The Mech Touch

Compared to the other pioneering organizations that had signaled their willingness to join the Golden Skull Alliance, the Adelaide Mercenary Company and the Boojay Family both enjoyed a massive advantage.

Their forces had fought alongside the Golden Skullers in a tough battle.

That not only gave the Larkinsons and so on a good look at their objective combat performance, but also their intangibles.

How well did they maintain their command and control during unexpected setbacks and complications?

How readily did they commit their forces to a difficult mission?

How much could they be trusted to cover everyone else's backs?

Though the Battle of the Boryan Belt did not provide the Golden Skull Alliance with the answers to all of these questions, the Larkinsons at least knew the Adelaides and the Boojays a lot better than the random names that showed up out of the blue.

Ves especially looked forward to adding their ace mechs to the expeditionary fleet.

"It's nice that we can depend on the Mars to defeat alien warships and hostile ace mechs, our fleet is relying too much on a single point of failure." Ves told Minister Shederin. "The difference of having one or multiple ace mechs at our disposal is massive. Just look at the Gemini Family. The tactical and strategic outlook of our combined armed forces will undergo a qualitative transformation if we are able to group three or more together. We don't necessarily need to rely on trickery to defeat a modestly-sized alien battleship like the Tower of Babel anymore. The teamwork of three different but powerful ace mechs is stronger than deploying three ace mechs in isolation."

It also helped that the ace mechs were all substantially different from each other.

The Jedda Sandivar piloted by Saint Marissa Lewandowski was not only a blazingly fast and mobile ace light skirmisher, but its Saint Kingdom was an incredibly effective disruptive tool that was much more effective than conventional ECM solutions!

The Royal Jeem was a much more straightforward ace mech. Piloted by the older and more veteran Saint Kalasandra Boojay, the ace spearman mech could outduel a lot more opponents in single combat, and its Saint Kingdom could play a key role in weakening powerful adversaries.

When combined with the Mars who could provide a huge amount of flexible fire support at different ranges, the expanded Golden Skull Alliance should no longer be afraid of confronting smaller alien warfleets in the wild!

Minister Shederin provided Ves with a little more information about the applicants.

"The arrangement that the Adelaide Mercenary Company wants to establish with our alliance is one that is similar to that of the Glory Seekers. The main organization will remain separate from us, but their Third Fleet which they will convert into an off-shoot organization will come under our auspices."

"Hmm, I see."

The Adelaide Mercenary Company was actually much larger than the entirety of the Golden Skull Alliance at the moment. It was a behemoth that built up its success in the old galaxy and was trying to expand its tentacles in the new frontier.

Its Third Fleet happened to be one of those tentacles. In a sense, what the Aidelaides were doing was nothing more than a diversification strategy. Some fleets would remain independent and go off to earn their keep on their own while others banded together with other strong powers.

Ves did not mind this arrangement. The Adelaide Mercenary Company in its entirety was too large for the Golden Skull Alliance to swallow whole. He could make do with just the Third Fleet, at least for the time being.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs thought the same way given his sly smile. "If our alliance becomes ten or twenty times greater in the future, then it is not out of the realm of possibility to absorb the rest of Adelaide's mercenary fleets into our fold. We only have to keep winning."

The two didn't have much else to talk about for the time being. The Adeilaides and Boojays had just begun to show their interest. They still needed to go through multiple rounds of exploratory talks and conduct a lot of background research before they could move on to the next phase of this exhaustive process.

Ves trusted in the ability of the diplomats under the lead of Minister Shederin Purnesse. There was no need for the clan patriarch to step forward in person to take care of this chore himself.

"I will update you on any major developments or complications during the negotiations." The diligent minister spoke. "It will take around two to three months to complete the entire process and know for certain whether the candidates are a good fit for our alliance."

"Okay. That sounds good." Ves nodded. "If it looks as if the Adelaide Third Fleet and the Boojay Family are likely to become a part of our lovely band, then I'm not in a hurry to welcome more partners. You can raise the criteria for any other third parties that are looking to join the fun. Only bring them in if they are really worthy of our trust."

Once Ves ended his talk with the minister, he finally had enough time to spend on his own work.

He still had a lot of mech design projects that demanded his attention, so he was eager to get back to them. He also entertained the idea of starting a bunch of new research projects based on the inspiration that he managed to harvest in the past few months.

Naturally, he was not the only mech designer in the Larkinson Clan who wanted to work on new and promising projects.

The most pressing need of the clan was to enable the Larkinson Army to defeat the tougher warships fielded by the indigenous alien races. The strong transphasic energy shields that protected a lot of critical hulls from damage had become a universal annoyance to every human!

Mech designers had a tendency to respond to these sorts of situations by proposing mech designs that specifically addressed the problem in question.

