Although the journey from Bridgehead One to the Vulit Star Node was fairly short, the Golden Skull Alliance still needed to complete a lot of work.
From adopting new communication protocols to familiarizing with the new regulations that governed arriving humans, it quickly became clear to the new arrivals that everything worked differently in the Red Ocean.
After everyone completed their initial tasks, Ves convened the first comprehensive meeting since they entered the dwarf galaxy.
“Welcome, everyone.” He spoke to the other leaders, many of whom attended in the form of projections. “I’m sure that there are lots of preparations to be made, but we still need to set some short-term goals. Our expeditionary fleet is lacking in too many ways. Unless we can address our concerns, we are far from ready to head into the deeper areas of the Red Ocean.”
Many Larkinsons nodded. The expeditionary fleet consisted of just 16 capital ships, with not a single escort ship in sight. The lack of combat carriers was a major shortcoming that substantially decreased the mech capacity of the alliance to a terrible level.
“Let’s talk about security first.” Ves spoke. “General Verle, leaving aside our allies, how many mechs can we deploy in a pinch?”
“Several hundred, which is far too little.” General Verle’s projection said as he spoke from the newly-instituted Gorgoneion. “Due to a strategic decision that we have made, many of the mechs we’ve brought into the Red Ocean are packed or compacted down to a reduced size. This has allowed us to carry more mechs than normal, but leaves us with precious few machines in combat-ready form. Our safety is guaranteed in the central star nodes, so we do not have to unpack them immediately, but we better find a solution before we finally depart.”
Although it was true that the central star nodes managed by the MTA and the CFA were bastions of safety, Ves had learned a long time ago not to take these absolutes for granted.
“What kind of mechs can we deploy in the event of an unexpected crisis?”
“Our six expert mechs are easily deployable, and so are our Transcendent Punishers. We opted to leave the former alone while we have permanently stowed the latter in their bunkers. Every other mech we have managed to retain will take a great amount of time and effort to unpack and deploy, and that assumes we have the space to accommodate the mechs.”
“How many packed mechs do we have in total?”
“Almost 4000 mechs, equivalent to two mech regiments.”
That was not an impressive figure compared to the 10,000 mechs the Larkinson Army used to have at its disposal, but it was better than nothing!
Ves quickly calculated how many combat carriers the Larkinson Clan needed to procure to adequately accommodate all of that hardware.
The Gorgoneion was the sole fleet carrier of the Larkinson Clan and could carry a whopping 750 mechs in combat-ready condition. She already carried roughly double that number mechs in packed containers!
The other capital ships were a bit of a mixed bag. The Spirit of Bentheim could reluctantly carry two mech companies if the Larkinsons were willing to keep the Transcendent Punishers inside their convincing bunkers.
The other capital ships such as the Dragon’s Den and the Vivacious Wal featured large internal spaces that weren’t designed to carry mechs but could still do the job in a pinch.
Ves was unsure how far the Larkinsons could go into converting these spaces into temporary mech hangars, but he estimated that the fleet might be able to deploy around 1200 to 1500 mechs in an emergency.
This was still not enough.
“We need to acquire at least 60 combat carriers or other starships that allow us to host an equivalent amount of mechs.” Ves eventually concluded. “This way, we can make the most out of the mechs that we have carried over from the Milky Way. We cannot leave all of our living mechs confined in their containers where they are of no use to us in battle.”
Everyone understood the necessity, but the mere mention of acquiring 60 combat carriers sounded like an impossible goal!
Back in the Milky Way, the Larkinson Clan could easily purchase ten times or even a hundred times that number of starships in the Antilla Star Cluster!
So many incoming pioneering fleets had dumped their carrier vessels close to the gate system en masse, so the supply of these assets had gone through the roof in certain places in the old galaxy!
The new galaxy was different though. One of the strangest aspects about humanity’s presence in the Red Ocean was the enormous prevalence of capital ships!
Though sub-capital ships existed, each of them had to be produced from the nascent local shipbuilding industry that was less than a decade old! The current level of ship production was thousands of times smaller than the demand for them in the open market!
Chief Minister Raymond Billingsley-Larkinson sighed. “My men and I have been trying to explore our options, but every local shipbuilding company is swamped with orders. Those that haven’t laughed at us before waving us away have told me that we need to wait for twenty, thirty or even forty years before we get our turn. In short, we cannot procure even a single combat carrier through regular channels.”
“Then we must go through the back channels instead of the front ones.” Foreign Minister Shederin Purnesse noted. “My office and I have already started to reach out to local pioneering groups in the Red Ocean, and we will be able to perform a much more extensive outreach once we arrive in Vulit.”
Ves directed a critical look at Shederin’s projection. “How many successful contacts have you made?”
