The Mech Touch

A lot of salvaging work commenced in the coming days. Valuable goods flew aimlessly in space, just waiting to be plucked.

There were also a lot of restorable wrecks and parts floating around that could easily be put back into working order after expending a bit of effort. Now that the strength of the expeditionary fleet had dropped to a low point, the restoration of even a single mech was of utmost importance!

Turning broken mechs into functional mechs was difficult work. It took too much time to restore them back to peak condition or as close to them as possible.

"We'll have to do some judicious jury rigging." Ves decided. "It doesn't matter if a mech is only half as effective as before if it only takes a few hours to slap some random parts onto an incomplete frame. I would rather have half a mech at my disposal than nothing at all during another crisis."

In order to fix as many mechs as possible, Ves decided to halt all of his current design projects. No one in the Design Department was in the mood to go back to designing mechs at this time. The assistant mech designers were much more useful if they lent their expertise to the maintenance crews trying to fix all of the broken Larkinson mechs.

Ves also had a fair amount of work to do. Some of the Prime mechs such as the Valkyrie Prime, Piranha Prime and the Bright Spear Prime accumulated a fair bit of damage to their internals.

While the enemy completely failed to breach their Unending armor, a varying amount of shock and heat damage still managed to pass through and affect the more delicate internals.

"There are so many items on my agenda that I don't even have time to inspect the Charlemagne and the Jeanne D'Arc!"

Time was of the essence, and the Golden Skull Alliance had far too little of it. News of the battle had already spread. While the details in public were scarce, the first scout ships had already arrived in the star system.

Ves knew that this was just the beginning. As long as those corvettes observed the expanding debris field for some time, they would know that a lot of very valuable military hardware had been destroyed recently!

"We'll be welcoming all kinds of vultures soon!"

There was no order in this border star system. With no authority laying down the law, the only way for the expeditionary forces to deter opportunistic thieves was to have the biggest fist!

"The problem is that our fist is already bloodied and broken. We can't punch as hard as before."

The solution they came up with was to hire mercenaries. While Ves had his misgivings on this course of action, it was objectively the best solution they could make at this time.

They already signed a contract with a very large and renowned mercenary organization on an emergency basis. The cost of calling in a strong mercenary force on extremely short notice was considerable, but what choice did they have?

At the very least, Ves felt that he got what he paid for. The mercenary organization that was about to supplement the defense of his expeditionary fleet not only possessed a great track record, but was also a behemoth in the Yeina Star Cluster.

Any mercenary organization that operated multiple branches across multiple star sectors had to maintain an excellent reputation. Their credibility was important to them as the misdeeds of one branch could affect business in every other branch that operated under the same brand.

This was why these huge mercenary companies never turned against their own clients.

Considering the huge value of the expeditionary fleet, this was not an impossibility. As long as the benefits outweighed the very considerable costs, unscrupulous mercenaries were more than happy to turn against their own customers!

That was not going to happen here. The mercenaries the alliance chose to work with could earn much more money by doing steady business across the star cluster than performing a robbery just a single time.

Of course, it still took time for the local mercenary branch to mobilize all of their forces and travel to a border star system.

This meant that the expeditionary fleet would have to fend for itself for the foreseeable time.

"We'll manage, sir." Major Verle reassured Ves during another meeting. "Our surviving mech pilots are surprisingly optimistic after the battle."

Ves reacted with surprise. "Oh? If I recall, more than 1800 of their comrades-in-arms have died."

The senior military commander smiled. "You haven't been spending time among the men lately, haven't you? While there are plenty of Larkinsons who are depressed, the overall sentiment in the clan is still positive."

"How can that be? This doesn't make any sense."

"There are several reasons why the negative blowback is lower than anticipated. First, the Larkinson Clan is already inoculated against suffering considerable losses in major battles. The Battle of Kesseling VIII, the Battle of Ulimo Citadel and the Battle against the Abyss have all caused our clansmen to cope increasingly better with these kinds of outcomes."

"That.. makes sense."

"Not a single mech pilot of the clan is unaware of the risks we are facing. We have deliberately overemphasized the dangers in order to lessen any backlash. Throughout the short history of our clan, it has become increasingly clear that we are not destined to lead peaceful lives."

"Sorry about that." Ves lamely said.

There was no denying that he was the principal cause behind much if not all of the aforementioned battles. He bore the responsibility of disappointing so many Larkinsons who believed in his vision and wanted to be a part of it. Now, they were no longer among the living.

