With the completion of a mech cultivation method that was effective for second order living mechs, Ves quickly worked to apply it to all of his other living mechs. That effectively meant that he had to 'install' the cultivation method to all of their attached design spirits. Ves had to repeat many of the same actions he performed on Goldie on the likes of the Solemn Guardian, Zeigra, Lufa and many other design spirits. He gained a lot of proficiency with each successful 'installation attempt', enabling him to work faster and avoid time-consuming detours. Soon enough, every design spirit could begin to administer the Lesser Larkinson Metal Guardian Mantra to the second order living mechs under their supervision! A new issue came up even as the automatic cultivation method began to spread across the expeditionary fleet and beyond. "Why are you insisting that we restrict this new feature to the living mechs in use by our clan?" Helena asked after Veronica had loaded the new cultivation method in her spiritual body. "Our mother and I are connected to millions of living mechs in the service of the Hex Army. Many of them can become a lot more powerful in a relatively short amount of time if we begin to assist in their cultivation." The cyborg cat shook her head. "Let's not get too hasty here. This is an experimental new feature. While I believe enough in my work to apply it to the mechs of our clan right away, it is not proper to introduce a powerful new feature that drastically changes the functionality of a product that we have already sold to my customers and clients. Stuff like this needs to undergo a lot more testing before it is acceptable to roll it out to the masses." The Daughter of Death did not look convinced. "You just want to keep your own clan ahead of others." "What's wrong with that?" Veronica shrugged. "I know that there are benefits to spreading out my latest advancements, but I would much prefer it if our clan can maintain its competitive edge. Besides, my work isn't actually complete. I need to develop variations of the Lesser Larkinson Metal Guardian Mantra. As you can tell by its lengthy name, it is currently limited to the Larkinson Clan and largely focused on defense by leveraging the metal element. I need to develop more fitting methods for every broad category of mech model first. It is rather stupid for light skirmishers and rifleman mech to primarily focus on investing their energies into strengthening their paltry armor, which is their weakest trait. It is much more efficient to amplify their existing advantages." That said, increasing the defenses of relatively fragile mechs was not entirely useless. The modestly greater capacity to resist damage might save their lives and the lives of their mech pilots one day! "Can we at least extend your latest benefits to the mechs in the possession of the Hexers?" Helena requested. "I am sure it would make your wife ecstatic." Veronica shook his head. "My wife can wait a little longer. I am not going to change my mind on this issue." It just so happened that the expeditionary fleet was close to engaging in another battle against a raiding fleet. The military leaders and planners of the Golden Skull Alliance had chosen their next target carefully based on external sources of information as well as first-hand intelligence gathered by scouts. Once Ves settled the matter of installing the lesser mantra to all of his design spirits and making sure to keep it within the clan, he attended a briefing organized by Director Calabast and General Verle. "The Red Two has pledged to multiply their rewards by up to 3 times to render an alien raiding fleet ineffective before it can successfully raid a human colony." General Verle explained to everybody. "This is an attractive incentive, but the difficulty of cornering an enemy fleet while it is engaging in warp travel is not small. We think it is worth it for us to make the attempt." The central projection briefly showed the target star system. It displayed several symbols and lines that denoted the location of a vulnerable colony and the estimated trajectory of an incoming alien fleet in warp. Calabast pointed at the fleet that was presumably in transit. "I won't elaborate too much on why it is so difficult to intercept a fleet that is traveling faster-than-light in realspace. There are ways to interrupt or catch up to this fleet. Just like before, we hope to covertly send out the Phobos and hope that he can catch up with the alien fleet while also remaining as unnoticeable as possible through complicated maneuvering." The chances of success were not too high and the possibility that the Phobos would remain undetected throughout this ordeal were not hopeful. However, as long as the Phobos successfully managed to get close and match pace with the hostile fleet in warp, it could begin to sabotage the warp drives of the alien warships, thereby making them vulnerable to interception! "How high are the odds of success in your estimation?" Ves curiously asked. "33 percent." Calabast responded. "15 percent." General Verle replied. Clearly, the two were not of the same mind. "Those are fairly low odds. What if the Phobos fails?" Calabast smirked. "Then we can still proceed as long as the Phobos has room for maneuver. Our expert stealth mech should have a good chance of sneaking up to the raiding fleet when it is in the process of attacking the colony on the surface of the nearby planet. So long as the alien warships are all stuck in stable orbit, it is not as challenging to get close to them. The greatest issue with this alternative approach is that the human colony will be razed by the time we can arrive." The Larkinsons looked more regretful by the fact that they would be missing out on the huge bonuses than actually saving the lives of all of those trapped colonists. Tragedies took place across the new frontier every day. The Larkinsons did not have the capacity to care for each awful incident. They could only pay attention to what was happening around them. Their agency was too limited to give them the luxury to care about the bigger picture. Though Ves still found it rather uncertain to rely on the Phobos pulling off its mission in either scenario, it was as good of a plan as any. Any other approach had a much higher chance of driving the alien raiding fleet away before a battle could even commence! The aliens weren't stupid. They shared information and learned the strengths of their opponents. The Red Cabal and its underlings had no doubt compiled an extensive intelligence report on the human expeditionary fleet that had defeated the wheednar raiding fleet. The same tricks might not