Chapter 552

Ves instantly catapulted to the top, but that didn't necessarily secured his win . He was still far short of reaching the victory condition for the game, so he had no choice but to transform his newly-gained wealth into strengthening his battle capabilities .

With a much-expanded force of mid-range ships and mechs, Ves experienced a renaissance which he took full advantage off to batter Chief Haine's increasingly formidable pirate armada . It was a shame that Chief Avanaeon's elite mercenary force beggared off at this time .

"Avanaeon, scuttlebutt says that the slapdash installation of the FTL drives on our logistics ships is coming back to bite us . Is there any credence to this rumor?

"

The engineer grunted .

"All the chief engineers are pulling double duty in trying to keep those shoddy FTL drives in one piece . What do you expect? They're simply the wrong fit for the Beggar's Bounty and the Linever Swan . To a mech designer like you, it's like putting an engine for a light mech into a medium mech . The FTL drives constantly break something after each and every jump . That's why we've suffered so many many delays recently .

"

This sounded very worrisome to the other occupants of the compartments .

"Do we need to open the stockpiles for the repair effort?

"

"No, it's fine . The lack of materials is not an issue . The main challenge we are grappling with is that we don't have a good understanding of FTL technology ourselves . Even the best of humanity hasn't figured out all the nuances, so us poor engineers from a backwater third-rate state are only scratching the surface in this field .

"

"Aren't chief engineers supposed to master FTL theory?

" Soapstone followed up .

Avanaeon laughed .

"Impossible! You'll have to be as smart as a three-hundred year old theoretical physicist to understand maybe twenty percent of how FTL drives work . Engineers like us make do with maybe five percent . We mainly learn what each component of an FTL drive is suppose to do and how it should look like . Unlike mech designers, we don't need to understand the underlying workings of FTL drives in order to get it to work .

"

"So you are essentially treating FTL drives as black boxes?

" Ves asked .

Even though he knew that engineers didn't comprehensively grasp the theory of FTL travel, he severely underestimated how little they actually knew .

The thought disconcerted him a lot more than he thought . After all, he wouldn't be happy to know if he rode a shuttle piloted by someone who never graduated from piloting school .

"You don't want to mess around with FTL drives . One faulty component can cause a ship to get lost in the higher dimensions for centuries . That's the least-bad outcome by the way . It's much more likely to get dropped out of FTL only to get sucked into a random black hole . What a way to go .

"

Everyone shuddered a bit at the thought .

Chief Haine's attempt to beat back the sudden incursion from Ves succeeded, but at great cost . Her pirate fleet lost most of their low-quality scum . Despite being used as sacrificial pawns, the stupid pirates rabidly held up the rear guard and fought to the death .

The strengthened mercenary corps owned by Ves lost a lot of time chewing through the cannon fodder . By the time they shrugged off the pirate scum, Chief Haine's elites had already made a getaway .

In the meantime, Chief Avanaeon's mercenaries actively hunted for Lieutenant Commander Soapstone's treasure hunting expedition . They followed the trail of breadcrumbs into uncharted territory and through sheer luck managed to arrive at the right star system .

"Hey! That's not fair!

" Soapstone slammed her fist against the table . The vibration from the impact briefly scrambled the projection of the game .

"Out of thirty-nine star systems your fleet could have jumped to, how come you picked the right one?!

"

"I'm just lucky, haha!

" Avanaeon laughed as he sent his elite mercenaries to decimate Soapstone's civilian-grade ships .

"Prepare your booty, because I'm coming to take them all!

"

Soapstone's expedition had been caught in the middle of a planetary exploration phase and faced two difficult choices . Either she could abandon her considerable landbound assets and preserve all of her ships, or she could make a stand in an attempt to buy enough time to evacuate her landbound forces .

The first option led to guaranteed survivor, but represented a major setback . The second option might cause her to bow out of this game .

The former option wasn't even a viable choice at all . Chief Engineer Avanaeon loved to run with very fast ships, so there was no running from his pursuit .

The outcome of the battle arrived quickly enough . Soapstone hadn't devoted enough resources to defend her fleet from spaceborn threats and paid for it . Even though Avanaeon fought with a diminished force of mechs, their outstanding quality allowed him to defeat the much more fragile ships and mechs of Soapstone's treasure hunting expedition .

The logistical officer was the first player to be taken out of the game .

"You lucky dog .

"

"Good game .

"

With three players left in the game, the session transitioned into the late game phase . Every side accumulated a core force of high quality people and assets . Instead of racing to accumulate enough wealth to satisfy the victory condition of the game, everyone tried to hunt each other in order to take their opponents out directly .

"Come on, Haine . Where is your mighty pirate fleet?

"

"I'm swaggering towards you! Just you wait! Our final battle will soon begin!

"

"Speaking of final battles, how high are the odds we'll be forced into a battle against the Hafner Duchy?

" Avanaeon asked .

"My gut feeling tells me that Hafner won't let us go without a fight .

" Haine remarked .

"I've managed to survive up to now by listening to my gut feeling, so you better take my warning seriously .

"

Ves shrugged at that as he drove his mercenary corps in a search pattern .

