The Mech Touch novel Chapter 992

As time began to run out, Ves only came up with two strong leads that he felt might definitely lead to something that Flashlight would be pleased with. While he hadn’t made much progress on figuring out why Ansel employed overly competent mech technicians, Leland did return one day with a much thicker set of documents.

"This is everything we can dig up about Chief Nyquist on short notice. Overall, his life isn’t too remarkable for a military veteran. However, we did find something notable about him when we tracked down his former colleagues when he served with the Sparky Nuts."

"Oh?" Ves turned to Leland. His case officer wouldn’t say anything if he didn’t find it important. "Did you find something connecting him to the BLM?"

"Not as such. Instead, when we pried open the lips of one of his old buddies, they mentioned a very important detail that is missing in his record. He had a wife."

"What?! How come his record states that he never married?!"

In fact, Ves already found it rather questionable why Chief Nyquist never married after he returned from the war. The man did not even have a single girlfriend even though he should have appealed to many women with his military background and his stable, well-paying career at the KNG.

"His ’wife’ was another mech technician on the same combat carrier he once served aboard. They both shacked up and tied the knot in an unofficial ceremony."

Ves understood now. "Fraternization is forbidden by the Mech Corps, but a lot of servicemen do it anyway."

"That’s the practical truth." Leland smiled wryly. "Don’t you think that Flashlight or the Mech Corps doesn’t know what’s going on? The monitoring systems alone catch thousands of intimate encounters aboard the ships every single day. Yet you never hear about anyone getting court-martialed over this offense. Do you know why?"

"Because they’re just being humans. Love and affection isn’t something which you can stop." Ves quickly concluded.

"Controversy over the regulations on fraternization has existed for thousands of years. In general, a military force operates better with them in place than without. Even so, we don’t crack down too hard on this behavior as long as it doesn’t affect the fighting strength of our units. Only the most egregious cases where a superior abuses his power to coerce someone in a relationship are addressed."

"So Nyquist used to have an intimate relationship with a fellow mech technician and the Sparky Nuts did nothing to stop it." Ves repeated. He began to feel some deja vu. "Don’t tell me his secret wife got killed?"

"Killed in action. There’s no ambiguity about it. She was one of the many confirmed casualties of the previous war." Leland stated unemotionally. "This affected Nyquist’s performance for a while, but the war ended quickly before his slide became noticeable. He quit the Mech Corps shortly after to pursue a civilian career."

Ves closed his eyes and recalled the last time he met a widower who lost his unofficial wife due to battle.

Recalling how the grieving and unhinged Davis Sollerant pulled out a gun and shot at Ves’ face made him shudder in unease. If not for wearing his Squalon armor, he wouldn’t have brushed off the assassination attempt as an exercise in futility.

The Flagrant Vandals were all lucky that someone maddened with grief and loss like Davis acted impulsively rather than with deliberate calculation.

Yet what if they did the latter instead of the former? Those who lost the loves of their lives and never got over it couldn’t be judged with common sense.

What would Ves do if he was in the same position? Would he hate the Vesians for taking away his lover, or would he be like Davis Sollerant and blame his own side instead for recklessly endangering his wife?

"What a huge mess." He uttered.

"Not necessarily." Leland nodded calmly. "Thousands of widowers emerge after the end of each war. Most of them are able to cope with their losses and restart their lives. From what the Mech Corps has observed of Chief Nyquist, he has never showed any animosity towards the Republic."

"Maybe he’s hiding it well."

"Even so, more than twenty years have passed without incident. While that doesn’t rule out anything, most people aren’t that patient if they wanted to take revenge."

While Leland didn’t read too much on Chief Nyquist’s love life, Ves couldn’t help but keep recalling the example of Davis Sollerant. Perhaps it was just his personal experiences biasing his judgement, but he felt that this detail about the chief technician’s life was a critical clue!

However, even if Ves believed that Chief Nyquist held a lot of resentment against the Bright Republic for allowing his unofficial wife to be killed in action, this detail only provided a motive at best. It was hardly the smoking gun that Ves could use to prove impropriety at the KNG.

"Has the tail assigned to follow Nyquist found out anything of note?" He asked.

"No. Chief Nyquist works long hours at the Mosville Complex and only goes home to sleep. Occasionally, he gathers together with some fellow veterans and co-workers at a local bar, but other than that he’s thrown himself in his work."

Such a boring pattern left very little clues to anyone keeping an eye on him. Even without Leland mentioning it, Ves already knew there was no point in following Nyquist around if he was determined to maintain a low profile.

"I think it’s best if you put the tailing agent on his drinking buddies." He suggested. "Nyquist is way to vigilant and hardly exposes any openings for us to find fault."

Leland nodded in agreement. "That’s reasonable, but it’s highly likely you won’t find anything. None of his drinking buddies possess sketchy backgrounds."

"It’s better than nothing."

Right now, Ves gained a slight sense of progression in his investigation. It was nothing to go on as of yet, but it confirmed his feeling that Chief Nyquist was a person of interest.