The Mech Touch

Not only had the fleet moved a lot closer to a relatively large stellar object than was strictly conventional, it had also moved away from the Langrange points as well as the outer system that offered a quick escape route to all of its starships!

Though a few officers and crew members were concerned about this vulnerability, too many of their colleagues assumed that the unremarkable brown dwarf star system was completely empty and devoid of significant threats.

On the other side, an angry and impulsive alien warlord had just commanded his powerful homeship to end her recuperation period ahead of schedule and begin to move out of the brown dwarf star she was using to escape further persecution by the aliens.

The diverse alien crew members might have developed their own thoughts about the wisdom of this move, but under the leadership of their tyrannical and domineering leader, they did not dare to raise their voice!

These two simultaneous developments caused both forces to unknowingly converge upon each other.

The best part was that neither side appeared to be aware of this risk!

Otrus Magrin's pioneering fleet had only recently entered this star system and had no idea that a threatening alien warship was hiding in the vicinity. Cenatus Prospecting also had no cause to suspect that someone as sought after as Lord Pearian Yorul-Tavik turned out to be present right under its nose!

This was quite ironic as a fleet that was ostensibly set up to earn its keep through prospecting and mining possessed extensive scanning capabilities. Cenatus Prospecting was even capable of mining matter from gas giants, and possessed the capability to detect anomalies within gas giants as long as they pointed their scanners in the right direction.

However, a brown dwarf star was far from an ordinary gas giant. It possessed a bit too much mass and generated just enough heat and other energies that Cenatus Prospecting skipped this routine.

As for the Fractured House of the Collapsing Star, the new hybrid technology homeship was all on her own. She was designed to serve as a new generation of relatively small, compact but highly efficient warship that could quickly be mass-produced in order to help with stopping the tide of powerful human warfleets.

As such, she was originally meant to serve as part of a larger fleet. The Collapsing Star was solely meant to serve as a powerful capital ship-grade gun battery platform and nothing else.

After all, other duties such as scouting, planetary invasions and carrying large amounts of starfighters could easily be performed by other economic starships.

In the past, the nunsers and the other dominant indigenous alien races never experienced so much pressure to maximize their efficiency and utilization of resources.

It wasn't until humanity launched its full offensive and demolished alien warships by the thousands that many of the aliens that had grown too complacent eventually woke up to reality!

The insertion of foreign competition completely shook up the local scene and convinced even the most stubborn aliens that they had to get their act together!

Although the House of the Collapsing Star actually possessed fairly powerful sensors and scanners, mainly to assist with target acquisition and tracking, she was never meant to function as a scouting vessel or a survey vessel!

Her narrow and highly compact form that was highly conducive to lowering the materials needed to construct her hull also left her with remarkably little hangar space.

The few starfighters she was able to deploy mostly served an essential screening function. They were never intended to be parked in remote places and conduct lengthy scouting operations away from their motherships.

Though the Trampler of Stars could have forced the starfighters to be on the lookout anyway as long as he gave his crew enough time to modify the small craft, he chose not to do so in the end.

At the time, the Trampler of Stars found it more important to shake off pursuit and go completely incognito.

If he chose to deploy the Collapsing Star's complement of starfighters throughout the star system, the MTA or another powerful human faction might have been able to detect these craft!

Although the Collapsing Star also held a decent amount of other observation devices in her cargo bays, all of them were incapable of maintaining contact with a ship that was hiding inside the largest, hottest and brightest object in the star system!

One of the biggest shortcomings of the indigenous aliens of the Red Ocean was that they lacked a convenient means of instant interstellar communication.

The galactic net that pretty much every human took for granted was distant fantasy to most local aliens!

Although the major alien races all developed various means of rapid interstellar communications, including some that were based on quantum entanglement technology, they were way more expensive and impractical than their human equivalents!

This was why the alien battleship essentially remained blind to what was going on outside.

Even when her housemaster commanded her to rise out of the atmosphere of the brown dwarf star, the alien crew members did not dare to launch her starfighters.

The small and fragile craft would get eroded at a fast pace if they deployed into such a hostile environment!

It was for this reason that the Fractured House of the Collapsing Star boldly ascended without realizing that there was a human pioneering fleet converging close to her route.

The most ironic part about all of this was that the only people who were aware of this imminent collision weren't even present in this star system!

The masterminds behind this devious plan were light-years away, having already left the Ramage Repulsor System in advance!

This was a prudent safety precaution as their presence could easily disrupt their original arrangement.

After all, if both sides understood that they had been manipulated by a third party, the chances that the latter would become their punching bag was great!

While Ves watched these developments unfold in real-time through the live feeds transmitted by the hidden probes and observation devices planted in the star system, he patiently explained all of this to his oldest daughter.

