"Do not fool around, Mr. Larkinson. You have heard what I have said. Your alliance is entitled to an award that amounts to over 1.3 billion MTA merits in total. How you wish to divide these merits among your partners and your subordinates is up to your group to decide. We do not wish to deprive you of those choices." Ves wanted to rub his ears to figure out if he heard correctly. "I apologize, Master Goldstein. It is not every day you get over a billion MTA merits dumped onto your lap." He said. "I mean, I am just a second-class pioneer. Big scores like this are unheard of among my kind." "It is exactly because it is exceedingly rare for second-class pioneers such as yourself to defeat not just one, but two fully-fledged alien battleships that we are being generous." "You will need to explain that to me." Ves responded. Master Goldstein led Ves to a nearby worktable where they could sit. The mecher activated a projection which showed an itemization list that briefly summed up the specific contributions that produced the humongous sum. "As you can see, the MTA merits that your alliance has earned in recent months can roughly be divided into several major categories. In the Boryan System, you and numerous other second-class pioneers have joined forces to destroy a hidden alien asteroid base, defeated hundreds of alien warships including a 3.2 kilometer-wide orven battleship, discovered and slain an aberrant unclean whale and reduced the sphere of influence of the 'Red Cabal'." The Battle of the Boryan Belt was already a matter of ancient history to Ves, but that did not mean it was a trivial matter. Not only did the Golden Skull Alliance along with the rest of the temporary coalition take on powerful alien warships, they even dealt with a real phase whale! Over 99 percent of all pioneers had never come close to achieving these feats, let alone both of them in the same battle! Though the temporary coalition managed to defeat a lot of powerful enemies, some of whom were connected to a powerful and increasingly more relevant hostile multi-species alliance, the amount of strategic gains that the participants ultimately surrendered to the Mech Trade Association was not that great. The biggest variable was the death of the unclean whale. If the rare and special cannibalistic phase whale could be captured alive, then his value to the mechers would easily be at least 10 times greater! Ves did not regret the decision to kill the tentacled whale. The recent encounter against the alien phase lord known as the Trampler of Stars had given him an even greater vindication of this decision. Phase lords came about due to other native alien races attempting to imitate the extraordinary physiques of highly developed phase whales. If a powerhouse like the Trampler of Stars was merely an imitation of the real product, then a true phase whale would definitely be able to exert more power! Who knew how much strength the unclean whale could regain once he had time to recover from his lengthy hibernation. Though Ves still winced when he thought of how many MTA merits he let go due to this difficult decision, he did not regret this action. It was a pity that the amount of MTA merits awarded by the Association ultimately became limited. What was worse was that the MTA merits also had to be split six ways as other parties such as the Gemini Family and the Lehrer Foundation also earned their rightful shares. In the end, the Golden Skull Alliance ultimately earned only a bit more than 100 million MTA merits out of this adventure, which was quite respectable but not commensurate to the incredible risks and dangers of this operation. "As you can see, your alliance's contributions in SDDD-4343X-AER-232666410, or Ramage Repulsor, are substantially greater. There are several reasons why we have awarded you over 1 billion MTA merits for your actions in this star system." The Master projected a small image of both the orven battleship found in the Boryan System and the hybrid alien battleship found in the Ramage Repulsor System. "The orven-built battleship called the V'gahnt-Zezne may be larger and more massive, but her research value is limited. Her hull is old and much of her tech is at least several generations behind current native alien standards. We have already captured many ships that feature similar outdated tech, so one more ship does not add much value, especially when many important sections have been destroyed or cut away." The Master gestured at the intact rear half of the latest battleship defeated by the Golden Skull Alliance. "Although the battleship the aliens call the 'Fractured House of the Collapsing Star' is only partially intact, the internal state and condition of her rear half is in excellent condition. The lack of internal sabotage is particularly notable, as is the preservation of almost all of her surviving crew members. The latter is immensely useful to us as we have the technology to extract many of the memories of many different alien species, including the nunsers and the puelmers who comprise the majority of the ship crew." The death energy battle formations served as a near-perfect ship-killing solution. The unprepared and unknowing alien crew members had no idea what was coming and could not even deploy any countermeasures, if they even existed at all. Tens of thousands of carefully selected alien elite officers and navel ratings had lost all of their consciousness and resistance, leaving their brains or closest alien equivalents ripe for the picking! This was a fantastic intelligence gift! "I take it that all of the new tech is of great interest as well." Ves remarked. "Indeed." Master Goldstein smiled. "Unlike the typical armed alien warships that our own forces regularly encounter at the frontlines, the Fractured House of the Collapsing Star is a testbed of early nextgen technologies. She can be regarded as a prototype warship that serves to prove a new concept that tries to fuse the best technologies of every