[401-600] THE MECH'S TOUCH

Chapter 410: Moment of Truth

Ves left Marella's office and boarded an armored shuttle that conveyed him towards the convention hall. Along the way, he tried but couldn't quite get Marcella's words to disappear from his mind.

On a whim, he activated his comm and performed a few casual searches on the galactic net.

The cursory search revealed a statistic that Ves had always overlooked. "Casualties as a result of collateral damage?"

He knew what collateral damage meant. Backlash against it arguably ended the Age of Conquest, which some people referred to as the Age of Warships. With the onset of the Age of Mechs, mass extinction and widespread slaughter ceased to happen, but that didn't mean it stopped happening entirely.

Missile barrages notoriously inflicted wide swathes of devastation. With the effectiveness of ECM these days, over eighty or ninety percent of missiles never hit their targets. Instead, they veered away and flew a bit further before exploding upon the first obstacle they came across.

Many cities hollowed out and collapsed this way.

Cannons also frequently pled guilty to this, but surprisingly the humbler laser rifle took the crown. Their ubiquity, availability and low cost per discharge meant that mech pilots who piloted laser rifleman mechs frequently showered their opponents with laser beams.

Ballistic rifleman and railgunner mechs exercised much stricter trigger discipline because they couldn't afford to waste their ammunition.

Therefore, Ves got a completely different conception of laser rifleman mechs. Who knew that the humble straight and narrow laser beams actually resulted in more deaths and collateral damage than more explosive weapons?

"This is mainly the fault of the mech pilot."

If these laser-happy mech pilots exercised the same trigger discipline as their ballistic and kinetic counterparts, they wouldn't let this statistic balloon.

"This isn't my responsibility."

By now, over a thousand Blackbeak mechs circulated throughout the Bright Republic and elsewhere. Ves did not keep tabs on what their pilots did. Someone could have crashed their mech through a school full of children and Ves wouldn't know. Even if he did, what did it have to do with him?

"People don't blame a shuttle manufacturer if some madman took their shuttle, hacked all the safeties, and crashed it into office building."

The only reason he would check up on his products was to see whether their X-Factor aged and developed unique flavors. Right now, it would be too early to tell, so Ves planned to wait a couple of years before performing an in-depth study of the effects.

Once the shuttle arrived at the convention hall, Ves went inside and oversaw the final preparations of the product reveal. This time, the LMC went for a more elaborate concept that transformed the entire hall into a projected battlefield. It all looked impressive and lifelike as Marcella's brokerage supplied the advanced equipment to turn illusion into a hyper-realistic simulations.

The experience went beyond spectacular visuals. Ves felt the vibrations from the footsteps of a Crystal Lord as it walked by. He could heard the sharp tang of a laser rifle discharge as another projected mech fired its weapon at a distant enemy mech.

For the battlefield, they picked out a sprawling ruined urban landscape. Rubble and debris littered much of the abandoned city, as months of fighting turned every street into an unlivable mess.

"This is what happens after every battle."

Seeing the awful state of the buildings and the remains of abandoned vehicles strewn about put everyone present in a somber mood. In light of the recent attack on the Coscos System, Ves opted to color his presentation in a serious tone. He nixed the original plan which involved excessive cheer and exuberance.