fighters. They had the mech to prove it. Valiant had been part of their proud history, and leaving it behind because they had to flee had almost wounded the family more than the entire split.

The mech in front of him was his ancestors mech remade, pristine and functional. How had Lilly gotten this? The specifications of it weren't in databases. It was an old, old model. It even felt the same.

Benjamin couldn't stop himself from climbing in. Even if he was old and broken, mech piloting was in his blood. He'd grown up visiting this mech. He'd dreamed of piloting it before he knew better. He started it up, hoping and praying for something, half convinced someone was lying to him. Or maybe convinced he was lying to himself.

The start of the mech was quiet. Then there was a surge and something familiar connected. Something that he knew he'd lost. Benjamin felt whole for the first time in years. Completely and utterly connected once more. For the first time since his injuries there was no pain. There was no sense of dying. His will existed and flowed properly. For several minutes he lay there stunned at the miracle.

Shouting brought him back into reality. He flipped through a few displays and then found a few of the VR settings. Eventually he managed to see his boy and Lilly in mechs in another section of the VR simulations. Lilly was in a rather gorgeous winged mech. His son was in a slightly generic swordsman.

"Well, here would be the best I could fight you with." Lilly was saying mockingly as Benjamin tuned in.

"A custom mech designed to fit you is not what I meant! What am I supposed to do with this?!" Arc shouted back and waved his sword.

Lilly sighed and the mech shifted into an identical mech. "This better? You're trying my patience. This is to get a feel of you, and you're not helping."

Benjamin sighed. His son was stuck in his stubborn mode apparently. Perhaps it was time to give him a good thrashing. He was feeling energetic enough to do it for the first time in forever.

(Later, Bolt and Lilly quietly put Benjamin in charge of Mechalla when they weren't there. He didn't know the name of it, he didn't know exactly what it was. What he did know was that he was able to live in it, and helping 'manage' the simulations everyone went through was a very good cover for his surprising recovery.)

 

[lost star]

Headhunting was an old and outdated term that had lost it's original meaning long ago. In the older days you brought back the heads of those you killed to prove they were dead. Nowadays a simple video recording was usually enough. Headhunting was typically a term to recruit someone rather than kill them. Leo honestly felt like he was doing his best to bring back the old meaning sometimes.

Like now. A quick slice had the Blessed Squire's head fly off off and a twist of his wrist had the pointed butt of his axe piercing through the generator. The opposing mech fell to the ground and he pulled the haft out with a crunch of metal. Another kill, and another bounty. His mech grabbed the head as he surveyed the battlefield carefully.

He'd pushed a little bit too deep to get to this one. The Hexxer in charge knew he was on the field and had tried to protect their Squires by pulling them back. That reduced the support capabilities of them, but had forced him into a risky position to get this bounty. The fact that they were knight-style support mechs had also been a slight issue. Those sort of mechs were always covered by others and did not go down quickly or easily.

"You foul boy!!!" A nearby Hexxer expert made the boy sound like an insult of the worst kind.

"Hmm?" Leo deliberately feigned disinterest. "You do know there is a bounty per head right?" He clicked the custom cage around the mech-head of his latest victim and raised it up so that it was visible. "Don't worry, I'll be sure to by something very manly with it."

The shriek of outrage from the woman was only mildly satisfying. Fanatics like her were very easy to rile up. The only real surprise was that she cared about his kill at all. It was after all a man's mech. To a Hexxer fanatic like her, men were worthless. Perhaps there was something to the fact that the Hexxers considered the Squires holy.

Leo watched as the woman flared her boosters and began her approach. Outraged or not, she was an experienced expert. Anger was probably a default aspect or she wasn't letting it effect her, because her approach was cautious rather than enraged. He shifted his stance to let a few of her shots to splash off his armor as he evaluated positioning and possibilities.

Dullahan's upgrade to Second Rate had kept a lot of the feel to the mech. It was still pretty heavy for a medium, and still had the axe. The lack of the head was still there. According to those doing the upgrade it had been a royal pain to work with the design, but he was happy with the end result. It did still need enemies to come to him on a battlefield like this. It was more built for endurance than chasing and chasing would lead him into crossfire. How to provoke a confrontation then? A rather evil idea came to him as the woman tried to keep space between them while still firing.

He placed the newly caged head onto his mech and activated the resonance effect of his mech. The connection and power he tapped into was slight truthfully. Based on his experience the effect was strongest if he personally beheaded an expert's mech. A normal man's mech was rather weak. It still worked briefly and allowed him to tap into the reason Blessed Squires were considered holy.

For two seconds a feeling washed over everyone. The feeling of a disapproving mother hit the Hexxers and the feeling of a mother's approval likewise bolstered his allies. Then the head began burning up as the something caused feedback and ignited the internals of the part.

Against anyone else his display would have been basically nothing. Against the fanatical and brainwashed Hexxer people it was like he'd pissed on their precious shrines. It was hard to understate how much of a morale hit that one action inflicted on the Hexxers. Anemic, overwhelmed by other Blessed Squires and brief, it was still almost proof that the mother wasn't with them. It made them doubt. It made them hate.

Like a magnet amongst metal shards, every single nearby enemy attempted to focus on him instead of their formations. The fanaticism of the Hexxers turned against itself. He was a blasphemer right in front of them and they hated beyond anything they could hate. This could have caused him trouble, but he turned it into a benefit simply by letting them get in the way of one another and positioning himself that coming after him left them open to the other forces out there. His cover became the fanatics trying to kill him rather than the terrain.

He managed to cause the deaths of almost a half dozen pilots before the expert Hexxer got close enough to get a clear shot again. She'd made a critical error there though. Thanks to the chaotic battlefield he engineered she'd gotten too close.

Dullahan wasn't built for chases. It was built to keep an enemy in range once they hit it. Leo hit the boosters and moved in with full speed. The woman naturally attempted to regain space, but his axe had a deceptive reach. The cleaving strike pierced through her resistances and nearly totaled her chest piece in a singular swipe before she managed to gain enough range.

She naturally tried to use her own resonance at that point. As an expert rifleman it was meant to keep her alive and gain space. Her boosters flared with resonance power and her speed increased to the point that Leo could not even hope to keep up. To top it off, she fired her rifle as she retreated and several bullets pierced his armor slightly.

Leo didn't bother to pursue. He very deliberately turned towards the next Blessed Squire and began to move. The implication was obvious. Doubly so when he moved to keep some cover between them. His threat couldn't be more clear. Fight in his range or he'd ignore her completely.

The proper way to fight would have been to call in another expert. This was an improper matchup for her due to the terrain and numbers. She could have also let him go and sacrificed a few Squires until she could get a better shot. A fanatic like her couldn't accept his 'defilement' though. So she moved close, betting that her skills were enough to her keep her alive at a range he could reach her.

It was a bad bet. Leo had been born and trained in situations like this. Second Rate pilots thought that their specialized training meant something. All it really meant was that Second Rate pilots were used to more toys. Leo had fought and killed experts for years now. He survived by stacking the deck and being damned sure he kept control on the battlefield. He was probably one of the top war Experts. Not a duelist. He was the one that went into bloody battlefield and came out with heads. With Dullahan that ability magnified.

Hours later the battle ended with another new trophy on his belt. Leo figured he'd likely use the newly captured head several times. A burst of speed like that would be essential for some fights.

Several officers noted his performance and reports noting it were filed. In the future, this would be considered the start of the Spirit Generation. In the present, several officials simply put a bounty forward and some people contacted the maker of Dullahan. It was all very mundane and did not carry a hint of what this simple action released.
---

Spoiler

Variant name: Everyday
Base model: Everyday

Weight Classification: Medium
Recommended Role: Arena Mech
Armor: B
Carrying Capacity: D
Aesthetics: A
Endurance: C+
Energy Efficiency: C+
Flexibility: C
Firepower: Variable
Integrity: B+
Mobility: B
Spotting: C-
X-Factor: A

Overall Evaluation: A mech designed for a crowd. The physical configuration of this mech is that of a simple brawler with some additional tools. If one discounts the X-Factor the mech is slightly above average for a mech designed by a Journeyman. The x-factor turns the mech into a icon that gains power from a crowd. This has unusual knock-on effects, making the mech naturally charismatic and enhancing its weaponry in specific senses. If the pilot follows the proper steps the mech can perform miracles that defy normal reality.

Notably due to this, the firepower cannot be evaluated properly. The damage the mech can do increases or decreases wildly based off how dramatic the circumstances are. It will lose fights that it could otherwise win, and win fights it should lose. It is a show mech through and through, and this makes it both a success for the niche it's in and a failure if it ever fights outside its niche.


Variant name: Nosferatu
Base model: Nosferatu

Weight Classification: Medium
Recommended Role: Arena Mech
Armor: C+
Carrying Capacity: D
Aesthetics: A
Endurance: C
Energy Efficiency: C
Flexibility: D
Firepower: Variable
Integrity: C+
Mobility: A
Spotting: C-
X-Factor: A

Overall Evaluation: Building off the mech Everyday, this mech is another mech designed to fight in an arena. Physically the mech has two conflicting desires built into the design. The Blood Field part is a part designed to dominate an area. The rest of the mech is designed to move quickly and position in the most favorable spot. In any other circumstance this mech would be a failure of a design. In an arena style environment it becomes a cinematic monster.

This is a literal statement. The mech and its x-factor have been honed to create a monster for the masses. It is designed to evoke entertaining negative feelings and then pull those feelings to make a better show. Thus it is also a mech designed to take a fall when the appropriate hero arrives.


Module: Heroic Heart - A semi-custom mass production model based off the heart module designed explicitly for arena use. The physical structure is mostly identical to a Heart system, but tuned and adapted for Second Rate mechs. It is also tuned to allow almost any mech installed with the system to draw power from a crowd in an arena to create a showman. This particular variation shows hints of what the Heart System might be capable of in the future.


Variant name: Torment-guard
Base model: Torment-guard

Weight Classification: Medium
Recommended Role: Defensive Knight
Armor: B+
Carrying Capacity: A
Aesthetics: A
Endurance: C
Energy Efficiency: B-
Flexibility: C-
Firepower: C
Integrity: B
Mobility: C
Spotting: B+
X-Factor: C, A in specific circumstances.

Overall Evaluation: A mech designed to torment those that would threaten those it defends. As a mech designed to defend it can dominate a specific area, causing literal torment to those attempting to bypass it. Outside defensive actions the performance is lacking and the combination of low mobility with lack of endurance make it unsuited for any offensive actions. The X-Factor enhances all abilities when specific conditions are met.

Variant name: Undertaker Production Model V5
Base model: Undertaker

Weight Classification: Heavy
Recommended Role: Group Support
Armor: B+
Carrying Capacity: C+
Aesthetics: B+
Endurance: C+
Energy Efficiency: C+
Flexibility: A
Firepower: C
Integrity: B
Mobility: D
Spotting: D (B with allies)
X-Factor: B

Overall Evaluation: A heavy meant to straddle several roles. Its jamming technology combined with the communication suite are calibrated for smaller battlefields. The continued refinement has made it into a solid and useful mech in small and large scale battle. The jamming effect in particular is demoralizing and haunting to enemies, giving it a compounding effect as more of the tokens are deployed. While other specialists are better in their roles, the Undertaker has become a proven and deadly mech that gains momentum as battle progresses provided it can fight within its token range.


Variant name: Vermillion Limited Production Model V8
Base model: Vermillion

Weight Classification: Medium Light
Recommended Role: Duelist
Armor: C+
Carrying Capacity: D
Aesthetics: A
Endurance: D
Energy Efficiency: C
Flexibility: D
Firepower: B
Integrity: A
Mobility: C+
Spotting: C
X-Factor: A

Overall Evaluation: A pure duelist refined for battlefields. Though the Vermillion lacks endurance and is fragile for a medium it can fight in large scale battles without being a hindrance. It shines best when fighting singular high priority targets though. The limited production and dramatic look has made it a favorite of elite pilots, and it has established a small but enthusiastic following. The X-factor emphasizes the duelist nature of the mech and can slightly provoke enemies into allowing the mech to gain the duels it craves.

Spoiler: Bolt's Rating

Profession: Journeyman Mech Designer
Specializations: Recycling, Conversion, and Unification of Machine Components
Evaluation: A designer learning his potential and tapping into the truths of reality.
Attributes
Strength: 1.9
Dexterity: 1.1
Endurance: 1.8
Intelligence: 2.3
Creativity: 2.2
Concentration: 2.4

Neural Aptitude: F-

Skills:

True Mech Design - Fragment
Secret of Fire - Fragment
Secret of Manufacturing - Fragment

Universal Mech Design - Journeyman
Spiritual Construction - Journeyman
Exotic Weapon Design - Journeyman

Reverse Engineering - Senior
Spiritual Salvage - Senior
Salvaging - Senior +
Aesthetic Design - Senior +

 

[lost star]

"You want me to what?" Bolt asked incredulously.

