Chapter 6894 Red Collective Contribution The Premier Fleet was getting closer and closer to achieving total readiness. The arrival of Saint Dise and the First Sword Mark III plugged a huge hole in the fleet's capabilities. The Larkinsons no longer needed to fear the threat posed by enemy phase leaders. When Ves checked the acquisition of first-class mechs, he noted that the Red Association continually shipped dozens of first-class multipurpose mechs to New Constantinople every couple of days. The shipments were a bit irregular. The mechers had also fallen a bit behind schedule, but that was understandable considering all of the supply disruptions. Still, Ves did not think that it would take too long for the Larkinsons to gain possession of 1000 first-class mechs. Already, the Premier Fleet already obtained enough copies of the three chosen mech models to begin training for most of the mech pilots hired by the Premier Branch. The Dracoloid first-class multipurpose mech model proved to be a menace when deployed alongside dozens of similar machines. The dragon mechs possessed a lot of mobility and looked intimidating if they charged at the same time. Enemy phasefighter pilots would definitely panic if their craft was beset by these mechs! The Omega Thresher's melee capabilities were weaker, but nobody cared because the firepower of this first-class multipurpose mech model was superior. Of particular note was the Datura Gravity Well Caster. The gravitic weapon performed precisely as claimed. A single Datura was not able to produce a strong effect by itself, but when a dozen or more of them all launched their payloads in perfect coordination with each other, they were able to produce compound gravity wells that were able to generate much greater disruption on the battlefield! As for the E-MULE, the first-class support mechs simply performed their roles without any complications. Its energy capacity was higher than almost any other mech, but it was not enough to sustain the consumption of a dozen machines. However, in the absence of starships equipped with support link technology, the E-MULES still served as barely adequate substitutes. The support mechs were able to strengthen energy link and shield link networks and supply more juice to keep the recipient active and protected for a longer period of time. Saint Commander Casella and the mech officers serving under her had already begun to conduct many drills in order to merge the three distinctive mechs into a cohesive force. This proved challenging if Casella did not dictate the actions of the affected mechs. The Dracoloids had a tendency to get in the way of the attacks launched by the Omega Threshers. The Omega Threshers preferred to maintain their distance so much that they gave up ground too easily when approached by enemy units. As described earlier, the E-MULES possessed limited endurance. If the mech pilots did not ration the energy at their disposal, then they might become useless far too soon. To be honest, Ves was not particularly happy with the E-MULE model for this reason. He hoped that the development of superdimensional energy cells would solve this problem and enable his mechs to persist much longer on the battlefield without requiring support from friendly starships. Of course, the premise of this was that the Red Association successfully developed superdimensional energy cells based on low to mid-grade matter. It was far too wasteful to expend the good stuff on mass produced goods. As Ves witnessed the ongoing training sessions, he at least gained a bit of confidence in the piloting ability of the Premier Branch's mech pilots. Only a minority of them had promoted their way out of the expeditionary fleet. The remainder consisted of recent recruits. Most of them originated from the Terran Alliance, but there were a handful of pilots who came from other planets. The comprehensive training and education of these former first-class mech pilots enabled them to master the basics of their complicated machines fairly quickly. Only the Dracoloid had a higher learning curve due to its non-humanoid shape. The only issue that Ves had with this arrangement was that the new recruits had not proven their devotion and commitment to the Larkinson Clan yet. That was the one flaw that prevented Ves and the Saint Commander from feeling a strong sense of brotherhood with the mech pilots. This shouldn't be a problem once the Premier Fleet became active and fought a dozen battles. The bonds of brotherhood forged during active combat might not be as strong as the bonds formed by the soldiers of the expeditionary fleet, but they should at least reach a qualified standard. This was important. Brotherhood may be all that these people have left if the Red War took a drastically worse turn. Amidst all of the intensive training, Ves received more and more status updates about the delivery of two first-class capital ships. The Eternal Vulcan Empire had already begun to dispatch the first-class fleet carrier to the New Constantinople. Ves had waited for this expensive starship for a long time. He had diligently held up his end of the bargain by teaching the Vulcanite guest designers who to design living mechs. By this time, even if the dwarven visitors were not yet able to design a living mech by themselves, their foundations in this field had become strong enough that they should be able to get started sooner or later. They just needed additional help and instruction from the dwarven mech designers that did manage to succeed. Ves had no doubt that these dwarven Novices and Apprentices were worth the price of a first-class fleet carrier. This was because they would eventually be able to design basic living mechs that were completely tailored to the needs of the Eternal Vulcan Empire. They should not be able to design Carmine mechs unless they gained greater comprehension of living mechs and learned the design principles of the Carmine System. Considering that neither Alexa Streon nor Ketis Larkinson were able to design their own Carmine mechs, it may take a lot longer before any of them could reach this crucial point. At least Ves had