The Mech Touch

Chapter 6968  The Premier Fleet Sets Off

After Ves exited from the System Space, he shared a deep look with his wife.

"I need to go back to my workshop right away!" She said as her eyes already became filled with inspiration. "I need to contact your uncle and share my latest idea for the Lionheart Mark II Project. He will definitely be receptive towards my suggestions!"

She disappeared before Ves could issue a response.

Gloriana had become completely invigorated by the possibilities opened up by the System!

Of course, nothing came for free. Aside from earning a paltry amount of AP per completed mech design, the only way she could quickly accumulate a lot of points was to work hard and complete a lot of Missions!

Her addition to the super-secret System club came as a blessing in this regard. Ves and Ketis alone lacked the time and mental fortitude to complete all of the Missions made available per period. They would definitely drive themselves crazy if they forced themselves to complete marathon after marathon with too little rest in between.

Having an additional user around enabled the two to share the burden and make everything more manageable.

So far, Gloriana had just entered the honeymoon period. She became full of enthusiasm as she not only regarded the System as a tool to accelerate her progress, but also unlocked brand-new possibilities for her mech designs.

The open god vessel and semi-closed god vessel concepts represented a huge advancement on her unique interpretation of living mechs.

Ketis completely opposed these ideas due to their dangerous dependence on external sources of power.

Gloriana's willingness to harness contamination as a weapon and a source of energy likely put a lot of future mech pilots in danger of getting brainwashed by the will of the masses.

If she tried to push this idea during the prior years, the Red Association would definitely crack down on her work and stop her from releasing her dangerous products!

However, with the native aliens continuing to press forward, the mechers had greater problems to deal with. The mech industry had already noticed that the RA's tolerance towards extreme solutions had quietly relaxed.

This gave Gloriana the perfect opportunity to realize her crazy but brilliant idea!

The Lionheart Mark II Project was the perfect starting point for her experiment.

Compared to other mech pilots, the Saint General possessed an inherently high resistance towards contamination.

As an ace commander, his willpower was not only much stronger than that of any mortal being, but he also possessed a strong affinity for the light attribute.

If darkness stood for degeneration, then light represented the opposite.

The light attribute possessed strong purification properties.

Light cleansed corruption. Perhaps Ark may not be completely immune to contamination, but his tolerance towards it was higher than that of any other pilot aside from much more powerful saints and god pilots.

If Gloriana somehow botched her implementation of the open god vessel, then Ark was unlikely to suffer any permanent harm.

In the event that he did… well, Ves did not particularly care.

Of course, if Gloriana wanted to use the Saint General as a test subject, then she first needed to obtain his consent.

This should not be a problem. Ark was greedy for power. His past actions and decisions already revealed a penchant for taking risks. He shared at least that much in mid-grade with Ves.

No matter whether Gloriana succeeded or failed in her first implementation, her willingness to realize such a bold and ambitious design concept exemplified her growth as a mech designer.

So long as her experiment produced a successful result, she gained the possibility of turning more mechs into open god vessels.

Despite their hidden dangers, the additional power promised by these post-living mechs was exactly what red humanity needed the most at this stage.

Even if mech pilots who relied too heavily on these machines ended up derailing their progression, it was worth it so long as they managed to defeat more phase leaders and slow down the enemy offensive.

After Ves reflected on how much progress his wife stood to make now that she gained access to the Mech Designer System, he felt more and more pressure to push his own design philosophy forward.

He decided to set a lot of different matters aside and direct most of his attention on his ongoing mech design projects.

Time passed by. In the ensuing days, the Premier Fleet followed by the Bluejay Fleet finally set off on its latest campaign.

Ves briefly halted his work in order to dress himself up and fulfill the duties of the patriarch one more time.

Everyone in the Premier Fleet as well as many other Larkinsons situated elsewhere tuned into the live broadcast and listened to his words.

"The alien advance has been relentless. The border regions are history. Already, multiple Middle and Lower Zones have fallen in the hands of the invaders, to the detriment of any red humans left behind. The death toll on our side is climbing at an astronomic rate. Despite the valiant efforts of the god pilots to clean up the alien invaders, it is too difficult for them to overcome the massive disparity in numbers between our civilization groups. It is not an exaggeration to observe that our side is losing the Red War."

The air grew heavier among the Larkinson Clan as Ves pointed out this plain and obvious truth.

Many military organizations became increasingly brazen in their attempts to appropriate more starships.

Each day, the aliens conquered at least dozens of star systems previously occupied by humans.

Even if most of them did not host any large or well-developed colonies, they still housed at least hundreds of thousands if not millions of human settlers.

If they were lucky enough, the founders of the colonies arranged evacuations for all of the civilians.

Yet the increasing scarcity of starships had made it increasingly costlier and more difficult to arrange adequate transportation.