"Do you see, my little pumpkin? Deploying mechs isn't the only way to defeat an opponent. While our clan and alliance are best known for smashing powerful opponents on the battlefield, we have more resources at hand. Subterfuge can be just as powerful in the right circumstances."

Aurelia currently enjoyed the lesson and the attention she received from her dearest father. She smiled as her suited figure sat on Ves' armored lap.

Despite wearing his Unending Regalia, the custom combat armor was alive and always conveyed a lot of warmth to the little girl.

Though Ves had increased the time he spent on tutoring his daughter, he was not detracting too much time from his work.

His split attention allowed him to allocate other partitions of his mind to other work. He was already conducting various other tasks at the same time such as tinkering on the Dullahan Project and studying textbooks related to specific fields of biotechnology.

It just wasn't obvious on the surface as he could perform much of that work in his mind with the help of cranial implant. There was no great need for him to work in the design labs unless he needed to collaborate with other mech designers or perform specific experiments.

In fact, his beautiful daughter managed to copy his method!

Of course, Aurelia's mind wasn't developed enough to split its focus in the same manner, but she had already been born with an additional personality in her mind!

Mew...

An adorable little companion spirit sat on a table. The white Persian kitten looked unusually serious as her cute eyes stared intensely at the projected contents of a math textbook.

Just because Mana was a companion spirit didn't mean she was incapable of learning!

She represented another side of Aurelia, which meant that they shared almost all of their memories and capabilities with each other.

What Mana learned, so did Aurelia!

The reverse was also true!

Although Mana's learning efficiency was lower due to various reasons, it was still an excellent use of a companion spirit, and one that Aurelia could openly use within a ship of the Larkinson Clan.

Further away, Marvaine briefly looked up from his latest Mekanos project and looked at his oldest sister with a jealous expression.

Denny was a lot younger and more fragile. What the infantile companion spirit needed the most was lots of sleep time, as that was the best way to strengthen and mature the younger kitten.

In any case, Ves was satisfied with the latest measures. Aurelia was able to learn more lessons without reducing her playtime by too much.

If these changes failed to yield the desired results, then Ves had seriously contemplated using the gifts of the System to augment his daughter.

As a designer baby of a lower tier than Marvaine, Aurelia was actually at a disadvantage. Though his eldest daughter actually benefited from a few other unique gifts, her raw intelligence and learning speed would not be able to match that of Marvaine once he reached her age.

Of course, this was also a result of specialization as Marvaine was genetically programmed to be a lot better at academic learning.

The disparity between the older children and the younger children would probably grow even larger when Ves and Gloriana got around to making their other three children.

Ves wanted to wait for the Larkinson Biotech Institute to digest the Gemini Family's starter pack on designer babies and develop brand-new Larkinson-specific formulas.

Once the geneticist completed their jobs, Ves predicted that he would be able to produce powerful new superbabies that came with capabilities that Witshaw & Seneca could never match!

Even so, he didn't want his two daughters to feel left out. They were his family as well. Perhaps he might visit the System Space in the near future to see whether he could pick up a few goodies to boost his lovely children.

This was also why he was looking into securing first-class virtual tutoring sessions for his two daughters.

Both Aurelia and Andraste possessed the raw cognitive strengths to keep up with typical first-class courses, but because they never attended a first-class school, they had fallen behind compared to their peers.

Providing them access to proper first-class virtual tutoring would go a long way into closing the gap.

The downside was that the learning results of tutoring weren't as good as attending a proper school. It also wasn't possible for his children to obtain prestigious and credible diplomas, which made it a lot harder for them to get accepted in first-class secondary schools.

He inwardly shrugged. He and Gloriana would deal with this problem in due time.

If the Golden Skull Alliance managed to obtain the favor of the Yorul-Tavik Clan, then all of these issues should easily be solved!

It was still a question whether he was able to rescue Lord Pearian Yorul-Tavik, however. The situation in the Ramage Repulsor System was about to become a lot more complicated.

"Are you having trouble keeping up with your studies so far?" Ves asked his daughter in concern. "If you have any problems with letting Mana out of your mind for an extended period, please say so. I don't want you to suffer a headache."

His lovely daughter shook her head. "I am fine, papa. Mana is stronger and bigger now, see? I think it is good if I train her to get out more. I want her to be able to act like my second self. I can do twice as much work with her help!"

Ves grinned. "If that is what you want. I'm happy to see you making so much progress. I can arrange much better opportunities for you if you are able to attain more results. Keep learning. The society we live in is centered around clever people. The smarter you become, the more power you'll be able to secure in the future."

His daughter dutifully nodded as she internalized this lesson.