The Mech Touch

The abundant amount of mechs surrounding his captive form eventually intimidated Subject 3 into calming down. Even though he never shed all of his feral instincts, he still recognized that he was only wasting his energy at this moment.

When Dwarf 3 came out of one of the transports and got dragged towards Subject 3, the both of them somehow sensed each other’s presence. Subject 3 roared in anger again, while Dwarf 3 started talking gibberish that the AI translators hadn’t been able to make sense of yet. Every single dwarf tribe developed a unique language, giving the Flagrant Swordmaidens a lot of headaches if they wanted to interrogate the captives!

Fortunately, Ves wasn’t interested in hearing what the dwarf captives had to say. He only needed them to demonstrate their abilities and perform some other experiments.

Ves and the beast rider project already drafted up an extensive sequence of testing and experimentations beforehand. Now that they finally got their hands on some wild gods and dwarf riders, they eagerly rushed to prep the beasts and dwarf rider. They already poked every part of the wild god, inserting monitors, sensors, bugs and other devices into his thick and resilient flesh.

Nothing about the creature remained a secret after being stuffed with so many sensors!

Dwarf 3 received the same treatment, though a bit more delicately as all of the foreign materials weren’t exactly good for the captive’s health. The captive didn’t always cooperate, and the security officers sometimes had a hard time in trying to subdue the raging dwarf’s motions as he resisted the insertion of all of the objects into his body.

"Bear with it. This won’t take long." Ves said to the side, though Dwarf 3 likely hadn’t understand his words.

It didn’t matter. He lied anyway.

Once Dwarf 3 got hooked up with all of the sensors, they forcefully placed him onto the back of the beast. The researchers got rid of the wooden palanquin constructed atop Subject 3’s back and replaced it with a repurposed mech cockpit that Ves cobbled together himself. While it didn’t carry a neural interface, he did manage to stuff it with even more sensors.

There could never be too much sensors! With all the weird stuff surrounding the man-beast connection, Ves wanted to gather as much data as possible. Even the lack of any notable data was a data point in itself, as the absence of any abnormalities either signified that the phenomenon was too strange to be measured by their low-quality sensors, or they could rule out something of this nature happening.

All of this sounded complicated, but Ves basically employed so many sensors in the hopes of understanding how the natives and wild gods managed to establish a man-beast connection without the use of machines.

While it was possible to connect the minds of a mech pilot to a mech through a wireless connection, this could only be done through the use of a sophisticated neural interface designed for the purpose!

There was no way the planet’s organisms evolved this function naturally. Their abnormal brain structure somehow managed to replicate the functioning of advanced mech equipment, and Ves simply didn’t know how.

Ves may be a mech designer, but his knowledge on neural interfaces could only be described as shallow and patchy. As for the exobiologists who specialized in studying alien biology, none of them specialized in neurology or the study of brains.

Therefore, these tests held an unprecedented amount of importance to the beast rider project. With actual data in their hands, they no longer had to work with educated guesswork.

"Begin the first test!"

They let the dwarf engage his remote connection with the wild god. Both of them became subdued all of a sudden when the connection established.

Ves had retreated to a portable lab where the experts of the beast rider project all sat behind a bank of terminals and control panels. They monitored every incoming sensor readings. Already, some of them gained some insights, while others had their theories vindicated.

"This is incredible! The readings on the man-beast connection is functionally similar to the readings of a typical man-machine connection! They share a common root!"

"This proves that at least one exobiologist from the Starlight Megalodon designed both the natives and the god species for this purpose in mind! And they collaborated with a mech designer to design this organic neural interface structure!"

All of them had already guessed as much, but the hard data confirmed their judgement.

As more and more data poured in, Ves smirked even wider as he already foresaw his own research advance by leaps and bounds. Previously, he mostly worked blindly in the dark. Now, enough of his surroundings had been illuminated for him to establish a firm direction.

The difference this first test made already made the entire ordeal worth the effort!

Of course, now that they had some tribal wild gods and dwarf riders on their hands, the experiments didn’t end there. After the first test came the second test. After the second test came the third test. And so on. In fact, the beast rider project scheduled over two-hundred different tests, each of which paid attention to different aspects.

Now that the testing and experimentation came on track, the researchers maddingly ran through the tests as fast as possible. No matter what kind of junk data they received, the data chips stored all of them for later processing and analysis. They gathered so much data that they would probably be able to fill the storage contents of hundreds of data chips by the time they had their fill.

That still wasn’t enough!

Some of the researchers even giggled as they saw how much valuable data they harvested. After more than two months of working on conjecture and vague clues derived from vague sensor readings, they now received a flood of precise, accurate and varied data, enough to drown their processors for a couple of months!

"More! Give us more!"

