The Mech Touch

Time went by as the Larkinsons busied themselves with their preparations. Machinists and technicians broke down a lot of valuable scrap and began to clad them onto their ships or mechs, sometimes without any regard for balance or mass distribution.

This was a viable means of upgrading the durability of a mech in the short term. The enemies the Larkinsons expected to face would definitely bring a lot of firepower to the table. Adding extra layers of armor would give many mechs some additional chances of survival.

As for the negative impact on their mobility, Ves and the other leaders did not think much of it. Ves personally designed a special attachment scheme that was semi-modular. The way the Larkinsons slapped the additional armor plating onto the mechs was done in a way to make them detachable when they were rendered unusable.

Simply put, the mechs gained some scales that covered much of their surface. As long as the Larkinsons coated the scrap armor with the color schemes of the respective mech troops, then they didn't look that out of place!

While the mechs only carried a relatively thin layer of additional armor, the starships gained substantially more.

Ves decisively commanded the fleet to use up all of the relatively lower-value bulk metals that filled many of the cargo bays. While it was difficult to shape these materials into large armor plates in a fleet while on the move, the Larkinsons somehow made it work with the help of the available mobile fabrication capabilities.

As long as no one minded the occasional flaws, cracks and sloppy finishings, the output was still adequate.

The Penitent Sisters took much of the newly-produced ship plating and used them to reinforce the bow armor of their combat carriers.

Since Ves ruthlessly decided to convert all of these strong vessels into single-use ramming vessels, he wanted them to excel in their new role.

The main purpose for adding more frontal power was to give the combat carriers a greater chance at withstanding the primary and secondary gun battery fire of the Gravada Knarlax.

With all of the bulk armor being put onto the ships, the effectiveness of secondary battery fire was heavily reduced. As for the main guns, Ves did not harbor that much hope. When a cannon reached a certain scale, armor became like paper. They would be lucky if the additional armor gave the combat carriers the chance to survive an additional hit.

"Hopefully, the firing rate of those main cannons aren't too fast."

Bigger guns generally reloaded slower. The bigger the caliber, the much more troublesome it became to load in another shell smoothly. Due to the relative cramped space of a warship, ship designers had to squeeze in a lot of functionality while keeping everything stable and robust.

These were very strenuous demands as warships were always expected to continue functioning even if they came under heavy fire.

Ves did not believe the pirate warships were built well enough to meet the insanely high standards of the CFA. Continuous investment or not, there was only so much a bunch of criminals could do in a barren and lightly-populated region like the Nyxian Gap.

"Hopefully, at least some of the combat carriers will reach their target this way."

As an extra touch, the Penitent Sisters also shaped the prows of their combat carriers in the form of a cone or triangular shape. While this change might not have that much of effect at collisions of this scale, it was still worth a try in order to see if the combat carriers were capable of breaching the armor of the heavy cruiser.

Of course, with the addition of all of that mass, much of the flight characteristics of the combat carrier had turned a bit messy. The crew of the ship had to make constant adjustments to offset the small but noticeable shift in balance.

All of this presented a new problem. If the ships accrued too much mass, it would take far too long for them to build up a respectable amount of speed. Perhaps the Gravada Knarlax might be capable of dodging the incoming suicide ships just enough to turn a devastasting blow into a glancing blow!

This was why all of the engineers of the Penitent Sisters came together and outlined an extensive set of modifications to the sub-light propulsion systems.

Commodore Abigail Evern personally explained the proposal to Ves one day.

"Since we don't expect to retain any of our combat carriers after the decisive battle, we wish to convert a large portion of the interior to make room for temporary boosters and other supporting elements. Our goal is to use up as much fuel and energy as possible in as little time as possible to sustain the powerful boosters and supercharge the other propulsion systems."

"How will you use all of that excess energy?"

"There is little point to retaining all of the fuel and energy if there is no expectation that the ships will survive past a month. We might as well use it all up even if it is astronomically wasteful."

The efficiency of these measures were horrible. Ves glanced at the estimates drafted by the Hexer engineers and all told it was wholly unacceptable under normal circumstances.

For example, in order to gain a modest ten percent boost in acceleration, the ship had to use up at least five-thousand times more fuel and energy!

And this was just the start. Each successive increase in acceleration demanded an exponentially greater amount of juice.

However, in these specific circumstances, it was worth it! The only reason why Ves looked a bit hesitant was because he knew it wasn't easy to contain the violent reactions needed to give the large and heavy combat carriers a powerful shove forward.

Still, former cultists or not, the Hexers knew how to train their engineers. The extensive designs the Penitent Sisters put forward all outlined robust changes at the stern of the vessels in question.

"Where will you get all of the high-quality materials needed to build all of these new parts?" Ves asked.

