The Mech Touch novel Chapter 2961

Chapter 2961: Grand Return

As much as Ves wanted to continue to enjoy his break and do nothing productive for a couple more days, he really had to get back to his duties.

Since Gloriana hadn't formally started any of the next design projects as of yet, Ves mostly spent his time on sorting out clan matters.

After enjoying breakfast with his wife, he entered his private office inside his stateroom and encountered a familiar face.

"You're back, boss!"

"Heh. I missed you too, Benny." Ves grinned as he sat down while putting a sleeping Lucky on his desk. "I guess I have a lot of updates to catch up to. Let's start with the most important issue. How many people did we recruit in total?"

Gavin Neumann briefly references his data pad. "We've managed to pick up tens of thousands of professionals and family members during the time we stayed in the Prosperous Hill System. We currently host over 80,000 clansmen in our fleet. A little over 10,000 of them are mech pilots."

"That's quite a high ratio of mech pilots to norms." Ves raised his eyebrow.

"Well, we prioritized the recruitment of young and single mech pilots, so there aren't that many of them who have wives and kids. Hopefully, that will change once they settle in our clan."

"Has our fleet become more crowded with the addition of so many new recruits?"

"No. We have already planned ahead and put the appropriate systems in place. We are quite experienced in this already, so you don't need to pay too much attention to this. In half a year, you'll hardly be able to tell the difference."

Ves believed his assistant. The Larkinson Clan had become increasingly more proficient in integrating different people from a diverse set of cultures. It had actually become one of their notable advantages.

As long as not too many people joined at the same time, the Larkinson Clan could slowly digest the new additions without losing its original essence.

He stretched his arms and briefly glanced at his display rack to inspect the state of his prosperity tree. It was doing better than ever. It not only appeared straight and strong, but also gained a bit of height compared to the last time he took a close look at it. The Larkinson Clan had not only recovered from the Battle of Reckoning for the most part, but had taken a few steps ahead!

Of course, only a superstitious fool would believe that the health and growth conditions of a small tree were directly correlated with the state of the Larkinson Clan. Ves only treated the prosperity tree as an idle curiosity. If his grandfather wasn't the one who gifted it, he would have thrown it into the recycler long ago.

"Okay, we recruited a lot of new personnel and added a lot of new mech pilots to our ranks. How many mechs do we have, though? I don't believe our production capacity is high enough to supply mechs to all of them. In fact, do we even have the carriers to accommodate so many new machines?"

Gavin began to frown a bit. "Those are indeed legitimate concerns. You'll have to talk to General Verle in order to hear a detailed explanation, but from what I have learned, we won't be expanding our fleet with any more sub-capital ships. We won't be able to take any of them past the beyonder gate so it is rather wasteful to acquire too many of them at this junction. We won't be able to field a mech for every mech pilot we have as a consequence."

"What?"

"We are still short on functional mechs at this time, so our mech pilots have already gotten used to sharing their mechs with their fellow comrades. As long as one pilot goes off-duty, another one will come and take over with the same mech." _{frёewebηovel.cѳm}

"This is not ideal." Ves frowned. "A living mech is supposed to bond with a single individual. I cannot predict how they will evolve when exposed to a fixed group of multiple people."

"We already figured out that this would be the case, but we don't have much choice. The only way to be able to field more mechs at a time is to add more carriers to our fleet. Such a decision becomes increasingly more problematic the closer we get to the beyonder gate."

In other words, his clan wanted to save the bother and avoid investing in lots of carriers that the clan was destined to throw away in the near future.

"How are our finances? Has our sales been doing well recently?"

"Business is doing well. There hasn't been much of a change since recently. Our products are still popular, but the high price tags continue to deter a lot of potential customers. We are still earning a generous amount of revenue."

Gavin began to mention some eye-popping numbers.

"Since we have that much financial power at the moment, then we shouldn't be too stingy with spending our money. The Battle of Reckoning has taught us how foolish it is to rely too much on assumptions. We'll be passing through many different states and star sectors in the near future. Who knows whether we'll get ambushed by another fleet? The more mechs we have, the less attractive it is to bully our forces. Our safety must come first."

His assistant looked like he agreed with this notion, but he also showed a lot of hesitation. "The burden to our fleet and organization…"

"I'll talk to General Verle about this. Perhaps I am being too paranoid. Aside from the Fridaymen, no one should be crazy enough to attack a fleet of our size, especially once we finished delivering expert mechs to our current batch of expert pilots."

Expanding his fleet was not the only way to increase the combat strength of his clan. Now that he had taken care of every distraction, there was no reason to stall the expert mech design projects anymore.

While Ves wasn't sure how long it took to complete these complicated projects, ideally it shouldn't take more than half a year before he unveiled his first expert mech!

"By the way, the amount of mechs we can field in the near future isn't as bleak as you think."

"Please explain."

"I did not include the new additions we're about to receive in the next few days. None of us expected to receive such a massive boost at this time, but I think you will be quite happy with what one of your students has accomplished."

Ves frowned and looked straight into Gavin's eyes. "What are you on about, Benny?"

"Well, it's a long story…"

Gavin was right. It was indeed a long story. It was such a grand and epic tale that Ves would have applauded it if it was pure fiction.

"That's a nice story, but I don't pay you to spin fantasies."

"It's all real, boss. If you don't believe me, then you should check the news."

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