The Mech Touch

Qilanxo. The second-oldest and most powerful sacred god of the Eastern Samar Pantheon. The mate to Pairixan and a mother of more than a thousand godlings. This was an entity who lived through more than ten of Ves’ lifetimes.

She had seen sacred gods and blessed people rise and fall. She experienced the turmoil after the Great Father Pairaxis perished abruptly without designating an heir for his two most promising sons.

She survived the giant explosion that felled Pairixan, her mate, and Piezonis, her strongest son and a sacred god who was a bit more than a hundred years old. This only highlighted her formidable defensive powers. She handedly outperformed an entire mech company of heavy knight mechs in terms of enduring destructive shelling!

Now, Qilanxo fell into the laps of the Flagrant Swordmaidens. The Western Samar Pantheon that still reigned over the ancient city of Samar seemed more interested in taking over the eastern side of the city than taking revenge for Pairixan’s folly.

Ves bet that she knew that she had been turned into abandoned goods. Depending on the mentality of the god species, this old beast with many more years to go in her life wouldn’t be resigned to die so easily.

For what cause would her death matter to her? For a dumb brute of a mate who picked a fight against an opponent with horrible offensive powers? For a sacred god who never outgrew to be his own god?

While Qilanxo hadn’t really communicated all that much with her captors, the psychologists and exobiologists composed a detailed report of her personality. Ves patiently read through all the documents concerning her willingness to cooperate. He also browsed the documents related to the body structure of the sacred gods.

Compared to the wild gods, the growth of the sacred gods diverged despite essentially belonging to the same species. The main changes revolved around the miraculous god crystals, whom the scientists still puzzled over their use despite collecting a bunch of them from the carcasses of the dead sacred gods.

Very likely, the only way the engineers could figure out how to activate the god crystals and use them as replacement power generators was to gain Qilanxo’s cooperation. Through some unknown procedure, nineteen god crystals rested against her hide, half of them buried into her flesh while the other half remained exposed to the air.

These god crystals allowed Qilanxo to call down an energy tornado and fill up her energy reservoirs to fuel her defensive powers. Maintaining her space barrier drained a large amount of energy, so much so that they could easily fuel the operation of the entire ground expedition for a day, if not more!

That didn’t sound so impressive, but in fact this represented an incredible amount of energy. More than that, the sacred god made use of the energy with unparalleled efficiency, wasting relatively low amounts of waste heat for all the energy she expended.

To Ves, everything about Qilanxo seemed to be a well-engineered sacred god. Even among ace mechs piloted by seasoned ace pilots who possessed comparable powers, Qilanxo ranked on the upper end of the scale.

The major problem right now that Qilanxo appeared to grieve for her fallen beast rider, her chosen. All the Vandals knew was that her human companion was a woman from their footage of the battle. They hadn’t been able to figure out anything else as Qilanxo obviously couldn’t talk.

The spy drones hovering in the outskirts of Samar also didn’t really find out anything pertinent. The mortal citizens all kept a healthy distance from the sacred gods. Besides, with Pailanon in charge, no one dared to speak about worshipping the old gods anymore.

The lack of information concerning her former beast rider inconvenienced Ves in his new assignment. He’d been put in charge of the project meant to pair Qilanxo up with a new beast rider.

He had no clue where to start.

Fortunately, the Vandals assigned some random exobiologists and other experts to his project, though they appeared they would rather join the other, more interesting projects that studied the physiology of these god species. These chums got the short end of the stick.

Ves called the small group of experts together in a free room attached to the giant holding facility built around Qilanxo’s imprisoned form. Many temporary labs had been set up as well to help Qilanxo recover and to study her living physique.

Compared to those large work teams, the project team led by Ves didn’t amount to much, even though their work played a critical role in enhancing the strength of the Flagrant Swordmaidens.

"Alright, fellows, you all know why we are here." He began after a brief round of introductions. None of the experts impressed Ves that much. "Qilanxo is our first captive sacred god, and it’s a waste to keep her as our prisoner when she can be so much more. The same defensive prowess that she used to shield her fellow sacred gods from the combined firepower of all of our mechs and cannons can be employed to protect our own assets in future battles. Having her on our side is almost the same thing as having an ace mech on our side!"

Equating Qilanxo to an ace mech immediately affected the experts around the table. Some of their eyes grew hot when they realized the magnitude of such an outcome.

With an entity comparable to an ace mech by their side, the ground forces would become a lot more assured of victory!

Still, getting there wouldn’t be easy.

"At this moment, Qilanxo has not been willing to divulge too much information." Someone involved with communication reported. "While we’ve confirmed that Qilanxo is able to speak and understand the standard language, she isn’t in the mood to communicate. As for the reason, you all know that already."

"Would it be callous of us if we push a new beast rider onto her? Maybe we need to give her more time to grieve."