"We will be cannibalizing much of the interior of our combat carriers." Commodore Abigail readily answered. "Much of the interior of our combat carriers are geared towards supporting longer deployments. Think of large compartments devoted to storing ammunition, spare parts, recycling systems, and all of the machinery required to service and maintain our mechs. If we cannibalize all of these redundant elements, we'll be able to fashion quite a bit of crude but workable solutions."

Ves was quite surprised at the flexibility exhibited by the Penitent Sisters. They may be stiff about their beliefs, but everything else about them spoke of an abundant amount of competence.

Nevermind their mech pilots, Ves wanted to absorb their ship crews! With all of these excellent second-class spacers at his disposal, he could instantly man his upcoming factory ship with them, thereby ensuring that his future flagship would run a lot more smoother at the start than he initially projected.

With huge and lumbering capital ships, malfunctions and screw ups always hindered their functioning at the beginning.

Under normal circumstances, every large and complex ship had to undergo numerous trials in order to work out all of the teething problems. No matter how precise the shipbuilders put the ship together, they always left behind at least some mistakes and miscalculations.

Even a small but critical error might be enough to cause a part of the ship to explode!

In these crucial situations, having trained and experienced spacers at hand could vastly reduce the chances of small problems snowballing into life-threatening disasters!

As for the complication that most of these competent spacers consisted of radical Hexers, Ves paid little mind to this issue.

He finished studying all of the reports and diagrams. While he did not understand the deeper nuances of naval engineering, he was still able to glean enough details by relying on his existing foundation in mechanics, propulsion systems and other relevant fields.

"All of this looks good to me. You have my approval to implement these extensive modifications. Will your crews be able to complete the transformations in time?"

Commodore Evern nodded. "We are confident we will so long as we don't adhere to a strict standard. Supreme Mother willing, we will work as fast as possible to allow our cherished ships to go down in a blaze of glory!"

That was another important aspect of their plan. Alongside modifying their ships, the Penitent Sisters also helped with producing potent explosives to give their planned attack run some extra bite.

Alongside programming the power reactors to overload on command, adding all of the bombs, some of which qualified as weapons of mass destruction, would surely give the Gravada Knarlax some added difficulties!

The only downside of fabricating all of these homemade bombs was that they weren't able to turn enough of them into directional explosives. When most of the bombs detonated, much of the blast would radiate in the opposite direction of the target, thereby wasting a lot of their destructive potential.

It couldn't be helped. To contain and direct so many forces required materials and manufacturing capabilities that were out of reach to the task force.

If only they had his factory ship. With the extensive industrial manufacturing capabilities of such a huge and ridiculously expensive vessel, they wouldn't need to sink so low in order to hastily increase their battle capabilities.

"Alright, I've seen enough. Keep up the good work."

With the crucial ship modifications running on schedule, Ves no longer paid attention to this aspect. He devoted his full attention to enhancing the battle power of his mechs.

Aside from working out the theory and application of his battle network concept, he also began work on transforming regular Bright Warriors into powerful custom mechs for every expert candidate.

He decided to start with the simplest modification project. He invited Ketis to reengineer a Bright Warrior in its swordsman mech configuration so that it suited a Swordmaiden mech pilot.

"I've often thought about adapting the Nova Warriors in order to make them more compatible with our fight style." She said as she looked up at the machine that Ves had moved to the Scarlet Rose's mech workshop. "A full transformation will probably take a month to accomplish."

"That's too long." Ves shook his head. "These custom mechs are only stopgap solutions. We don't have to aim for something permanent. Once Commander Dise advanced to expert pilot, we can slowly work towards designing a dedicated expert mech for her. Until then, we just have to prepare a mech that is better than what she currently pilots."

"That's going to be a challenge." Ketis said. "What she is piloting right now fits her fighting style well. It's Mayra's work after all. While I know that the absolute performance of the Bright Warrior is far superior to what is now a last-gen third-class mech, we can't really replicate the piloting experience that Commander Dise prefers."

This was a very serious issue to Ves. "I'll try to make it as comfortable as possible for her. This is something of a specialty of mine so I am sure I can find some way to ease the transition. Until then, we only have a week at maximum to modify this mech. Let's make the most out of it. We can't waste any time."

The two began to load the design of the mech and began to manipulate the diagrams and wireframe models to transform the Bright Warrior.

To his surprise, Ves found out that Ketis had caught up quite a bit to his level. While she was far from holding as much knowledge as him, when it came to her narrow specialty, she was already a match for many regular Journeymen!

Their discussions produced a lot of results for that reason. It only took half a day to settle on all of the changes they intended to realize.

"At the end of this week, this mech should be strong enough to chop up a ship!"