"The commission is to create a counter to the mech known as the Blessed Squire." The official said blandly. "As part of the ongoing war initiative contracts are available for specific goals. Your name is on the list of approved designers."

"I get that part, but why?" The designer replied. "I'm a Third Rate Journeyman designer outside your country. You have masters there." It was considered a fact that anyone trying to make a master needed Second Rate materials at a minimum. The Friday Coalition had several.

"You have designed Second Rate machines that have shown moderate success, are affiliated with a Friday dynasty, and one of your expert designs has proven to be able to interact with the glows that the Blessed Squire use." The official pointed out in a very reasonable tone.

Bolt scowled at the video screen. "We're trying to remove that affiliation." He muttered.

"You have my formal apologies for that. Court trials that complicated can be lengthy and the war has further delayed non-essential proceedings. In the meantime your association automatically places you on a short list for contracts like these." The man offered before continuing. "You are free to reject the offer if you dislike it."

"No, I'll accept it." Bolt muttered. "The deal is too good."

That was probably an understatement. A military commission with so few strings attached was spectacular really. Bolt wouldn't fully own the finished design and he'd have to use Friday parts, but that was it. It was a sweetheart deal meant for the noble equivalents in the Friday Coalition. He'd even get paid based on how many mechs were made rather than a flat commission price! Sure if it wasn't used he got nothing, but that was honestly fine with him.

Some paperwork and digital signatures later, and Bolt was sent the information package on what was needed. It was both interesting and not particularly useful at the same time. The information on the Blessed Squire was quite horrible for instance. The observations alone were useless speculation, and not a single person understood what was happening.

"I understand not knowing spiritual power." Bolt observed out loud. "But some of these guesses make my head hurt." Gas, radiation, special lasers? Seriously?!

You could check for that. It left physical traces. At least some of the people involved assumed it was a Journeyman specialty. They simply didn't assume more than that. Useless!

The Blessed Squire blueprints were more useful in that they showed him the physical aspects of the mech. The overall design had a tint of several designers to it. Bolt actually couldn't see Ves' fingerprints on it at all, which felt both strange and not. Bolt had to assume the other designer had done the spiritual work, and these blueprints were all based off recovered mechs rather than Ves' notes. He'd need a mech to actually verify the spiritual construction, and he wasn't sure that was necessary here.

The current term for the effect that the Blessed Squire used was Glow. It was a relatively simple effect. It boosted allied morale and or hindered enemy morale. It was a trick that Ves had probably spent awhile refining. One of his mechs in the Sand War had used it and he'd continued to use as his talents developed, but it was the same trick really. Bolt really didn't need to know what color a rifle was, just that it shot bullets. Ves' stuff was similar.

If Bolt were to describe what Ves was doing with this mech to a non-technical person, he'd say the other designer used a flashlight with different colors representing each glow. It was a pretty simple effect truthfully. Simple wasn't bad. A bullet was pretty simple. It was still deadly.

Now how would Bolt counter this? The easiest way would be to make a 'lightshade,' but the analogy broke down at that point. This wasn't light, and it didn't obey the laws of physics. He couldn't just put a lampshade on a Blessed Squire, though that was a rather amusing image.

It did give him an idea though. Blocking the glow was probably possible. As was absorbing it. Bolt felt like he could do something there perhaps. Fortunately he had a few of Ves' other mechs to test with right now.

The test mech was the Desolate Soldier. It was a mech mostly meant for the Sand Wars and was being phased out. You could get them cheaply, especially because they were considered tainted. They had a small hill of them on the planet already, with several in storage. Getting one up and piloting let Bolt examine the glow and make a few conclusions.

He immediately figured out his analogy was slightly off. The power behind glows weren't from them radiating something spiritual. It was simply a matter of 'something' behind the mechs pushing into the mechs and existing. What caused glows was the spiritual presence and pressure of the spirits Ves used. It was more like gravity than light. Which again was imprecise, but it helped get him in the mindset. The mechs were reflecting the physical weight of the spirits.

If Bolt was going to be very honest it felt a bit lazy. He knew Ves was still learning things, but was that it? Different flavors of emotions?! What was worse was that it was working. The Blessed Squires were absolutely changing the battlefield. Morale was integral to fights and the Squires tap danced all over the proper buttons.

Bolt could not counter a glow directly with his current level of understanding. He could not make the spirits that the other designer did, nor did he want to for this matter. That was Ves specialty, and trying to counter a designer in their specialty was a fool's errand. To counter this mech he needed to leverage his own specialty in a creative fashion.

This was going to actually be tricky. He needed a powers source. Fortunately there was an easy one handy. Bolt could gather the power from the people in the unit! Fortunately he'd already done this in the arena designs. He just needed to tweak the concept for the new design.

Every military unit had a standard. A coat of arms in older terms. Some were simple. Some were spectacular. The person that carried the flag of the unit was known as the Standard-Carrier, Guidon-bearer, Bannerman, or many other names. The core concept was the one carrying the 'honor' of the unit. This was the best focus to use in his opinion. It was already there and already had a history.

However, while core concept was there and useable Bolt found a few problems with the implementation. Every unit was different. If Bolt wanted this to work the flag-carrier needed to match the unit as close as possible. This meant color scheme, weapon loadout, appearance, and probably other concepts too. That wasn't feasible for a singular design. Military mechs for nations were by necessity a bit generic so that supply lines didn't get insane.

Moving up a level concept wise and making it a mech based off the nation felt like the a possible compromise. Bolt wasn't sold on it after some thought. You could love your nation, but you'd feel far more committed to the group you were in, especially in the Friday Coalition. He wanted the strongest emotional connection possible to feed the banner.

Perhaps he needed to switch tactics? Moving back to the unit level, could he use something generic and recognizable? Some browsing of random images related to military events and such gave him an idea. Formal officer clothing had a rather general and recognizable feel. That made sense. You wanted formal uniforms to look iconic. It just resulted in a particular profile on the people wearing them that was recognizable nearly everywhere. The colors might change, but the outline didn't. Bolt could work with that.

The mech took shape quickly after that. It was a formal mech with squared shoulders and the impressions of medals on its chest. The shoulders would hide rifles for medium range and provide a secondary weapon. One hand would handle the banner. The other would have a saber. The design wasn't particularly elaborate truthfully. This was by intent. It needed to be like a blank canvas for units to put their own spin on it.

After that was the banner, which was relatively easy. Bolt didn't need anything fancy there. There were actually parts out there that did what he needed. Most were for parade grounds, but some were for battlefields. The design was really just a spear with a widened cross guard and holographic projectors that could make a banner. Bolt took care to make it battlefield ready and durable, and that was all that was needed.

Really most of this would have to be revised if the mech proved to be something the country wanted. Mech designs contracted through the military went through thousands of iterations and refinements before they were deployed as a matter of course. Bolt gave it a lot of room for change and such and made sure to document the physical side very thoroughly for that. He wasn't quite sure what the exact etiquette would be there so he went overboard.

The physical wasn't really necessary for the concept to work anyway. So long as the outline we recognizable the rest was irrelevant. The part that made it work was the spiritual side. Bolt made sure to do that quite thoroughly too, but set it behind a possible wall. That would all require MTA approval, and likely a fair bit of sanitizing depending on what the MTA decided.

All told the physical design was fairly standard, but Bolt had a decent feeling about it taken together. Sometimes what you needed was a hammer and this mech was going to be one hell of a hammer. Bolt finished the entire project and submitted it to the proper authorities with the name Banner-Man. (He considered the name a placeholder at the moment.)

 

[lost star]

Bolt had not expected a response back from the Friday Coalition after he submitted his mech design. He in fact expected a lot of time to pass. Bureaucratic stuff always took forever, even in military emergencies. Implementing a new mech took a month at a minimum, and that was assuming it was approved. iit was just a fact of life. So he performed his other duties while he waited. One of which was making sure his children were keeping entertained!

Ruckus had reached toddler age. He was already stumbling around the nursery happily. The young child was exploring every nook and cranny and trying to climb up on everything. Bolt had added a few small climbing areas with cushions everywhere to help occupy him and he was still half convinced the kid would break something at some point. Even the Cradle-Guard looked a tad overwhelmed.

By contrast Bunny was sitting there holding her own Guard and watching. The girl had already proved herself quiet. She barely cried, and hadn't said her first words yet. Bolt was pretty sure she could. She just didn't seem to like noise. It didn't escape him that she'd found the furthest area away from her brother.

"I really kinda hope that they don't do the whole red-oni, blue-oni thing." Lilly observed as she reached down and picked up Bunny.

"We'll see." Bolt said neutrally and winced as Ruckus practically backflipped off his climbing perch.

He was so glad he had cushions everywhere. This was not the first time the child had tumbled. It made the kid more enthusiastic rather than less.

"Is your brother being too energetic for you?" Lilly asked her daughter, who blinked several times in response. "Can you say momma?" She continued with hidden laughter. "Poppa? Bunny?"

"Nnnm." The girl made a noise and nuzzled into her mother's side.

"Think that's a no?" Bolt chimed in.

"Not quite. Maybe." Lilly waffled back and forth on it. "Is your first word no?"

"Dventure!" Ruckus shouted and poked his Cradle-Guard. "Ups!" The machine in the shape of a fluffy dog knelt down and he jumped on it. "More Dventure!"

"Where did he get that from?" The boy's mother asked Bolt.

"Not from me. I think he's imitating the educational stories." The young man shook his head as his son rode his toy around the room. "I'm wondering where he's getting the energy."

"Well his name fits so far at least." Lilly said and rocked her daughter. "Ya still being quiet Bun-hun?"

"Nmm."

"Definitely not a no." Lilly confirmed.

Bolt kept himself from chuckling. After a few minutes Ruckus finally popped down and seemed tired enough for a nap, so that was where he went. It was fulfilling to see in a way that nothing else had been. Pity it was going to change soon.

"Got the mech done for the Fridays." Bolt informed his wife.

"Ah." Lilly set Bunny down for her own nap before continuing. "Think they'll back off some?"

"We'll likely see some other attempts to get us to do what they want. We're going to have to do something, but if we can negotiate it right we'll be able to take a contract for battlefield salvage I think." Bolt noted.

Lilly nodded in turn. The simple fact of it was that they had three experts aligned with them now and no visible backers. The Friday Coalition wanted those experts, and an outright no would not result in anything friendly. They were already in the Hexxer crosshairs. The Coalition didn't even have to do anything but back off and imply a few things. At that point there was a decent chance the Hexxers would decide they were a valid target worth taking the travel time to kill.

"The CFA will be leaving soon." Lilly said softly and clenched a fist. "We'll take a contract before then. I've hammered Ark into something that I can trust somewhat. He'll still need a mech, but we can be certain he's reliable enough for work."

"Hmm. All right." Bolt confirmed. "I got the preliminary design for Ark's mech done. We'll need someone above Senior. I think I can have Jeanne do it. She's been hinting she wants a favor done on a project of hers. I think if we offer to have it done here we can justify both experts staying around and heightened defenses."

"That'll do. How's your workload?"

"With Dai and Wu gone, it's worse, but they're still working remotely." Bolt chuckled. "We didn't even consider it until they started to leave and realized they could do most of it on a good connection."

Lilly gave a snort. "Of course. We still need more, but that'll be hard with the new fun on the horizon." She muttered.

Bolt couldn't help his nod. "Least if I get work with the Friday's they'll handle most o' the little stuff."

It wasn't optimal. It wasn't horrible either. The couple didn't exactly like the Friday Coalition pushing them like this, but they disliked the Hexxers more. At least they were going to get paid for their work, and with some effort they could get the planet even more upgraded. It was straddling a sort of Second and Third Rate line, and normally that'd be a problem, but the mercenary focus was helping a lot there. People were in essence treating the planet as a place to rest, recruit, and use it to transition between tiers. It was fairly strange, but also working in the strangest way possible.

Jeanne at least proved amendable to the arrangement when Bolt brought it up after his kid time. Once Bolt saw what she was doing he understood why. It was a fairly revolutionary process that actually pinged off his specialty too. He'd be downright eager to focus completely on it in any other situation. In this case he just provided some input. (Oddly that felt more correct for some reason.)

