The Mech Touch novel Chapter 2698

Chapter 2698: Convenient Belief

A lot of salvaging work commenced in the coming days. Valuable goods flew aimlessly in space, just waiting to be plucked.

There were also a lot of restorable wrecks and parts floating around that could easily be put back into working order after expending a bit of effort. Now that the strength of the expeditionary fleet had dropped to a low point, the restoration of even a single mech was of utmost importance!

Turning broken mechs into functional mechs was difficult work. It took too much time to restore them back to peak condition or as close to them as possible.

"We'll have to do some judicious jury rigging." Ves decided. "It doesn't matter if a mech is only half as effective as before if it only takes a few hours to slap some random parts onto an incomplete frame. I would rather have half a mech at my disposal than nothing at all during another crisis."

In order to fix as many mechs as possible, Ves decided to halt all of his current design projects. No one in the Design Department was in the mood to go back to designing mechs at this time. The assistant mech designers were much more useful if they lent their expertise to the maintenance crews trying to fix all of the broken Larkinson mechs.

Ves also had a fair amount of work to do. Some of the Prime mechs such as the Valkyrie Prime, Piranha Prime and the Bright Spear Prime accumulated a fair bit of damage to their internals.

While the enemy completely failed to breach their Unending armor, a varying amount of shock and heat damage still managed to pass through and affect the more delicate internals.

"There are so many items on my agenda that I don't even have time to inspect the Charlemagne and the Jeanne D'Arc!"

Time was of the essence, and the Golden Skull Alliance had far too little of it. News of the battle had already spread. While the details in public were scarce, the first scout ships had already arrived in the star system.

Ves knew that this was just the beginning. As long as those corvettes observed the expanding debris field for some time, they would know that a lot of very valuable military hardware had been destroyed recently!

"We'll be welcoming all kinds of vultures soon!"

There was no order in this border star system. With no authority laying down the law, the only way for the expeditionary forces to deter opportunistic thieves was to have the biggest fist!

"The problem is that our fist is already bloodied and broken. We can't punch as hard as before."

The solution they came up with was to hire mercenaries. While Ves had his misgivings on this course of action, it was objectively the best solution they could make at this time.

They already signed a contract with a very large and renowned mercenary organization on an emergency basis. The cost of calling in a strong mercenary force on extremely short notice was considerable, but what choice did they have?

At the very least, Ves felt that he got what he paid for. The mercenary organization that was about to supplement the defense of his expeditionary fleet not only possessed a great track record, but was also a behemoth in the Yeina Star Cluster.

Any mercenary organization that operated multiple branches across multiple star sectors had to maintain an excellent reputation. Their credibility was important to them as the misdeeds of one branch could affect business in every other branch that operated under the same brand.

This was why these huge mercenary companies never turned against their own clients.

Considering the huge value of the expeditionary fleet, this was not an impossibility. As long as the benefits outweighed the very considerable costs, unscrupulous mercenaries were more than happy to turn against their own customers!

That was not going to happen here. The mercenaries the alliance chose to work with could earn much more money by doing steady business across the star cluster than performing a robbery just a single time.

Of course, it still took time for the local mercenary branch to mobilize all of their forces and travel to a border star system.

This meant that the expeditionary fleet would have to fend for itself for the foreseeable time.

"We'll manage, sir." Major Verle reassured Ves during another meeting. "Our surviving mech pilots are surprisingly optimistic after the battle."

Ves reacted with surprise. "Oh? If I recall, more than 1800 of their comrades-in-arms have died."

The senior military commander smiled. "You haven't been spending time among the men lately, haven't you? While there are plenty of Larkinsons who are depressed, the overall sentiment in the clan is still positive."

"How can that be? This doesn't make any sense."

"There are several reasons why the negative blowback is lower than anticipated. First, the Larkinson Clan is already inoculated against suffering considerable losses in major battles. The Battle of Kesseling VIII, the Battle of Ulimo Citadel and the Battle against the Abyss have all caused our clansmen to cope increasingly better with these kinds of outcomes."

"That.. makes sense."

"Not a single mech pilot of the clan is unaware of the risks we are facing. We have deliberately overemphasized the dangers in order to lessen any backlash. Throughout the short history of our clan, it has become increasingly clear that we are not destined to lead peaceful lives."

"Sorry about that." Ves lamely said.

There was no denying that he was the principal cause behind much if not all of the aforementioned battles. He bore the responsibility of disappointing so many Larkinsons who believed in his vision and wanted to be a part of it. Now, they were no longer among the living.

"If you say so. The truth is that there are an increasing amount of Larkinsons who… believe that the dead are still sticking around." _{ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com}

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