The first pair of Larkinson mech designers to give their pitch to Ves was Juliet Stameros and Dulo Voiken.

Ves initially expected the mobility specialist and spearman mech specialist to introduce an unusual melee mech concept to him, as at least one half of the pair had no business designing a ranged mech.

His guess was not that far off the mark.

"What… am I looking at?" Ves furrowed his brows in confusion.

"You are looking at a sketch of our solution against heavily shielded warships." Juliet plainly responded. "While the entire mech industry is working towards developing efficient counters against transphasic energy shields, we all know that it may take years or decades before the landscape changes. We cannot wait that long, so Dulo and I have joined forces to develop a stopgap solution that is highly suited for the Larkinson Clan."

Dulo Voiken spoke up next. "As the previous battle has shown us, there is no better quick fix on the battlefield than employing missiles. The pair of Stormsurge Missiles launched by the Mars produced exceptional results. While our missile-carrying mech cannot produce as much damage in isolation, they can expose the hulls of a lot of warships when fielded in greater numbers."

Though Dulo Voiken mentioned a missile-carrying mech, the sketch clearly showed a lancer mech!

Ves pointed his finger at the projected sketch. "I don't see any missile launchers in this draft design. Are you sure you selected the right design file?"

Neither Juliet nor Dulo acknowledged that they had made a mistake.

"Sir… our Woodpecker Project is not a conventional missileer mech. There are good reasons why it looks like a lancer mech. In this case, the warheads are integrated in the lances carried by this mech."

When Ves studied the lance held by the mech in the sketch more closely, he could finally see how it could carry a warhead. The shaft was not only longer, but substantially thicker and more complex at the front!

He initially thought that the tip of the lance looked thicker in order to facilitate higher impact chargers, but it turned out that the additional layers had been added to make it harder for ranged attacks to eliminate the warheads in advance!

"Okay, I need an explanation for this." Ves crossed his arms. "This better be a good idea, because I am not in the mood to entertain a joke."

"Our Woodpecker Project is no joke, sir." Juliet responded with the assurance of a mech designer who came up with a solid idea. "The codename of the project should already tell you much about its concept. It starts with the use of normal missiles against alien warships. Though we have never experienced it in person, other forces that have already started to make use of missiles against alien vessels have found to their dismay that the craft they are targeting are highly effective at intercepting missiles in flight."

This did not surprise Ves. "Just as with human warships, the secondary or tertiary weapon emplacements of many alien warships are specifically designed to shred incoming enemy missiles or starfighters. The nature of these weapon batteries mean that they are much more effective at their jobs than a bunch of ranged mechs. The smaller the missile volley, the greater the chance that all of the payloads will get shot down before they can come close to their destination."

Dula nodded. "The most reliable way to make sure that enough missiles make it to their targets is to saturate the target with thousands of missiles. While effective, the amount of waste is huge, especially when you make use of more expensive phasewater-infused missiles. This is why we have decided against designing a more conventional missileer mech. They are easy to use as they only need to deploy in space long enough to launch their entire stock, but a competent opponent will easily be able to shoot down all of the missiles in flight."

Juliet Stameros gestured towards the draft design. "Hence why we have decided it is better to employ this sort of construction. The short story behind its concept is that we think that an expensive transphasic missile stands a much better chance of striking an enemy warship if a sufficiently armored mech escorts it right on top of the enemy ship."

"Ah. I see now." Ves responded as he looked enlightened.

The odd lancer mech made a lot more sense now that he figured out that it was meant to be an explosive delivery system!

"This is not an efficient way to launch a missile to an enemy target." Ves remarked. "The 'lancer mech' basically functions like a torpedo in this instance. A manned torpedo. I hope that your Woodpecker Project is at least able to detach the explosive warhead before it blows up in its face, right?"

"That is a given. This is not a suicide mech. The lance incorporates a small but extremely powerful short-range booster that can launch the payload at the target at such a high speed that it should be nearly impossible to intercept in a short amount of time."

Overall, this was a funky design concept, but one that had solid reasoning behind its special configuration.

"I'm sure that an idea like this has been done before." Ves stated. "Did other mech designers have any success in employing this sort of explosive lancer mech concept?"

"There are enough successful examples in the past, but their market circumstances are radically different. The mech models were all niche because they weren't as necessary in the environments where they were sold. It will be a different story here in the Red Ocean because of the prevalence of shielded warships."

Ves paused for a moment before he made his decision. "Alright. This idea might be effective enough to work, so I will give you a chance to prove the value of this Woodpecker Project. You can go ahead and work on this mech design, but once you are able to produce working mechs, I want to test it out on a smaller scale at first. The best way to test its viability is to employ it in the field."

"That is acceptable. Thank you for giving us a chance, sir."

"No problem. Now that I look at it, I might have a way of giving this Woodpecker Project an extra edge…"