A few days later Bolt got several messages. The first was a gentle rejection of his mech design. The second was a message accepting his design. The third was a message disputing both the previous ones, requesting he redesign everything.

Bureaucratic processes always required some work. This felt bad even for that. Bolt didn't really have anyone to call to clarify things either. Everything on the contract was automated numbers and clueless bureaucrats that gave him contradictory replies. He ended up taking the entire mess to Kriff in the assumption that he had either the experience or ability to figure out what was going on. Kriff in turn cursed several times and then made a few calls of his own.

It all ended up with Bolt on a call with a Friday General named Takaharu. The man was on the younger side for a general, but seemed competent at least. Bolt wasn't exactly sure why he'd ended up in a call like this, but he was willing to work with it as he detailed the issue and what was going on.

"This looks like designers politics, and paperwork insanity." The man explained after he was done. "I am not even sure you should have gotten the design contract in the first place, but after review I am glad you did so."

"Mind clarifying?" Bolt asked back.

"If you had years I could. Let us just say that several Master Designers have a hold on several areas and that is clashing with normal channels of commissioning work. I will personally greenlight a small deployment of your initial design. We will then proceed with the original contract terms." Takaharu informed him. "Do not expect any master's eyes to see it at any point."

"Ahh." Bolt breathed out. That specific statement said a lot. Designers could get a pretty big ego after all. "That sort of politics."

"It is not as simple as you are likely thinking, but it does likely involve it." The general said and paged through something off screen. "Now, while I have you here, I see a contract offer with your name on a mercenary team? That is unusual for designers."

"You probably know we've been gettin calls from yer people. Me and Lilly are married and where she goes, I go." Bolt explained with a shrug.

Takaharu read something off screen and gave a nod. "I am unsure of why you were not quickly approved to be honest. The forces you're offering are more than standard mercenary groups." He paused and chuckled as he read something. "Oh never mind I found the reason. Someone wanted your expert, Pup. Of course. They are getting quite greedy."

Bolt grimaced at the news. "I suppose that he would seem quite valuable."

"He is, but I will offer and suggest something different. I want to use you as bait." Takaharu held up a hand before Bolt objected. "If your design becomes big, the Hexxers will want you dead. You can do your scavenging like you wanted in your counter proposal, but when you get a hint of someone chasing you then you can fall back to several fortified areas. We will put it in a hidden contract while using your original as a cover."

Bolt frowned. That was a concern wasn't it? "Will they target here instead?"

"If they cannot guarantee you'll respond no. We leave a few traces around several back door information channels and they will focus on you in your carrier in the assumption that you are being risky. Your home is far enough away that they cannot send a casual raid after all, and do have to weight cost vs reward." The general paused and gave Bolt a serious look. "There is no path that does not put people in danger here."

Bolt closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Yes, you are right." That proposal was probably the best path here. He'd run it by Lilly and see what she said. They might have to amend one or two things, but it seemed viable at least.

 

[lost star]

It has to be said that Ves Larkinson was not a normal designer. Putting aside the fact that he threw himself into danger regularly for inspiration, the man's designs did something no one else did in the galaxy. They touched upon the spirit. There were many different designer specialties that did strange things. His were still up there, and did things no one had ever done. They were also completely independent of mechanical frameworks, which meant that the added value of them were independent of standard supply complications. The man's work was free money, and that alone put him above almost every other designer.

Bolt's designs were the only thing that came close, and the designer didn't want to completely mimic Ves' work. He took inspiration from it yes. He did not want to do exactly what Ves did. Bolt acknowledged that he stole idea from people. That was simply just what humans did. Monkey see, monkey do. If you saw a good idea you took it. If you were good, you put your own spin on it and made it yours. Bolt tried to do the latter with information he took from the designs he examined. His design philosophy was risky enough as it was already. No point in making it more controversial and drawing bad attention.

Another thing that further separated Ves from other designers was his impact on the Friday-Hexxer war. No other designer came close to what Ves did with his Blessed Squire. The mech's morale impact single-handedly warped the war and allowed the Hexxers to push back past a critical choke point far faster than predictions indicated. Battles became decided by the Squire and how much or little it presence it had in the battlefield.

Here was where the politics and pride came into play. Ves could not be seen as impossible to counter. He was a Journeyman. There were Masters opposing him. If they could not suppress his accomplishments, they were not worthy of their title to the public. It was actually safe to say that if they couldn't counter him the Friday Coalition's chances as a whole were looking very grim. So they proudly proclaimed that they'd counter the Blessed Squire, and just as proudly revealed a design shortly thereafter.

Where was Bolt in this example? Thanks to automated nepotism and other factors, he wasn't known at all. His offering, Banner-man was simple, almost cute, and only really approved because his wife was still considered a scion. An officer mech in appearance, it looked more fit for a parade ground than a war. When the customization was done right, it was frankly more of a mascot than anything else. It saw very limited deployment in some non-critical areas for testing purposes. It was not what the masters built to crush Ves and was not broadcast at all.

If someone where to ask Bolt what he thought of the master's design and he were to be truthful, he'd ask if the masters got kicked in the head. The designers opposing Ves had created a lancer that was meant to crush the glow of mechs. Called the Glow Crusher, it was tipped with several exotic components and could destroy the Blessed Squire's glow projection in a single strike.

There were obvious flaws to this solution. The most obvious was that the Crusher had to get to the Squire first. Lancers might have been built for that, but they survived partially by being unpredictable in their angle of attack and target. Knowing that the Squire was being targeted by a single mech type meant that it was easy to prepare a trap. Another and larger flaw that would be known later was that it only worked when the glow was turned on. When it was off (and Ves would accomplish this later with a switch) the glow could return once the lancer had stopped attacking.

Bolt would privately wonder what the masters were thinking when he saw the design. Why were they meeting Ves on his own terms? Why use something that was meant to kill a mech in a single strike anyway? Even a cursory examination would make one conclude that this was poorly thought of.

In contrast to the Glow Crusher, the Banner-Man's performance was never mentioned in any news. The testing wasn't public, and once the performance was confirmed the design was quietly retired while revisions were made to better suit the Friday forces. Bolt spent days working with some seniors on back channels and a new design was put forward and put into production as soon as their supply lines could handle it.

The new mech, called Son of War, was still a relatively simple mech that maintained most of the original design. It was a swordsman mech with decent armor and mobility made up of reliable parts. It looked like an officer holding a flag still, and the base model wasn't impressive. It wasn't meant to be. It was a weapon of war meant to do what was necessary. The mechs would become primary targets, and the best solution was going to be making them easy to repair and relatively replaceable. Aside from armoring it more there wasn't any other solution. (It had very robust pilot safety at least.)

The roll out was quiet but as fast as possible. While the Glow Crusher was thrown into everywhere it could be, the Son was constructed and sent to various units with explicit instructions that nevertheless confused the people who got the mech. Every unit that got a Son was instructed to have every member of the unit sign the cockpit, and then decorate it in the unit's colors. No one quite got why this was important.

Confusing or not, the orders were quite blatant and extremely firm. When your superiors said do something in that tone, you did it. So the soldiers who got the mechs did the decorations. Some were admittedly a bit half-assed. One particular unit splashed a solid color on it and scrawled a few names in it. It was barely enough to invoke when the Son of War needed to work, and after testing every unit immediately did the best job they could as a matter of survival. It helped that it didn't require resources, just commitment. Even in this day and age the phrase hurry up and wait existed so the people had time where they enthusiastically applied everything they could to the mech.

The reason for this particular feeling was relatively simple. A Blessed Squire's glow invoked feelings of a mother's approval or disapproval based on who the pilot considered enemies. It wasn't something that stopped people from functioning. It was still very unpleasant to be under and had been inflicting terrible damage to people's mental state from the second it was deployed. Many people had been quietly resigned about dealing with it and the stress.

A Son of War invoked a feeling of comradery and connection. Once this became apparent no one wanted to neglect the mech! They finally had a glow! This was such a relief that some people outright cried when they realized what the mech gave them.

It's actually impossible to state how much of a morale boost it was for the Friday frontline. Tactics had been adapting, people had been dealing, it had not been optimal. Sometimes the best choice had been to simply sacrifice a few men to get the Squires dead. This had resulted in many suboptimal decisions. A Son of War gave them options back by its very presence.

As the mech became deployed more and more, people got an idea of the quirks involved as well. More than one Son didn't magnify the effect so much as give it more range. Ones from different units unified if they were allies. The Glow was mostly tied to the banner, and if the Son of War was disabled the banner would keep working for a variable amount of time so long as it didn't hit the ground. The power of the Glow was directly related to the unit's cohesion and commitment to decorating it. Lesser dedication meant less power. These conditions became known quickly and were adapted to just as quickly, resulting in stronger and stronger Glows.

Unfortunately the Sons Glow couldn't overcome the Squires Glow directly. When the two Glows clashed the area of effect flattened like two balls pressing against one another. You could take a step and be under the effect of one, then cross a line and be under the effect of another. It was actually a bit disorientating for those unprepared for it. This was considered perfectly fine compared to not having one at all.

Strictly speaking the Son of War was inferior to the Blessed Squire Glow wise. It had no offensive effect. It required some pre-battle setup in the form of decoration. It was still more than what the Friday's had before, and it changed the field of war as more and more were deployed. Battles had to take into account the Son and the Squires. It became another way of controlling a battlefield, and generals truthfully struggled to account for all of it.

Naturally the Hexxers absolutely despised this new mech and immediately attempted to research who made it. Bolt's name was found quickly. Hiding a designer's style was difficult at best, and there were many examples of his work appearing on the battlefield. Headhunter Leo's Dullahan was the most famous, but the modified Shrine Maidens were being noticed as well. The designs further enraged the nation and they immediately attempted to find him so that they could kill him.

Bolt and Lilly didn't want this, so they were already on their way away from home. Their destination was not public. Nor was it obvious. This made it devilishly hard for the Hexxers to target them, which was the intention really.

 

[lost star]

"Take me with you." Ark Larkinson didn't quite demand it, but he was close.

Lilly stared at his mech with a critical look. "Thought we'd worked past this." She noted before she shifted her stance to respond to his own positioning.

"You need another expert. You need another commander. Here you have Kriff. Out in that field you will have a few Second Rate children and a few pilots that could adapt quickly to Second Rate." Ark replied back and readied himself. "You need me."

This was the last day before they left and they were doing a bit of last minute sparring. Mechhalla was proving its worth again in this instance. It wasn't perfect. It lacked a sense of danger and realism. What made it useful was that it was able to simulate experts. Furthermore it could simulate experts good enough to get real practice. That was valuable beyond belief, and a reminder of how magic and precious her husband was.

For this match Lilly was in Morning Star. The mech had been upgraded to Second Rate. The largest change was that daggers were gone. In their place was something that resembled daggers of light. Superheated metal suspended by electromagnetic techno-wizardry. They were significantly more deadly at the cost of being hellish energy hogs. In a one on one battle like this Morning Star could maintain two at once.

It made things even in this instance. Ark was in Cait Sith. The mech gave the impression of a cat and a man at the same time. Black, with a white star on its chest, the mech was a half command mech and half swordsman. The newly made mech was designed function best with small teams, but could function independently if needed at reduced capability. They were both mildly handicapped in a one on one with these mechs, but it was the most even matchup they could have.

"I need you here." Lilly let a dagger's containment breach in his general direction.

The new weapons weren't particularly controllable truthfully. They were the equivalent of high pressure bombs restrained by her mech's abilities. Lilly didn't shoot them so much as stop restraining their explosive power in a general direction. The flash of light and explosive fountain of metal and heat was a bit tricky to aim even for an expert. The damage though? It was quite spectacular when it connected.

Ark barely managed to avoid it. Even then it left a large molten gouge in his mech. He charged into the opening and his mech lit up with white ghostly fire. Self inflicted this time. Cait Sith's special trait, nicknames Nine-Lives. "You're running into a war!" He shouted.

Lilly chuckled. "That's nothing new." She responded and used greed to pull at his energy as the battle continued.

Eight little flames flowed around Ark as he charged forward. Had there been people there they would have been able to take the flames. Lilly sent out her other contained explosion, and it hit the man dead on. One light winked out and fire wafted off him, not so much doing damage as obscuring his form.

"That is a deadly trick." The woman noted and blocked the sword with a wing.

"You're one to talk." Ark grunted out and vented the heat his mech was building up with his free hand. The explosive blast of heat was broad and debilitating.