"Damnit, the dwarf has stopped the connection! That lazy captive! Get him back to work!"

The dwarf captive hated being directed like a puppet to his captives, but whenever he became recalcitrant, the security officers brought forth his son and slapped the kid around a little bit. Every time the dwarf child cried horribly, the father gritted his teeth and surrendered to the circumstances.

Its savage mind knew that as long as he cooperated, he and his family would be able to stay alive! It wouldn’t be too late to turn the tables on his captives afterwards!

As Ves almost went drunk at the sheer amount of data pouring in, Chief Dakkon entered the lab while the fifteenth test started running.

In order to develop his translation filter for his beast rider neural interface, he needed to gather a large variety of readings associated with many different actions. Simple acts such as turning around the head or releasing an intimidating roar all came accompanied by a different set of thought patterns.

In essence, right now Ves was attempting to build a dictionary of alien thought patterns. Once the dictionary held enough entries, Ves could let some AIs loose on the data and fill up the rest of the dictionary.

"Having fun, Ves?"

"I sure am, chief." He grinned. "Encountering this large beast tribe is a windfall for our research projects."

"Well, I’m happy for you. You’ll finally be able to get out of your deadlock after gathering all of this data. I just wanted to tell you that the god crystal project wants to get a turn with the wild gods as well. Don’t wear them out too fast. You’re not the only ones who are eyeing these test subjects."

Ves smiled dubiously at the chief engineer. "Aren’t you going to nag about me about how much ethical boundaries that we’re violating right now? What we’re doing right now doesn’t exactly comply with the rules."

"If you wanted to pull off something risky with the mech pilots, then someone needs to pull you back. However, it’s just some dwarves and some wild gods that are at risk of injury right now. Considering that you are performing these experiments for the good of Captain Orfan and Lieutenant Dise, I can accept the unpleasantries surrounding these experiments. It’s not as if the god crystal project has some clean experiments in mind either."

Some of the chief’s reluctance still bled into his voice.

Ves suspected that the man had already started to see him as unhinged, so he quickly provided some platitudes. "It’s not that I don’t recognize how wrong and repulsive these experiments are back in civilized space, but the key point is that we aren’t there right now. We’re right in a forbidden region of space that’s filled with danger and mystery. Uncovering these mysteries should be one of our highest priorities. Only through understanding can we blow away the fog hiding the underlying truth behind the circumstances on this planet."

"I don’t disagree with you, but..." The chief hesitated. "I’m afraid we are losing our souls here. The longer we stay on Seven, the more we descend into savagery. It’s already happened to the blessed people, not to mention the cursed people. Aren’t you worried how we’ll look like six months from now? A year from now? Two years from now? Perhaps we’ll be unrecognizable by the time we reach the Starlight Megalodon!"

Ves wanted to palm his face. The chief was worried about this?!

"There’s no question that we are changing." He responded lightly, as if he didn’t feel the need to be concerned about it. "From the perspective of civilized space, we are indeed descending into savagery. Yet I don’t see that as a bad thing. We are adapting to the environment. Savagery may have degenerated the natives, but it also allowed them to survive in this brutal heavy gravity world. Therefore, adapting to local circumstances isn’t anything bad. The key is that we shouldn’t be too short-sighted and lose our remaining advantages. Our mechs and our research capacity are our strongest weapons in this mission."

Chief Dakkon chuckled. "What should I have expected? I knew you’d respond in such a fashion. You never regret anything, do you?"

Did he? Ves contemplated the question seriously. Out of all of the actions he performed and all of the decisions he made so far, did he truly regretted anything?

He recognized that he could have been less impulsive and a bit more careful at some points. One of his biggest regrets was when he fabricated and used an unsecure comm while being stranded on Detemen IV back in the mission to raid the Vesia Kingdom’s Detemen System.

That mistake probably led a lot of unsuspecting Vandals to their deaths due to the surprise artillery bombardment called down on their hidden position.

Still, what was the point of crying over spilt milk? As long as he survived and learned his lessons, there was no point in lamenting any further about his many errors.

Keep going forward! Ves had many goals in mind, and he couldn’t afford to stop and look back for long.

"All the things I do, I do for a reason." He eventually remarked. "To regret is to imply that I want to turn back time to undo my mistakes. I don’t want that. I don’t want to turn back at all. Whatever mistakes I’ve made and sins I’ve incurred in the past, my future accomplishments will wash them all away. I’m certain of this belief."

Ves clenched his gauntleted fingers into a fist to emphasize his conviction. In some sense, he became a true Vandal at that moment. No matter what shenanigans they pulled off, as long as they completed the mission, anything was permissible!

Meanwhile, Chief Dakkon shook his head in disappointment. The lesson he tried to impart to the younger mech designer completely fell flat.