"I've studied Hafner's strategies extensively, and one thing that stands out is that they've erected a massive monitoring web at the border between the Kingdom and the Reinald Republic . According to Miss Jupiter, there's no way the local rebels can sabotage this monitoring network . We'll definitely trip an alarm as soon as our ships near the border .

"

"Hafner has a reputation for responding quickly to alerts . Their ships catch up fast .

"

"I'm very concerned about Hafner . All the information I've read about them suggests that they are zealous pirate hunters . Added to the fact that they know we'll have to cross their borders, they'll be ready to take us out . Frankly speaking, if not for the two-month deadline of our mission, we should have tried to go around and avoid this territory entirely .

"

After jumping through several star systems, Ves finally cornered Haine's pirate fleet . A massive battle ensued as both sides fought to the death .

One of the more annoying aspects of Haine's pirates was that she always managed to max out their loyalty scores . The last time he played pirate, all of his subordinates deserted him once he sustained twenty percent losses . The gutless pirates under his command showed no appreciation for his command .

Mercenaries fit better with his playstyle anyway . Most mercenaries possessed a sense of honor, and if nothing else they were lured by generous pay and hefty pensions for their loved ones should they fall .

Right now, his mercenaries gained the edge . Pirate elites or not, criminals mainly sourced their mechs and ships from the black market, which wasn't known for their quality control . At least a fourth of the hardware that Chief Haine bought from a pirate station suffered a malfunction during the battle .

"Those numbskull profiteers! Isn't it too much to ask for me to get what I paid for?!

"

Ves laughed at that as his forces slowly gained the advantage .

"That's pirates for you . They're utterly lawless . Without the need for the MTA to certify their mechs, they can pull off any scam they can get away with . I can think of a million ways to fleece my customers if I have no morals .

"

"Pff . Mech designers . Always thinking about profit before duty .

"

"Well, you are about to lose!

" Ves replied, not taking offense at her jeer .

The battle took a sudden turn when the Chief Engineer showed up out of nothing . His reconstituted force of elite mercenaries instantly dove into the battle .

"Haine! Truce?

"

"Sure! Let's kick this arrogant mech designer's butt!

"

"Avenaeon! That's low! Fighting alongside pirates is a great taboo!

"

"Not if we keep our distance!

" Avenaeon responded with a grin .

"Besides, once I clean up your dinky little mercenary corps, I'll immediately prove my law-abiding ways by finishing off what you started .

"

The chief technician and chief engineer were in cahoots with each other . It made sense to gang up on Ves to them because his mercenary corps was the strongest force by a fair margin . One-on-one, neither of the chiefs could match the strength of his mercenary corps .

The battle ended in a tragedy for Ves . He'd been too eager to seek a final confrontation, and he didn't expect Chief Avenaeon to join the fun so quickly .

"The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind! Tough luck, Ves, but this time you're the mantis!

"

"Good game, but how the hell did your fleet arrive at the battle so quickly? I was certain that I could have finished off the pirates before you arrived .

"

"There are lots of tricks you can pull off with certain FTL drive models if you're willing to burn them out . I performed an ultra-long-ranged transition at double their effective range . I can cover twice the distance at the same amount of time . The only downside is that navigation is gone to hell . I lost over thirty percent of my fleet to the tides of the higher dimensions .

"

"Damn . Well, at least I've learned something new .

"

With Ves out of the way, Haine's badly battered pirates contended evenly against Avenaeon's elite mercenaries . As a last hurrah, Ves had ordered his mercenaries to focus their final moments into crippling the enemy mercenaries . Since Avenaeon already lost thirty percent of his forces from botched FTL transitions, he really didn't have a lot of mechs at his disposal .

Haine managed to retrieve her malfunctioning mechs and kludged a number fixes together that restored their fighting strength . Those extra mechs tipped the scales in her favor, causing her to be the ultimate winner of this session .

"Good game .

" Avanaeon said, being gracious enough to concede the win to Haine .

"Yeah! Go team pirates!

"

The losers at the table grumbled a bit as they raised their comms and transferred five hundred credits to Chief Haine's account .

"I'll earn that money back next time, so don't spend them yet!

"

"Keep on dreaming, Soapstone!

"

After wrapping up the game, they retired to the sofas and shared a few drinks . An hour later, Ves departed from the lounge to call it a night .

When Chief Haine initially invited him to these little gaming sessions, he only accepted out of a social obligation . Each session ran for at least an hour, which was precious time that Ves could have spent on furthering the repairs of the task force's mechs .

It was only after he attended the first couple of sessions that Ves realized the value of these informal gatherings . Everyone invited to the games served a vital function aboard the Shield of Hispania .

Everyone had a tendency to loosen their lips during the gaming sessions . Ves learned a wealth of information from key personnel that he would have never gotten wind of in his regular capacity .

Naturally, the others expected him to reciprocate, so he returned the favor with some semi-critical nuggets of information from time to time . He was glad that everyone knew their limits . Nobody leaked a word of classified information unless all four of them possessed the right clearances .

Through these regular off-duty meetings, Ves pieced together Major Verle's plan for Hafner .

The mech officer came up with a bold plan . Instead of letting Hafner come to them, the Vandals would take the fight to Hafner! In other words, they planned to surprise the duchy by launching a surprise attack against one of their worlds!