race into a single large platform. What is interesting is not that the battleship is merely made up of different puzzle pieces contributed by different races, but that we have found signs of cross-contamination." "Cross-contamination?" Goldstein's expression turned serious. "We have already discovered that the native alien races have begun to pool their R&D efforts. Normally, the aliens are accustomed to guarding and isolating their competitive advantages in different branches of technology as much as possible. This leads to circumstances where the orven race excel in shield generators, the nunsers are known for mass producing the largest warships while the puelmers have built up the broadest tech base. For many eons, these races have maintained their advantage despite the natural diffusion of their older technological advances." "I take it that the battleship that we have just captured is different." "Correct. This is the first time we have obtained a large-scale alien craft that is filled with technological systems that are predominantly derived from the tech bases of numerous alien races, but also feature updates that originate from other alien races. For example, the orven shield generators found on the Fractured House of the Collapsing Star perform at least 7 percent better than the equivalents we have found on other modern orven battleships. This is because puelmer development teams have selectively upgraded the shield generators with their own technological solutions." In other words, the aliens were beginning to take advantage of the power of teamwork! "I see." Ves spoke. "Studying all of the changes made to standard alien technology can give you a snapshot to how well the different aliens are able to work together at this early stage. You can also track their progress and estimate how long it will take for the aliens to start producing truly powerful hybrid alien warships." "The new tech itself is also of interest to us." Master Goldstein added. "Our forces have already collected sufficient samples of modern alien tech to reverse engineer and improve upon them, but it is still useful for us to obtain samples that have already been upgraded through native cross-contamination. The solutions applied by the puelmers and other natives may be inferior to ours, but they can occasionally provide us with inspiration as they occasionally address problems from different angles." Hearing this made Ves feel a bit of regret for giving up such a substantial research and intelligence mine. If he was able to keep the Fractured House of the Collapsing Star for himself, he could delve into it for many years and constantly learn new and interesting high technologies. However, it was impossible for Ves to complete such a massive R&D venture alone. He would have to gather a gigantic team of scientists and support staff to conduct all of the work without wasting centuries of his life on studying the alien vessel. Even then, it was doubtful that he would ever be able to acquire the extremely demanding expertise needed to reverse engineer the most advanced alien technological applications! In short, the remnants of the alien battleship might be extremely valuable from an objective point of view, but only an exceedingly small group of states and organizations possessed the resources to exploit this mine. If Ves was able to hold an auction for these spoils, the only eligible bidders would come from the first-rate states and the Big Two. Of this limited and exclusive group, only the Common Fleet Alliance and the Mech Trade Association had any hopes of beating their competitors. Surrendering these valuable spoils to the MTA was therefore not a bad option. It was not as if the Golden Skull Alliance could retain all of this first-class loot. Countless other vultures and unscrupulous pioneers would try to steal it all away. The best part about receiving an enormous sum of MTA merits was that no one could steal it from their owners! This could be considered a form of protection as the issuer of these merits would never allow anyone to abuse or fool around with them. Every MTA merit represented a genuine and sincere contribution to the Association and humanity as a whole. The corruption of the merit system might very well herald the downfall of the human race! Master Goldstein resumed his explanation on why the Golden Skull Alliance earned a humongous sum of MTA merits. "What we also value is your opposition to threats that are greater and more significant than your fellow pioneers." "Can you explain that further?" Goldstein's expression grew ugly. "Ever since we have opened up the Red Ocean to colonization, the frequency of human fighting has been... high. Too high, in my opinion. An excessive amount of pioneers would rather fight their fellow humans than make more serious contributions to humanity. Cenatus Prospecting is an archetypal example of how the class of pioneers have been infiltrated and polluted by selfish profiteers who feel no responsibility to contribute to the advancement of the human cause." "..." Ves was glad that Master Goldstein did not have a good opinion of Otrus Magrin and his organization. That meant that it was unlikely for the MTA to call out the Golden Skull Alliance for leading their fellow humans into a trap! "In comparison, you and your allies have focused your efforts outwards." Goldstein smiled. "We particularly appreciate your willingness to oppose the Cosmopolitan Movement. Any hindrance to its nefarious plans will give our forces a greater advantage in our war against the indigenous aliens of the Red Ocean. Hindering the Red Cabal by destroying one of their hidden asteroid bases as well as taking down a prototype alien battleship is also helpful to our collective cause." To be honest, Ves never really had these motives in mind. He was purely driven by profit as far as he was concerned. He just happened to target the aliens because it was much easier to come up with excuses to plunder their treasures!