The Mech Touch

"Meow!"

"Hey, what gives, Lucky?!"

"Meow meow meow!"

Lucky flew over and smacked his hard tail against Ves' head on a continuous basis. The injured gem cat had been holding back his resentment for a long time that it felt good for him to vent his frustrations this way!

"Stop that already! What did I do to you, anyway?!"

"Meow meow meow!"

"Hey, you managed to get out okay."

"Meeeeeooooow!"

"You know I would never abandon you. I would have found some way to pick you up no matter how the battle proceeded."

"Meow!" Lucky hissed for a final time before he dived through the deck to get away from the source of his misery.

Ves shook his head to rid himself from the sting of the tail slaps and tried his best to direct his attention back to the matter at hand.

Though the damaged and reduced expeditionary fleet had successfully managed to leave the Fordilla Zentra System, their flight from the Smiling Samual Star Sector was far from assured.

Just like back in the old days, the Larkinson fleet operated under yellow alert conditions. Every serviceman had to wear a hazard suit or combat suit while the civilians at least needed to wear vacsuits at all times.

During the previous battle, these protective, vacuum-sealed suits had saved hundreds of lives! In times when the Larkinsons didn't know when the dwarves were able to launch another attack, it was highly prudent for everyone to wear sufficient protection.

At the very least, the sight of every crew member wearing combat-oriented garb instead of their normal uniforms kept the Larkinsons in an alert state of mind.

As much as many of them wanted to unwind, grieve or process the battle that they had just survived, this was not the time for them to let down their guard.

The expeditionary fleet was still behind enemy lines!

This was also one of the topics that Ves was about to discuss with his core advisors.

Since Larkinson was busy at the moment and Ves didn't want to waste any time on irrelevant details, only a couple of key figures attended the small meeting this time.

The projections of General Verle, Calabast, Minister Shederin and Chief Minister Magdalena appeared around the conference table.

Each of them were still clad in their protective suits with only their heads exposed. Their demeanors were serious and it seemed that none of them revelled them the victory they obtained.

"We look like we've just suffered a defeat." Ves began.

"A battle doesn't necessarily have to produce a winner." General Verle in a tired voice. "We may have forced the dwarves to suspend their mission to wipe us out, but we haven't made any substantial gains either. This was a completely unnecessary fight for us. We fought to survive, not to fulfill any of our ambitions."

His words exposed a cruel reality. This battle was indeed an incident where the Larkinsons would lose more than they could gain no matter the outcome.

Though there were lots of soldiers who gained valuable combat experience and witnessed the might of the Larkinson Clan, these benefits didn't compensate for the loss of lots of starships, mechs and clansmen.

Ves sighed. "We need to look on the bright side of how the battle ended. We avoided the worst outcomes and that should be enough."

Everyone nodded. At least they could agree with that. The Ferrils could have done much worse to them than eventually letting their surviving fleet leave the Fordilla Zentra Star System undisturbed.

"Let's get the ugly news out of the way first. How many people did we lose?"

General Verle briefly glanced at a list. "We are still tallying the numbers. We evacuated rather hastily and there are still many injured personnel who might or might not be able to pick themselves up again. In short, we lost 3700 mechs, but only 1400 mech pilots. A lot of ejected mech pilots were able to make it back to our fleet as the Slug Rangers generally didn't bother to waste their firepower on our defeated mech pilots. We lost a lot more ship personnel though. Over 6000 are dead or unaccounted for. Our rescue parties have acted as thoroughly as possible to rescue every living body on the battlefield but it's possible that they may have missed a couple of survivors."

A heavy mood hung over the conference room. The lack of time to scour the various shipwrecks was a major limitation that prevented them from performing a more thorough search.

Ves turned around and reached out his hand. The Larkinson Mandate that hung on Nitaa's side automatically flew into his grasp.

He briefly closed his eyes, soothed the saddened Golden Cat and tried to scope out the Larkinson Network.

"It's fine." He finally said when he was done with his examination. "We didn't leave any surviving clansmen behind. Our rescue parties did a good job."

No one around the conference table questioned the accuracy of this statement. Even if Ves was lying, there weren't any good reasons to contradict him. The clan needed as much good news as possible.

"How many ships did we lose?"

"Over sixty. Most of them were poorly-armored non-combat sub-capital ships. Our direct battle effectiveness doesn't depend heavily on them, but their absence will significantly slow down our efforts to repair and recover from the damage we've incurred." The general answered. "Also, we are thinking about evacuating three or four more vessels before our next hop."

"Why is that the case?"

"The vessels we had to leave behind were either destroyed or crippled to the point where making them spaceworthy and FTL capable requires way more repairs than we can quickly perform in the field. That doesn't mean our remaining starships are all in good condition. You should look at the Graveyard for example."

The general summoned a projection of the capital ship in question. As the only true defensive capital ship in the Larkinson fleet, the Graveyard had shouldered the most important burden of withstanding enemy fire.