"Fair. " Lilly replied even as she took the hit on her armor. The metal deformed and warped but held thanks to Envy. Both hands reached for Arc and he snarled as he focused hard on trying to stop her with pure offensive aggression. Her wings barely managed to hold him back as Envy activated and pulled.

Several strips of the mans armor were torn off and then his sword managed break one of her wings. The thing shattered in white feathers and light while Lilly tried to dance away and reform her daggers. Ark naturally wasn't going to let that happen. He moved with her, harrying her with his weapons.

Ark was the first to use his resonance. Two more lights winked out and the armor repaired as if by magic. Then his mech burned even hotter and he held up his hand.

Lilly dropped her remaining wing, but wasn't able to completely block the explosive wash of heat. Nothing could probably could have. Cait Sith deliberately ran hot. Its talent ran it even hotter. The mech was designed to build up heat and explosively release it repeatedly. Morning Star lived because it was a defensive mech. Any other one would have died. Even then the mech was still quite damaged. Yet that wasn't the end of the fight.

"Time for Wrath." Lilly called out in a sing-song tone. Two more lances of plasma flowed around her and she invoked her own resonance.

The simulation very nearly glitched from the resulting storm of lightning and metal. Half the battlefield lit up as everything was electrified and torn apart in a cataclysmic display of willpower backed might. When the attack finished Ark was left with no more fires keeping him alive. Lilly eyeballed the damage to both of them.

"Looks like my win?" The woman asked. They could both keep going, but the damage was even enough that it'd be a cautious slog where both of them jousted for the last hit.

Ark snorted and dropped his sword. The mech was barely able to obey the command. "Again."

"Not the best matchup for you, but thanks for the last minute spar." Lilly noted as she mentally reviewed the fight.

"Better than fighting Dowry. That's usually an exercise in frustration." Ark replied. "And you are not going to budge on letting me come with I assume."

He got a giggle before Lilly replied. "You felt my will and I felt yours. You are a man that has always wanted to defend his family. Coming with would hurt ya." She made her mech shrug and then had the simulation repair it. "Also, I'd rather die than my children."

"That..." Arc trailed off.

"Ya, that's my calculation. We're going out light, but we're gonna scrounge and be rats. Trust me, there's nothing more dangerous than that. Also..." Lilly paused. "Don't spread this 'round, but we're pretty sure we're gonna get backstabbed at the end o' the war, or even during it."

"What?!" The man asked incredulously. "Who would dare?! What sort of honor do they have?"

"More stupidity. Call it a hunch. Some of the messages feel like nobles right before they decided it's more fun ta kill than ta fight." Lilly snorted and felt her mech rage silently at the discussion. "We got a few tricks up our sleeves and ain't gonna let it happen, but we don't want the real valuable stuff with us. Stay here and get ready fer a siege towards the end o' the war."

Ark let out a breath. "I will need to temper myself more to do that." He noted. "Not just in these simulations."

"Ya got my permission ta visit the alien planet nearby. Go in deep with a few of your family. The deeper stuff is scary." Lilly said quietly. "It'll be risky, but we both know that's the only way forward. Take Pup if you think he's up for it. I'm trusting you, please."

The man was silent at that. As Lilly said, it was very risky. It was also probably one of the only ways he could train discretely. It was a very heavy request. One that he didn't verbally agree to. He simply didn't ask to follow her again and had his mech get prepared for a trip. That alone was telling.

 

[lost star]

Traveling inside a sector could take anywhere from weeks to months depending on routes and engine power. First Rate ships could skip through reality. Third Rate ships plodded. Bolt's carrier was a Second Rate ship that had been further enhanced by someone educated in the CFA and spiritual techniques that the original tech had likely been based off of. It had a deceptive speed that they deliberately concealed out of likely necessary paranoia. It was still fast enough that they'd be at their destination within a week.

This meant that Bolt had a limited time to design another Second Rate mech. They needed at least one, or likely two more to round out the obvious problems with their lineup. He couldn't just upgrade a Third Rate mech, because upgrading a mech's design between tiers was typically more work rather than less. It was worth it for expert mechs, for non-experts? It was better overall to make a new one entirely.

What to build though? The question wasn't what he was inspired to build so much as what his people would need in the future. They needed something that could compliment their defensive wall really. The Torment Guard had proven to be a solid design that was good at what it did, but it was also rather range limited.

Bolt's mind drifted through a few mech types and his thoughts moved to the Glow Crusher. In isolation the mech wasn't horrible. It was a decent lancer that used exotics to counter something that the masters had no real education on. In context it felt rather half-assed to put it politely. It amounted to slapping exotics on a pointy stick and poking them. A lancer was meant to kill a mech quickly and violently. Adding more functions to that was just extra. The Glow Crusher was built simply to say they could kill the Glows.

It was just a bit funny because there were space variants that used swords and the proper exotics, and they were simply more effective overall. A swordsman mech was designed to assault lines and loved fighting support knights like the Squire. The exotics worked better for that design, and the Squire itself was far less effective in space.

Failures aside, how would Bolt make a lancer? He wasn't going to use the exotics involved in Glow Crusher. That was just his question and personal challenge now. Making a lancer. How well it worked didn't matter. He simply wanted to challenge himself. How best to do it?

Swan came to mind then. The mech had left a small impression in him, if only because the pilot had obviously felt it fit her. The mech design had been risky, dangerous, but also absolutely beautiful in a way that a well made weapon was.

Lancer-flyer combos were frankly dangerous enough that Bolt wasn't confident in finding the pilots for them. He did think he could take a few cues from it. He also wanted to do ice this time. He'd done too much fire recently.

With that theme in mind the basic form came quickly. A Lancer-skirmisher type mech. Designed to move fast and harass before it committed with a killing blow. An ice-skater almost. Or maybe an actual ice skater? Could he do that?

Bolt was quite aware that he was getting off track, but it felt entertaining enough to try. He spent a few minutes just checking for that. There were things that let mechs hover out there. Even some that could let it skate on air. Most of them required little weight even for light mechs. He wasn't sure that'd work.

Oh he could make a light mech within those tollerances, but it wouldn't be a lancer. It'd be a harassing skirmisher, which could be useful, but not what he was going for. Bolt made a few calculations before he decided it wouldn't work.

Ice, ice. What felt ice like? The ideas flowed this way and that before Bolt found himself back at a very old product he'd used. The mist generator. Obsolete even at Third Rate, it'd be useless against anything Second Rate. It still did give him a funny idea.

Two custom creation ideas came together quickly. Ice generation! A shield and a lance made of ice. This was not a weapon that people had developed, for rather good reason. Ice didn't compare to steel, much less the allows they used now. Bolt had a 'secret' weapon in his previous work though. The wings in the Wounded Angels and Morning Star. Those had used a complicated mix of various factors to create an explosive defensive measure.

Using it in ice wasn't possible on the face of it. It'd create heat and melt the ice. That was if you used conventional physics and conventional mechancis. Bolt had a few ideas. He also had a friend who specialized in endothermic reactions.

Gary was still working on tracking down Lilly's mother. The events involving that had been... Well chaotic. They were likely getting close to being done, and Bolt felt like he owed the guy a favor for all the pain. It also felt like something that would be fun for both of them.

A few exchanged messages resulted in a combined planning session. It was truthfully probably Bolt's only time really working with someone he would call a true peer. Gary was brilliant in his own way. His designing ethos was developed. His only flaw was his preference for heavies. This mech would be light.

She, and the developing mech was definitely a she, was a light mech. Delicate almost. With spikes on the hips and in various other areas, she looked more like a walking snowflake than a machine of war. Even her default lance and shield weren't particularly firm looking.

If all went as planned, the mech wouldn't actually be that durable. The spikes were radiators and both disposable and replicable. The delicate looking lance and shield were both actually made up of a central core that formed something that looked like ice around them. The quirk was that the mech was designed to grow ice around itself and it's weapons. The lance would break off when it impacted an enemy and spread frost explosively. The shield would deflect, and the ice around the armor would help mitigate anything that got past that.

Really a lot of it was Gary's work. The man had stumbled on a few insights that he'd needed to put into practice. Bolt enabled him while keeping the mech to a light frame. It was a real treat to follow someone refining their ideas in real time and push themselves. That wasn't to say Bolt didn't push himself either. The mech used a lot of specialized exotics to produce the effects. The lance itself was a barely contained prison of frozen exotic material. The shield was likewise barely contained. All of it hinged on being just stable enough to work.

Yet that was the point of it all. It was a deliberate cycle of reconstruction coated in ice. Offensively this mech would cause severe thermal shock in enemies. Defensively it'd mitigate most damage by simple sacrificing the ice it built around it.

This would make the mech both delicate and not. Chip damage wouldn't work against it. You'd have to kill it quickly, which would be hard to do because the mech was shaping up to be fast. It of course still needed something else.

Gary was the one to add the snowflakes. It was actually very technically how the mech radiated waste heat. When it moved it'd leave behind small white 'snowflakes' that were actually small bits of heat with waste products. After a few seconds, or upon impact, they'd disintegrate and cause minor damage to whatever it hit. This was the harassment part of the mech.

In essence, the plan was to have it circle around opponents using its speed and then dart in for a quick strike. Since the lance was disposable and semi-explosive, the lancer mech didn't need the traditional lancer commitment behavior. It was unusual, but it felt fun at least, which was something that Bolt appreciated.

Hopefully the mech would prove viable as well. That was what testing would be about. Bolt would personally do the prototype.

 

[lost star]

They'd taken a small detour on their way to their destination to test out the new mech design. The location was a relatively remote planet with a single Friday outpost there for monitoring purposes. The people manning it were bored out of their mind and were also nominal allies, so they'd been easily talked into helping with testing. Really it was more for fun than any actual data gathering. Sure they'd gather data, but Lilly wanted to enjoy herself before they really got into trouble.

Hoarfrost, the new mech, was actually a little bit prettier than Bolt's usual aesthetic sense. The two prototype mechs he'd built were delicate, feminine, and almost looked like they were dancing when they moved. Something about the concept and coloring scheme sort of synched up very well in a way that tickled at the brain a bit. Lilly found piloting one actually surprising easy too. It wasn't like a Ghoul. It was stable while also being nimble. Special care had been taken to make this one easy to use as well as fast.

"Feels a bit strange." Lilly commented. "Do you feel chilly?" She asked her fellow tester.

"Shoulda worn a coat." The woman, Melinda, agreed. "Did he mess with the temperature controls?"

Lilly shook her head and eyed the gauges on the mech. Nothing about it indicated that the temperature was anything below normal. Hoarfrost just felt cold. It was enough that she upped the cockpit temperature and yet that didn't help. She felt hot and cold. Strange.

"Ready Venerable!" The opposing team called out and interrupted her investigation into the phenomenon.

It was obvious who'd spoken based on how they planted the banner into the ground and posed proudly. Lilly found herself both amused and gratified upon seeing the Son of War. The mech was obviously loved. It was also painted in a rather garish color scheme. The clashing colors were eye searingly offensive, and Lilly felt a tiny bit of mental damage just seeing the thing move. The Glow was effective at least. She could visibly see the opposing team perking up.

"Ready up!" Lilly ordered and grinned.

Their own Son of War had been personally made by Bolt and empowered by everyone on the ship. When the effect started it kicked hard. She could already feel her blood pumping and knew beyond a doubt that her team had her back. No one who felt this sort of thing could doubt that it'd help in battle.

"System check. Everything green?" Lilly asked her fellow tester.

There was a beat and then Melinda responded. "All green. I'm not used to this style, but it's intuitive enough that I can handle it."

"Yer a guardian at heart, but it doesn't hurt to broaden your perspective." The expert said and then signaled the battle to begin.

This was a training battle, with various things to dull the weapons and keep the pilots safe. That meant the Torment Guards were fairly low performance all over. They weren't exactly against the cream of the crop though, so it was more even than one would expect. The lack of range was pretty killer though. Almost immediately the opposing riflemen took shots at them and the guards. This actually woke up the Guards slightly and they experienced a noticeable (to her) boost in performance. It wasn't near the peak power, but it did at least make them less of a joke.

In the meantime Melinda and Lilly jockeyed for position at the permitter. This was a small team fight, ten versus ten. The Hoarfrost mechs were the only non-Torment mechs on her side, so they were very obvious targets. This was suboptimal, but also a decent test.

Hoarfrost was fast and surprisingly stable for her speed. Lilly found herself almost skipping as she danced around the shots being fired. She really wasn't the best test pilot for this, and she knew it, but she loved piloting new mechs made by her husband. Behind her Melinda was having more trouble, but keeping up. That was actually quite promising for a new design. The ice armor was also handling the glancing hits they were taking very well. No real damage had happened even if a few shots had managed to wing her here and there.

