The Mech Touch

"Before we begin to study the enemy combat strength, it is useful to take stock of our own fighting capabilities first." Colonel Ariadne Wodin of the Glory Seekers stated.

She called up another projection that outlined the numbers of the Larkinson Clan, Glory Seekers and the Cross Clan.

While the Crossers weren't invited to this meeting, they still sent a basic summary of their strength. Whether it was accurate or not, it at least gave the others a good idea of what their allies were capable of in battle.

"The Larkinson Clan possesses 94 second-class Hexer-built combat carriers." Major Verle began. "While our combat carriers are not up to military standards, they come fairly close to them. While the tech is at least fifty years out of date, their defensive capabilities are mostly sound. Each combat carrier boasts at least 3 to 6 bunkers. We also have the Spirit of Bentheim."

Captain Vraken took over from here. "The Spirit of Bentheim is a ruggedized factory ship with enhanced defenses. She can play a key role in the upcoming battle. With her 80 bunkers, her powerful shield generators, her resilient hull plating and her armored prow, she can partially function as our defensive bulwark."

They had little choice but to make use of the Spirit of Bentheim in the upcoming battle. Ideally, the Larkinsons did not want to expose their precious factory ship to enemy attacks, but without any other capital ships at their disposal, they did not have the luxury to set such a powerful ship aside.

Major Verle moved on to summarizing their mechs. "After accounting for the recent additions to our mech roster, we are capable of deploying up to 4300 mechs at once. However, before you get excited, please note that around 3550 consist of second-class budget mechs. The only second-class mechs that are able to achieve parity against the Fridaymen mechs are 350 Transcendent Punishers and 200 Valkyrie Redeemers."

Ves felt a huge amount of regret right now. Due to his cheapskate tendencies, he refused to invest in higher quality second-class mechs during the reconstruction of his mech forces.

His logic back then was that an attack against his expeditionary fleet was too unlikely due to its size and numbers. Ves wanted to avoid wasting too much money by investing into cheaper mechs that didn't require a high upfront cost and wouldn't lose too much value when selling them off in the second-hand market.

In any case, once he completed the Bright Warrior IB and Ferocious Piranha IB designs, his clan would easily be able to solve this temporary weakness.

Unfortunately, The blasted Fridaymen refused to play along!

"Damn Ghanso and damn these persistent bastards!"

Ves mentally beat himself up for not splurging on more powerful mechs while he still could! While he wouldn't have been able to equip his mech pilots with second-class LMC mechs, he could have issued them mechs with comparable performance!

He knew quite well how much the disparity in quality put the Larkinson mech forces at a disadvantage.

In the past, it was usually Ves and his men who bullied their weaker and less organized opponents. The pirates of the Nyxian Gap largely fielded weaker and shabbier mechs that easily fell apart after getting attacked by a mech that cost at least thrice as much to produce.

The Nyxian pirates who piloted inferior machines had to expend a lot more effort in order to scratch a mech that belonged to the Larkinsons!

The only reason why the Nyxian scum came close to defeating Task Force Predator at times was because they were quite aware of their own shortcomings. The pirate lords knew that their infrastructure couldn't support higher-quality mechs and mech pilots, so they sought to increase their strength in other ways.

Arming themselves with weapons of mass destruction, building powerful warships and consorting with the dark gods were just some of the ways the pirates leveled the playing field!

Now that Ves ended up in the same position as the Nyxian pirates back then, he knew his forces had to adopt the same approach.

The only way to increase their combat strength was to cheat!

As Ves desperately listed out the possible ways he could give his side an edge, Colonel Ariadne briefly outlined the combat readiness of the Glory Seekers.

"We possess more mechs than a typical Hexer mech regiment." The old woman explained. "At the onset, we were already able to field around 2000 mechs. The recent addition of the Indigo Tremor has added 600 more mechs to our lineup. Right now, we are capable of fielding 500 Valkyrie mechs and 2100 mechs that are not any worse on average. Our other mech models are either military mech models or premium civilian models that are close to the former in performance."

That sounded quite strong! The Glory Seekers would definitely be able to fight a Fridayman military unit to a standstill if that was the case.

However, Ves remembered a very caveat about the mechs of the Glory Seekers.

"Colonel Ariadne, how many of the mechs of the Glory Seekers are optimized for space combat and how many of them are more suited for combat on land?"

The moods of many Larkinsons had lifted when Colonel Ariadne outlined the mechs of the Glory Seekers, but now that trend had reversed!

"Only half our mechs are truly spaceborn." She replied without hiding anything. "We are able to field 250 Valkyrie Interceptors and 1100 other spaceborn mechs. That doesn't mean our other mechs are incapable of contributing to the battle. Patriarch Ves, you know better than I that while our 250 Valkyrie Hurricanes are optimized to fight under atmospheric conditions, they can still put up a good fight in space."

That was true. The aerial variant of the Valkyrie Redeemer possessed more powerful flight systems in order to fight against gravity and resistance. The problem was that while the Valkyrie Hurricanes were still sealed against vacuum, they lacked some of the accommodations for space warfare.

Most noticeably, the Valkyrie Hurricanes were designed to disperse their heat in the air. Space largely consisted of vacuum so the only way the mechs could get rid of heat was through relying on thermal radiation.

Every other mech designed to fight under atmospheric conditions possessed the same shortcomings. This was why Colonel Ariadna suggested that they should deploy their landbound and aerial mechs close to the fleet.

Ves still wanted to palm his face, though. He disagreed with the Glory Seeker mech doctrine from the start. The Larkinsons would be spending most of their time in space. It was of great importance to make sure they could adequately defend themselves in space before considering anything else!

