The Mech Touch

Ves could already predict that the launch of the Starfighter Corps would definitely result in a huge success. The brutal attrition that the sandmen relentlessly inflicted on their victims would become a lot less effective once it shifted from mechs to starfighters!

The only complication was that the effectiveness of starfighters might drop when deployed against abnormal sandman fleets.

"I'm not sure that committing so many resources on starfighters is a sure bet." Ves voiced his doubts.

Aside from the basic configuration, newer varieties emerged for quite a while now. Though rare, the Komodo Star Sector witnessed enough of them to form loose categories.

From the titanic monolith configuration to the incredibly insidious swarm configuration, dealing with them always demanded a different response.

Of the current known modes of sandman fleets, Ves could already tell that the starfighters would fare especially poorly against the swarm configuration.

This was basically a sandman admiral's attempt at imitating mechs. Deciding to fight fire with fire, they split up their huge and cumbersome sandman vessels into tens of thousands smaller sandman 'drones'.

Though small and fragile, their sheer numbers and the fact that they were all capable of firing weak lasers meant that defense forces were always heavily outnumbered!

It was the best configuration the sandman race came up with to counter mechs. Its relative success compared to other configurations meant that more and more sandman admirals adopted this trend!

Of course, the swarm configuration also suffered from a critical weakness. The sandman admiral no longer enjoyed excellent protection. It had to hide itself by hiding itself in a regular drone.

Destroying this camouflaged drone would always guarantee that the rest of the swarm lost cohesion!

Naturally, the chances of this happening was not very large. The drone carrying the sandman admiral was always positioned away from the enemy.

Just as Ves was about to go on the galactic net to get the latest updates on the Sand War, he received another message from Gavin.

[Check out these news reports!]

Ves clicked the links and observed the footage that Gavin picked out for him to watch.

A large number of mechs that Ves instantly recognized as Desolate Soldiers flew in unison. The mechs all faced the advancing sandman vessels while flying backwards.

Since Ves already knew that his Desolate Soldiers would mostly be flying backwards, he specifically selected an omnidirectional flight system for their design.

Nothing about the footage stood out to Ves except for all of the orange vapor trails they released from the Rescue Particle Generator mounted on their chests.

As Ves intended, the trails of vapor lingered for at least a minute, resulting in an iconic sight where the trails marked the passage of the mechs.

Sometimes, the formation of mechs flew backwards in a fairly straight line, thereby producing an incredibly inspiring sight.

Mechs only did that to make themselves and their outfits look good. During actual battles, the mechs adopted irregular evasion patterns, thereby producing crooked trails that didn't look as clean as straight trails.

Even so, the Desolate Soldiers still made a powerful impact in the media with this gimmick alone!

Some outfits even started experimenting with shifting the color of the trails. When Ves switched to the next clips, he encountered formations of Desolate Soldiers that adopted different colors.

From a rainbow pattern to imitating the colors of the flag of the Bright Republic, each squad or company of Desolate Soldiers expressed the playfulness of their mech pilots in a different fashion!

Even the Ylvainans got in on the action and switched the default pure white trail of their Holy Soldiers into other colors to accentuate their devotion to the Great Prophet!

"This is good publicity!" Ves smiled in satisfaction.

Such sights only served as needless distractions during regular battles between mechs. It was only because the sandmen were so stupid most of the time that the mech pilots resorted to this method to alleviate their stress and worry.

"Everyone needs some hope during these trying times."

When Ves watched the next clips, he began to see more and more mechs releasing vapor trails in formation.

The only difference was that Ves distinctly didn't recognize their models.

"..What?"

Ves quickly leaned closer and studied the mechs carefully. Just like his Desolate Soldiers, the unknown mechs featured a Rescue Particle Generator over the position where the heart should be.

"Have other mech designers stolen my idea?!"

His anger rose at the thought. This required deeper study!

Zooming in to the deepest detail revealed the shoddy jury-rigging that took place to install the module to a mech that originally lacked this part.

Other mechs featured the same improvised addition, making it clear that a bunch of mech technicians were responsible.

"This footage is only a week old." Ves noted.

He switched to more recent footage and saw more and more mechs adopting the same trend. Since the Rescue Particle Generator was incredibly cheap and simple to make, it was stupidly cheap and easy to add this component to every mech!

Within a matter of days, the trend had spread throughout the entire Bright Republic and Ylvaine Protectorate!

Not wanting to be left out, even the Kronon Dynasty and the Mech Corps started to add similar modules to their own mechs!

Like wildfire, the trend rapidly spread through every state involved in the Sand War! The journalists responsible for publicising this trend far and wide even came up with a name 

Stripes of Humanity!

"So long as the Stripes of Humanity fly, our state shall never fall!"

Some news reports even mentioned that the Starfighter Corps planned to adopt this trend as well!

Soon, thousands of starfighters would be releasing the Stripes of Humanity on the battlefield!

"Copycats!" Ves shouted.

He quickly calmed down, though. He didn't exactly own this idea. Most people at least became aware that he was responsible for forming it in the first place. The news media also did a good job crediting the Desolate Soldiers as the product that started this trend.

