The fleets of the Golden Skull Alliance and the Adelaide Mercenary Company were finally ready to depart after a few days. The Gemini Family, the Lehrer Foundation, the Santana Group and the Boojay Family had opted to stay behind. Their salvage teams were constantly unearthing more treasure from the broken fragments of the Palace of Shame and other tricky places. Staying behind also allowed these pioneering groups to make good use of all of the enormous warships and warship debris. Ves had already learned that the more ambitious pioneering groups wanted to package up the alien warships and tow them back to civilization in order to maximize their profits. He wished them good luck in this endeavor. The profits would be massive if they managed to pull it off, but it would take many months to tow all of the high-value warships to safe harbor. The probability that they would get intercepted was small, but not completely unlikely. Ves did not wish to turn his fleet into an attractive target, so his clan declined to drag too many alien hulls away. The Larkinsons only grabbed the smaller and less valuable hulls and only intended to hold onto them long enough to study alien shipbuilding methods. At least Chief Shipwright Vivian Tsai found a new way to occupy her time. Before the eve of departure, all of the leaders of the temporary coalition met in person once again. They distinctly did not choose to meet inside the flagship of the Gemini Family, but instead opted to converge inside a relatively intact section of the Palace of Shame. The trip was risky and would expose every leader to a lot of potential danger, but sending a surrogate was seen as a sign of weakness and mistrust. Ves opted to go despite all of the warnings he received. There was no compelling reason for anyone to pull off any stunts. Even if an incident took place, he believed that his own precautions along with the protection of the Mars would see him to safety. He boarded the shuttle and came face to face with the two advisors that he decided to bring along for this meeting. Minister Shederin Purnesse wore an elegant if somewhat boring gray vacsuit that offered decent environmental protection but not much more. Director Calabast looked serious and ready for action as she had opted to wear a flexible but armored suit that fell short of looking like actual combat armor. Ves found it interesting that Calabast chose to wear an outfit that did not feature any obvious stealth mechanisms at all. It lacked the modules that were typically present on infiltrator suits. "This isn't the time for sneaking around." Calabast answered his unspoken question. "If an incident occurs, we have to confront it head-on. Besides, we already have a secret agent who is much better at infiltration." She lowered the gaze to a certain gem cat resting on his lap. "Meow…" Lucky lazily yawned. His belly had become fuller this time after the Larkinsons had let him loose in the broken remains of the Palace of Shame. Unlike most salvage teams, Lucky could effortlessly phase through solid matter and stumble upon hidden vaults that were shielded from detection. The cat successfully managed to devour the contents of a couple of those hidden treasure vaults before other parties finally managed to sniff out their locations. Ves smiled as he looked at his lazy cat. While his new cyborg cat was much stronger and more obedient, he had left his living divine artifact in his fleet in order to perform a backup function. Compared to his new cyborg cat, Lucky was a lot more disposable. Of course, Ves knew better than to voice these thoughts to his first pet. He hadn't even exposed the existence of his cyborg cat to anyone, though he was pretty certain that the Golden Cat already knew due her control over the Larkinson Network. "Is your armor fully operational again?" Calabast asked. "In a manner of speaking." Ves replied. "It is easy enough to fabricate replacement parts for the Unending Regalia. The biggest stumbling block is obtaining more Unending alloy. I first thought about cutting a few pieces from the broken remains of the Shield of Samar, but I think that Venerable Jannzi knows her own mech way too well for me to get away with that. I opted to shave off small chunks from our other expert mechs instead. No one will be able to notice the difference except for Gloriana, and she has better things to do with her time." He lifted his armored hand and confidently patted the newly fabricated armor plates. Although it wasn't obvious from the surface, Ves could still perceive strong differences between the new and old parts. Much of the Unending Regalia had been exposed to his Spirituality for several years, causing them to undergo a subtle form of baptism that increased their connection to him. This effect had become a lot stronger as of late now that Ves had undergone a spiritual evolution. He also suspected that the prior lightning baptism had also bled over to his combat armor and caused it to become even stronger and more special than before. His plan to gradually transform his Unending Regalia into a powerful spiritual relic was well on its way to bearing fruit! He frowned for a moment. Compared to how close he was to most of his armor, he failed to develop the same intimacy with the replacement parts. They were like brand new bricks that had been placed in the holes of an old and historical monumental building. The new parts lacked the weight of history and the spiritual imprint that he had become accustomed to over the years. What was worse was that the replacement armor plating also carried the spiritual imprints of other expert pilots. Trying to wash all of that away and place his own imprint on those pieces would take a lot of time. All of this extra work interrupted and delayed the subsequent evolution of his Unending Regalia, which meant that