[201-400] THE MECH'S TOUCH

Chapter 345: Decahedron

While Lucky prodded a clearly artificial object buried inside the asteroid, Ves began to test his initial graser rifle design in a simulation.

The simulated weapon immediately blew up in the hands of the mech.

"What?!"

Ves was sure he nailed the design. It should have spat out at least an anemic gamma laser beam. To blow up in the face of the simulated mech was out of the realm of possibilities.

Thinking that the environment may had played a role, Ves repeated the simulation in different environments. He shifted from space to terrestrial environments such as forests or ice-capped terrain.

The graser rifle continued to explode without fail.

"I thought I was so close!"

He underestimated the technical challenges involved with turning a concept of a weapon into reality. He derived the bulk of his work from the research notes. Evidently, he made a mistake at some point. Perhaps he derived too much from the research notes and failed to adjust them to his own design.

Ves performed the simulations again and called up some data from the moment the simulated mech pulled the trigger.

Everything went fine in the start. It only started to go wrong when an abundance of power ran through the mechanisms responsible for generating the actual graser beam.

Certain components couldn't handle the load and melted down, leading to a variety of awful effects that cascaded into a dreadful explosion.

"Damnit, this mechanism isn't strong enough."

For some reason, Dr. Kawasaki made it work. The research notes abundantly laid out the detailed design process for the internal mechanisms. When Ves followed the instructions to design his own version of the mechanism, it failed to withstand the load.

"Let's see what happens if I dial down the power."

The graser rifle kept exploding until it reached a threshold where the mechanism failed to perform at all. Gamma ray lasers demanded a lot of power. Without a sufficient amount of power, the mechanisms failed to work at all.

"This is a problem." Ves said as he pressed his fists against his waist.

The constant isolation was getting to him somewhat. If not for the bumbling presence of Lucky, he might have turned erratic.

More than the lack of people, his inability to access the galactic net and stay connected to the rest of the galaxy irked him a lot.

"I have no idea how the war is progressing."

Historically, the Vesians cautiously probed the Republic's defenses. Their most destructive actions consisted of raids against Republican infrastructure and industry. The Vesians loved to take out soft targets early in the war before they could be of help to the Brighters.

He didn't worry too much about the LMC. It wasn't a high priority target and his workers should have already started moving his assets to the underground manufacturing complex. Sanyal-Ablin's substantial presence there was sufficient to deter any casual raid.

"I should focus on completing my own tasks."

He spent the next hours trying to puzzle out the exact failure point. He uncovered a number components that performed well below their theoretical parameters.

He'd been far too sloppy too sloppy in his design work.

"Rather than say I've been sloppy, it's more fitting to say that the graser rifle can't tolerate any failures."