The snowflake effect was interesting as well. The damage was trivial truthfully, but simply having the tiny mines appear behind her and her companion made chasing them irritating. Little pinprick damage added up as well, so after the effect was discovered none of the skirmishers tried to chase her. Since they were the only ones that could keep up Lilly just had to worry about the riflemen and they'd need a solid shot to actually do damage.

Right now her circling forced the enemy to split their focus. It let the Torment Guards move closer. This provided more cover for her and it was only a matter of time until she had an opening.

"Venerable Lilly, did you know the cloud behind you is growing?" One man on her side called out.

"Huh?" Lilly didn't turn back, but she wanted to just to actually see it. She did turn her attention to her sensors. That was interesting!

"Bolt is pretty good about documentation, so I thought I'd probably call it out as unusual."

Lilly nodded, though he couldn't see it. "Well let's see how it goes. Melinda, try to keep up!" She called out and bumped up the speed. (She ignored the quiet curses from the woman.)

It was like a small blizzard was forming behind her. Nothing large, and it capped out quickly, but it was interesting. How would this work with more? Lilly felt like it'd be very cool, pun not intended. Would it become a real blizzard?

But she was getting sidetracked. They needed to test the rist. Lilly turned in an instant and sped forward. Behind her Melinda stifled another curse and followed.

The enemy had been tracking her, and did respond to her movement, but it wasn't enough. Hoarfrost was not a conventional lancer. She didn't want to impact hard. She wanted to stab and move past. This was why she was light. If she was still she was dead. So that was what Lilly did. The spear slammed into the shoulder of her target and she swept by after breaking it off. Behind her the small blizzard followed and distracted everyone. The one two effect let her speed off and start to reform her lance without a problem.

Her target was less lucky. The lance part she'd left in the shoulder had erupted into frozen spikes. The stuff was melting quickly but the arm was ruined. That was very nasty damage wise. Nice.

Melinda had managed to hit her target too. She'd taken a few hits on the approach and exit, but the armor was already reforming. Behind her one of the mechs was dropping as the safeties engaged. The woman had hit the torso and the erupting ice was enough to hit something vital. That made this a very potent lancer in her opinion.

"Hah, you did better than me!" Lilly laughed out over the coms.

The expert was trying to keep things relatively fair as a personal challenge here. It wouldn't do to completely overwhelm everyone. Her opponents were keeping up very well though. Normally they'd be shaking a bit, but here they were still handling things like pros. That morale boost was really something. Sure it was training, but it wasn't easy training.

She began to circle around for another go. So far Hoarfrost was looking it had some high potential. She really wanted to see what happened when a full group did a charge. That'd have to be later when they had people and the mechs. Apparently this one was on the pricier side to run thanks to the exotic expenditure involved in the ice. She could see it.

 

[lost star]

War was glorified and vilified in equal measure by everyone. It was grand and terrible. It left bodies behind. It left corpses. It created heroes, legends, and villains.

Rats cared for none of that. What they cared for was the remains left behind. So their first target was one of the older and more isolated battlefields. Bolt and Lilly wanted to ease into things as they revisited old instincts and revised them for the environment they were in.

All militaries salvaged a battlefield after a battle. Recycling was just common sense with the technology they had. It was just that they typically half-assed it. Third Rate militaries tended to send out a few rookies with trucks and crappy mechs and told them to pick up parts. The important stuff was loaded by grunts, categorized by tired techs, and they only noticed something missing if there was a serious discrepancy. Second Rate militaries apparently sent out a lot of automated drones and forgot about the rest.

The drones seemed to be good at recovering important exotics. They were crap at anything else. The battlefield that Bolt and Lilly landed on had mechs caught in craters, valleys, and even under hasty barriers. Some of them were even possible to repair to full functionality within a few minutes.

"I'm afraid I don't really get why this makes us money." Melinda observed as she joined Bolt in surveying the initial site.

The woman had proved herself a decent enough subordinate and was good at small unit tactics, so she was basically their general and aide in one for this operation. It was a few too many jobs for a single person, but they were a small group so she wasn't being overwhelmed. Ark's recommendation to take her along had turned out to be a good one.

Bolt gave a grunt before he replied as he examined the battlefield with a scavengers' eye. Advanced tech aside the smell and feel was the same. "It's a sorta combo. Personal effects and remains typically score a small bounty, exotics from downed mechs are always profitable, sometimes you score enemy intel, or just random treasures. I've seen some strange treasures squirreled away in a hidden spot on a mech. The sum of everything makes it worthwhile if ya take the right jobs and are efficient with everything."

"Got a whole list of toxic shit ta watch fer though." One of the Rats contributed with a spit to the side. "Here we're gonna need ta hose down everything after. If ya notice anything turning black call emergency."

"Black?!" The Larkinson woman asked incredulously.

"Munition remnant causes necrosis on physical contact." The man explained before pulling on his mask and gloves. "Ain't the worst shit. That's the radioactive dust that sticks and requires drugs and a decontamination. Glad that exotic fell outta favor."

"Should you be going out there outside a vehicle then?" She asked with increasing alarm.

"Ain't the first time." The man said with a dismissive wave as he re-checked his stuff. "Won't be the last. Think we should start doing certs for this?" He asked Bolt with a small laugh.

The designer frowned in thought. "Wouldn't be the worst idea. We do need ta recruit, don't we?"

"Huh." The man paused a moment in thought then shrugged. "Will bring it up with the boys."

Bolt turned his attention back to the battlefield. "So, yer job in this instance is to just keep an eye out. This particular field's pretty old so we ain't gonna get much, but you'll see mechs playing dead, vultures on foot and in mechs, trapped mechs, and more at the next site. Sometimes the boys will call ya in to give something a poke. If you're unsure what they want feel free to ask."

"Seems like a grim job not suited for an expert." Melinda noted as Lilly started to move out in Dowry.

Bolt watched his wife move and then shrugged. "Next few jobs are gonna be closer to the front. You'll get it then."

This battled had been on a very rocky, hilly, and isolated planet that had once had a monitoring outpost. On a star map it was behind enemy lines, but it was so out of the way it was basically ignored by both sides at the moment. The Hexxers had sent in a few forces to wipe everyone off it and then left. Based on the damage they'd hit the long range FTL transmitter and sensor in the outpost. The planet wasn't really habitable, nor did it have anything valuable, so no one had bothered to fix anything. It was therefore perfect to get warmed up and get a feel about how the sides behaved.

A few minutes into the job got more information as to how the battle went. It wasn't pretty. The Hexxers had practically thrown their mechs into the fortifications. The number of casualties was extremely high for a battle like this. Many of the Hexxer mechs had the cockpits with the pilot bodies still in them. It had all the hallmarks of a last stand or something like that, but the aggressors were the ones throwing their lives into a blender. Even for fanatics the damage was excessive. It was so bad they pulled a few data drives early and tried to decrypt them.

That fragmented data gave a better clue as to why this had happened. The Hexxers, like most fanatics, had certain self-destructive practices. The attackers here had been thrown into shoddy mechs for some sort of crime and told redemption was only been possible if they took the fortification within a certain timetable. As a result they'd then thrown themselves into achieving that goal at any cost. Some women had almost literally thrown their bodies onto the guns. What was worse was that many of the mechs weren't even capable of handling that sort of suicidal charge. One model in particular littered the battlefield in pieces. It had provided negative value to the fight.

It took a long moment to identify some of the parts. The damage was that bad on many of them. Eventually Bolt narrowed it down and found himself even more disgusted These were stealth parts. It looked like many of the attackers were variants of the mech that had attacked him. Why the hell had they used fragile stealth mechs on a frontal assault like this?! It made no sense, and ruined most of the purpose behind the mech. The damage was so bad his people were throwing everything into the full recycle pile, where it'd be broken down for the materials rather than try to retain the parts. Bolt pulled out one and then paused.

"What's with the damage here?" Bolt asked after examining the part. "It ain't normal battle damage." It was oddly familiar but he couldn't identify why he felt that way.

"Hmm?" The lead tech in charge of the sorting blinked before turning to him. "Ya don't recognize it? You?" He turned back to the part Bolt was still holding. "Ahhh, can see why. This is kinda rare ta see in military stuff and even mercs ain't particularly happy ta have it happen. This is what happens when a designer's dead for awhile and ya try to run the mech still. Ya probably saw it a few times and didn't even notice on the older mechs. Parts are sometimes still good, but it's so variable that it's faster to trash the entire thing."

The young man frowned. The designer who'd built the stealth mechs was dead? Why?

"Don't think too hard on it lad." The older man advised almost kindly. "Ain't gonna get a reason fer this sorta thing. Big nobles have big reasons that boil down to 'You offended me so you die.'"

Bolt shook his head. "Keep them separated." He almost demanded as a small flicker of anger coursed through him.

The salvager gave him a look before nodding. "Ya got it." He said in a strange tone before grabbing a nearby man and whispering something to him. The man ran off to find a comm and to call Lilly.

Bolt didn't really notice. He was staring at the parts and thinking. There was something here.

 

[lost star]

What was empathy? Bolt mused on that as he sorted the parts. Most of them were ruined. The stealth mech had not been the most durable mech in the first place, and throwing it into a grinder like that battle had not been kind to it.

So, back to the question. What was empathy? Could one sympathize with someone and still believe they should have died? There was a contradiction, but a small one. Bolt felt like this would apply. The creator of this mech hadn't loved the field. The mechs she'd built had a singular purpose. They were infiltrators. Stealth monsters designed for black ops. That sort of thing was never clean. You used mechs to kill and stealth mechs could be used in particularly heinous acts.

The Hexxer designer had therefore designed something that had been used to vile ends. Did Bolt hate her for that? Not really. The lines, the patterns, the designs she used, all of it pointed to a woman that had been shaped as a tool. He could almost see her sitting in a room begging for a hint of acknowledgement, a validation of her suffering. It was almost public knowledge that Second and First rate states created pet designers like that. Those designers never got anywhere significant, but having someone that did what they were told was frequently a desire for people in power. The control was more important than the skill, and many things suffered from that.

Bolt truly felt pity for the now dead woman. She'd been raised as a tool and then discarded because of whim and a failure that wasn't even hers. Her works would be forgotten and erased by reality. There likely wouldn't even be a footnote that showed she'd existed.

Even the parts he was sorting wouldn't last past this. They weren't useful enough to justify the storage. Bolt had enough to remake the mech if he wanted to. It'd be a hollow shell unworthy of being piloted. Even a Junk Mech would be better than whatever he could puzzle back together.

He still continued the work. It was almost mediative in a way. Hexxer standards and design philosophies were flawed. They worked because of overwhelming technology. A super alloy didn't really care if you used too many or too few bolts. To their credit, good designers could work around the religious limitations. Having to use multiples of 6 bolts in key design points wasn't the worst restriction. You could slap a few decorative ones if you were clever. The best ones actually incorporated Hexxer religion into the design, making it a work of art. There were good orthodox Hexxer designers out there.

This one hadn't been good. He'd observed it before. The designer had been too limited and brittle. Yes he knew she'd been sheltered, but even taking that into account the design was almost soulless. The stealth mechs had been devoid of everything, even purpose.

What would the girl have made if she'd been free? Would she even have been a designer? Maybe. He didn't know her. Who knows, she might have even gone into stealth on her own. You didn't become a Journeyman without some talent. There were hints of it here and there.

Despite Bolt's derogatory thoughts, stealth in a mech was difficult even with Second Rate tech. This mech had managed full optical and audio stealth and still maintained combat capabilities. Sure they'd been anemic combat capabilities, but that was still worthy of note. Had the woman been properly trained and encouraged, she might have become a formidable asset. There were precious few designers that could break into that field due to the extreme variety of things needed.

He might have been going too much into theoretical here. There was only so much you could take off a dead person's work. Bolt finished sorting and threw most of what he'd found in the recycler. They lacked something he needed, and the base materials would be more useful for this project. He was going to make a mech from all of this. Call it a last will and testament of a dead designer.

What would that designer have made if she was free? If she was feeling inspired? He didn't think she could really have thought of either. Her mind had been drenched in indoctrination from birth. There wasn't a thought in her head beyond pleasing those above her.

Had she had a pet? Hexxers preferred cats. Would she have even been allowed that? How grim did he want this fictional picture of her to be? How deprived had they made her? She'd probably been rather sheltered and simply socially manipulated rather than physically abused.