"You’re treating Qilanxo like a traumatized human. She’s much older than us, and by all accounts her last beast rider isn’t the first one she paired up with. I think the sacred god is a lot more resilient than you think."

Ves agreed with this sentiment. "Regardless how Qilanxo feels about taking on a new beast rider, we don’t have the time to allow her to process her loss. She needs to get over with it and accept a new beast rider from us regardless of how much it affects her mood."

He couldn’t take forever with this project. They needed someone close to Qilanxo so that the Flagrant Swordmaidens became more assured that she wouldn’t act out against them. A sacred god without a beast rider would forever be a loose cannon who could turn against them at any moment.

They needed to develop a new rapport with Qilanxo and indoctrinate her into fighting on the behalf of the Flagrant Swordmaidens.

"Who will be her beast rider? A Vandal or a Swordmaiden?"

"A Vandal of course! It’s wholly through our efforts that we managed to capture her alive and convert her for our use!"

"According to our studies concerning the sacred gods and their chosen, the pair must be of somewhat similar temperaments to provide the best fit. The older the sacred god, the less malleable and more formidable their minds become. I hate to say it, but many of our Vandals don’t possess the required temperament and maturity to be a good partner for Qilanxo."

So far, every beast rider the Flagrant Vandals observed matched the gender of the sacred god they were paired with. There was definitely a reason behind this, and the most predominant one that the Vandals came up with was that the beast riders and the sacred gods couldn’t be too different from each other.

"What are you saying?!" Another expert exploded. "We have plenty of female mech pilots who aren’t pushovers!"

"Many of the Swordmaidens are much more formidable in terms of mental strength than our Vandal mech pilots. The model I’ve constructed shows that out of every mech pilot in the expedition, Commander Lydia shows the best fit by far. Her skills, temperament, leadership ability, life experience and more all makes her the most prominent potential partner for Qilanxo."

Ves decided to intervene. "Obviously, the question on who to select as our beast rider has political implications. No matter who we chose, the balance of power will definitely shift."

"I don’t see the problem. Why not pick a Vandal mech pilot and be done with it? We’re not under the obligation to hand over our spoils to the Swordmaidens."

The cooperation between the Vandals and the Swordmaidens remained harmonious so far, but they only captured a single sacred god. This placed their alliance in an awkward position. How could they share something that couldn’t be divided?

Or maybe they don’t need to engage in this tug of war in the first place.

"A mech doesn’t have to be the exclusive property of a single mech pilot. While this is normally the convention, there are times when there are more mechs than mech pilots." Ves pointed out.

The experts all fell silent.

"Is it even possible for a sacred god to be paired with two beast riders?"

"I don’t see why that can’t happen. It’s just like piloting a mech, right?"

"It’s different. A mech can’t think for itself. Qilanxo is a sentient alien beast who can think for herself. From what we’ve observed so far, every sacred god only chooses one person to be their beast rider. While they have selected other people to be their chosen, that has only happened if their old beast riders died or became too old to be their partners."

"So it is a matter of preference?"

"We don’t know. We’ll have to sound out Qilanxo and see if she’s willing to be paired with two different beast riders."

Ves nodded in approval. "Let’s set this as our goal. Our mission won’t be finished until we successfully pair Qilanxo with both a Vandal and a Swordmaiden mech pilot."

They began to discuss all the things that needed to happen to accomplish such a thing. Neither Ves or any other expert believed that it would be as simple as putting a mech pilot on Qlianxo’s back and ordering her to connect their minds together.

"We need to communicate with Qilanxo and ease her into the idea of selecting two new chosen among our mech pilots."

"We don’t know if it’s safe for a mech pilot to interface with the mind of this formidable beast. We’ll need to conduct a lot of safety experiments in order to get a handle on the risks."

"Would Qilanxo be offended if we tried to pair her up with one of the dwarves? Both the god species and the native humans possess heavily-altered brain structures. We need to see a man-beast connection up close in order to build a helmet or a machine that can mimic the capabilities of the native people."

A lot of different suggestions came together to form a simple plan where each expert pursued different research topics. There was much the Vandals didn’t know about the sacred gods, so they couldn’t help but perform extensive studies before they were willing to expose a mech pilot’s mind to the much more formidable mind of an old and powerful beast.

Ves himself needed to become involved as well. For some reason, Ves didn’t think he could build a cockpit on top of Qilanxo’s back and get a mech pilot to interface with the sacred god in that way. He needed to work with both flesh and machine to enable the man-beast connection to happen with their own mech pilots.

The risks were high and the chance of screwups might cause irreparable harm to the mech pilots hoping to interface with Qilanxo’s mind.

Ves foresaw that he needed to stretch his limited knowledge of neural interface yet again and blaze a trail in the darkness and hope he reached his destination.

The challenge both intimidated and invigorated him. He felt as if this was what being a Senior Mech Designer was like. "No matter how difficult it is to accomplish their dreams, they stride forward with absolute confidence in their success."