The Mech Touch

As Ves kept interviewing Captain Salica Yontrus of Giorno's Ridebashers, he kept getting personal and insightful answers on the uses of different LMC mechs.

The woman knew how to tell a good story. The presence of children in the room also caused her to modulate her words and tailor her narrative to make her units sound cooler and more awesome in action.

"So you managed to achieve a 7.3 to 1 takedown ratio for your Monster Slayer mechs?!" Andraste said with astonishment in her childish voice.

"That's right." The mercenary captain bemusedly replied. "It is mainly due to how this mech fits into our system. We know of other outfits that like to use their Monster Slayers as maneuverable frontal battle units. That allows them to take down a lot of enemy mechs by storm and cause a lot of morale damage to the enemy. However, these mechs also tend to get damaged and destroyed more often, so their kill ratios are a lot lower as a consequence."

"How difficult was it for your mech pilots to get good at fighting with the Monster Slayer?"

"It's a mech that is surprisingly easy to learn for our melee mech specialists. Anyone with a good foundation in swordsmanship can get started on learning how to wield oversized bladed weapons easily enough. It is mastering it that is the real challenge. The Monster Slayer somehow helps with that, but it is ultimately up to the individual pilots themselves to do the hard work. The further they go, the more they need to rely on their own practice and talent to excel. Only our best melee performers have the right to pilot this model. Others are better off piloting knight mechs or other regular machines."

The Monster Slayer's status within Giorno's Ridebashers was similar to the Second Sword within the Swordmaidens. Both machines served as highly effective elite machines that stood out for their amazing potential and high skill ceiling. The more skilled the mech pilot, the more drastic the performance!

This aligned with how Ketis always envisioned her mechs to be used. She explicitly designed the Monster Slayer as a duelist machine where trained and experienced mech athletes could best utilize its advanced movement and attack capabilities on solid ground.

Ves was happy to hear that the Ridebashers managed to make good use of the Monster Slayer model in the field as opposed to a controlled mech arena.

Although this forced the mercenaries to work around several limitations such as its thin and lightweight armor system, the benefits were absolutely worthwhile as long as the mech pilots liked to live dangerously.

From the way that Andraste constantly expressed excitement at the stories about the Monster Slayer, she looked as if she was ready to hop into the cockpit as soon as she became 10 years old and tested her genetic aptitude!

Ves patted the girl that was resting in his arms. "Calm down, pumpkin. The Monster Slayer is a great mech, but it is a more commercial and budget-focused machine. It performs well relative to its production cost and material requirements, but it is not exactly a machine that can easily keep up against the elite mechs deployed by professional military organizations. The Ridebashers mostly fight against other mercenaries and the like, so the opposition is not as fierce."

Captain Yontrus readily admitted this fact. "That is true. We know our limits. I think we will soon be leaving Davute because once total war breaks out, outfits like ours will get thrown to the meat grinder. No amount of compensation and pensions promised by the government will ever make up for our deaths and material losses."

Mercenaries weren't stupid. Their noses for death were extremely sensitive. Employers needed to offer vastly greater sums of money and other benefits in order to persuade them to put their lives at risk.

It was quite interesting to hear an ordinary mercenary's insights about the upcoming war between Davute and Karlach. Captain Yontrus already fought with the soldiers fighting on the opposite side so she possessed a much more grounded perspective towards this escalating conflict than the usual people that Ves talked to these days.

Aurelia recognized this as well and already began to ask questions to satisfy her own curiosity.

"Are there any differences between the mercenaries hired by Davute and the mercenaries hired by Karlach?"

"We are all the same, so it is hard to see any differences that apply to us both." The mercenary captain replied. "Davute and Karlach have slight differences in how they treat and manage the mercenaries they hire. Davute doesn't pay much in cash, but they offer compensation in different forms such as mechs, phasewater and even land, especially if you sign long-term contracts. A lot of smaller outfits signed up in Davute. As long as they survive, they stand to earn a massive profit."

"What about Karlach?"

"Karlach prefers to work with a smaller number of strong mercenary organizations to ease coordination and limit the chaos. What is special about Karlach is that it is much more willing to promise land, cities, planets or entire provinces depending on how much you are worth. The catch is that much of those territories are currently based in Davute. Only by winning the war will the Karlach mercenaries be able to become the new aristocrats of their colonial state."

Aurelia widened her eyes until they became saucers.

"How... how devious!"

It was an excellent way to motivate mercenary organizations that always wished to start their own colonies but never had the means to do so. By making these promises, the cooperating mercenaries would definitely fight tooth and nail in order to fulfill their dreams!

"Doesn't Davute make these promises as well?" Ves asked.

Captain Yontrus tentatively nodded. "They are available to us as well, but we all get the impression that Davute isn't so eager to pass on so much future territory to mere mercs. I think those snobs have already carved out Karlach's star systems for themselves."

That sounded plausible, though the Davutan rulers would truly regret it if their stinginess caused their side to lose the war!

"I would think that many more mercenaries would flock to Karlach as a consequence, captain." Gloria noted.