As he worked, Bolt found he wasn't really sure of what he was building truthfully. He had the frame up and had no idea why he'd done it. It was on the small side for a mech, a quadruped. Even for him building a mech without a blueprint was a bit out there. It seemed to be assembling right at least so he continued. It was almost like he was building a mech from a memory he'd never had.

The stealth systems slotted in next. Though calling it one stealth system was incorrect. It was many. To really fade from sight you needed to cover every angle of the mech. You couldn't do that with just camo. Radar was easier in a way. Sound required mostly insulation, with the footsteps taking great care. Then more exotic sensors. This wasn't easy. It was in fact very difficult, because this all needed power, and it therefore needed heat, and then you had to conceal the heat.

Real and true invisibility was hard. It was a balance of a thousand different things. Even the Mother's Shadow (the ruined mech line) hadn't been able to stealth for more than an hour before it needed to cool down. The designer had been proud of it though. It'd been what made her journeyman.

Yet it'd never inspired her.

Bolt was making a cat he realized. He chuckled to himself. A pet the girl had never had. A little black cat-mech. There wasn't enough for weapons on it, and he didn't really want to make them for this. It wasn't really a weapon of war. It was a trickster cat. A mech with perfect stealth and nothing else.

Parts came together. Bolt had barely enough material for what he was designing. It took a lot of fiddling and eyeballing things as his fugue started to fade and he was forced to make things work just based on experience and intuition. The frame was off, the armor was horrible. The power needed more than a few adjustments.

The last bits of the creation took more out of him than anything else. Yet Bolt persisted. This needed to be done. Some part of him demanded it be done and be done correctly, and he was going to do that. The last problem points were aligning the power distribution for the stealth system. That was absolutely hellish. His whatever it was wasn't wrong about that. Getting the power right was hell and even on a mech that was designed just for stealth and nothing it was not easy.

Eventually it came together. Bolt grinned and moved to one of the consoles in the bay, the one behind a blast shield. The first activation of a mech for testing wasn't usually dangerous, but it was always good to be safe. He flicked the console and started up the reactor in the mech.

There was absolutely no sound at all. The designer strained his ears and then looked to the gauges. All green. That was actually perfect. His grin widened as he flicked a switch.

A second later the mech disappeared from sight. Bolt refrained from dancing, though it was fairly close. The feeling of relief he felt was unreal. He felt energized, fulfilled, and more all of the sudden. It was a very nice feeling, but what was better was that he felt as if he'd learned something important.

If he were to describe it, it would be that he'd picked up the legacy of a fallen designer. He knew stealth systems now. He could build one if he wanted to, and he did. That'd be his next real mech. That desire burned inside him. He had to do so now before he lost that flame.

Bolt paused before he left. One small thing. He put out a few instructions to crew. This little mech wasn't much. It wasn't worthless, but it lacked weapons and armor. It was almost a toy, if you could call something that could squish a man a toy. Yet he was loathe to have it trashed or anything else. He gave it a name and put in orders to move it to storage.

"I'll be sure you get piloted a few times Cheshire, but not right now." The man told his creation and then finally left to really design.

Behind him the cat did not move. It was a mech without a pilot. It still settled down to rest, and something else drifted away, quietly, peacefully, and without malice.

 

[lost star]

Bolt had done his initial designs as undead and monsters mostly as a small internal joke. Mechs made from salvage were frequently called Franken-mechs. He was a mech necromancer! It was a joke that he didn't always hold to, but still mostly a joke. He was committed to themes and making mechs entertaining to himself if nothing else. Undead, monsters, gods, whatever. So long as the mech was done to the best of his ability he was satisfied.

This mech wasn't going to contain a joke. He emotions were potent and mixed enough that he wasn't in the mood for humor. This was going to be a ghost with teeth. There was no humor in here, only his raw feelings. The theme would reinforce everything about the mech and turn it into a mech monster that would make his enemies pay.

Now this wasn't going to be easy. Stealth mechs had very tight tolerances in their construction. Truthfully there wasn't much room for any sort of variation. The Hexxer Stealth mech hadn't been weak in direct combat because of choice.

So how was Bolt going to get around this? Mostly by making the stealth very temporary. If you reduced how long it had to be hidden you had more room in the design. This would allow for more things to be done with the overall design and give him the ability to make it more combat capable.

This wasn't done routinely for a variety of reasons. Most nations didn't want their stealth tech on any sort of common battlefield. Damage to the mech would make the stealth less effective over time. Altering anything required immense knowledge of stealth systems that most people didn't have. It was also still a fairly large burden on the mech resource and cost wise.

His answer for all of this was to cut away everything he could and then divided it into self contained systems. The stealth was now a series of small independent systems on each limb and torso. This solved the damage problem halfway and introduced a lot more complexity. His cutting made it barely feasible to construct. The thing was he didn't need to solve all the issues here. Partial stealth could be just as effective as full stealth. If he was very careful and precise he could make something that worked just well enough to be viable.

Of course this was just one system on the mech. Mobility was another thing Bolt wanted, and he wanted it something special. Here he leaned on Ghoul's design. Third Rate design principles prized efficiency above all else. This new mech needed that, and Bolt was very confident in his ability to give it a monstrous movement ability without sacrificing too much. This was less viable in space combat, but that was acceptable. Most Second Rate mechs suffered in that particular area unless they were explicitly designed not to.

So, what was next? He had a raw skeleton with redundant stealth systems and something with immense ground mobility. It was a decent base for a mech. He wasn't finished though, and there were going to be more tradeoffs. This mech above all others was going to fight him every step of the way in the design process.

Weapons next. This needed to be ranged. It simply lacked the upper body power for good melee options and the stealth systems were still fragile even with his redundancies. Getting in close always took some sort of damage after all. What sort of weapon would be best?

The simplest option would be a sniper of some sort. A quick check confirmed that standard heavy firepower weapons were too heavy for his initial frame design. He could theoretically do something there, but it'd require a few too adjustments to everything in his opinion. He'd have to strip the armor down to practically nothing while also remove something like half the weapon's weight. It was possible, but the result would be so delicate and finicky that he'd be left with a mech that'd break if someone breathed on it wrong. The young man thought on it a bit before he put a placeholder rifle into the mech and then moved on. No point in making this full decision for this yet.

After a few more changes Bolt stepped back and looked over his design. The base ideas seemed good so far, but something felt off. He was chasing the wrong sort of theme. This wasn't a ghost with teeth. That needed something else. This felt too physical. Too raw. Should he switch to melee? Bolt could easily redo things for that, but his people did not need another close range fighter. He needed a different image behind this mech.

His mind moved back to what had drove him to design this monster. The senseless waste. There was a lot of that out there. For every important fight there were half a dozen pointless charges where nothing was accomplished but death. Dead soldiers littered battlefields. Some resentful, some not.

Oddly, the rifle felt most fitting when his mind roved over that idea. Bolt turned back to it and looked for something that suited his sudden inspiration more. He wanted the most generic Second Rate rifle on the market and found it after some searching. The weapon blueprint didn't even really have a name, it was literally MTA Approved Standard Ballistic Rifle and a serial number. The design had barely changed since it had been made several generations ago. It was something that you slapped on mech when you just needed a generic rifle. It was also perfect for his new idea.

The rifle was added to the design and Bolt tweaked the appearance slightly. He made it looked old and ruined. It wasn't, but the cosmetics made it look like that. He then added a backpack to the mech.

Now this looked silly on the surface. Bolt had a reason for this addon aside from the way it changed the appearance. The backpack was actually a grenade storage device. It could deploy grenades upon command and kept them safe in combat. Second Rate grenades could get very dangerous and very expensive. Though Bolt wasn't going to add that to the initial loadout. Those were simple things. Explosive and chaff grenades with a small addon that he'd used a long time ago. All of them would create mist.

The rest of the mech came together quickly after these decisions. The mech had a bit of a hunch. It held the rifle in a default stance that brought to mind a tired soldier. It had a hint of camouflage and blood on it. Outside of stealth it was supposed to look like a soldier that had just done a long march, if you didn't look at the face.

That looked positively demonic. A long dead and vengeful soldier. Bolt even had it breath out mist a bit. The cosmetic alteration cost nothing and didn't even cause armor vulnerabilities. The effects in the sims were spectacular. Exactly what he was looking for.

Now it was time to tie it all together. The spirit followed the function and form. Bolt pulled the threads of it all together and the memory of the battlefield he'd just left. Hundreds dead over a rock ball that neither side needed in the end. A worthless battle.

Something like that was enraging in despair inducing in equal measure. That was what this mech was. A champion of forgotten soldiers and a vengeful fighter. He was on the battlefield to find worth, and he would.

This was satisfying. Bolt grinned as he finished up the armor. It was on the light side, but that was needed. He was really getting close to the limit of what he could add. He had just barely enough for some above standard sensors and that was it. The new mech was done. The Forgotten Soldier.

Once he finished that up he did a few more minor things. Bolt went back and brushed up on his other Second Rate mechs and their spiritual work. All of it needed to work together. He had a team. A group of people. A family, and they'd all defend it and fight for it to the best of their ability. That allowed it all to resonate properly.

 

[lost star]

Melinda Larkinson didn't really know how she'd ended up here. She could trace the events that had caused it to happen, but it still didn't make much sense to her mind. It felt like yesterday that she'd been trying to encourage little Ves in his budding design skills. She'd been a planetary guard with a promising and boring future in front of her! Now her family had split in two and she was trying to keep an entirely different designer alive while they madly dashed through battlefields of the fallen.

At least the mech was good. She tried to console herself with that when she got overwhelmed. She'd grown up with Third Rate mechs. Getting to pilot a Second Rate one had been a distant dream. This Torment Guard had been gifted to her as a matter of course because she'd done well learning. The Wrench Rats had so few pilots that she'd gotten one by default!

She attributed a lot of her training success to the fact that Bolt's mechs felt a lot like Ves' mechs. Melinda had gotten used to them over time and once you did, other mechs felt a bit raw. Ves and Bolt's mechs had a sort of liner that made mechs feel better to use. If she were to use an analogy, normal mechs were shoes without socks. Ves and Bolt had different brands of socks. (It wasn't well thought of analogy, but it was all she could think of.)

She still didn't feel ready for this. Yet life didn't care if you were ready or not. If she wanted to live and have her family thrive she'd have to handle it anyway.

"Are we sure there's no forces here?" The woman asked as they dropped down from the orbital insertion ship. "I'm detecting contacts."

"Pattern is consistent with remnants. Ya always get those after a battle." One of the non-pilot Rats commented. "Normally we'd call the battlefield too hot, but job is ta cool it and adopt strays. Broadcasting official auth codes now. Let's see how many are orphans and how many are vultures."

On another channel several things began to blare. Melinda had it off, but based on the plan they were official Friday authorization codes. She paid more attention to the contacts on the sensors. Many moved off. Several moved closer.

"Just confirming, the orders in the broadcast are to rally away from insertion right?" Melinda asked as she finally hit the dirt.

"Roger. That means any approaching are hostile." The Rat replied without concern. "Looks like yer getting a group."

"Weapons hot! Shields forward, guns spread, lancers south!" The Larkinson roared out as she set her shield forward.

Several chaff grenades were dropped around her as people assembled. Mist started to spread and Melinda refrained from commenting. The men with her were all more experienced in wars than she was. She was only in charge due to skill and command ability, not ability. Part of being a good leader was letting your men do what experience told them to do.

Around her snowflakes started to drift. The Son of War set his banner and Melinda felt her blood race as everything became more clear. Her doubts were still there, but they felt lesser. She knew everyone here would have her back. That Glow was always nice to have help.

"Looks like Hexxer orphans!" The Rat called out.

Melinda snorted. 'Orphans' were people left behind when the battle ended. Since the fights were from planet to planet, sometimes people could literally not leave a battle for one reason or another. In this case it looked like a Hexxer group. She didn't get the Rat insistence on specific nomenclature. They were just enemy forces.

As the enemy approached it was obvious they had seen better days. Melinda could see one of Ves' mechs in the most covered area. The Blessed Squire was being protected by a pair of Swordsman, but it had lost a few parts. Pristine the mechs were typically pointed and bug-like due to some of the support equipment they had. They had a pair of emergency energy siphons that they used to pull energy from downed mechs and transfer them, which was what gave them the bug-like appearance. This one was missing one of those. The others had similar bits of damage.

They charged anyway. Which was a poor decision as it ran right into their fields of fire. The Torment Guards rained down small spikes on the entire formation as they approached. None of the damage was critical, but it did cause them even more mechanical issues and their charge turned into a staggered forward motion.

