The Mech Touch novel Chapter 4736

Ves crossed his arms as he adopted a skeptical expression.

"So let me get this straight. Your highly measured and well-thought answer to a conspiracy that might lead to the deaths of hundreds of important figures is 'if you can't beat em, join em', is that right?"

The woman who proposed their clan to employ this funny-sounding strategy stood by her response.

"I am being serious about this, Ves. Besides, it is not a complete certainty that any violent incident will take place on that day. Even if the Karlachs have managed to execute a plan, it is still in question whether anyone on the side of Davute is responsible. The clues that we have gathered do not constitute a smoking gun. Few people will take our theories seriously when they are all based on a chain of indirect clues along with vague predictions made by a prophet who died several centuries ago. Even I am not fully convinced that this plot will take place. The chances are too great that this incident may spin out of control."

Though Ves agreed with that sentiment, he felt increasingly more certain that the conspirators wanted Davute to take a painful hit.

After all, no matter what disaster unfolded in Kotor City that day, the true masterminds should all be safely residing in their castles all the way back in the old galaxy!

This was all a high-stakes game to them. It was easy to gamble with the lives of many people when none of the losses affected the conspirators on a personal basis.

All that mattered was making the Davute Project succeed.

As long as the damage was controlled, a wounded Davute would definitely be able to bounce back stronger and more united than ever!

"Who can we inform?" Ves asked.

"No one." Calabast immediately replied. _{frёeωebɳovel.com}

"Oh, come on! We should at least inform the pilots who are taking part in the parade!"

"It's too risky, Ves. The only people who can know are the individuals in this room, and that is already too much, in my opinion."

The spymaster swept her arm across her office. Ves, herself, Lucky and the silent honor guard had all become exposed to this deadly secret!

Oh, Ves should add Goldie and Ylvaine to that list as well.

"It is hard to plan a proper response with just us. What do you expect us to do? Shall we whip out our guns in advance and fire them as soon as we spot a threat?"

"No one else can know, Ves. I mean it. Informing Ark, our expert pilots or our allies will do more harm than good. This is because the more we spread this secret, the less it will remain that way. We cannot afford to expose this possible conspiracy for the reasons that I have explained to you earlier, so we must keep our mouths shut and prepare in our own ways."

This made the situation incredibly difficult for Ves. He could not give overt warnings to the mech pilots that had received the privilege to take part in the parade that would bring them close enough to intervene in any possible outbreak of violence.

Ves thought about circumventing this rule by giving advanced warning to the living mechs instead, but he doubted that the machines could hide this secret from the all-powerful ace pilots.

What frustrated him the most was he couldn't even tell Uncle Ark about the duplicity of the Davutans.

He and his followers would continue to make the Davute Branch more dependent on the colonial state, not knowing that the people at the top would not hesitate to discard their pawns if the benefits were attractive enough.

The members of the Davute Branch needed to make this realization on their own. Perhaps Goldie might help them out with that, but as long as a powerful personality like Ark was in charge, the opposite viewpoint would likely remain dominant.

Words would never sway the Larkinsons who still held an idealistic view towards states. The only way to convince them was to make them taste betrayal in person.

There was a chance that this may never happen. Nobody engaged in treachery and backstabbing for the fun of it. As long as Ark did well enough and as long as the Davute Branch retained enough value to the colonial state, all would remain well.

He could think about these implications later. Right now, Ves needed to concentrate on getting over the impending crisis.

Ves waved his hand and called up the virtual brochure that briefly detailed the arrangements of the founding ceremony.

He needed to gain an overview of the resources he had at his disposal during the event.

"As a significant contributor to Davute, our clan has received and accepted an invitation to take part in the central parade which is one of the highlights of the ceremony." Ves explained. "Given our importance, we not only received the privilege of showing off 24 standard mechs, but we also received a special invitation to show off all of our masterwork expert mechs at once."

Masterworks were already fairly special in the Golden Skull Alliance, but they were much rarer in the rest of Davute!

In order to make more people admire the mech design prowess of the Larkinson Clan and attract more attention to Davute as a result, the masterwork expert mechs had to be shown for this important day!

"I think I will settle for bringing in 12 Nullifiers as they are our most effective ranged mechs. I will take 4 Second Swords as they are our deadliest melee offensive mechs. For defense, I will bring 4 Rigid Walls to provide a lot of physical defense and 8 Bright Warrior Mark II's with modular loadouts that are geared towards utility and remote energy shielding functions."

The latter could play a crucial role in saving a lot of lives, including that of Ves and his family.

After the latest revision of the Bright Warrior line, the balanced and versatile modular mech platform gained even more modularity.

This allowed Ves or any other reasonably competent mech designer to develop and equip the Bright Warrior mechs with damn near any modular and external equipment provided there was enough capacity!

With regards to the Bright Warriors assigned to the parade, Ves intended to strip them completely of any offensive equipment so that they could carry the most powerful and effective remote energy shield modules that he could obtain on short notice!

"Your uncle will be part of the ceremony as well, but he and his expert mech are grouped together with the other military volunteers." Calabast noted.

Ves dismissively waved his hand. "Ark is a high-tier expert pilot, a highly experienced war veteran and a newly instated mech general. His ability to respond to a crisis should be excellent. I am not worried about him at all. His only major shortcomings are that he will get caught off-guard like almost everyone else and that his expert mech is a little weak. His Travone Exine is a fresh old galaxy import and has incorporated none of the advances of the Red Ocean, most prominently transphasic parts."

Aside from that, Ves also couldn't really control his uncle, especially if the stubborn expert pilot remained oblivious to the truth.

This was why Ves would rather focus on the variables he could control. He needed to work with what he had in order to navigate the upcoming crisis.

"All of this sounds good, but I am afraid it will not be sufficient to save the representatives of the Cross Clan." Calabast told him. "What if they are taken out by a hidden bomb planted in advance? What if an energy beam strike from orbit precisely overwhelms their coordinates? Our ability to solve this problem is severely hampered by our inability to predict the nature of the threat. That is unless Ylvaine can give us another answer?"

Ves shook his head and waved the totem in his hand that had gotten dull. "We've already strained Ylvaine above his capacity. It was too hard on him to foresee possible futures when there are so many powerful elements at play. We are not out of options, though. We still have a secret weapon."

"And what is that?"

He smirked. "We have our cats."

"Meow…?"