The Mech Touch

As the Larkinsons continued to preoccupy themselves with launching planetary raids and handling the aftermath of the battle in orbit, Ves eventually attended an important meeting.

Enough hours had passed for the Larkinson Army to rescue its trapped mech pilots and tally most of the gains and losses. 

"Let's start with the unpleasant news first." Ves spoke shortly after he entered the virtual meeting room. "How many ships have we lost?"

The Larkinsons attending the virtual meeting turned all their heads towards Chief Minister Abigail Evern.

As the most senior naval expert in the clan, Abigail possessed the greatest understanding of the states of all of the starships that participated in the battle.

"At least 12 of our combat carriers have sustained serious damage to the point where they have lost power, FTL travel capability or both." The woman reported. "The good news is that our engineers are confident that they can restore 4 of the aforementioned starships to a state where they can keep up with the fleet by themselves, but that still leaves us with 8 burdens."

The possible permanent loss of 8 combat carriers was a serious blow to the Larkinson Navy.

"How far gone are the 8 most seriously damaged starships?" General Verle inquired.

"That differs from case to case, sir, but they can all be restored in time." Chief Ship Designer Vivian Tsai replied. "We can even restore them in-house if you want. Our Diligent Ovenbird doesn't even have to transform back into stationary mode in order to conduct the necessary repairs. The biggest downside is that we can only fix them one by one, which will take at least a year and a half. The efficiency is too low. It is best to leave this job to dedicated repair yards, but it is notoriously difficult to contract their services."

Ves smiled. "We may be able to swap our damaged or derelict hulls for intact ones."

Both Abigail and Vivian were familiar with the type of service that their patriarch references.

"If we can conclude a deal with those companies, then that is indeed possible." Abigail Evern looked thoughtful. "These kinds of swaps involve trading starships for time, which is unprofitable in the long term but incredibly useful for parties that need to increase their combat power as quickly as possible such as us. If we want to proceed with our original plan of embarking on the Trailblazer Expedition after we have concluded our participation in Operation Saturday Market, then it is not a bad idea to engage in this business."

Though there were Larkinsons who felt that the ship wholesalers were definitely getting the better end of the deal, there were no better alternatives available to them. This was just a part of the reality of the persistent lack of supply of starships in the Red Ocean.

The Larkinsons continued on to talk about the state of their other starships.

"Our other sub-capital ships have received various degrees of damage." Chief Minister Abigail continued. "Some have merely received scratches while others have lost entire compartments into space. Many of them are designed to take a beating, so there is no particular need for concern. We can repair the majority of the damage ourselves. There are only a small number of cases where it is recommended to put them in a drydock to perform more extensive repairs."

"How are our capital ships doing?" Ves asked. "I've noticed that several of them have taken an awful beating."

Abigail nodded. "That is indeed the case, but that is exactly how they were meant to be used. All of our armored vessels such as the Gorgoneion, the Graveyard, the Wild Torch have all received heavy damage to their exterior. However, all of this is within a controllable range. The crews have responded well to the pressure exerted by the Sundered Phalanx and made sure that none of our enemies were able to damage their critical systems."

The hulls of these capital ships were so large and thick that they could endure an unimaginable amount of incoming damage as long as enemies weren't able to concentrate their attacks on specific sections.

The Larkinson Clan actually owed a lot to Task Force Fury for providing a lot of cover during battle. The Hexers attracted the brunt of enemy firepower.

When Ves learned more about the condition of all of his capital ships, he became reassured that none of them had turned into liabilities that could slow down his fleet.

After holding a brief discussion on the damage sustained by the ships of their allies, the meeting soon turned to the losses sustained by the Larkinson Army.

General Verle took over the word at this point. "I won't go into too much detail, but in general our casualties are well within acceptable range. We entered the battle with around 10,000 fully operational mechs. Around 5000 of them have returned in good condition. 3000 more have received light to moderate damage that our clan can easily repair with the capabilities we have on hand. The remaining 2000 or so mechs are scrapped to the point where it makes more sense to fabricate new replacements rather than to bother with rebuilding the mechs from their broken scraps."

Ves paused for a moment as he took in the numbers. "The loss rate is on the low end of our expectations."

"That's not a surprise, sir." General Verle proudly grinned. "Our mech legions have all gained the upper hand when fighting against their Sundered Phalanx counterparts. As long as one side in a battle is able to gain a considerable advantage, their loss rate is drastically reduced. What is particularly commendable is that not a single of our mech legions fell behind at any point during the battle. We have made good use of all of our advantages. With excellent training, powerful mechs, high morale, good preparation and considerable assistance from allies, it would be a surprise if we lost more than a mech regiment's worth of machines. Our clan excels at building mechs. We can easily make up for the losses in a matter of months so long as we have enough carrier capacity."