Melinda raised her shield and set her stance. "Lancers hit them from the flank once they commit. Don't worry about the Squire."

"Roger that. Feeling a bit of Momma's bite out here though."

That'd be the Squire's Glow. "How bad?" Melinda asked.

"Ice Maiden chill is chasing it off so we're building up a nice snowstorm while we wait." The lancer lead reported.

Several Soldiers took their shots and then more chaff grenades were dropped as they shifted. Melinda could tell they were dipping in and out of sight just based on how the opposing riflemen tried to track them. The mist flowing around her started to turn into snowflakes, which seemed strange because it was too warm for snow.

Ves had his Glows. Was this Bolt's version of it? Melinda didn't have time to think about it. She raised her shield and readied herself for the charge.

Hexxers loved getting up close and personal. Their fanatical doctrine allowed them to handle the brutal chaos of melee combat better than most. This group was no different. Her shield jerked as one mech charged at her and attempted to knock it to the side. She raked a whip against it in turn, and the mech staggered as its armor was stripped and pain echoed across the pilots nerves.

Before it could do more one of the Soldiers managed to fire directly into the stripped segments. It fritzed and dropped, then the Soldier disappeared. Several shots splashed off where it had been but Melinda felt her mech starting to 'wake up' and her shield moved almost before thought to give it cover.

Then the lancers hammered into the flank. Snow fell over the battlefield. Visibility was still fine, but half the snowflakes were explosive dangers and half of them were just snowflakes. Avoiding all of it was impossible. The ill repaired Hexxers started to drop and Melinda moved forward.

"Shield line up!" She shouted and lashed out with the whip again.

More armor was stripped. Behind her the Soldiers fired into the openings. The erratic movement was playing merry hell on the enemy's ability to predict things. Normally you'd try to shift so that your weaker sides were away from enemy angles. The Soldier's ability to fade from sight made that impossible because they could just shift positioning out of sight.

What was worse for them was that you didn't want to get close to the Torment Guards. The whips weren't deadly alone, but when the armor was stripped you had to be careful. More than one Hexxer had tried to bypass the Torments, and had gotten flayed. Then the Soldier they were going after just finished them with the rifle or a dropped grenade.

The Hexxers couldn't even flee now either. The Hoarfrost had already hit once and were just waiting for another opening. The circling they were doing was making a storm that trapped all the hostile forces in a cold death.

Melinda almost felt bad for them, but they were Hexxers. Pilots got extra special brainwashing and conditioning as a matter of course. Fixing that took years of specialized treatment. Better to put them into the ground now, and that was what they did.

Soon the battlefield was free of Hexxers. It wasn't free of life. The next step was going to be looking for survivors.

 

[lost star]

There were reasons for that nickname orphans that weren't quite publicly stated, but were fairly obvious once you took the time to think about it. Some of it was just Rat lingo. The insular nature of the group tended to result in some unusual internal terminology. The rest of it was because orphans were abandoned 'children' ready for 'adoption.' Soldiers that had been left behind held a special position back at home. They had to be coaxed into realizing that they'd been abandoned. It was easier than it sounded, because no one really adjusted well to being left behind. Lilly's father had made it into an artform and she'd learned at his knee.

Of course things were a bit different in this case. The Friday Coalition wasn't intentionally abandoning a lot of people. They were currently on the receiving end of a hellish beating. Things were not good across the board. Many of the soldier survivors simply lacked a means to let people know they were alive. They'd get the ability once they'd been gathered up. They'd also get another offer from the Rats.

Amusingly, this part of their operating contract in Friday space hadn't even been disputed or even examined. Every other clause had gotten some negotiation. The ability to recruit had not even been glanced at. It was likely the Lawyers and Generals involved hadn't even thought it was possible. The Wrench Rats did have to jump through a few hoops before they could make the offer legally. Those would have been impossible in peacetime. It was just that those hoops were very easy to walk through when you were dealing with the aftermath of a battle.

Like in this instance. "Up!" Lilly shouted as she carefully hefted the mech up with Dowry. "Now, bounce the legs!"

With a jerk one leg moved. Lilly reached one of Dowry's claws down and delicately pulled at a part sticking out of the torso. The dead leg jerked in response and she frowned. That was severe internal damage there. It was a wonder the mech could still work.

"Wiggle an arm if internal comm's still down." The expert commanded and an arm wiggled. "All right, if ya think ya can hop to the repair square do it. If not drop the mech and get on the truck."

Very stubbornly the mech began to hop. Lilly gave a snort and surveyed the area. While the others were clearing out the last of the Hexxers, she was doing the 'secret' task of recruitment. That meant finding pilots hiding by their mechs and people who'd found shelters after everything had gone down. Very few people could dispute an expert, so she was far more useful here than mopping up enemies.

Where else were good hiding spots? She could spot a few divots here and there, but nothing big enough to hide more than a body. If they wanted to crawl around that was their prerogative. That meant this block was clear. Time to move on.

"This is Venerable Lilly Silica. Any surviving Friday Members gather along the lit up areas." She broadcast again. "Hexxer forces, surrender and you will be treated according to MTA standards of war. Any offensive actions will be met with lethal force."

With that done Lilly strode along the battlefield with few cares. Behind her the mech hopped towards a square they'd designated as the place to set mechs that could be fixed. Once he set he'd be given options. One of which would be a recruitment pitch. Anyone 'without standing orders' and 'currently unattached' was up for recruitment. MIA personnel checked off both boxes, if they didn't get into contact with the unit that had left them behind. Since the Rats were the only group with active FTL comms at the moment, the latter wouldn't happen until they were finished. Odd that.

This was how they were recruiting as Wrench Rats. It was in essence how all Rats recruited after a battle. They even had small systems in place for it. Lilly's presence just made things a lot smoother. Her just walking along and talking with people was typically enough to overawe the standard soldier and made them very eager to change who they worked for.

Was it a bit underhanded? Yes. Neither Lilly nor Bolt cared. They needed bodies. They also weren't going to treat the men poorly. Some of them were joining up just because he'd made the Sons of War.

"Hmm." Lilly paused and eyeballed one hill.

The planet they were on was another less than valuable one. It was a place humans could settle on but held nothing of note resource wise aside from wide open fields. It even had people on it before the war. There was nothing but ruins now. Since it had been Second Rate they'd likely evacuated rather than deal with Hexxer forces. The battles around the area had simply been Hexxer's clearing out possible hidden forces. They'd come in and ruined most of the fortifications before leaving the token force that Melinda had already mostly dealt with.

Lilly approached one of the ruined fortifications and angled her mech to eyeball it through the cameras on her mech. She then reached forward and carefully pried up a large fallen plate. Underneath it was a staircase moving downward.

The next part required some finesse. The woman had Dowry sit down and had a drone deploy from one of the carrying cases she had attached to the mech. Sometimes you wanted to see things from human-eye level, and rather than getting out the Rats had made her a few drones. They weren't combat capable, but they were viable for exploration and interaction. Sending one down the stairs was mostly so she didn't leave the cockpit. If necessary they had trained people to breach an area, but for quick stuff? Drones. She would not be leaving the cockpit to play adventurer at any point in time.

A few seconds later the drone's feed cut of. Lilly marked the area on the map and had Dowry stand up. The occupants were likely being prickly, which was more than fair. Prying people out of hidey holes was a whole event that would need that breaching team.

"Hmm?" The expert paused as something hit the edge of her sensors.

Dowry's form shimmered and faded as she began to hunt. Bolt had been a tad inspired after his last mech, and Dowry had needed something to do with her power. She didn't have full stealth. She had camouflage instead. It muted her profile from a distance and made her devilishly hard to pinpoint. Basically a poor man's stealth and something that made Dowry even more of an ambush monster.

Here it let her get close enough to see the approaching people without them even registering her presence. She watched them for a long moment once she was in sight. Decent mech grouping, Friday designs, but so close to being wrecked that she was genuinely impressed they could move. Another group of unorganized last defenders.

"Calling approaching forces." Lilly sent out in several frequencies and then rolled her eyes at the lack of response.

With a sudden surge Dowry moved. One moment she was up on a nearby cliff, the next she was right in front of the group. They understandably freaked out. Several shot at her and she carefully angled her mech to avoid them.

"Friday forces?" The expert asked over the speakers.

Several more shots were her response. Most of them panic shots. Lilly avoided them a few times before she decided that they weren't actually going to stop soon. Dowry moved again and several weapons hit the ground within seconds.

It was only after the last offensive weapon hit the ground that she spoke again. "Ya responding now?!"

The mechs were very silent and very still. Lilly heaved a very long sigh as she waited. After a few seconds they seemed to relax, but none of them actually spoke.

"Of for the love of god. Follow me. Do not fire again or I'll rip out yer cockpits and carry you." Lilly ordered with genuine irritation.

Lord save her from conscripts that didn't know how to deal with mechs that had lost their communication abilities. Far too many pilots had been shoved into a mech and told to fight with the bare minimum of training. It removed any admiration she had towards the Second Rate state, not that there'd been much there in the first place admittedly.

 

[lost star]

The carrier wasn't full yet. They'd passed the halfway point now at least. As this was a carrier meant for a scion, that meant they had a pretty substantial amount of forces for a singular group. It didn't meant they could handle anything a nation could put out. It just meant if they ran into a Hexxer battalion they weren't dead instantly. Ideally they needed at least one more expert and a full carrier before they could actually be considered a decent force. They'd need a few more escort ships to be considered the equivalent to an actual military battalion, which wasn't out of the question if sales kept rolling in truthfully. Ships were getting extremely cheap. Even manning them would be possible with time and careful recruiting.

Bolt wasn't particularly concerned with the exact details. Number wise they were on the upswing. That was everything they needed to know.

"Passin on the status of the battlefield." Bolt said to the handler that had been assigned to his contract. "Hexxer forces were pretty low. Guessing that they were a token force meant ta hold the planet."

"Thank you for the report. We will sort the data and note it in the appropriate channels." The woman said in the almost stereotypically pleasant customer service report. "Next of kin notifications and roster changes will be processed as well." She added as the casualty reports flowed through.

"Anything else needed from us?" Bolt looked over the report requirements to be sure he hadn't missed anything.

"No further data is needed. You have one pending request on your other account that I am forwarding now." The handler flicked a button and something was sent.

Bolt looked over the title in mild confusion. "Huh, what's this?" He asked.

"I cannot comment on any offers or communications on this channel." Was the very placid reply.

With a snort the young man closed the communication connection. After his talk with the general he'd been deliberately kept at a low level for various reasons. One of which was the fact that the general was very busy and this really wasn't something he needed to know. Another was because this routine and banal low level communication was a sort of bait. The Hexxers would know his position soon. It was pretty much a given that they'd be able to find it through spies, the only questions were how long before they sent a kill squad and how large would it be.

Now what was that other message? Bolt opened it up and frowned as he read the contents. Another master was attempting to contact him. A Master Olson. This was both expected and inconvenient at the same time.

Master Olson was a Friday aligned master. She was also one of the key creators of the Glow Crusher. Bolt's knowledge of the internal politics were shoddy at best, but he was pretty sure he'd offended them by simple virtue of the fact he'd produced the Son of War. Her contacting him directly could be taken in a variety of ways, both good and bad.

Ignoring her would cause more problems though, so Bolt sent back his availability and moved onto other things. Mostly inventory and research. He would need to make another new mech soon to round out their forces a bit more. The sooner the better.

Olson was prompt at least. Not even an hour later they were on a video call. Bolt nodded at the woman as she appeared and spent a moment to examine her.

Carmin Olson was one of those people that had succeeded young and as such looked very young despite her age. Blond haired, dressed in fashionable clothing, the woman wouldn't have been out of place in a local bar. A high class bar specifically. Her clothing and body language made it explicit that she was a woman of high standing. Considering how strange a lot of designers could get, this was positively normal appearance wise. Out of all the masters in the nation she was considered the most social focused, which made sense in retrospect. She was probably the only one of the group that would bother to reach out at all.

"Bolt Silica." The woman said slowly before nodding and correcting herself. "Journeyman Silica. Thank you for accepting my communication request."

"Ain't gonna snub someone without a reason." Bolt responded with a shrug before he settled back on his seat. "Like your public facing works. Very efficient and thought provoking. Pleased ta speak with you Master Olson."

"Thank you. I did review your work before I called as well. Your initial engines from the Ghoul line explored areas that I had neglected." The woman folded her hands primly and smiled pleasantly.

