5034 Superior Tactical Position Ves sighed as he observed a projection of a ruined colony. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎 The pioneer who boldly decided to invest into building a settlement on a planet at the coreward side of the Torald Middle Zone definitely suffered a massive loss! Though it was unlikely for that pioneer to remain in the star system while his colony became subjected to ruinous orbital bombardment, it was still a massive loss that could ruin the man's ambitions! There was no way for a defeated pioneer to invest in another colony in the new age. Many pioneers had lost the ability to replenish their funding and assets by relying on the easy support supplied by the Milky Way. "I could have been one of these unlucky fools." Ves quietly muttered. "Meow." Lucky responded as he lazily rested on the armrest of the command throne. "I knew it was a better idea to keep the core of my clan mobile." Ves smugly said. "These colonies are completely fixed in place. It is far too easy for hostile aliens to bombard them into pieces. They will never be able to do that to our fleet." "Meow meow meow." "You're not wrong that we are frequently forced to expose our civilian ships and populations to enemy fire, but I would rather endure these dangers than making it easy for our enemies to target our foundation." The war against the indigenous alien races of the Red Ocean had taken a decisive turn for the worse now that the counterattack had begun! Many more frontier colonies already suffered similar fates. The pioneers who all wanted to get ahead of the trend and build their settlements in danger paid heavily for their decisions! Ves did not necessarily feel sorry for all of the rich people and organizations who sunk so much money and assets into their crumbling colonies. He felt sorry for the poor residents and workers who had bought into the hype and accepted risky transfer offers in the hopes of securing a prosperous new life. It may have been possible for the Golden Skull Alliance to stop the alien raiding fleet from capturing and killing most of the harmless human colonists. The expeditionary fleet could have sped up. The Spirit of Benthelm and the few other modern starships equipped with superdrives could have reached the colony ahead of time and bolster the local defenses. As long as this superdrive squadron loaded up all of the ace mechs as well as a lot of other high-end mechs, there was a realistic chance that they could have repulsed the alien raiders and protect the lives of the human colonists! The Golden Skull Alliance did not opt to do so. The Larkinsons and the others were not that noble and selfless. Splitting up the fleet and transferring all of the ace mechs away severely reduced the defenses of all of the starships left behind! Any powerful enemy would have been able to pounce on the opportunity and destroy the foundation of the Golden Skull Alliance! The Torald Middle Zone had become a lot more dangerous as of late, so neither Ves nor any of the other leaders were willing to split up their forces that easily. The only acceptable way to disperse their forces was to send out their combat carriers and more expendable mech units on various missions in neighboring star systems. The main fleet always had to be protected by the best of what the Golden Skull Alliance had at its disposal! In any case, Ves felt no overwhelming guilt for choosing the safest course for his own men and fleet. The pioneers and colonists who boldly built their new homes and businesses in the deep frontier clearly knew what they signed up for. The risks were clear to everyone from the start, even if few humans took them seriously at the time. The fact that the 'weak' indigenous aliens defied everyone's expectations was no excuse to treat this as an injustice! There was no right and wrong in a war between races and civilizations. There was only survival and extinction. A projected figure appeared next to his command throne. General Verle looked rather ecstatic for his age. Ves hadn't seen the man so excited in a long time! "I take it that the Phobos completed the mission." "We have just received the latest delayed data burst from the Phobos. Our fantastic new stealth asset has successfully crippled the warp drives and various other systems of the orven battleship as well as half-a-dozen other large alien warships. While they still retain a high degree of combat effectiveness, we can maintain the initiative for two to four days. That is how long it will take for the alien engineers to repair the damaged warp drives." This was an important advantage! The alien raiding fleet was at the Golden Skull Alliance's mercy. Ves and the other leaders could fully choose whether to commit to an attack or retreat without suffering any losses. "What have you decided?" Ves asked as he idly stroked Lucky's back. "We can take them." The general responded with a gleam in his eyes. "The disparity in firepower is not as great as we would have liked, but it is still within a tolerable range. The orven battleship is by far the greatest threat of the opposing fleet. However, she should be weaker than the Fractured House of the Collapsing Star and the larger orven battleship we fought during Operation Lighthouse. Three ace mechs should be enough to take her out, especially when the Phobos has partially crippled her defenses." The sabotage inflicted by the Phobos made a crucial difference in this calculation as well! Anything that could tilt the balance in their favor could mean the difference between a pyrrhic victory and a clean victory. Even though the real battle had yet to commence, both Ves and General Verle understood quite well that the Phobos deserved the greatest credit in this operation! "If we have four more expert stealth mechs like the Phobos..." Ves waved his hand in interruption. "Stop