Several people including Ves and Commander Casella Ingvar frowned.

"Our mechs are all alive." Casella noted. "At least, they are supposed to be. If we were anyone else, then maybe we can dismiss the loss of 2000 mechs without any further thought. This is not the case. Those mechs are all alive as you and I. We can't treat the fall of mechs like the Shield of Samar as a numbers game. We need to do more to honor their sacrifice in battle."

General Verle looked doubtful. "What are you suggesting?"

"Give them a funeral. Emphasize their contributions during our memorial service. All I ask is that we treat them as soldiers rather than our equipment."

"I agree." Ves concurred with the expert pilot. "We never paid too much attention to this before, but after I have seen what is left of the Shield of Samar, I believe it is an injustice to skim over the loss of all of those living mechs. Many of them are several years old and they have already experienced a lot of growth alongside their mech pilots. It is regrettable that their potential has been cut short due to their early demise."

If possible, Ves really wanted to take all of those wrecked mechs and find a way to restore them to their former glory.

As the father of living mechs and the designer of their models, he couldn't stand the idea of discarding the broken remains when there was still a possibility of 'reviving' them. Not every wreck was as gone as the Shield of Samar!

However, there was only so much work the clan could do. Its manpower and production capacity was limited.

Though Ves had already accepted this unfortunate reality in the past, that did not mean he was happy with the status quo. He increasingly felt a need to do more to remedy this awful situation.

Perhaps he could figure out a new solution while he attempted to restore the Shield of Samar from almost nothing.

Ves lifted up his head. "I already understand the situation concerning our mechs. What are the casualties among our mech pilots?"

"We don't have any final figures as there are those that have sustained severe injuries and might not make it to the end." General Verle said in a more subdued tone. "In general, around 450 are confirmed killed in action while 200 more are moderately to severely injured. Our losses have been light considering the scale of the battle that we fought in. All of the variables that I have mentioned before have heavily contributed to minimizing the deaths of our mech pilots."

No one looked particularly surprised at the mention of these figures. The Larkinson Army had gained the upper hand early on, so not a lot of mech pilots became exposed to danger.

Those that lost their mechs were usually able to eject in time and safely return to the fleet without incident.

Most of the mech pilots who died were usually those who failed to eject from their doomed mechs in time. The Sundered Phalanx still had plenty of mechs that were capable of dealing so much damage that they could punch through the chest armor and cockpit in one go like the Space Piercers.

Though Ves regretted these deaths, objectively the Larkinson Clan suffered negligible damage.

The clan had deliberately hired a reserve of 3000 surplus mech pilots. They were almost just as good as the Larkinson Army's active mech pilots. Their only shortcoming was that the mech legions didn't have enough mechs to make them useful in battle.

Now that hundreds of Larkinson mech pilots had been taken out of action, the Larkinson Army could easily call upon these reserves to quickly make up for the shortfall.

This was why no one paid too much attention to the deaths of so many mech pilots. As long as the Larkinson Army was able to get back up strength in a timely manner, the clan would fully return to its peak.

Ves soon turned to the most interesting part of the meeting.

"How many expert candidates and expert pilots have we gained and lost?"

Everyone turned to Commandant Cristoph Larkinson who led the Hall of Heroes.

Though the man usually maintained a low profile, he played a vital role in managing the powerhouses of the Larkinson Army.

"Three new expert pilots have joined our ranks." The man steadily replied. "None of them were particularly prominent when they were expert candidates, but they have quietly built up enough accumulation that it only took a single push for them to experience apotheosis. Each of them managed to break through fairly quickly once they entered battle, which shows that it was only a matter of time before they made a name for themselves."

Ves quickly skimmed through the list of names. He didn't really know any of them well enough to care too much about them. Unless any one of them were particularly special, he was more than willing to hand over their cases to Gloriana.

"What about our expert candidates?"

"Two of them have unfortunately perished in battle." Commandant Christoph regretfully said. "They attracted too much attention in battle but didn't have the strength or ability to deal with it. The good news is that we gained 9 new expert candidates, many of whom are on the younger side. Just as before, these expert candidates already stood out before they broke through. They have all invested a lot of effort into improving themselves by conducting rigorous training with the MSTS and also accrued sufficient real battle experience by fulfilling numerous mercenary missions."

The addition of 9 expert candidates was great news for the Larkinson Army. Ves already expected to gain that much from a single battle.

Just as Commandant Cristoph had mentioned, the Mental Simulation Training Simulation had drastically improved the accumulation of a lot of Larkinson mech pilots over the years!

Even if the Everchanger did not switch to the transcendence glow, the most talented among the rank and file soldiers would have broken through eventually.