The foreign minister grimaced. “I can count them on a single hand. Any shipbuilding company or organization with shipbuilding capacity is currently royalty in the Red Ocean. Not just our clan, but the overwhelming majority of other pioneering groups wishes to befriend and make deals with these shipbuilders.”
In other words, the Larkinson Clan had to compete in an incredibly saturated market. If none of the Larkinsons could come up with anything unique and valuable enough to attract the services of a shipbuilding company, then they could forget about solving their shortage of combat carriers anytime soon!
“Keep working on it, Shederin.” Ves instructed. “We don’t have a lot of trade goods to offer right now, but we can still work something out by marketing our living mechs and maybe other living products. We’ll discuss this later.”
The patriarch understood that he might have to reach deeper in his bag of tricks in order to appeal to shipbuilding companies. He was already psychologically prepared to expose certain secrets in order to increase the Larkinson Clan’s value in the eyes of external parties.
Ves gazed at every Larkinson attending this meeting.
“This is our number one priority right now. While mechs are still essential for pioneers like us to defend themselves and project their power, the space to hold them and carry them with us comes at a premium. Many pioneers have yet to establish colonies, and without all of the space that planets can provide to them, they are also hungry to acquire more carrier vessels. It will take an incredible effort to get our hands on enough carriers to hold 2500 mechs, and I need each of you to find ways to solve this critical need.”
No one disagreed with this instruction. They knew as well as Ves that the current state of the expeditionary fleet was too bare. Previous battles had shown the importance of bringing enough numbers to the fight. The Larkinsons had enough of fighting battles while being horribly outnumbered!
“If we can’t gather enough carrier vessels in a timely manner, we can solve our needs in another way.” Chief Minister Magdalena Larkinson’s projection spoke up. “Our effective combat power is not only determined by quantity, but also quality. Even if we can only deploy 1500 mechs in a typical battle, we can double our combat power if the machines are twice as powerful.”
The actual increase in combat power wasn’t as straightforward as that, but there was no need to go into technicalities. The point she made was valid.
Ves nodded in agreement. “I’ve been thinking about doing this, and we’re not alone in that. As far as I can tell, every other pioneering group has begun to pour their resources into upgrading the average combat power of their mechs. We not only need to keep up with our rivals, but also surpass them if possible. Unfortunately, we need a lot more design capacity than we currently have if we want to get it done in a timely manner.”
This was why he was so keen on recruiting additional Journeyman Mech Designers so soon!
“What are your plans concerning our future mech roster?” General Verle asked.
“I’ll need to discuss the specifics with you and other military officers, but I was thinking about pursuing two separate courses of action. First, we should upgrade the Bright Warrior, the Ferocious Piranha, the Valkyrie Redeemer, the Transcendent Punisher and the Eternal Redemption. The Red Ocean offers brand-new materials and the convergence of humans from all across the old galaxy has resulted in a melting pot where advanced technologies have become more accessible than ever. I intend to take advantage of these conditions to perform fairly straightforward upgrades to our mainstay mech designs.”
Ves was still unsure whether he should approach these jobs as major projects or minor projects.
If he wanted to make an earnest effort into upgrading his existing lineup of standard mechs, then he would have to reimagine the aforementioned mech designs almost from the ground up. This was the best way to integrate all of the new tech and materials from the Red Ocean into his existing work.
This was also incredibly time-consuming and labor-intensive. Ves was reluctant to put so much effort in these upgrade tasks when he could just push most of the work onto his many design teams.
The assistant mech designers weren’t qualified to perform major revisions, but they should be competent enough to perform less ambitious and more direct improvements.
An example was swapping an inferior component like an energy cell with a more expensive and higher-performing model. As long as their physical dimensions and other parameters were identical, even a Novice Mech Designer could easily perform such a simple swap!
Ves was more inclined to lower the priority on the upgrade projects at the moment. He preferred to explore new mech concepts instead of rehashing his older ones. He loved to innovate but there weren’t as many opportunities available if he had to preserve the original visions of his prior work.
“Can you tell us about the new mechs you are planning to design?”
“Not yet. This is still under discussion, but expect us to release a lot more mech models than before.” He smirked.
The meeting continued as the Larkinsons addressed other housekeeping topics. Regardless, their moods all improved a bit when they heard that they were working on solid plans to address the immediate shortcomings of their clan.
The Larkinsons regained their sense of purpose and direction. While they were supposed to pursue a lot of goals, only two of them actually mattered.
The Larkinson Clan had to acquire more combat carriers and develop stronger mechs. That was it. As long as they could complete these two objectives, they would have the capital to survive in the Red Ocean.
“We all have our ambitions in the new frontier, but make no mistake, fellow Larkinsons.” Ves spoke at the end of the important meeting. “If we don’t ensure our survival first, we won’t live long enough to chase after our dreams. Don’t think too much about fulfilling your other needs… All of that can wait until our Larkinson Army has become strong enough to protect all of our capital ships.”