dreaming. Expert stealth mechs are rare for good reasons. Pilots of stealth mechs generally do not possess the right personality traits to trigger apotheosis." "That was true in the Age of Mechs, but do you truly think that this will remain a constant in the Age of Dawn?" "...Good question." Not enough time had passed for exotic radiation to significantly affect the breakthrough rates of mech pilots, but that might change in the future. Even stealth mech pilots might get boosted by this emerging trend! "Anyway, what is the current battle plan? The alien raiding fleet may have been immobilized, but their formidable gun batteries are still operational. The Phobos can't sabotage them while these starships have fully powered up their transphasic energy shields." General Verle grinned. "That is exactly what is playing in our favor. It doesn't matter if the Phobos cannot take action for the time being. Just the threat of follow-up attacks is useful in itself. Do you see how all of the alien warships are keeping up their transphasic energy shields at full power for an extended period of time? While the alien shield generators are highly developed and can remain active for a long period of time, they are still enduring heavy strain. By the time our forces get into engagement range, the alien crews and warships will no longer be in their prime condition." "I see. You're right." Ves did not specialize in transphasic shield generators, but he possessed enough of an understanding of how they worked to know that it was indeed torture for them to remain up for so long! While he assumed that the aliens would eventually reduce the power of the shield generators to preserve their conditions, they would still experience at least some losses in performance. Relying on the probable outcome that the Phobos successfully spooked the aliens into wearing themselves out, General Verle and his colleagues intended to launch a bold strike by deploying at least 15,000 mechs on an extended attack run! Ves found this part of the plan to be a little dubious. "I can understand the need to keep our starships out of the effective range of the primary gun batteries of the enemy warships, but isn't this too much? This plan will exhaust at least part of the reserves of our mechs due to all of the distance they need to traverse under their own power." "We expect the alien raiding fleet to collapse quickly enough that the reduced operation times shouldn't play a major factor, sir. We have thousands of mechs more in reserve that we can push forward in case our assumptions are wrong. We would prefer to hold them back in order to protect our main fleet, though." It was rare to suffer zero casualties in any battle against alien warships. Their gun batteries were simply too tyrannical. The battle plan formed by the military leaders was already the most rational of the bunch. It was a lot harder to replace a broken starship than a broken mech. General Verle effectively tolerated a certain degree of mech casualties. In any case, the Spirit of Benthelm could easily build replacement machines to fill up any free capacity on a carrier vessel. Ves eventually gave his approval after he confirmed that the plan had accounted for many different possibilities. "Alright." He said with a sigh. "There is no way to make any gains without taking risks. If we don't have the guts to confront this alien fleet under such favorable conditions, we have no business venturing any deeper into the frontier." The general agreed. "Our mech pilots have trained for scenarios like these many times within the MSTS. However, there is a true substitute for the real deal. If we want to forge them into brave and fearless warriors, we need to put them to the ultimate test. If they can charge into the guns of a warship without flinching, we can rely on them to fight against the most terrible enemies imaginable, including the aliens of Messier 87 that we might have to confront down the line." General Verle not only set his sights on their current enemies, but also the much more powerful alien adversaries that could threaten all of red humanity in a few decades! That was his true goal. The Larkinson Clan had a limited amount of time to strengthen its mechs and train its mech pilots to the excruciatingly high standards necessary to put up a worthy fight against the powerhouses of M87. Nobody knew quite how strong they would be, but Ves believed it was better to have too much firepower at his disposal than not enough! He briefly felt tempted to order the Everchanger to secretly switch to the transcendence glow and give a lot of mech pilots a hidden boost, but he refrained from this idea. Exotic radiation already produced a similar outcome, though not as exaggerated at this early stage. Ves was curious to see how many mech pilots would break through at the current concentration level of ambient spiritual energy. It was best not to taint the study through artificial intervention. "Proceed, then. I hope that our mechs can silence the enemy warships quickly enough to prevent them from inflicting too many losses." "You shouldn't have to worry too much about that. We will be deploying our mechs in highly dispersed formations. The enemy gun batteries won't be able to wipe out our mechs en masse unless they get into closer ranges. While this will make our mech units more vulnerable against alien starfighters, the weak race that we are facing up against haven't been able to develop anything that can properly compete against our machines." Ves smirked. He had already skimmed through the detailed observation data of the hidden Phobos. The designs and the material compositions of most of the alien starfighters were quite rudimentary. Only the small craft that belonged to the orven battleship could put up a good fight, but there weren't enough of them to overturn 15,000 mechs!