The Mech Touch novel Chapter 336

The war came sooner than Ves had thought.

The Vesia Kingdom formally declared war against the Bright Republic, and followed suit by making an offensive thrust at Halcyon Point.

"That’s where Uncle Ark is stationed!"

One of the most illustrious Larkinsons in active duty, Colonel Ark Larkinson was one of the family’s rare and precious expert pilots. Although he only experienced the tail end of the previous Bright-Vesia War, his hard work and lack of vices had steadily improved his skills until he broke through the threshold that had stumped so many of his fellow colleagues.

Rare for an expert, Ark had also been gifted with an administrative talent. With his dependable leadership and a reputation for fairness, Ark had also managed to climb the chain of command without losing his edge as an expert mech pilot.

Every member of the Larkinsons regarded Ark with pride. Whenever the public thought of the Larkinsons, they thought of Ark. Whenever the people thought of Ark, they thought of his family.

Many people considered Ark to be a star that would shine as brightly as his father Benjamin.

"Like father, like son."

"The other two expert pilots of the Larkinsons are senile. Only Ark is vigorous enough to have a hope at advancing to ace."

"Hah! Do you think it’s easy to advance to an ace pilot? Besides their founding ancestor, none of them had ever gotten close to becoming an ace!"

"I wonder if we’ll see the birth of any new experts among the Larkinsons. They pop up during every war so far."

Ark’s overall excellence landed him an important posting as the base commander of Halcyon Point. This was one of the most central and strategic star systems along the border between the two states.

Even if the Vesians could easily bypass Halcyon Point and invade the other stars further into the Republic, the substantial amount of mech divisions stationed there could easily wreak havoc behind enemy lines.

The necessity of maintaining supply lines and the treat to their rear lines meant that Halcyon Point could not be left alone by the Vesians. Even as the Vesians sent out several smaller forces out to raid the surrounding star systems, they focused their main thrust on this stubborn nail that kept constraining their strategic offensive.

The Bright Republic had long known that the Vesians eyed the strategic star system. Both its placement and unique characteristics played a vital importance in keeping the surrounding territories in check.

In fact, the Mech Corps had already reinforced Halcyon’s Point during the Glowing Planet campaign. The main reason why they didn’t send out any further reinforcements to the Glowing Planet was because they had been deeply afraid that the Mech Legion would exploit the moment the Republic diverted their attention from their border defenses.

Due to the prevalence of observers in the star system, sporadic bits of news constantly leaked onto the galactic net. It was almost impossible to suppress the news and misinformation that emerged from the net.

So far, Ves found it difficult to distinguish between truth and lies.

"At least the overall trend isn’t overwhelmingly in the favor of the Vesians."

As long as Halcyon Point stood strong, Ves did not have to worry about Ark. The expert pilot could take care of himself, and if worse came to worst, he could easily fight his way out of enemy lines.

What happened at the frontlines right now had galvanized the entire Republic. While the older folk greeted the war with grim resignation, much of the younger generation looked forward to doing their part to defend their homes.

Ves met with Jake in his office the next day. His COO informed him of an important event.

"The Ministry of Economic Affairs has gotten in touch with us. Right now, they don’t expect us to fulfill any obligations, but the LMC has been put into notice. We should expect to be called up to facilitate the production of supplies, spare parts or even complete mechs any time now."

"This is bad news. We only have one mature production line. If the Ministry wants us to produce some of their war materiel, we’ll be forced to halt our commercial ventures."

Exiting from the private market would have dire consequences for their market position. The LMC risked throwing away months of hard work.

Jake had a suggestion for that. "It’s time we expand our production capacity. We have the funds to procure two or three more production lines."

"That’s impossible unless you are looking at budget equipment!" Ves quickly replied. "I don’t want to settle for subpar equipment. At minimum, the production line should cost around 3 billion credits."

At 3 billion credits, the combination of 3D printer, alloy compressor, chemical treatment machine and assembly system presented a fairly complete package. All four machines had to be good enough to shoulder the LMC’s future production for the next twenty years.

Jake retrieved a data pad and handed it over to Ves. "I’m not suggesting such a thing. Considering our performance and our growth, I’ve been huddling with Primrose Mackarie on and off for some time. We’ve ultimately came up with two different financing plans."

"This is... leverage!"

The first plan amounted to borrowing lots of money. The LMC at this stage shone brightly, but it couldn’t keep up with demand due to the bottleneck in production. Rather than wait until the company made enough profit to expand their production, why not move this decision forward and use other people’s money to get the machines up and running now?

Naturally, taking a loan also meant exposing the company to further risks. If their sales slumped all of a sudden to the point where they couldn’t meet the repayment terms, they risked losing whatever they put up as collateral, such as his highly valuable reconstructed Dortmund printer.

Although Ves possessed a natural aversion to loans, he understood that he might not have much choice if he wanted to stay ahead of the curve. The LMC desperately needed more production lines, but it would take too much time to accumulate the necessary cash.

"There is also another plan on that pad."

Ves briefly browsed the other document. "Selling my stock? Absolutely not!"

As a private company, outsiders found it difficult to place a value on the LMC. However, business analysts loved to speculate. Their estimates of the company’s total worth had continually been adjusted upwards.

Last Ves had checked, the fortune tellers pinned the LMC to be worth around fifteen to thirty billion credits.

This was a huge amount. This was because it got a hold of a lot of expensive assets and licenses without incurring a huge amount of debt. The company also earned a lot of profits because its expenses were relatively modest if you left out depreciation.