The Mech Touch novel Chapter 516

Ves emerged from Soapstone’s office with a tired but energetic look. In the last three hours, he finally got to meet with Lieutenant Commander Soapstone who apprised him of their logistical situation.

The entire discussion ran on for hours as Soapstone patiently educating him about her own challenges. Most of it was boring and tedious, but Ves forced himself to memorize the points she raised.

In any case, Ves received the answers that he wanted to hear. With Major Verle’s approval, she arranged numerous trades with the regional rebel groups that haunted the Venidse, Klein and Hafner duchies.

"Venidse’s rebel movement is able to channel most of the resources that you need to us. Mind you, we aren’t acquainted with this particular group, and they know that they’re our only effective supplier. This means they’ll certainly try to take advantage by charging triple of what they’re selling while paying a fraction of the valuables we’ve obtained from the Detemen System."

Ves sensed her unspoken message. "So you want to keep the trade as small as possible?"

Soapstone nodded. "Our profits from the Detemen venture will evaporate if we try to fulfill every item on your wishlist. It’s simply not economical for us to fulfill your ambitious plans."

He quietly cursed at that. Couldn’t these rebels recognize that the Vandals could be their allies? Ves was forced to set his sights lower and acquire the bare minimum of what was necessary to keep all of the piloted mechs in fighting shape. He couldn’t spare any extra attention to the spares.

Even then, his means fell short of being able to bring every mech to a functional condition. The attrition some of the Vandal mechs endured on Detemen IV needed an extensive overhaul.

As a result, the task force needed to get past the Imodris and Venidse territories while slightly understrength. "Fortunately, our spaceborn mechs haven’t suffered too much damage compared to our landbound machines."

Yet that didn’t mean the landbound mechs would be mothballed. Venidse was relatively rich in resources and many of its star systems contained valuable mines. Soapstone quietly revealed to Ves that Major Verle and his staff was considering the possibility to raid one of Venidse’s prosperous star systems to supplement their deficient resource outlook.

Soapstone explained the rationale to him. "The rebels charge so much because they’re short on resources and need the money as much as we do. Rather than let them rip us off, it’s better for us if we can cut out the middleman and go for the source."

Ves almost had a heart attack when he heard this notion. "Many of our landbound mechs aren’t up for a planetary raid!"

"Tough luck then, head designer. Major Verle doesn’t want to hear it. We Vandals have endured worse situations. If our mech pilots have to pilot damaged mechs, then so be it. We really need those resources."

Soapstone also hinted that they would perform more raids along the way, because every rebel group was simply demanding too much. The Flagrant Vandals already paid a substantial amount of money to facilitate their passage through hostile space.

"Can you tell me about any large-scale deployments in the works? It would help me out if I know what I can expect in the future."

"There are two important missions that we will likely accept in exchange for obtaining extra assistance from the regional rebel groups. The first one consists of destroying an important defensive installation in the Klein Duchy. The second one entails freeing important prisoners from a jail in the Hafner Duchy."

Both of them sounded like it would require the Vandals to put in their best effort, especially the first mission. Attacking a defensive fortification head-on was not a light matter, and the more mechs on the field, the better.

Ves groaned yet again. "This is really too much. You’re running the Vandals ragged at this rate. I’m sure your mech pilots are able to tough it out, but mechs are exceedingly complex machines. It’s easy to see them as invincible machines of war, but their impervious performance is only possible due to the incredible amount of work being done behind the scenes."

"I’m aware of that." Soapstone retorted, reminding Ves that she excelled in logistics, which most mech officers plainly never thought about. "Yet we are also under a lot of pressure. We made it out of the Detemen System with a lot of riches, but until we are able to reach a friendly or neutral trading system and sell them off at acceptable prices, we won’t be able to derive any benefits from our loot at all. Our current resource-rich state is an illusion. All of our wealth is locked away in hard-to-dispose, illiquid goods."

He understood then that the task force was in a much worse state than he initially believed. It was as if a group of robbers infiltrated a mansion in the middle of a city and stole some precious jewels. Now, the entire city turned hostile against the robbers, leaving them nowhere to sell their ill-gotten gains.

Only by escaping the city and reaching a neighboring one would the heat die down. By then, they could calmly enter any store to sell the jewels at fairer prices.

"So there’s at least three different landbound deployments in the horizon. A raid in Venidse, a mission in Klein and another one in Hafner, is that all?"

"That should be all. We’re reluctant to plan for more because every deployment slows us down. We still need to reach the Reinald Republic within less than two months."

Thank the heavens for that. Ves quietly sighed in relief since they at least remembered that they needed to adhere to a deadline. Otherwise the sheer amount of deployments would have turned him crazy already.

The rest of the discussion mainly revolved around the details and finer points. At first, it didn’t seem to Ves that any of it mattered, but he slowly realized that it was important for him to know some crucial details.

The information he received encompassed tidbits such as what kind of resources Venidse extracted from their mines to where they would be able to obtain medium-density mech-grade fuel.

With his expanded Intelligence, Ves easily memorized all of these important details. If Lieutenant Commander Soapstone found it important enough to mention it to him, then it was worthwhile for him to memorize it all. Some of this information may come handy in the future.

With a bucket load of information stuffed in his head, Ves returned to his office and reworked his own planning according to the new information. He had to get over the fact that his plan left no options but to deploy mechs that still needed some repairs.