given them the possibility of replicating one of his most revolutionary design applications one day. That was already a precious gift in itself. If anything happened to Ves, one of his multiple students could inherit his work on the Carmine System and eventually turn Carmine mechs into common products. While the fleet carrier promised to drastically expand the mech capacity of the Premier Fleet, Ves actually looked forward to obtaining his first true warship. The Tortuous Scream still needed to undergo her first trials, but they had already made the decision to skip this tedious process and deliver her directly to New Constantinople. The short journey should be enough to identify imminent problems that needed to be fixed. So long as the converted alien warship did not burst into flames, Ves was willing to believe that it would remain in one piece. The alien battleship had already spent enough time at the E-66 Experimental Shipyard. The Tortuous Scream would take a little longer to arrive due to the greater distance between the Terran Alliance and the Rubarthan Pact. Once the warship arrived, Ves wanted to activate the Premier Fleet and begin his next campaign as soon as possible. Rushing the fleet into battle generated many problems. One of the more concerning issues was that the staffing of multiple starships still remained a point of concern. The crew of the Tortuous Scream largely consisted of green spacers that never trained to operate a vessel like this. Even the more experienced officers and non-commissioned officers had never actually served on a real warship in their entire lifetimes. Even with the future installation of the SF-02 on the future flagship of the Premier Fleet, the smart AIs would only be able to provide indirect assistance due to the separation between human and alien computer systems. As Ves thought how much authority he should grant the smart AIs in the Premier Fleet, a communication request interrupted his musings. His chief of staff at the Red Collective contacted him outside of their scheduled virtual meetings. That was highly unusual. Ves accepted the call and leaned back in his office chair. The physical projection of Eliza Mo Ragadan appeared in front of his desk. The woman's impeccable control over herself betrayed no clues about what she wanted to talk about. Ves was not even able to read her spirituality due to her excellent cultivation. "Good afternoon, Eliza. What is it you wanted to talk about that couldn't wait?" "The Red Collective is aware of your efforts to prepare a small but elite combat force in order to do battle with the hostile aliens." The chief of staff spoke. "We couldn't help but notice that while the Red Association and the Red Fleet are well represented in the Bluejay Fleet, our own forces have remained absent aside from assigning a small bodyguard unit to you and your family. Our lack of commitment is inexcusable. After much discussion, the Phase Lord Department and the Enforcement Department have prepared two separate offers to you. Both are willing to dispatch a contingent of their elite cultivator units to you for the purpose of representing the RC in your battles against our common enemies." That… sounded like a big deal. Ves hadn't really thought about it, but now that Eliza brought this matter to his attention, it did seem weird that the RC had yet to join the club. He could easily figure out that it would be politically inconvenient for the collies to remain absent in his latest venture. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎 The mechers and the fleeters were clearly willing to contribute their own assets to the campaign, so the collies had no excuse to remain absent. People would begin to ask uncomfortable questions on whether the collies supported their own upper councilor as he bravely dispatched his best troops to the frontlines. The RC could not afford to show weakness in this regard. While Ves found it logical for the collies to offer up their troops, Eliza's phrasing sounded a bit unusual. "You said 'offers', as in multiple ones. Does that mean I can only choose one out of several?" The female collie nodded her head. "That is correct, sir. It has to do with internal politics. The specialized Phase Lord Department and the more general Enforcement Department have developed an increasingly more serious rivalry with each other. I can tell you that this is partially deliberate as it is good to prevent their members from becoming complacent. Another reason why the two departments are competing against each other is that they have attracted different groups of backers." "Oh? What makes them different? What do these departments advocate?" "You should be able to figure this out without requiring any explanations." Eliza said as she crossed her arms. "The Phase Lord Department advocates the belief that human phase lords are the only meaningful classification of cultivator soldiers in the Red War. All other cultivators can only play an assisting role due to their inability to fight directly against alien phasefighters, warships and phase leaders." In other words, the Phase Lord Department wanted to make human phase lords as dominant as mechs in other organizations. Just as how mechs had completely become dominant to the point of taking over the space normally occupied by tanks, starfighters and other alternative combat platforms, human phase lords sought to gain the same kind of primacy within the armed forces of the RC! This was obviously bad news for other types of cultivator soldiers. The famous Apocalypse Wardens for example were extremely strong at infantry-scale combat, but it was a lot trickier for them to resist mechs and other large opponents. Sure, they had that neat trick where they could merge their highly developed companion spirits and bring down the hammer against most large opponents, but it was not that practical to employ this powerful combination ability in a large and chaotic battlefield in space! If the rest of the cultivator soldiers of the Enforcement Department had fallen into similar straits, then Ves genuinely could not see how they could be useful on the modern battlefield.