Ves had to wait a few more years before it turned into a genuine relic filled with power. As Ves continued to examine the state of his restored Unending Regalia, the shuttle finally arrived at its destination. It had touched down in an alien hangar bay that used to house starfighters. A few of these alien machines had even been left untouched. Their pilots probably hadn't been available to participate in the fight for one reason or another. Before the delegation moved to the interior of the broken palace segment, Ves requested a delay so that he could study the starfighters up close. Ves had studied plenty of interesting alien goods and materials that the salvage teams had brought back over the past week. Though the Larkinsons had brought back a decent amount of elite starfighters, Ves hadn't been around when they had been brought into the cargo holds of his ships. This was the first time that he was able to see alien starfighters in the flesh. The craft was smaller than he thought. It was designed for speed and maneuverability and could definitely give a light mech a run for its money. Its disproportionately large thrusters provided it with incredible straight-line acceleration, though Ves could clearly deduce that its agility and turning radius was less than impressive. The starfighter he was looking at was a rather middling machine that was a little more valuable than an autonomous combat drone but not as expensive as an elite starfighter. This was why the starfighter had remained in the hangar bay. There were too many of these machines that took up too much cargo space for their value. "Meow." Lucky turned his head away after he determined that the starfighter didn't contain any yummy alloys. "Interesting." Calabast said as the gem cat automatically floated into her arms. "Humanity would have been no different from the other races if the history of our civilization had taken a different turn. How do you feel about that, Ves?" The sight of an alien starfighter evoked a lot of different thoughts in his mind. Could he have become a starfighter designer in another life? Ves chuckled. "I don't think I would have been a starfighter designer in that alternate universe. It would have been far more likely for me to be a starfighter pilot considering my pedigree. The only reason I haven't become a mech pilot is because my genetic aptitude is junk." His strategic partner nodded in understanding. "I suppose that is correct. Humanity in that alternate universe sounds much less exciting to me now. I pity the humans who live under those circumstances because they don't have the privilege of being able to buy interesting products developed by a different version of yourself." "Maybe that's for the best." Calabast gestured towards the starfighter in front of them. "Do you think that the aliens have the potential to make their starfighters more competitive against mechs? What if they equip their starfighters with a neural interface to improve their control?" "That is difficult to say. Starfighters definitely have their strengths, but they are too limited in what they can do. Perhaps the aliens will crack the secret of neural interface technology and develop variants that are compatible with their own species, but you know as well as I do that there is more to mechs than establishing a man-machine connection." "I suppose you are correct." Ves once held a discussion with Cormaunt Hempkamp on the possibility of alien races adapting their own form of neural interface technology. It was a lot harder to make this work than everyone thought. Was genetic aptitude still a factor? Did aliens have brains that neural interfaces could latch onto? How much data could a qualified alien pilot process? All of these questions and more made it so that alien races had to conduct a lot of research before they could develop a working imitation of a neural interface. Ves floated up and inspected the open cockpit. He could see that it featured a mechanical control interface that was suitable for a small-statured alien pilot with four arms. "Controlling a craft through a neural interface is much different than controlling it with the help of joysticks and buttons. Compatible alien pilots will have to go through at least a year of accelerated schooling and training before they are anywhere close to competent at controlling a starfighter. They will need to spend many more years if they want to become competent at piloting mechs." "Do you think the aliens will go through the trouble of developing their own mechs and training their own mech pilots?" 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮 "I truly don't know." Ves shrugged. "I think that a number of alien races that have discovered that they have an unexpected high compatibility with neural interfaces and interfacing with mechs will definitely try it out. They will be too far behind to rely on mechs to bail them out, though. Warships will still serve as their primary means of waging war." There was no more use in staying around. The starfighter was a rather shabby mass-market product that was made with the expectation that it and its many brothers would get shredded without being able to pose much of a resistance on any given day. Starfighter pilots were much less valuable than mech pilots. Many alien races could simply spend a bit of time and money on training another batch of individuals to replenish their stock cannon fodder. Humanity at least treated their mech pilots a lot better. They were scarce resources and it took an awful long time to nurture and train another batch of mech pilots from scratch. That made him think whether it was a good idea to expand the pool of eligible mech pilots. If Ves or the MTA had the potential to reduce the importance of genetic aptitude, would it really be good for humanity if everyone could pilot a mech?