The best gadgets came about through a combination of resources and tech. Sometimes, both could be acquired by money.
"Yet not everything can be obtained by money."
He also couldn't go too far in pursuing his private pursuits. He knew that the Vandals put a lot of surveillance on him. The mech regiment's all-encompassing internal sensors caught everything that happened within their ships. Even if Ves stepped outside the Shield of Hispania and did some private business on Mancroft's space station, his actions would still be noted by a hidden bug or a security officer following him from a distance.
"Even if I do some shady dealings, I can't do anything that compromises the Vandals or our upcoming mission."
That limited his options a lot. Ves figured he could still get by with obtaining materials at Mancroft, but obtaining the tech that transformed the exotic materials into powerful but stable batteries was another matter.
