The Mech Touch

It was large. Whereas the Royal Tomb could fit a large city or a decent metropolis, the pocket space that everyone called Purgatory could fit hundreds or thousands of cities!

The internal volume of this space was remarkable. It was truly a space that was largely isolated from the base level of reality. Aside from getting affected by a minute amount of gravity, light, heat and cosmic radiation, the area inside Purgatory was pretty much disconnected from the rest of normal space.

In fact, the scientists studying the intricate phase whale enclave were still deciphering its coordinates. All they figured out was that it was located a lot closer towards the blue supergiant star that dominated the Garimel System.

"Let me put it this way, commander." One of the astrophysicists said to the Sentinel Commander. "If this pocket space is no longer displaced from reality and returns to normal space all of a sudden, we would all get cooked in a matter of minutes. Those who are able to head inside mechs or starships will be able to last longer, but if they can't make it out of the hot zone in time, eventually those metal shells will overheat to the point where all of their systems fail."

Commander Casella's suited figure briefly turned upwards. She stared out at the strange gray fog that obscured whatever lay at the edge of the pocket space.

She found it difficult to imagine that they were so close to the hot and powerful supergiant. The temperature in the pocket space was actually quite reasonable at 5 to 70 degrees Celcius depending on the location.

This was a decent temperature range for keeping phasewater in liquid form, which also happened to be its most usable state. The fish-whale race that occupied at least one of the asteroids also thrived under these conditions.

The powerful creature that created Purgatory definitely arranged the environment this way for a reason. Casella just wondered where the fish-whales fit in. Were they always meant to balloon their numbers and mutate in such an aggressive, mindless species?

She and everyone else in the Golden Skull Alliance still had a lot of questions about these new discoveries. There were so much that they did not know and the only clues they could derive anything solid from was the mysterious alien gate that was still anchoring the same spatial portal that was still active.

When Casella looked at the gate in the distance, she grew slightly more concerned.

"I am not a physicist, but even I know that portals that connect two distant spaces together consume a lot of energy. Where is the device getting its power from? How long can it remain active? How is it being controlled?"

Though she maintained a calm and commanding facade, the direction of her questioning betrayed her concerns.

No one wanted to get stranded in this fish-whale paradise if the portal suddenly shut down!

Although Patriarch Ves had promised to all of the forces sent through the portal that he and his clan would do anything to open it up again if it shut down for some reason, who knew whether he could deliver on his promises.

Just in case, the expeditionary fleet shipped over an abundant amount of food, energy cells and other basic resources.

The supplies weren't enough to keep the mech forces in excellent condition for years on end, but it was no problem for them to subside for this period of time.

In any case, nutrient pack crates took up little space while providing a lot of nutrition at stupendously low prices. The fleet probably stored over a hundred years of compressed and dehydrated food products!

"We cannot answer your questions at the moment. We are barely making a start with understanding how this alien device works." The physicist replied in a tired tone. "We are dealing with a relic alien technological device that may have decayed over time to the point where it is no longer functioning as intended anymore."

Casella grew sharper. "Is the device showing signs of faltering?"

"Ah, not exactly, commander. It is showing numerous anomalous signs that we do not think are intentional, but we still know far too little about how it is actually supposed to function. While we can presume the gate originated from the phase whales, the problem is that we do not understand much about this race considering we have only recently come into contact with them. The databases we have access to contain only vague descriptions and indirect references to portal gates like these. Since we cannot rely on a large body of existing studies in alien technology, we have to perform much of the original research ourselves."

The Sentinel Commander vaguely understood how impossible that was for the research teams in the employ of the Larkinson Clan. The researchers all graduated from notable or prestigious second-class universities and possessed decent qualifications in their respective fields. The older and more senior scientists were particularly competent in their specialties.

However, they fell far short of the actual talents at the upper range of their professions. Any good first-class scientist could easily crush the research capabilities of all of the Larkinson research teams put together!

This was a gap that could not be overcome with quantity. The quality of education, the degree of access to high-end knowledge and the power of excellent augments were all essential to nurturing a top scientist.

The Life Research Association existed as a specialized research and development state for hundreds of years, but despite all of the enthusiasm towards biotechnology, only the Supreme Sage ever attained the qualifications of a top scientist that was brilliant enough to affect human society as a whole!

This example illustrated the immense difficulty of producing or obtaining such an excellent researcher. The man standing before Casella and the rest of the scientists studying the alien gate were far from reaching this level!