"It's not that simple, madame. Sure, it is nice to rule over your own colony, but you need to fight damn hard over it. The biggest fault is that once the war is lost, the Karlach mercs will not only incur a lot of battle losses, but they don't obtain all of the colonial properties they were fighting for. Davute on the other hand is much more willing to pay in cash or in tangible goods that we can pack up and take away whenever we are able to leave."

"Doesn't that make the mercenaries who are fighting for Davute less willing to stand their ground?"

"We will for the right price. If the current batch of mercenaries won't fight, others will come to take their place."

That was the advantage of Davute's mercenary strategy. It was much easier and more straightforward to attract mercenary outfits with generous pay and tangible benefits that they could obtain in a realistic timeframe.

Aurelia asked another insightful question. "Do you care whether Davute will win or lose this war?"

"No." Captain Salica Yontrus immediately replied. "We are only doing our jobs. Davute offers some of the highest rates for mercenary outfits at our level, so we all flock here and do whatever we need to do to earn our keep. The biggest mercenary organizations all have more skin in the game since they have all agreed to become a part of Davute's military establishment in the future, but Giorno's Ridebashers won't be a part of that. This place is only a source of work for us, nothing more."

She sounded cold and callous, but Ves knew that was what true mercenaries were like.

He patted Andraste on the head, eliciting a soft complaint from his cute daughter. "When mercenaries start to care, they are no longer soldiers for hire. They will turn into the pawns of the state."

Captain Yontrus grinned at Ves. "You get it. Mercs like us who do the actual fighting don't care about ideals, statehood, building a stronger power base or forming a new home for all of the people we know back home. It's the bigwigs at the top that worry about these matters. They're not even treating this as a life-and-death issue. It's all game to them. They treat the Red Ocean as a giant colonial board game where everyone underneath them are disposable chess pieces. No matter which side wins or loses, the players will always survive to play another game."

That was an interesting way to describe the dynamic in the Krakatoa Middle Zone and the rest of the Red Ocean.

"You have an overly cynical view of the rulers of different colonies." Gloriana remarked.

"That's because it's true. Back in the old galaxy, many employers at least put their own lives and wealth at stake. When they lose a war, they often get killed or lose most of their foundation. Here in the Red Ocean, the real owners of Davute and Karlach are the same wealthy bastards who are still safe and sound in the old galaxy. The old money groups from both sides only have to funnel a lot of money, people and stuff in the hopes of conquering lots of colonial territories. As long as the galactic net continues to tie the Milky Way and the Red Ocean together, this dwarf galaxy will continue to be treated as a high-stakes casino by all of the old money parties whose foundations will always remain safe."

That was a heavy statement and one that Ves did not expect to hear from a mere mercenary captain from a rather modest-sized mercenary outfit.

"Did you go into the Red Ocean knowing that you will have to play the role of a pawn?" Ves asked.

Salica Yontrus shrugged. "Most of us already had a good idea what will happen here, but it is not as if the scene here is that much different. We were already risking our lives in the old galaxy, but jobs are harder to come by and don't pay as much. The mercenary industry back home has also grown so stale and stuck in its own ways that it is difficult for us to seek greater benefits."

"So it is better in the Red Ocean?"

"Yes. Here, the old money groups are willing to spend so much to claim their precious phasewater that they are willing to spend their generational wealth in order to grab more star systems. Business is booming, our pay is at least thrice as high as before and we get easier access to newer and more modern toys like your company's fantastic living mechs. If we take part in this game and win, we stand to become richer and powerful than we could ever dream of in the old galaxy. If we lose, we die, simple as that. That's the life of a merc in the Red Ocean."

Mercenaries played a major role in this early stage of the colonization of the Red Ocean. Even the older colonial states such as the Friday Colonies and the Hex Federation had to rely on soldiers of fortune to cover up their weaknesses and buy more time for them to raise more military divisions.

"Thank you for sharing your opinions and teaching us the circumstances of mercenaries like yourself." Ves eventually said as he wanted to wrap up this meeting. "Before you go, do you have any suggestions that you want to make to my mech company and I? What do Giorno's Ridebashers require the most that the LMC currently cannot provide?"

"It would help us a lot if you take landbound mechs more seriously." Captain Salica Yontrus replied as she stood up from her seat. "I get that a lot of important battles are fought in space, but control over planets and defending important installations on land are also important, especially when the threat of getting bombarded in space by huge alien warships disappears."

"We are working on it." Ves said. "Our mech company is still relatively new and we don't have a lot of lead designers in our employ. We have been prioritizing our own clan's needs, and since we mainly fight in space, our design work has been overly biased towards spaceborn mechs. This will change in a decade once we have designed more than enough flight-capable mechs to have a solution in almost every situation."

The mercenary captain nodded and accepted that statement.

"While I am here, I want to say that all of the mercs in my outfit would love it if you can fill up the many gaps in your company's mech coverage. It would be even better if you can create a single mech ecosystem that can help us save money and minimize the space dedicated to storing spare parts and materials."

"We are working on that as well, but that will take more time and a lot more consideration, captain. Quality is extremely important to us so we don't want to rush any of our works and diminish our brand by publishing generic mech designs."

Ves wanted to wait until he became a Senior and developed a more cohesive scheme and framework for the LMC's first comprehensive mech ecosystem.

It needed to be revolutionary and provide unique benefits in order to justify its creation!