"You don't need to feel sorry about anything, sir. You have always been transparent about the risks we incur. In fact, that is something that we have been emphasizing over and over among our men, both new and old. It's kind of cruel to put it in this way, but they only have themselves to blame. If you are at risk of losing your savings if you play at a casino, you don't have the right to complain if the worst-case scenario actually happens. It's the same with our clan. Everyone who we recruited into the clan wants to win the jackpot. That doesn't mean that they are entitled to win the grand prize."

Equating the Larkinson Clan to a casino was not exactly the most flattering comparison, but Ves found it to be an apt comparison. As long as every Larkinson adopted the same mentality, then he could see how there would be less hard feelings.

"Of course, that's not enough to placate the surviving Larkinsons." Verle continued. "One of the other reasons why we have managed to temper the consequences is because of how well we treat the deceased and their family. Anyone who dies will be completely assured that their relatives will be taken care of. We don't kick any spouses and kids out of our clan. Instead, we give them generous pensions and provide them with preferential treatment. This alone is a cause worth dying for to many mech pilots."

The kind of people the Larkinsons hired all cared about family. Kinship was of great importance to the clan so those who got in were never too selfish or cruel.

Ves nodded in understanding. "Okay, I can see how those reasons have kept the reactions within a healthy range. I guess that our officers and leaders have also become better at managing the morale and expectations of our men. Are there any other reasons or is that everything?"

"There is.. one more factor that may be playing a role." Major Verle reluctantly said. "I'm not sure I should even mention it because of how silly it sounds."

"That makes me even more curious. Just tell me, major."

"If you say so. The truth is that there are an increasing amount of Larkinsons who… believe that the dead are still sticking around."

Ves resisted the urge to clean his ears. Did he hear that right?

"What the heck are you talking about?"

"I'm unsure how to explain it, sir. The best way I can describe it is that an increasing number of Larkinsons, particularly the more religious-minded ones, have developed the impression that the honorable deceased of our clan is still among us and watching over us. One interpretation even posits that the ancestors of the original Larkinson Family have been protecting us from the shadows all this time. It's a way to rationalize the invisible bond they formed to the clan ever since they joined."

"..."

Ves didn't even know where to begin. This was pure superstition. The Larkinsons who died were gone. He was pretty sure about that. He didn't know what happened to people once they perished, but they definitely weren't hanging around! He would have been able to spot any ghosts with his spiritual vision if that was the case.

The Larkinson Network may be remarkable in many ways, but it did not have any functions related to preserving any aspect of people's lives. It was not designed to substitute the afterlife.

Still.. now that he thought about it, was it possible to turn it into a new home for the dead?

What if it was possible to program the Larkinson Network in a way to capture and preserve the spiritualities of dead Larkinsons? Would it work on anyone or would it only work for those with spiritual potential?

What about the expert pilots of the clan? If Ves was able to preserve as much of their wills and spiritualities as possible, would it be possible for him to recycle them in the same way the expeditionary fleet intended to recycle the salvage they collected?

This was an incredibly audacious idea!

It was also an insanely difficult one to realize. Ves quickly dampened his excitement when he thought of all of the steps he needed to make in order to upgrade the Larkinson Network to this extent.

His current theoretical framework on spirituality was too rudimentary to develop such a crazy application!

He shook his head and threw the idea to the back of his mind where all of his other ideas were collecting dust.

"I shouldn't need to tell you that those beliefs have no ground. The dead are dead. They are not 'sticking around' or 'protecting us from above'. The only ones who can defend us against our enemies are ourselves."

"You should tell that to the Penitent Sisters and the Ylvainans. The incidents where they activated their battle networks seemed to have connected them to greater entities that have adopted some very difficult outlooks on life and death."

"Ugh. It figures."

He should have realized that exposing the minds of his mech pilots to Prophet Ylvaine and the Superior Mother would lead to this outcome. The Penitent Sisters and the Ylvainans just so happened to be the most religious and superstitious members of his clan!

Ves was too annoyed to deal with this problem. "Make sure that our officers don't encourage any of these baseless theories."

"That has been our stance from the start, but there are limits to this approach. You can't control what people believe, sir. You can encourage and discourage the propagation of certain dangerous beliefs, but we can't be too heavy-handed. It's useless anyway."

The believers would just go underground if that was the case. If Ves really wanted to, he could probably root them out as well, but that would just make the clan become a lot less pleasant.

"Well, whatever. As long as no one imposes any beliefs on anyone, it's fine as long as long as our mech pilots keep doing their jobs."

"Speaking of our religious-minded Larkinsons, there is something that you should know. Something has happened to a very influential leader of ours. I think you should pay a visit to him before it's too late."

"Who are you referring to?" Ves grew curious.

"It's James Ylvaine."