"Do the best you can." Casella helplessly said. "I do not demand that you give me an explanation on how it works. What I need is more critical information such as whether we need to perform repairs on its systems or whether we need to feed it with power in order to keep the spatial portal active."

The helmeted man smiled back. "We are a little more confident we can give you a satisfactory response within a week."

"A week?"

"Yes… a week. I cannot understate the difficulty of studying a highly-advanced technological device while it is still active, ma'am. The fact that it is a biotech product makes our studies even more difficult. We have physicists who have studied fields such as spatial warping and extradimensional spaces. We also have biotech experts who are proficient in bioproducts and biometals. What we do not have are people who have mastered both groups of disciplines! As a result, different research teams with vastly different languages and understanding of the sciences are forced to help each other non-stop in order to make any progress."

This led to a huge drop in research speed and efficiency that the physicist's estimate of a week was a bit too optimistic!

He did not know what he could tell his superiors after the research teams spent most of their time teaching the fundamentals of their respective fields to each other!

The physicist wasn't done with dashing the Sentinel Commander's expectations.

"This is just one of the research projects that we are having difficulty with, Commander. Studying the fish-whales and understanding the nature of this pocket space are also challenging research projects."

Casella frowned when she heard that. "It sounds to me that our research capabilities are wholly inadequate to the task at hand. Have you tried to connect with the fleet and have them consult external scientists? I have heard that we have done that rather frequently as of late in order to understand the initial portal that we have opened."

The scientist shook his helmeted head. "There is a limit to how much we can rely on calling for help over the galactic net, ma'am. The discoveries we have made are valuable and potentially useful to us. Sharing it with one scientist means that it is pretty much guaranteed that the secret will spread regardless of how many confidentiality agreements we impose on our foreign help. Patriarch Ves has instructed us to treat anything on this side of the portal but especially this space gate as secret material. We are on our own in this regard."

Commander Casella frowned. What was the patriarch up to? Did he plan to claim the space gate and take control of this pocket space? How could he possibly accomplish this when all of their scientists still didn't understand anything about the alien gate device!?

To her and many people who have entered Purgatory, their highest priority was to make sure their escape hatch remained intact and in working condition.

Casella didn't care too much about keeping the ancient alien gate a secret. She would gladly transmit all of the details to any interested research institution that were willing to cooperate with the expeditionary forces. She bet that all of the foreign scientists working together over the galactic net would be able to deliver excellent results in a matter of days!

After the two talked a bit more about the alien gate, Casella understood that there was little point in asking more. The researchers who have already studied it for half a day had already run out of answers!

"Can you tell me anything that is actually useful for our situation?" She asked as she tried to suppress her frustration.

As a professional commander, she fully understood the truth that information was crucial for victory!

The expeditionary forces had entered Purgatory with no idea what was going on. Compared to the fish-whales who knew this territory like the back of their hand, the human invaders barely managed to scratch the surface of this mysterious and possibly ancient pocket space!

"I do have good news that I think you will be interested to hear." The man began to smile. "We have recently deployed powerful, stationary sensor and scanning arrays that have performed many high-powered distance scans on the floating asteroid land masses within sight. We have collected a lot of data which we have tried our best to interpret. We have not only detected signs that we may find certain resources such as phasewhater deposits on some of the asteroids, we have also been able to map out the quantities of fish-whales or other large organisms."

The scientist projected a basic map of Purgatory that showed over 20 different asteroids floating in a vague spherical space.

Casella could immediately tell that nine continents were glowing in bright red. She didn't need to guess that these were the places that contained a lot of fish-whales!

Numerous other continents contained medium concentrations of large organisms while the rest were fairly barren of creatures for some reason.

About 5 of the asteroids also contained blue light spots. Some of these spots were larger and brighter than others. They likely indicated the presence of significant phasewater deposits!

What interested Casella the most was that one of the smaller asteroids contained the brightest blue spots!

It also didn't contain as much red light either. This looked rather strange to the Sentinel Commander. Shouldn't the fish-whales place more importance on such a valuable resource site?

Another asteroid that caught her attention was the most central one. It was the largest floating landmass in Purgatory and also happened to shine the brightest in red!

"We need to know more about this central asteroid and this phasewater-rich asteroid." She stated. "Please direct our long-ranged sensor and scanning arrays to these floating landmasses for a longer time so that we can understand them better. I have a hunch that both of them are crucial sites."

"Will do, commander. Just take into account that our scans might provoke a response from the fish-whales."

"That is just a risk that we will have to take."