The Wodins did not think about that. Instead, they blindly copied some of the Hex Army's mech doctrines. One of them advocated that it was better and more efficient to field mechs that were dedicated to combat in a single environment.

While that worked on the scale of a mech army, it did not work as well in this case!

"Our aerial and landbound mechs will still be able to display most of their capabilities as long as the enemy comes to us." Colonel Ariadna confidently claimed. "Our aerial mechs possess good maneuverability, but their endurance is not as good. Our landbound mechs come with inbuilt boosters that grants them limited mobility in space. If that is not sufficient, we can issue floaters to our most immobile assets in order to make them useful."

Overall, the Glory Seekers were still strong despite these issues.

"What of the Cross Clan?"

Calabast spoke up. "According to the information they have supplied along with the intelligence we have gathered on them, the Crossers are stronger than the Glory Seekers. Due to their flight, the Cross Clan has gotten rid of almost all of their useless landbound assets. Our allies may have lost many other assets during the flight from the Becker Tribe, but they have replenished most of their battle losses during the time they resided in the Cinach System. The Crossers can field around 3200 mechs, all of which consist of military mech models or equivalents."

Just like the Glory Seekers, the Crossers were highly-trained soldiers. In fact, the Crosser mech pilots were comparable to elites. They made it through the decline and fall of the Cross Clan in the Garlen Empire and survived the long and ardous flight from the Vicious Mountain Star Sector.

Commander Casella Ingvar of the Living Sentinels gestured to the list that listed out the possible enemy assets.

"While our Larkinson forces are rather mixed in quality, the Glory Seekers and the Cross Clan should be able to match the mechs deployed by our enemies."

That was technically true.

"The five Fridayman deep strike fleet carriers are able to carry up to 2300 mechs in total." Calabast nodded. "The carriers of the Praetor Clan are able to carry around 2000 mechs while the ships of the Planat Clan should have brought up to 1800 mechs. Mind you, these numbers are either estimates or derived from external intelligence sources. You should take them with a grain of salt."

Ves rubbed his smooth-shaven chin. "Those figures shouldn't be too far from the truth. I have already taken a good look at their starships. I highly doubt that they can stuff 50 percent more mechs aboard their ships."

"The bad news is that both the Fridaymen and the Garlaners appear to have dispatched their elite mech units." Calabast cautioned. "We have tried our best to analyze our long-range sensor data. Based on the mechs that are patrolling around the enemy fleet, we are facing the crack troops of both states. This means that each of their mechs are at minimum comparable to the Valkyrie Redeemer in quality."

She may have overestimated the strength of the enemy, but neither Ves nor anyone else believed that was the case!

Without some form of advantage, the enemy strike force wouldn't have been so eager to launch an attack. Considering the nature of their operation, the Fridaymen alone should have definitely sent some of their best troops!

Colonel Ariadne brought up her greatest concern. "There is one more variable that we have yet to address. Expert mechs can completely change the course of a battle."

The Larkinsons all looked depressed. This just happened to be one of the areas that they were lacking in! While they possessed an abundance of expert pilots, they did not have a single expert mech in their possession!

"How many expert mechs are the Glory Seekers able to field?" Ves cautiously asked.

"...One. Just one." She replied in a subdued tone. "Venerable Brutus Wodin stands ready to resist the Fridaymen with the Star Dancer."

"..."

To be fair, against regular opponents, that was already enough. Private sector outfits normally didn't retain any expert pilots at all. A typical military mech regiment usually retained just a single expert pilot. It was already considered luxurious for a mech regiment to be watched over by two or three expert pilots!

"As for our allies, the Cross Clan has informed us that they are able to deploy 4 expert mechs. This also includes the expert mech of Patriarch Reginald Cross."

In total, the Golden Skull Alliance was only able to muster up 5 genuine expert mechs. Somehow, none of the people gathered here today believed the enemy strike force brought less than that!

Ves leaned forward. "The important question here is how many expert pilots the enemy has brought. Do we have any clues?"

Calabast shook her head. "It is not possible to ascertain how many expert mechs the enemy is hiding. We can't rely on old Hexer intelligence data because this is clearly a task force put together out of different elements from different Coalition partners. We can't determine what you want to know through long-ranged observations either because our enemies aren't stupid enough to show their hand early."

This brought a lot of consternation to Ves and the others! They needed to know exactly how many expert mechs they faced in order to prepare the right measures to resist so many extraordinary opponents.

Letting an enemy expert mech move around unopposed was one of the worst outcomes that could happen!

Seeing that no one attending the meeting was able to propose a means to determine the amount of enemy expert mechs they faced, Ves knew he had to resort to a desperate solution.

"Please wait." He told the others before activating his comm.

"You called, Bright Martyr?"

"You should know why I called." Ves spoke to the Living Prophet. "Tell me how much."

James frowned. "I told you over and over again. I am not your personal search machine. Do you know the difficulty of determining what you wish to know? If it is so easy to read the fate of our enemies, I would have been invincible during my first lifetime."

"Just cut the crap and tell me how much!"

"You will not be able to ask any other questions if you insist upon this request."

"I am sure! Now cough up the answer!"

A few minutes later, Ves learned what they faced.

The Friday Coalition trotted out 8 expert pilots.

The Praetor Clan brought 2 expert pilots.

The Planat Clan reluctantly contributed 1 expert pilot.

That amounted to 11 expert pilots and expert mechs in total.

Of those expert mechs, 1 of them was bound to be the Charlemagne, which was always accompanied by a mech company of quasi-expert mechs!

The destruction they could inflict on the enemy when they fought together was far more than what they could accomplish on their own!

"We're screwed."