Many military organizations became increasingly brazen in their attempts to appropriate more starships.

Logistics had become a matter of life and death as far as they were concerned. They needed more and more shipping capacity to transport mechs, soldiers, supplies and spare materials to the active war theaters.

The Red Cabal understood the importance of logistics as well. The native aliens increasingly split up their weaker fleets and spread them out across numerous different star systems.

This placed the alien warships and starfighters in a better position to intercept human shipments.

The increased emphasis on commerce raiding and convoy interception made it even harder to keep the human defenders at the frontlines in good shape!

This caused the shortage of starships to exacerbate. There was little humans could do aside from forming larger and more defensible convoys, but this slowed down the shipment of goods and personnel by such a considerable extent that they routinely arrived too late to make a difference.

The increasing shortage of hulls caused more states and pioneers to make the unconscionable decision to leave the vulnerable populations to their own devices.

At least the Final Glory line was finally beginning to catch on in the mech market.

When the abandoned residents had no recourse left, they generally made two different choices.

The first one was to hide as best as possible. They either attempted to hide in the woods or drill deep underground.

The more capable among them hastily built barebones spaceships that possessed no FTL travel capacity but could still give them a chance to hide themselves inside dense asteroid fields.

However, there were plenty of people who had given up all hope of survival and just wanted to spite the invading aliens one last time.

That was where the Final Glory mechs could satisfy their urges.

It was in this backdrop that the Larkinsons found themselves in a position to intervene.

"With the establishment of the Premier Fleet, our clan can finally participate in the highest level of warfare." Ves stated to the clansmen. "I am proud of what we have accomplished. My term as a patriarch may be coming to an end, but I am glad that I am able to stick around long enough to see this day. Just ten years ago, I never thought our clan could field so numerous first-class mechs, let alone an actual warship. Each of you deserve credit for helping our clan make it this far. From the original third-raters among you to the recently joined first-raters, I am glad that all of you have found common ground and contributed to the growth and development of the Larkinson Clan."

Ves could have never imagined that the family organization he created back in the Komodo Star Sector would rise so high in such a short amount of time.

Even if he deserved most of the credit for enabling his clan to grow so quickly, he did not ignore the contributions made by many heroes and other diligent Larkinsons.

"From today onwards, the Premier Fleet shall represent the best of our clan." He declared. "With this powerful first-class power at our command, we shall wade into the conflicts where first-class mechs and the most powerful alien warships are contending against each other and see where we can make a difference. Our numbers may be small, but I have unwavering faith in the quality of our troops. With an ace command mech and one of the first full superdimensional ace mechs at our helm, our fleet has the strength to tip the balance in a war theater."

Although the Premier Fleet in its current configuration had yet to fight a serious battle, no Larkinson doubted his words.

They already had a good understanding of the power of the Saint Commander and Saint Dise.

With their recently upgraded ace mechs, it was a waste for them to stick with the expeditionary fleet.

The Premier Fleet had become their new stage.

"Let no one doubt the Larkinson Clan's commitment to the defense of red humanity." Ves intoned. "From the beginning of the Red War, our forces have bled and suffered to secure crucial victories on the battlefield. Our power used to be a lot more limited in the past years, but that is over now. With the power of the Premier Fleet supplemented by the might of the Bluejay Fleet, we shall do our best to save the struggling Upper Zones from collapse. We may not be able to intervene in every faltering warzone, but we will not falter in the places where we can reach. This is our mission and our obligation."

None of the Larkinsons believed that their soon-to-be-former patriarch was being overconfident. The Premier Fleet may be small and its ace pilots still needed to undergo a lot of growth to truly come into their power, but their actual combat power was already astonishing!

Ves spread his arms. "Now, go! Let us depart the New Constantinople System and seek out more enemies for us to slay! The more powerful aliens we defeat, the more our names shall resound among our fellow red humans! Whether we live or die, we must never lose our courage and determination to defend our society! For the clan!"

"FOR THE CLAN!"

"FOR THE LARKINSONS!"

"FOR THE GOLDEN CAT!"

After this rousing speech, the members of the Premier Fleet became filled with enthusiasm.

The starships left the New Constantinople System and entered into FTL travel so that they could quickly reach a troubled war theater.

The Terran Alliance welcomed the assistance of the Premier Fleet.

The superstate had already concluded a special agreement with the Larkinson Clan.

The Terrans were well aware that the Premier Fleet was not obligated to stay in their territories.

This was why they were so eager to incentivize the Larkinsons to stay as long as possible.

So long as the Premier Fleet helped to defeat powerful alien forces, the Terrans did not mind awarding the Larkinsons with strategic resources, technology sharing, logistical support and trade priority.

Although these rewards did not play a big factor in the Premier Fleet's willingness to fight in the troubled territories of the Terran Alliance, the Larkinsons did not reject the additional rewards!

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