The Mech Touch

　　All forms of pakklaton opposition had been neutralized one way or another. The voribugs were all suppressed to a tolerable level and any explosive risk factors had fallen firmly under the control of the human boarding parties.

　　Different from last battles, the cleanup operation was a lot more complicated this time.

　　A lot of ships of the expeditionary fleet incurred serious hull damage to their bow sections.

　　While the space worthiness of the capital ships was still intact, the vessels still needed a lot of repair work in order to prevent subsequent enemies from exploiting the loopholes in their defensive coverage.

　　Another complication that the Golden Skull Alliance had to deal with was how to take advantage of the spoils they gained.

　　The pakklaton ships were not particularly high-end. They were built with serviceable bulk materials and did not contain anything special aside from their warp drives and various goods that they managed to take in when they started their flight.

　　"We managed to free up a lot of cargo space when we made a pit stop at Davute, but we'll fill all of our cargo holds if we attempt to stuff all of the valuable materials that we can salvage from the alien wrecks." Gavin's projection reported to Ves. "Even then, we'll be leaving a lot more materials behind. We'd be throwing away thousands of MTA credits worth of salvage."

　　Ves recalled the mountain of debt hanging over the Larkinson Clan. Even if he had to split the salvage with his alliance partners, he still didn't want to let go of a potential opportunity to earn a lot of money!

　　"I don't want to return to Davute right away after filling up our cargo holds. It seems wasteful to go back just a short time after we started a journey to the deep frontier. I don't want other scavengers to get their hands on all of this salvage for cheap. Do you have any suggestions on what we should do, Benny?"

　　"I was waiting for you to ask that question." The personal assistant smirked. "Compared to before, our situation has changed. Our circle of friends is no longer limited to the Glory Seekers and the Cross Clan. We have vastly expanded our business network after forming the Open Consortium. There are numerous consortium partner that we can call upon to dispatch a fleet to this star system and bring all of our plunder back to Davute."

　　Ves' eyes lit up! Gavin was right!

　　If the Larkinsons couldn't trust anyone, they would have little choice but to salvage the most valuable materials themselves while leaving much of the bulkier materials behind.

　　At best, they might contact a third party to sell the salvage at a steep discount, thereby missing out on a huge amount of profits!

　　However, if they could sell or entrust the salvage from the pakklaton refugee fleet to a consortium partner or two, they could form a win-win arrangement where the Golden Skull Alliance could earn a lot more money without doing anything by themselves!

　　"Contact Chairwoman Calsie of the Open Consortium. Work out a deal where our clan can maximize our profits. How much money do you think we can earn from this arrangement?"

　　"I can't say yet, boss. It depends on how many valuable exotics we choose to add to our reserves and how much the alien ships are actually worth. We haven't completed our surveys on them so we don't know what materials they contain and what other valuables they might have such as artworks, databases and so on. Furthermore, ships that are more intact and functional are substantially more valuable than broken pieces of wreckage."

　　"Can you give me an estimate? Just give me an idea."

　　"Hm, I estimate that our share of the profits should range from 6,000 to 14,000 MTA credits."

　　"That much?!"

　　Gavin smiled. "The pakklaton race might not be that impressive to us, but their refugee fleet is still formidable. Few other pioneering organizations would have been able to fight it head on and take it down without suffering too many losses. Don't forget that we beat pakklatons a lot easier than usual due to their voribug infestation. The damage they inflicted onto the alien ships has substantially reduced their value. The fact that they are still gnawing the ships from the inside will impose a lot of burdens on whoever takes over prizes, so we have to lower their value even further."

　　The maximum possible value of the alien refugee fleet would have been a lot higher if it was completely intact, but Ves did not mind that. The poor conditions of the pakklaton ships had made it much easier to defeat them all. The voribugs had truly helped the Golden Skull Alliance out this time.

　　Once they finished their discussion on how to handle the salvage, Gavin brought up a more delicate topic.

　　"You told our boarding troops to take prisoners whenever possible. They weren't always able to do that, but they managed to capture a lot of pakklaton prisoners, mostly civilians aboard the evacuation ship. How… how do you wish to handle them, boss?"

　　That was a good question. Though Ves did not wish to perpetrate a senseless slaughter, he could not easily dump a lot of pakklaton prisoners on a random ship and call it a day.

　　"How many did we capture?"

　　"Currently, our forces have captured a total of 43,643 juvenile and adult pakklatons. We also found egg chambers where the pakklatons have stored 112,340 of their eggs."

　　Another set of massive numbers! This time, the figures were far more serious. Ves could not easily dispose of these prisoners after he had ordered his men to take them prisoner.

　　"Eggs, benny?"

　　"Apparently, the eggs are stored in a way that stretches out their incubation time to an extreme degree, which effectively prolongs the hatching by many years. Chicks won't come out of the eggs unless we want to, so we don't have to worry about feeding an extra hundred-thousand mouths."

　　"Are they edible?" Ves casually asked.