Wherever the Stripes of Humanity spread, the demand for the Desolate Soldier increased!

While every mech started to mount particle generators, a lot of customers were interested in obtaining the original machines that started this trend!

"So this is why Benny told me that I would love this development."

His assistant was right. While his Soldier product line may have lost their exclusivity, it had already made its mark in history!

"All of the history books about the Sand War will feature this sight! My Desolate Soldier model along with any derivatives will surely earn a place there!"

A very grand mood overcame Ves all of a sudden. As a mech designer, he always hoped he would be able to influence the development of states and the course of history through his products.

Before, Ves always got the sense that his mechs were just a few machines among many in the huge mech markets.

Now that his Desolate Soldier model achieved massive success, its influence reached a height that Ves could only dream about a few years ago!

"Is this what it feels to be immortalized?"

Every human wanted to be remembered. With an uncountable amount of humans living in the galaxy today, it was extraordinarily difficult to earn fame. It was even more difficult to be remembered after death.

While the Desolate Soldiers only affected a single star sector, Ves already knew that it would probably become known for years in the states that survived the Sand War.

To Ves and the LMC, that amounted to a massive publicity coup!

After Ves calmed down a bit, he checked up with the LMC and learned that they had already formed a plan to capitalize on this trend.

"Good. The people working in my company aren't good-for-nothings."

When Ves cuddled up with Gloriana sometime later at the Cloud Estate, they shared their thoughts on the matter.

"It's pretty remarkable how this idea of yours caught on so much." Gloriana said admiringly while she leaned against him. "Did you plan to spread this trend so widely?"

Ves chuckled. "I wish! All of my mechs feature a particle generator. I've always used these components to enhance the look of my mechs. I came up with the idea of leaving behind a lingering trail because I didn't want to add anything too ostentatious to what is supposed to be an affordable mech. It's only because my mechs are fielded in such large numbers all of a sudden that the Stripes of Humanity became a sector-wide phenomenon!"

The Stripes of Humanity rapidly dominated the news cycle. Many battles that ordinarily seemed depressing suddenly gained an inspirational quality due to the proliferation of so many colored trails!

"Perhaps this will be the first of many trends started by you." Gloriana said hopefully as she leaned her head over his chest. "You're such a creative mech designer that I'm sure you'll dazzle the galaxy once everyone gets to know you. Mechs like yours shouldn't be confined to a single star sector."

Ves softly leaned in to smell his girlfriend's lovely scent and kiss her head. "That's my hope, Gloriana."

As the two lovebirds continued to cuddle with each other, several kilometers away, a shimmering form crept up to the Cloud Estate through a picturesque forest.

Since the Cloud Estate was built atop a hill, it took a fair bit of climbing to reach the estate grounds. Mechs and other security measures constantly scoured the vicinity, thereby leaving no stone unturned.

Just as the invisible form took another step, it suddenly collapsed to the ground!

A smaller form shimmered into view. Lucky crawled up to the form it had just clawed and chewed on something invisible.

Soon, the cloaking field disappeared, revealing a man clad in a very sophisticated infiltrator suit. A backpack carrying the components of a gauss rifle was mounted on the dead man's back.

Once Lucky made sure the man was very much dead, the gem cat began to devour any hard metal objects on the body. He did not even let off the entire backpack!

"Meow~" Lucky squinted his eyes in delight.

"Miaow."

Clixie jumped out of a tree and landed on the ground in a graceful posture. With her tail raised in curiosity, she approached the corpse and licked the puddle of blood.

"Miaow!"

The Rubarthan Sentinel Cat spat out the blood and hissed in disgust. When Clixie gazed at Lucky, she arrogantly raised her head and padded away!

Unlike Lucky who was content with eating literal garbage, Clixie only ate the finest cat food from Gloriana!

"Meow?" Lucky opened his eyes to look at his departing companion.

"Miaow Miaow!"

"Meow."

Lucky simply returned to munching his spoils of war.

Only when he was done with his meal did the gem cat depart back to the Cloud Estate.

As soon as the cat went out of sight, a patrol of Living Sentinels who had already arrived beforehand approached the corpse.

"The cat could have left some evidence behind." A guard grumbled as he inspected the infiltrator's body.

A superior knocked the guard on the head. "Don't talk nonsense. You know these sneaky types don't leave any incriminating evidence on their bodies."

This was the sixth infiltrator that Lucky had caught. The Living Sentinels long stopped asking questions on how the cat was able to detect intruders far in advance of the Living Sentinels or the Glory Battalion!

The fact that these infiltrators were equipped well enough to evade the detection methods of the Glory Battalion meant that the culprit was very powerful! The infiltrator had likely been despatched by a power from a second-rate state!

"Okay, let's clean up this mess and file up a report. Commander Magdalena will have something else to report to our boss tomorrow."

The patrol expertly removed the body and cleaned up the traces. Soon, the site appeared as pristine as before.

Yet another attempt to infiltrate the Cloud Estate and assassinate Ves had failed.