Without the Graveyard performing her essential function, the Steel Rain artillery mechs could have directed their firepower to more vulnerable capital ships such as the Dragon's Den or the Vivacious Wal!

Though the Graveyard served her role without any complaints, her hull looked as if it had been exposed to a meteor storm!

Almost her entire surface was marked with damage. Cracker mechs along with numerous ranged expert mechs had all pounded her thick but inconsistent hull plating that was originally made out of heterogeneous battlefield salvage. The Graveyard lost a lot of fused scrap metal plating and some of her outer compartments had even been caved in after suffering direct hits!

"Will she hold?" Ves gestured his head at the worrisome projection.

"According to Vivian Tsai, the Graveyard's tolerance for damage is high. Though many of her parameters have dropped, her FTL drives are still in good condition. The biggest risk to our defensive ship is that the heaviest blows from the Gauss Cannon may have cracked her keel or other critical structural parts. The engineers aboard the salvaging ship are already scanning her interior to detect she is at risk of collapsing in the near future."

"I see."

Ves did not really care about the loss of all of the sub-capital ships at this point. The expeditionary fleet was so close to the beyonder gate that it was actually good that they were able to get rid of some of their redundant sub-capital ships ahead of time. It was well worth the price to trade them away to preserve the existence of more valuable assets.

The Graveyard was much more crucial to his plans. The Larkinson fleet had an abundance of non-combat capital ships, so every large vessel that was useful in a fight was essential to his future success in the Red Ocean!

"I have one more piece of bad news for you with regards to the Graveyard. Depending on the severity of her structural damage, we might have to send her to a drydock in order to restore her long-term integrity and spaceworthiness."

Ves scowled. "That's certainly not what I want to hear!"

Shederin Purnesse concurred. "I have already inquired where we can perform essential starship repairs. Every shipyard and drydock in the star cluster is fully booked. Unless you are able to convince those in high places to make an exception for us, this will not change."

"We might not need to resort to any third parties." General Verle smiled. "As long as the Graveyard lasts long enough for us to reach the Tarnished Crown Star Sector, we can pick up the Diligent Ovenbird. Though she's not a fully-featured mobile drydock, her large-scale repair and construction capabilities should be more than capable of performing moderate repairs."

As long as the Graveyard wasn't apart at the seams, they might not have to leave her behind.

"Prioritize repairs on the Graveyard as much as you can. Transfer over additional engineers and repair crews if you have to. She has already shown her worth in the prior battle. We absolutely can't do without her defenses. Her formidable salvaging capabilities are also essential in a place like the Red Ocean."

Once Ves gained a decent understanding of the condition of the Larkinson fleet, he moved on to his next concern.

"General Verle, Chief Minister Magdalena, how are our clansmen doing?"

The two senior Larkinsons looked at each other before General Verle spoke first. "Our mech pilots and many of our other active servicemen are tired, relieved and even traumatized to a degree. This battle has not pushed our veterans to the brink, but the same can't be said for our rookies. Many of them joined our clan after we fought the Battle of Reckoning, so they have never experienced a pitched battle of this scale. We threw them straight into the fire without giving them too many opportunities to prepare."

"Will there be a problem?" Ves directed a steady stare at the general.

The general hesitated a bit before shaking his head. "There shouldn't be. Our mech legions and our headquarters are well-staffed and are able to offer plenty of counseling and psychological support. We.. are already accustomed to handling these issues from our men."

That was good, because Ves didn't want to waste any time on them. He had more important priorities.

"What about our civilian population?" Ves turned to Magdalena.

The chief minister looked concerned. "The general clansmen are glad to be alive, but far too many of them have been displaced from their old berths without much warning or preparation. They are living under basic conditions aboard our capital ships. Crowding is becoming a problem and it will take at least several weeks to provide higher-quality shelter to them. It will take even longer to give them something to do again."

"Well, we were planning to transfer all of our personnel from our smaller vessels to our capital ships anyway. We just started with this operation a few months ahead of schedule. Don't bother with transferring them back to their old berths if the ships still exist. Even if it is a little chaotic, do your best to help our civilian population settle into our capital ships."

"I shall pass that on. We were already discussing this option before you called this meeting." Magdalena Larkinson said.

"Are there any other personnel concerns that need to be brought to my attention?" Ves asked.

There were a few issues.

Venerable Joshua suffered a major defeat and his prime mech was broken.

The Larkinson Army lost a couple of expert candidates but did not gain any new ones that were still alive.

None of the current roster of expert candidates had broken through to expert pilot.

Vincent Rickling was loudly demanding a new prime mech for himself.

Ves did not show much concern to these issues. Some of them were genuine problems but he didn't need to address them in person. The clan had plenty of people and institutions to solve these lower-level problems. He just asked in order to gain a better picture of the overall state of his clan.

From what he could gather, his clansmen weren't particularly happy, but they were far from blaming him for their losses. That was all Ves needed to know.