The Mech Touch novel Chapter 2640

Chapter 2640: Two Unpalatable Battle Plans

In summary, Golden Skull Alliance was able to field around 10,000 mechs.

The enemy strike force should have brought around 6000 mechs.

That was a substantial disparity in numbers, but Ves did not take pleasure in enjoying a numbers advantage. He knew quite well that around 3500 mechs that belonged to his clan were basically cannon fodder!

The disparity in quality was too big. The Valkyrie Redeemer was valued at around 400 million hex credits, while a typical Princess Jecka sold for 59 million credits.

The old adage of 'you got what you paid for' applied here. The feeble second-class commercial mech models in the hands of the Larkinsons might be sufficient to fend off space pirates and ordinary riffraff, but they were quite inadequate against the crack troops of the Friday Coalition!

What was even worse was that the Golden Skull Alliance was badly behind in terms of expert mechs.

"Where did you get these numbers?" Calabast looked skeptical as Ves announced the numbers. "Don't tell me you…"

Ves loudly coughed. "AHEM. I cannot provide assurances that the enemy fleet has truly brought 11 expert mechs. However, I don't believe we can rely on other sources, so you can either believe what I said or make an unsubstantiated guess."

The choice was simple. Even though the source of this information was sketchy, the Larkinsons and the Glory Seekers instinctively felt this number should be close to the truth.

"It makes sense for the enemy to have brought so many expert pilots." Colonel Ariadne judged. "Ever since the Friday Coalition enlisted many foreign expert pilots, our enemies have been more liberal when it came to deploying them on dangerous missions. In fact, there is a good chance that most if not all of the expert pilots in the enemy strike force consist of foreigners. The Coalition can't risk its heroes. Its native expert pilots are not just combat assets, but also propaganda material."

While there weren't any Crossers in the meeting, Calabast had already studied up on the Praetor Clan and Planat Clans.

"It's impossible for the two Garlaner clans to bring too many expert pilots this time. Their Becker Tribe is practically a shadow of its former self. The Praetors and Planats have lost several expert pilots in previous conflicts, so they should prize their surviving ones more. Besides, they still need to keep most of their high-ranking mech pilots at home in order to avoid showing any further weakness than they have already done."

"Do you have more evidence to support your assumptions or are you just pulling facts out of thin air?" Commander Melkor of the Avatars of Myth expressed his skepticism.

He did not fully trust Ves' uncertain source nor put too much stock in Calabast's spurious guesses.

Calabast smirked at Melkor. "It just so happens that I have reasonable proof to back up my assessment. In the Garlen Empire, expert pilots are rulers and warlords. They do not hide in a carrier or military base for months on end. Garlaner expert pilots are greedy for power and eagerly exercise their authority. I have tasked my Black Cats to scour the news from the Becker Tribe. It turns out that least several expert pilots of the Praetor Clan and Planat Clan have not appeared in public for more than a month."

"The Garlaners could be playing a trick on us." Captain Vraken warned. "It is impossible for them to be ignorant of the fact that it is easy to track the whereabouts of their expert pilots through the news. If I was in their place, I would have employed some body doubles or just fabricate a number of false news articles outright."

The galactic net and the news couldn't be trusted. Not completely. As long as they fell into the hands of humans, they were always susceptible to human interests.

That said, these unreliable news sources still served useful indicators.

Ves crossed his arms. "It is very plausible for the Fridaymen to commit 7 to 8 expert mechs and the Preators and Planats to commit 3 to 4 expert mechs. That totals 11 expert mechs, which matches the number I gave earlier."

The Glory Seekers and Larkinsons became more convinced that they would truly be facing this many expert mechs.

It was difficult to maintain confidence when faced with such an awful disparity in numbers. Expert mechs may be different in quality and expert pilots always performed at different levels, there was no way the enemies brought any weaklings.

With just 5 expert mechs on the side of the Golden Skull Alliance, that meant that 6 enemy mech mechs could effectively terrorize the battlefield!

If the Fridaymen and hostile Vicious Mountainers abused their numbers advantage to gang up on Venerable Brutus and the Crosser expert pilots, then the chances of the latter surviving wasn't good!

Once the defending expert mechs fell in rapid succession due to being outnumbered, the enemy expert mechs would then be free to coordinate with the regular units to massacre the remaining opposition!

How could the Larkinsons and Glory Seekers possibly prevent this devastating outcome?

Colonel Ariadne Wodin did not lose her composure. She quickly came up with an overall gameplan.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Our opponents are powerful. If the enemy strike force managed to emerge right on top of us, then it is very likely they would have won. However, they have transitioned a bit further away, buying us precious time to prepare and plan ahead. We must utilize this opportunity to the utmost to thread the needle."

In the example that she sketched, she basically squared off the standard mechs of the Glory Seekers and the Cross Clan against the standard mechs of the enemy strike force. _{freeweɓnovel.cøm}

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