The Mech Touch novel Chapter 2734

Chapter 2734 - Lacking Identity

Promoting Verle to the rank of general was a big jump.

Was he qualified to hold such a senior rank? That was debatable. He never commanded a force at this level. Due to his heavy workload, he never had the time to shore up his inadequate theoretical foundation either, so he was not a genius in command.

What he did have was everyone’s trust. He showed enough competence so far to earn the appreciation of both trueblood Larkinsons and every other soldier in the clan. He excelled at shaping morale and he inspired confidence in his own leadership. Everyone recognized his authority, though not everyone agreed with his policies.

That was enough as far as Ves was concerned.

While he could have shopped around for some retired colonels or generals in Majestic Teal, the truly good ones were never easily for hire. Ves would be forced to pick between one of several desperate or faulty candidates who might make a mess out of the military wing of the Larkinson Clan.

Rather than gamble on the unknown and potentially ruin the most essential guarantee of safety for Ves, he would rather settle with the familiar and continue to rely on Quinlist Verle.

Ves had to admit that his familiarity and personal relationship played a decisive factor in this consideration. He felt rather dirty about it because he knew that Verle might not be up to the task.

Of course, that might change over time. There were plenty of learning sources available to the hastily-promoted general. Verle had access to an expansive budget, so he shouldn’t be shy in taking some of that money in order to invest in himself.

The Military Bureau that Verle was in charge of largely played a background role for now. It merely fiddled with unifying logistics and establishing a common set of rules and regulations and so on. While these activities were important, the military of the Larkinson Clan was still decentralized.

The mech commanders had the real say in how their forces were supposed to run. While Verle had the authority to impose his own decisions, in practice he almost never did so. Every mech commander was already doing a fine job in managing their troops so there was no reason for Verle to spoil his relationsh.i.p.s with the influential leaders.

Even so, Ves didn’t want his mech forces to grow too far apart. By letting them stay in their own silos, their trust and cooperation with the other mech forces would never be optimal.

This was quite a delicate issue as Ves didn’t want to go too far in the other way either. If the Military Bureau dictated more rules, the differences between the Avatars, Sentinels, Vandals and so on might blur. Each of them would start to lose their distinct strengths and specialties.

Ves liked it if his soldiers possessed a lot of personality. He didn’t want them to be almost identical to each other. While there was strength in uniformity, as proven by the Hex Army, there was strength in diversity as well.

In truth, he was too used to the model employed by the Bright Republic and the Friday Coalition. By allowing different mech regiments to develop their own martial traditions, the identities of the mech pilots and other servicemen became more internally cohesive.

This was incredibly important to him as his glows and his battle networks were able to generate unique advantages when they took advantage of these conditions.

"Major Verle is already aware of all of these nuances. He will make sure to steer our mech forces in the right direction."

The entire military of the Larkinson Clan was about to undergo an explosive expansion. This was a huge endeavor as it was far from simple to acquire 10,000 mech pilots at once.

An expansion of this scale also demanded the acquisition of more sh.i.p.s and mechs, which was very troublesome for various reasons.

To be honest, the expeditionary fleet was already sizable. It was not good to tack on hundreds more combat carriers on top of that. Managing so many assets and people would become so burdensome that it could bog down the entire command structure.

Ves also had to take the integration of all of those new people into account. It was not acceptable to lump all of the newcomers in a separate ship with hardly any of the old guard around. The Larkinsons needed to immerse them into the culture and customs of the clan in order to minimize any rifts.

All of these management aspects already gave Ves a headache. It might be possible that the Larkinson Clan might take it slow on expanding its fleet and mech roster in order to buy more time to indoctrinate the new recruits.

"It’s actually quite common to maintain a modest surplus of mech pilots."

Mech pilots were simultaneously scarce but cheap compared to mechs.

It cost a lot more to acquire a single mech than an accompanying mech pilot. However, in dangerous places such as frontiers, hazardous regions or remote star systems, it was impossible for mech forces to replenish the mech pilots who had lost their lives!

At least mechs could be patched up to an extent after they incurred damage. Mech technicians were even capable of bringing wrecks back to working condition.

Yet not even the best doctors in the clan could bring a dead person back to life.

"It would be nice to have some spares around." Ves muttered.

If the Golden Skull Alliance had a bunch of free mech pilots at its disposal, then it might not have been necessary to hire a mercenary force as powerful as the 14th Fleet of the Star Striders.

While the Infinity Guards provided him with a lot of reassurance, it would have been better if he didn’t have to rely on external protection in the first place.

"This time, we lucked out because we were ambushed in a developed star sector that is neutral towards us. We might not be as lucky next time."

The Red Ocean was significantly less developed and there were many zones where hardly any colonies were around. Even if his expeditionary fleet was close to a settlement, it was questionable whether the Larkinsons were allowed to recruit mech pilots and other key personnel.

"The population of humans in the new frontier is much smaller." Ves reminded himself. "I’ll have to take that into account and make sure to enter the Red Ocean with as many recruits as possible."

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