work as effectively as before due to the enemy understanding the Larkinson Clan and its allies a lot better this time! "Let's assume the Phobos succeeds. What next?" Ves questioned. "We engage in battle." General Verle simply responded. "We have a number of adjustments to our mechs, their configurations and our tactics in the hopes of reducing our loss rate for this battle. Once our machines enter into effective combat range, they will have to fight against two different opponents." The projection changed to show two different groupings of alien starships. "The bulk of this raiding fleet is compromised of 113 warships of the yurzen race. This number is not small, but the majority of it consists of frigates and destroyers. The threat level of the warships of this minor race is roughly equivalent or a little better than the warships fielded by the wheednar race. There are major differences in tech, design style and effectiveness against different opponent types. Read the report if you want to learn the details. For now, you can assume that our standard mechs and our expert mechs are well-equipped to overcome their defenses and neutralize them ship by ship." The Red Ocean was a dwarf galaxy that did not offer a lot of development space to the vast majority of native races. This left them with little choice but to fall behind in terms of technological development and warship production. There was no great reason to worry too much about the combat effectiveness of a typical minor race. What did merit a lot of concern was the two minders that accompanied the yurzen warships in order to keep them in line. Ves immediately recognized the iconic egg-shaped starships of a certain diminutive race. "Those are puelmer warships." "That is correct." General Verle grimly nodded. "There are two of them, and they are officially classified as heavy cruisers according to the rules set by our civilization. Don't underestimate them, though. The puelmers have mastered conventional technology the most in the Red Ocean, and their warships can inflict a lot of damage for their sizes." The general design approach and ship doctrine of the puelmer race favored the construction of smaller but considerably higher quality warships. Despite the fact that the puelmers rarely constructed battleships, each of their sub-capital heavy cruisers had the potential to pack as much firepower as a ship that was twice or thrice as massive! "How powerful are these puelmer heavy cruisers compared to the orven battleship that we last defeated?" "From the information that we have gathered, these puelmer heavy cruisers are considerably more modern, although they have presumably missed out on the latest waves of upgrades that comprise of stolen human tech. Their defenses shouldn't be as resilient due to their limited volume, but their firepower can closely match that of the orven battleship, at least of the first few hours." Different images of the puelmer warships in question appeared on the central projection. They each gave the Larkinsons a better look and feel of these alien vessels. If the Golden Skull Alliance had to fight a single puelmer heavy cruiser, then Ves had little reasons to feel concerned. The combined might of three different ace mechs should be more than enough to keep the alien vessel contained and grind down her defenses! Yet this was not the case. There were two puelmer warships, and both of them should easily be able to support each other in good time! "What sort of weapon arsenal do these warships have?" "They have three main weapon systems that can inflict considerable damage to our assets when they can fully exert their firepower." General Verle answered. "Their primary transphasic positron cannon batteries have fairly long range and are known to be highly accurate. They also have a limited number of missile launchers that can let loose potentially devastating missiles and torpedoes. They also boast a large array of secondary laser cannon batteries that are known to be even more precise at long range, and can fire at considerably faster rates. They can easily shred hundreds if not thousands of mechs." Ves was feeling less certain about whether it was a good idea to confront this raiding fleet! "Then how do you intend to contain both of them?" He asked. "We are hoping that the Phobos can sabotage their power reactors and other critical systems. The smaller sizes of the puelmer warships means that it is considerably easier to reduce their combat effectiveness by tampering with their parts." Calabast said. General Verle nodded in agreement. "If we are lucky enough to weaken them considerably, then we can engage this pair of partially crippled puelmer warships without as many concerns. In the best case scenario, the Macharia Excelsia, the Jedda Sandivar and the Royal Jeem can handle both of them without requiring any assistance. In the more likelier scenarios, our forces may need to take action as well. We think it is best to hit one or both of these warships with battle formation attacks." That intrigued Ves a lot. "I can see the logic in that. Assuming that the formations of Valkyrie mechs can get close enough without getting shredded apart, their death energy waves should be able to threaten the puelmer crew members considerably." If it was possible to roll up these two threatening warships in a single go, then the rest of the alien raiding fleet should be a lot easier to roll up afterwards! "The puelmers might see us coming, sir. We cannot pin all of our hopes on this stratagem." General Verle emphasized. "One of the trickier aspects about this race is that they are highly adept with technology. They like to constantly upgrade and modify their individual homeships and mount all sorts of odd and unusual advanced tech into them. This makes them a lot more valuable from a salvage and research standpoint. The chances are high that we may be able to get our hands on the puelmer version of high technology if we can capture their two heavy cruisers in reasonably intact conditions. Defeating them will also earn us a considerably greater sum of MTA merits." This was different from capturing the orven battleship last time. That old vessel contained little truly valuable tech and materials that she was ultimately not that rewarding to conquer. The puelmers on the other hand put a lot more effort into keeping all of their existing warships up to date. The two puelmer heavy cruisers definitely posed a greater threat than usual for that reason, but the gains that the Golden Skull Alliance could make from them were much greater as well! Ves saw real hope of getting his hands on actual alien high technology this time!