That was a hefty compliment, especially from her. Master Olson was specifically famous for hyper-efficient engines. She was single-handedly responsible for something like 1-5% decrease in mech fuel costs according to public specializing. That didn't seem like much, but when you had something on the order of several million mechs, it added up fast.

She was buttering him up. Bolt smiled back at the woman and switched to his default attitude to something like this. "I'll thank ya back for it. I can't imagine it was that impressive fer you."

"Most of my work assumes proper supply lines and appropriate fuel supplies. It took me a few seconds to realize the purpose of your adjustments. I even feel that is a viable path for a student to pursue as a specialty." The woman continued to lay on the charm before she got to the point of the call. "But I am sure you are wondering at the reason for this call."

"Can't imagine a master taking the time to call me without a reason." Bolt observed as dryly as he could manage without sounded offensive.

"I have two questions. One is if you are looking for a master." Carmin's smile and position didn't change as she offered that.

"Er," Bolt stumbled slightly there. "I think the etiquette here is that I technically have one?" His hidden master didn't contact him often, but the presence was felt regardless. "What do you say when your master doesn't want to be public? Sorry, but no?"

The other master's smile didn't change and she chuckled slightly. "That is enough of an answer for me in this instance. It is appropriate to say that in certain conditions, and this is one of them." She advised before continuing. "Would you be willing to offer hints as to who they are?"

"Absolutely not." Bolt replied back immediately with all the firmness he could muster.

"Pity. Are you aware of another request being processed for more mech designs from you?" The woman continued with a serene and completely unruffled demeanor.

Bolt nodded in turn. "I sorta anticipated that. Got a possible model already lined up."

After he'd gotten reports that Hoarfrost had been able to 'chill' the effects of the Blessed Squire he'd immediately decided to adjust the model slightly. With Gary's permission already gotten they'd offer it as another Glow Counter when the next request rolled in. It'd split the earnings, but Bolt didn't care about that.

"Already? I assume you work with the same phenomenon that Ves does then. You wouldn't have been able to make something so quickly if you weren't. Do you have the same master?"

That was an obviously loaded question. Fortunately he didn't need to lie or even deflect it. Bolt gave a small laugh. "No idea." He answered back.

Far from being angry at the non-answer the woman nodded. "Very well. Then my final real question. My apologies for being distracted by the tangent. Would you be willing to collaborate?"

This at least wasn't surprising. Bolt wasn't sure exactly how he should handle this. Fortunately he had a very easy answer, and one that he'd practiced. "I cannot possibly give a firm commitment to that sort of thing at this time. Give me a few days to check and I will gladly answer."

His answer didn't appear to be a problem to the woman and she gave a nod. He didn't know exactly what she was doing here, but she'd obviously obtained something from the conversation and switched to gentle closing statements. Bolt heaved a sigh after they exchanged goodbyes. He had no idea what to do now. Was this potential sabotage or an attempt at theft? It felt different than his other collaborations.

"This would be one of those times where a master who could answer questions would be nice." Bolt muttered.

A beep made the designer sigh again and pull out his comm. Despite expecting it, he was actually a bit surprised at seeing the message from the hidden master. Opening it up, he was even more surprised that it was actually mildly informative.

'Set an appointment to collaborate with that master three to five months from now. You must design another mech before then.'

"That's a bit strange. Why?" Bolt asked his comm.

'It is time for this one to live up to the name master, and teach. Start the mech when you are ready.'

 

[lost star]

Bolt frankly didn't really have the time to do this, but he'd also be a fool not to make time. Fortunately things weren't entirely dependent on his direction. When his desires became noted the rest of his crew gave him the time they could. It was gratifying to have both trust and be trusted in this instance.

He wasn't ashamed to admit he was hesitant to start anyway. "How should I do this?" Bolt asked his comm.

'Design the mech, any type.' The master responded. 'I will refine it. You have done collaborations before. One takes lead, the other offers their specialty. This will be no different.'

"Yer kinda chatty now." Bolt didn't actually mean to mutter that phrase, but he couldn't take it back.

'You have partial attention at the moment. Text answers take a fraction of a second to compose. Assume the previous situation will return once we are finished.'

Bolt wouldn't say he preferred that. He wouldn't imply it either. He would think it. He didn't hate this hidden master. That didn't mean it wasn't stressful dealing with them.

Dithering wouldn't help. What sort of mech to build? This mech was going to have purpose. What did he need most? If his hidden master was as proficient as he thought, what would be the most useful? Truthfully Bolt wasn't sure. The Torment Guards functioned as close range, the Forgotten Soldiers as long range. Hoarfrost was a good mobile unit. He did need more mechs to round things out, but not any particular type in specific. Really a rifleman would probably have been best. You always needed more guns as filler if nothing else.

There was another mech he could use on the lineup though. Swordsman. They were deceptively simple mechs. The best had no tricks at all. They used a sword. That might have felt like a hinderance, but it wasn't. Swordsmen were the front-line killers of the battlefield. Where defensive knights like the Torment Guards handled enemies by pinning them, Swordsmen killed and they did it well enough that the concept persisted even when artillery and other ranged options should have suppressed them.

It actually resulted in a funny situation. The mech style frequently attracted purist pilots. For some reason the sword was considered almost sacred by a certain subset of them. Bolt had just recently recruited a sizable number of them. So it was probably his next best option.

The mech basis for this particular design was fairly standard. You had to be very focused on the shoulders and hands. The legs too, but that was less of a focus in Second Rate. Their boosters were refined enough that a mech could compensate for poor or no footing.

'Hold.'

Bolt immediately froze. His design station registered a request and he approved it before he actually wondered why the master was requesting rather than just taking things over. Was he being polite?

Four designs appeared in front of him. Each one was labeled. Adept, Journeyman, Senior, Master. They were his recent design done four times at four different skill levels. Bolt analyzed them reflexively.

"What're you showing?" He asked the monitor. His design was just a bit higher than the Journeyman design.

'These are the average level mech designs of each level. It is not uncommon for for a designer to have more or less skill in certain areas.'

In front of him the designs merged together in several ways, with the labeling donating the skill level of a design. An adept design with senior level in the armor. A master design with power distribution so bad the mech would barely function. Bolt stared at it in mild awe. This wasn't automated designing. This was the master designing each example using his own mech as a basis within seconds.

'Omni-specializations require years worth of work and sincere dedication. Almost all designers have a variance. You do not.'

"Not sure if that's praise or damning me here." The designer muttered.

'Continue designing.' The rather predictable order came.

With a roll of his eyes Bolt did just that. It took a few minutes to regain his train of thought, and he couldn't help but reference the master level of the mech a little bit. It motivated him more than anything else and he decided to push himself.

This would be a larger medium mech. It'd also use a big two handed sword. A mech Zweihänder. These weapons at mech size didn't pierce so much as crush. A Second Rate one was still capable of bisecting lesser armored mechs. They were also a beast to wield, even if you used some less dense stuff.

Something like this was fairly solved problem wise though. There were plenty of mechs that had a design like this. Bolt wasn't ashamed to crib off them for his design. Mostly because he was going to add to it. He had a wonderful idea!

"Anything goes right?" Bolt asked.

'You will use your own funds, but no other restrictions.' The reply was prompt.

"So, uh, could I get some papers on phasewater effects?" Bolt asked carefully.

'Papers yes. Material no.' The confirmation made Bolt grin.

"That's more than fine. Don't wanna use the fancy stuff, just wanna get the info on it." The man said.

A second later he had MTA research papers on his design desk. Bolt didn't think about what that really meant. He'd already compartmentalized a lot of it and filed it under 'this guy is powerful.' He instead took his time to analyze the information and conclusions.

One of those conclusions was pretty obvious. Phasewater was miraculous. There was no other description for it. It did impossible things. Using it enhanced FTL beyond any other material. Synthesizing the stuff had allowed them to move to another galaxy. Finding it in the wild in the other galaxy had made it a modern day gold. The numbers the MTA were throwing around made his eyes water.

None of it was very relevant to Bolt really. What he needed was the math behind the devices phasewater used. He needed the FTL equations. What it did to warp things. He'd already repurposed something that had warped space by stealing from those aliens, but he could do more. He knew it. He just needed time and human referneces.

It took more time than he'd like working on it. Days passed. Time that he literally couldn't afford, and yet the idea took shape. It wasn't much. Even with the occasional chimes in from the master it was not a work of art. It was him working with half understood FTL theory. It was possible! It was even possibly revolutionary!

"It also costs too much." Bolt concluded as he covered his eyes and groaned.

He could probably make a device that allowed a mech to warp space in a localized area with Second Rate technology. Just not with this mech. The energy needs would require a heavy mech design. Furthermore it required exotics from the neighboring sector or phasewater. Both were exorbitant cost wise. Useless for a mech that was meant to be made a hundred or a thousand times. He was also probably missing a few things. He needed someone specialized in space techniques to finish it.

After a moment of thought Bolt shoved the idea into 'possible expert part' and changed tactics. By this point he was running low and sleep and they did not have anymore time for him to play. In a few days the battlefield job would be done and they'd move on. The next job would require his help. He needed this swordsman to be finished now.

That was probably why he decided to throw everything at it. Did he want to impress the master? Not really. Maybe some part of him did. There was a pressure there that he couldn't deny. He wanted to push himself though. It was important to his ego.

He adjusted the angles and output of the mech first. The profile became prominent and eye catching. He took the concepts of stealth and inverted them. This was a mech that demanded attention. Every part of it blared.

Nanomachines were used next. They lined the blade and refined it. They sharpened it and would make an enemy 'bleed.' Like liquid they could even be thrown to splash against a nearby enemy and cause minor damage.

Since the profile was prominent he had the mech run hot too. Extremely hot. Hot enough that it needed to vent, and Bolt made sure it vented mist. The output alone pushed the mech so hard that it would nearly damage itself with normal operation. More nanomachines needed to be added to repair microfractures and handle heat stress.

This was monster in the shape of a mech. Something that could easily kill itself if the operator was foolish. In light of that Bolt added a few hardwired restraints that could be removed when needed. The mech had a 10 and 11 basically.

Bolt then moved to the spiritual side. This was special and untested, but it felt right. With all the nanomachines bleeding through the mech he felt like he could take a few of Dowry's attributes. The self improvement was mostly due to expert insanity, but some of it could be repurposed.

This was a mech that craved victory. It stole the fate of the defeated. It empowered itself through success and raged at failure. A mech that would become more and more every fight. A thief that stole the fates of those it defeated.

He named the finished product Valefar. His console blipped as he made the finishing touched and he fell out of his chair. He'd completely forgotten about the fact that this was supposed to be a collaboration!

'Acceptable work, tangent included.' The text read before another bit was added. 'Please remain seated.'

"Oh you-" Bolt did not curse at the hidden master, though he wanted to.

'Your space warping part has potential if refined. Even if it's just viable for experts it is a useful technology that others would likely be able to refine further if you work with them. Valefar also has interesting potential. Have you noticed something?'

"Not particularly." Bolt muttered.

'What was your first real mech?' The master asked almost pointedly.

Bolt smiled briefly as he recalled that. "Dowry, well Ghoul at the time."

'It was a junk mech.' The master reminded him without mercy. 'Made of disparate parts, it should not have matched any fully built mech, even with your wife as a pilot. You unified five separate designer's works together and made it work just as well as a older military mech. One of the part designers was already dead.'

Bolt stared at the words. "Oh."

'There are over a billion Journeymen. Every one of them has a variety of skills. All of them exceed you in a singular area. You, as a designer are still above them. Do you recall the average mech?'

Bolt really didn't get where this was going, but he confused enough that he was ready to just follow along. "Yes."

'You are slightly above Journeyman in every mech category. What is above a Journeyman?'

"A senior-wait, you're implying I'm a senior?!" Bolt asked incredulously.

'Valefar would be rated as a senior's design. It has no obvious flaws and shows a realized design philosophy. You need assistance in stabilization and visualization to firmly confirm your status. Both of which we will go over now. Brace yourself.'

A changed Valefar's design flashed on the screen and Bolt stared a moment before closing his eyes. That was a Star Designer's signature. He'd seen a Master's work, censored. This was beyond that. His design optimized.

"Assembler." Bolt breathed out a name. Hammers rattled in his mind. Voices raised in unison. Blood poured into steel. All of that from just a glimpse of a man's work.

His designer blipped and he opened one eye carefully. The design was gone. 'You were not able to benefit from any attention before now. Now you can. Endure well, Bolt Silica.'

Somehow the words were more ominous than anything Bolt had ever read before in his life.