The Mech Touch novel Chapter 2923

Chapter 2923: Lack of Rigor

The ’majestic’ airfleet of the Larkinson Clan resembled a giant animal armada.

Almost every vehicle and mech was organic in nature. Their exterior either consisted of resilient flesh, skin or bone. Combined with the deliberate bestial aesthetic that the local designers adored, the airfleet might as well consist of hundreds of primal creatures!

Though the vehicles looked incredibly disturbing to humans who weren’t citizens of the Life Research Association, the local citizens were accustomed to seeing them. The sight of the massive airfleet awed and reassured many people, especially as the Larkinsons started their peacekeeping operations.

Over the weeks, the newly-inducted clansmen increased the cohesion of the fleet in various ways. Aside from unifying command and control, seasoned Larkinsons such as Commander Casella Ingvar paid close attention to the uniforms and color schemes of the recent additions.

Issuing the same uniforms to every new recruit was a great way to increase everyone’s belonging and identity to their new clan!

The Larkinsons also changed the color scheme of every biomech and vehicle in order to match the standard red color scheme of the Larkinson Clan. This caused the airfleet to look like a tide of red. The extra touches of white, black and golden motifs broke the monotony and made the biovehicles look more impressive.

In truth, the airfleet was just a giant caravan of random biomechs and refugee vehicles. The only reason why it gained a reputation of strength was because it had never clashed against a strong adversary.

This became very evident when chaos started to spread after the airfleet got shelled!

The biovehicles under fire quickly began to perform evasive maneuvers regardless of the fact that they were in the middle of a formation!

Some of the fleet elements left the protective envelope and flew away from the crowd. Other vehicles paid so little attention to where they were moving that they almost collided against other vehicles! If not for the automated safety and anti-collision features of these advanced organic vessels, a lot of passengers would have lost their lives due to the mistakes of fellow clansmen!

Ves witnessed all of this happening by looking at the projections in the command center. The proud and famed airfleet he managed to build up over the course of his forced stay on the surface of Prosperous Hill VI was already starting to fall apart at the seams!

The newly-recruited Larkinsons showed their lack of rigor at this time. Unlike the Larkinsons in the expeditionary fleet who had been baptized in war, these former Lifers did not undergo any training and experiences where they could toughen up their mentalities.

The original Larkinsons that Ves brought to the surface tried their best to reassert control.

Commander Casella urgently issued new instructions on the command net. "Spread out but don’t move on your own initiative! Follow your new track and await further orders!"

As shells continued to rain down the airfleet from afar, a couple vehicles that got hit multiple times already started to crack, bleed or even fall apart!

Numerous smaller shuttles which were more fragile than other vessels even began to crash to the ground!

Some clansmen managed to evacuate their vessels in time, but the initial volleys already harvested the lives of hundreds of Larkinsons.

"Knight mechs! Shield the most vulnerable vessels!" Venerable Jannzi roared as her Bright Warrior flew in front of a damaged biotransport that carried dozens of families!

Under the rallying cry of an expert pilot, many mech pilots regained their composure and performed their duties.

The biomechs with shields covered the beleaguered air vessels as they spread out and slowly lowered their altitude.

The mechs with ranged weapons either fired back at the calculated origin point of the enemy shelling or tried to intercept the incoming ordnance.

Ves was not satisfied with the slow and sluggish reactions. The quality of the clansmen at his disposal was worse than he thought. The irregular recruiting effort along with the lack of veteran Larkinsons in the ranks caused him to have an overinflated impression of their competence.

Their first true setback as a member of the Larkinson Clan cruelly exposed their actual readiness!

While bombardments were scary, the airfleet was not without the means to resist. Ves and his leaders based their current strategy around the assumption that they would be able to deal with this kind of situation.

Unfortunately, the mostly-civilian mech pilots they employed in recent weeks rarely encountered this kind of situation.

Getting shelled by heavy mechs only happened in wars, not small-scale skirmishes between private outfits!

The shock and surprise factor caused many of them to believe that they were being attacked by an entire mech army!

Though the Larkinsons in the airfleet slowly began to sort themselves out, the speed at which they did so left much to be desired. They were acting like headless chickens who only formed up because others were forcing them to move to the right spot.

Ves became rightfully pissed, but this was not the time for him to blow up at his own subordinates. Right now, they needed to resolve the immediate crisis!

"Tusa!" He directly called his cousin.

"Your orders, sir?" Venerable Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson replied as he jumped inside the cockpit of his mech.

"Get out there and lead a bunch of fast-moving mechs to annihilate the attackers!"

"Will do, sir, but let me warn you that our other mechs won’t be able to keep up with my machine."

"It doesn’t matter, just go ahead first! If my guess is correct, the ultralifers have deployed modest-sized detachments of artillery mechs and escort mechs. You don’t have to touch the latter but you must absolutely neutralize the former! The faster the shelling stops, the more lives you save. Speed is of the essence!"

Venerable Tusa welled with fury. "You’ve gone to the right person for that. I’ll take care of it pronto!"

When the Piranha Prime emerged from a mech transport, it zipped forth at full speed, not even bothering to wait for backup to gather.

Even though he still didn’t have access to a genuine expert mech, Tusa had gained an abundant amount of confidence in his ability to defeat regular mech units.

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