The Mech Touch novel Chapter 7151

Chapter 7151: Large Uplift Project

While Ves appreciated Andraste’s input, she needed to go to bed. He called over Lucky and instructed his cat to make sure that her daughter returned to their stateroom.

"Don’t let her wander off in random directions!"

"Meow!"

Once the red-headed girl left the design studio, Ves could finally tackle his work without too many interruptions and disturbances.

He refined his drafts and added a few features that he had previously overlooked. There was still a lot of room for expansion and upgrades as he had yet to investigate what the RC could offer.

He followed up on that by contacting his chief of staff and telling her to call for an update from the Enforcement Department. The department head had personally promised that Ves would gain expanded access to the internal stores and tech database. It was not wise to finalize his designs before he understood what was possible.

Aside from that, Ves also intended to consult another source for assistance.

He transmitted a few innocent messages to Gloriana and Ketis. On the surface, he merely relayed a summary of his weapon design ideas and asked them to provide their input whenever convenient.

In reality, he embedded very subtle coded messages into the sentencing and formatting that relayed his request to meet each other in the System Space at a very specific date and time.

An hour went by as Ves continued to work, though he was not able to make too much substantive progress due to keeping a lot of design choices open.

Since that was the case, he decided to enter into various tech libraries and databases in order to study the latest advancements on hyper technology and E-technology, particularly in relation to a handful of familiar E energy attributes.

When the time had almost come, Ves began to space out while watching the clock very carefully.

On the instant the right time had come, he instantly conveyed his intention to enter the System Space.

Just as expected, Ves along with Ketis and Gloriana appeared at the base of the meandering trail that led to the top of the mountain.

The transition from an indoor naval environment to a natural outdoor environment was jarring, but Ves had entered the System Space enough time to get used to the abrupt shift.

The same went for Ketis, while Gloriana needed a moment to balance herself.

"Hello again, Ketis." Ves first greeted the swordmaster who he hadn’t spoken to in person for a while. "How is the expeditionary fleet doing these days?"

"Fine." She said. "I am actually looking to upgrade it into a first-class fleet, but this is such a gigantic and expensive endeavor that progress is slow."

Ves raised his eyebrows. "I thought that you are resistant to letting the expeditionary fleet turn into a force that is out of reach to second-class mech pilots."

"My opinions haven’t changed, but... it is frustrating to see a highly experienced and highly successful second-class fleet like ours do so well... only for the results to mean little in the greater scheme of things. I hate to admit it, but only victories against stronger forces can drive back the native aliens from a territory and keep it safe over a longer period of time. Other second-class forces can handle the weaker alien fleets more or less. They will suffer greater losses than us, but they do not have to enter into battle as often if we are able to relieve the entire war theater by using our improved first-class mechs to slaughter their crack troops, destroy their staging points and kill their phase lords."

Ves exchanged glances with his wife. Both of them understood that this was not going to be a quick and easy job!

"You need to complete a lot of steps in order to get this done." He told her. "First, you need to acquire tens of thousands of first-class mechs, of which the cheapest are already many times more expensive than the quasi-first-class mechs that we currently field. Then you need to retrain all of those mech pilots on how to fight at this elevated level. The mostly old, fragile and outdated starships of our first fleet also need to be upgraded wholesale, which not only eats up an astronomical amount of funding and first-class bulk resources, but also requires you to book the orbital drydocks necessary to perform the mass refits. Then you have to convince the partners of the Golden Skull Alliance to play along with this expensive endeavor."

This was such a huge project that Ves could not imagine getting it done within 5 years, let alone 10. Just the difficulty of trying to find enough shipyards to convert so many second-class starships into first-class ones was unimaginable.

In fact, it may be faster and less troublesome to just construct completely new first-class starships straight away. The Larkinsons could pass on their second-class vessels to other forces or sell them off to other groups.

Surprisingly, Ketis did not appear daunted at all. She smirked. "This is not an impulse decision, Ves. I have already discussed bits and pieces of this plan with the rest of the Golden Skull Alliance for numerous months. Do you truly think they are content to fight with second-class or quasi-first-class hardware for the remainder of the Red War? They have been saving up the rich amount of spoils they have accumulated with every victory to fund and supply the materials for the massive upgrade effort for years now. We have destroyed enough alien phasefighters and alien warships to upgrade the exterior and much of the internal structural components of pretty much every mech and warship in our combined fleet. We are currently spending time on designing the right first-class hardware that can easily adapt the salvaged materials that we have stockpiled."

Ves had to admit that reusing plundered materials could make this immense effort a lot more affordable.

Besides, it was not as if the Larkinson Clan was poor to begin with. Even with the rising inflation and the increasing difficulty of doing business in a more complicated new frontier, the clan still sold a lot of mechs, received a lot of rewards from the Red Three and salvaged a lot of valuables from the battlefields.

The same applied to the alliance partners such as the Glory Seekers, the Cross Clan, the Adelaide Third Fleet and the Boojay Clan.

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