The Mech Touch novel Chapter 2434

Chapter 2434: Lost Capabilities

After a day of preparation, the two fleets finally moved back to civilized space. The Wodin Warrior fleet carefully escorted the surviving ships of the Larkinson Clan, including the various prize ships.

It did not take too much effort to get the captured warships and pirate carriers moving again. Due to the abnormal way the Battle against the Abyss ended, the Larkinsons managed to capture a lot of ships intact.

Aside from the warships, the other prize ships were fairly worthless. Certainly, the Allidus Alliance invested a decent amount of resources in their construction, but they paled in comparison to proper combat carriers.

What was worse was that only a portion of the ships possessed FTL drives.

The main reasons why the Larkinsons wanted to bring back these extra vessels was because they needed room to accommodate extra mechs and salvage.

Task Force Predator truly lost too many ships. The Penitent Sisters alone sacrificed all of their combat carriers including the Surly Cockatrice.

None of the Penitent Sisters regretted the loss. The aged combat carrier had played a pivotal role in damaging the Gravada Knarlax. As far as everyone was concerned, the Surly Cockatrice met a glorious end.

The initial departure of the combined fleet proved to be a bit problematic. Major Verle and Colonel Wodin argued about the necessity to keep the main armaments of the Gravada Knarlax and the surviving escort ships on standby.

The Wodin Warriors believed that their mechs were sufficient to guard the entire fleet.

The Larkinsons did not like to be at the mercy of others. They had lived through too many reality-defying battles to assume the normal rules applied.

Ves had to step in and offer a compromise. The Gravada Knarlax's surviving turrets would remain active, but he allowed the Hexers to disable their automatic feeding systems.

This meant that the six powerful cannons would remain unloaded. If a situation ever came up when the combined fleet needed to borrow the Gravada Knarlax's might, a mixed crew of Wodin Warriors and Larkinsons would manually feed the rounds to the main guns.

While it sounded messy, the solution placated the Hexers. It did not escape anyone that the Hexer vessels and mechs conspicuously stayed far away from the firing lines of the heavy cannons.

Despite the numerous precautions, the Wodin Warriors still did not want to put themselves at risk in case of an accident!

Some of the Larkinsons found their behavior kind of funny.

"These Hexers aren't as tough as they look." An Avatar grinned. "We rushed straight at a pirate armada without any hesitation. These supposedly superior second-raters don't even dare to get within a thirty-degree angle from the muzzles of the big guns."

It was hard not to feel proud at the amazing accomplishments the Larkinsons had made. Together with the speeches and addresses conducted by Ves, Major Verle, the individual mech commanders and most importantly the expert pilots, a lot of the hard feelings began to fade.

Only the Living Sentinels remained problematic. Ves wisely kept his distance from their contingent. He trusted Major Verle and Calabast to soften their discontent.

With the remnants of Task Force Predator steadily heading back to civilized space, Ves put down his worries and resumed his old routine.

With the LMC getting back on track after introducing the Living Star Club, Ves could finally spend his time on mech design and other matters.

Before he committed himself to completing some of the six mech design projects, he first checked in on some other matters.

"How are you, Lucky?"

"Meow."

His cat still looked a bit lethargic. Ves grew a little bit worried at Lucky's lack of progress in digesting B-stone.

"Are you making progress. If this goes on, I think we need to find a way to make you regurgitate the contents of your stomach?"

"MEEEOOOW!"

Lucky reacted with such fright at his suggestion that he instantly jumped in the air! With a scared expression, the gem cat quickly padded away to the other side of the stateroom.

"Hey, I'm not that bad! I managed to treat your earlier condition!"

Well, since Lucky was healthy enough to move around, Ves did not pay any further mind to his pet.

He moved over to his display rack. He had messily piled up some trophies taken from his defeated opponents.

"I'll need to sort this pile. My record speaks for itself. I don't need to preserve too much garbage."

Of all of the Nyxian pirates he fought against, only the Crona Lords, the Dry Snakes and the Allidus Alliance deserved his respect. He threw out every trophy from the weaker pirate groups such as the Rust Grinders and the Mountain Kings. There was no glory to be earned from bullying weaklings.

He glanced at his grandfather's Prosperity Tree and noted to his pleasure that it was showing considerable signs of life now. While Ves did not believe in the superstition surrounding this stupid plant, he nonetheless felt inordinately pleased that it behaved correctly this time.

"You better keep growing, or else." He ominously hissed.

Checking up on the Prosperity Tree reminded him of the assets he no longer possessed.

"I lost three important components of my strength." He grimaced as he paced through his stateroom. "I can't make up for their absence."

Losing Nyxie, the Grand Dynamo and the potency of the life-prolonging treatment serum all at once dealt a crippling blow to his spiritual ambitions.

He already made his peace with the loss of the former. He always knew that the ancient alien tyrant was immensely powerful. After realizing that Nyxie could have been a dark god, Ves did not regret his decision to sacrifice the recovering spiritual entity.

The impact to the Doom Guard model had troubled him a bit, but it only took a single speech along with some other initiatives to smooth over this repercussion.

What truly depressed him was the fact that he had lost a powerful source of free spiritual fragments. Ves had become accustomed to harvesting potent spiritual fragments that were filled with energy from Nyxie's body.

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