　　Gavin violently coughed. "The pakklatons are sentient aliens! They are not chickens, and their eggs are not like the ones you eat for breakfast. Eating them is almost like cannibalism!"

　　"Whoa there. Geez. If I knew you would react so strongly to it, I wouldn't have asked this question. Never mind, then."

　　Ves wasn't really being serious anyway. There was no logical reason for him to eat pakklatons when ordinary poultry could also do the job.

　　The other Larkinsons might not agree, though. He was not blind to the fact that the Swordmaidens and many other clansmen did not view eating sentient alien flesh as taboo.

　　"Put the aliens aside for now." Ves dismissively waved his hand. "I'm not sure the Blinding Banshee is large enough to hold them all and I'm sure we need to make a lot of special accommodations to hold them for more than a week. We also need to figure out what to do with them after this. We can't just give them back their freedom nor execute them out of hand."

　　Ketis had made the issue of dealing with the survivors a lot more complicated than normal. He already foresaw plenty of future headaches.

　　His talk with Gavin ended shortly afterwards. The situation was still changing and the Golden Skull Alliance still needed to tally all of the loot. Everyone would have a much better idea on what to do with their spoils once they knew exactly what they got out of this battle.

　　The Larkinson Clan and the Open Consortium worked quickly. Calsie had gotten in touch with a couple of consortium partners and eventually helped with forming a salvage agreement with two different companies.

　　Murphy & Sons expressed a lot of interest in getting its hands on the more intact and working alien starships.

　　As a shipbuilding company, its shipwrights were constantly on the lookout for alien ships. Even if alien shipbuilding standards were more superior, the alien ships were much more refined in their use of warp drives. The vessels were also native to the Red Ocean, which meant they made good use of materials that were abundant in the Red Ocean.

　　The Murphies could derive a lot of insight and inspiration from studying the alien vessels!

　　They might even choose to renovate them into more human starships!

　　However, Murphy & Sons wasn't capable of bringing home the salvage by itself.

　　In order to perform the bulk of the salvage and transportation work, a rather boring-sounding company known as the RTG Group offered its assistance.

　　The RTG Group was a company that specialized in various spaceborn activities. It not only specialized in salvaging, but also achieved success in space construction.

　　According to Calsie, Murphy & Sons and RTG Group had already grown close to each other. The latter group had offered its services to help the shipbuilding company restore its damaged shipyard.

　　In the future, once Murphy & Sons decided to build a second shipyard, RTG Group would readily be available to take on this heavy responsibility.

　　This was just one of the many bonds of cooperation that had emerged since the Open Consortium came into existence.

　　Ves no longer paid attention to this, though. He had grown tense and excited when he heard that Ketis and her group of Swordmaiden soldiers returned from the alien evacuation ship.

　　The swordmaster couldn't return to the Spirit of Bentheim willy-nilly this time. The risk of bringing tiny voribugs was not great, but it only took a single moment of carelessness to turn the factory ship into a new nest for the space bugs!

　　The Larkinsons employed a lot of detection and sterilization procedures before they were certain that Ketis was clean.

　　Only then was she allowed to step aboard the Spirit of Bentheim again.

　　She did not linger in the hangar bay but moved all the way to design lab where a lot of mech designers awaited her return.

　　"Welcome back, ma'am!"

　　The hundreds of assistant mech designers all crowded closer in order to observe the clear egg that was in the swordmaster's armored grasp.

　　Once Ketis stopped in front of Ves, she raised the egg-shaped container and presented it to the patriarch.

　　"Is this what you wanted, Ves?"

　　"Yes."

　　"Was it worth it?" Ketis asked.

　　"You know my answer." He replied as he looked at her with a knowing expression. "I am aware that not everyone in the clan agrees with me. I think you should figure out your own answer to your question."

　　Ves reached out and tried to take the container that stored over 2 kilograms of phasewater from her armored grasp.

　　She didn't let go, though.

　　"Promise me, Ves." She said.

　　"Promise what?"

　　"Promise me that you will sincerely uphold the promise that I have given to the aliens. I don't want to see your prisoners 'disappearing' yet again. Not with these pakklatons."

　　Ves began to frown. "Do you know what you're asking? You're contravening the policies of the Big Two. Look, I don't mind keeping some of them alive, but you're just asking for trouble if you want to preserve such a massive alien population."

　　"Then we'll deal with it. Just do it, Ves. Don't make me break my promise."

　　"…Fine. I'll figure something out." He grumbled.

　　She finally let go of the egg container, allowing Ves to take possession of this valuable bounty!

　　"Meow…?"

　　Lucky had already floated close to it. The cat looked confused as he sniffed the clear container. Whatever it was made from suppressed all of the instability associated with pure phasewater to an impressive degree!

　　"Are you thirsty, Lucky?"

　　"Meow…"

　　"What do you mean, you don't know?"

　　Lucky looked a bit frightened. His body drew back from the egg container.

　　"Meow meow…"

　　The cat wasn't sure he could even ingest phasewater!