The Mech Touch

　　Commander Casella Ingvar agreed with this assessment. "No refugee fleet can possibly remain fresh after being on the run on a continuous basis for a year. It must have fought against numerous hostile fleets during its flight and may have even lost a lot of ships during each encounter. What we may be looking at is the remnants of a much-larger fleet."

　　Professor Benedict Cortez of the Cross Clan spoke for the first time. "That's not enough. There is still a chance this could be a ruse. What other clues have you gathered that can support your conclusion?"

　　"The alien fleet is likely performing extensive repairs on its starships." Calabast answered as she brought up a few sensor readings. "According to our analysts, this data tracks the changes to the various parameters of the different starships. Their mass, dimensions, material composition and so on are varying slightly over time. This is a typical sign that the aliens are performing emergency repairs on their hulls. These jobs are substantial as we have detected numerous signs of heavy battle damage and missing parts."

　　There was so much data that pointed in this direction that the pakklaton fleet was undoubtedly vulnerable!

　　"If they're performing active repairs at the time, then they should not be in a good shape to launch an imminent attack on our fleet." Patriarch Reginald Cross stated the obvious.

　　This made everyone relax even further. Though the chance that they could get jumped by a surprise alien fleet was always present, at the very least the pakklatons should be more concerned with rescuing their own vessels rather than taking any offensive actions!

　　Of course, that was assuming they were rational and were mainly concerned with trying to survive.

　　If any of these assumptions weren't true, then the Golden Skull Alliance may have a difficult fight on its hands!

　　Ves knocked his fist against the table. "Don't underestimate the pakklatons even if their ships are in poor shape. I've been in situations where the fleet I was traveling with has suffered great losses, but could still defeat opponents that thought they could take advantage of easy prey. Those warships with all of those warship-grade laser cannons look incredibly scary."

　　"The alien warships are not completely unmanageable." Patriarch Reginald Cross judged. "The power of their larger warships is indeed formidable, but the ones that are a part of this fleet are smaller ship classes that are more suited for patrol and escort duty rather than participating in major battles. How big are they?"

　　"Around 300 to 850 meters in length. The tech level of the pakklaton race is not exceptional and is roughly on par with that of a second-rate state. We only truly need to worry about their laser weapons. Even if their vessels are sub-capital ships by our standards, the firepower they possess can still destroy our capital ships if we attempt to approach their position."

　　Ves frowned. "Can we even approach their position?"

　　"What do you mean by that, sir?" Calabast asked.

　　"We don't have warp drives." He stated. "The alien fleet is also located in the inner system, so we can rule out the use of our FTL drives to approach the pakklatons. The only way for us to proceed is to rely on our sub-light propulsion system, which is not fast to say the least. With heavy capital ships like the Graveyard in our fleet, the speed of our advance will be so slow that the aliens will have plenty of time to form their welcome party!"

　　"Wait wait wait, are we actually thinking about attacking this alien fleet?" Melkor asked with considerable consternation. "Just look at the size of those laser cannons."

　　"Commander Melkor is right. We should decide whether we want to attack or evade the pakklaton fleet first before considering what we do next." Commander Casella said.

　　Ves turned to Marshal Ariadne Wodin of the Glory Seekers. "You women haven't said anything so far. What do you think?"

　　The older woman was not ready to form a proper answer. "This is a difficult question given that we are working on too many assumptions and hazy long-ranged observation readings. The risks are too great. Even if we can overwhelm this alien fleet, as long as the pakklatons have enough cannons operational, we can actually lose three to five capital ships, which would more than invalidate any possible gains we can make."

　　Ves still saw numerous reasons why they should take advantage of this rare opportunity to confront a damaged alien fleet.

　　"If we can succeed, we can obtain either intact alien ships or salvage enough valuable debris to do a lot of interesting stuff with them. The pakklatons don't use materials as haphazardly as the Titania."

　　"We have safer ways of earning money." Commander Melkor argued. "It's not worth it to exchange lives, mechs and ships for alien salvage. These pakklatons aren't even a big deal in the Red Ocean so how valuable could their tech and materials truly be? We should fight for a more worthy cause."

　　Ves disagreed. "I think the risks aren't as great as they appear. If their ships work similar to human ships, then this degree of battle damage and attrition is absolutely serious. General Verle, given what you know so far and assuming the pakklaton fleet isn't in a state to attack us, how would you go about attacking it without suffering significant losses?"

　　"Hmmm…" General Verle thought for a moment while studying the intelligence on the target. "I have a hunch that the pakklaton fleet is in such poor shape that at least one or more of their alien starships are not fit to engage warp travel. If we have enough supporting data to back up this assumption, we can try to prey on their weakest elements while chasing away their stronger ones."

　　Commander Sendra grinned. "Like a lion pride stalking a large herd of herbivores."

　　Verle nodded. "Correct. It does not matter that we do not possess warp capabilities of our own. We should just proceed with initiating a normal advance towards the pakklaton fleet. If the aliens are paying attention to their surroundings, then they will definitely notice our approach. It is not as if we can hide our movements anyway."

　　"Then… we will be slow-marching towards the alien fleet? In open sight?"

　　"Yes. This will only work if the pakklaton refugee fleet is not able to regain its strength quickly and if no additional vessels arrive. If that is the case, then our advance will mostly proceed without a problem until we reach a certain range."

　　General Verle tapped towards the projection of a pakklaton warship. "These ships are designed and built for long-ranged combat. Laser weapons are the most accurate weapons to use at longer ranges since the beams they fire travel at the speed of light. Theoretically, they can hit predictable targets that are light-minutes or light-hours away. In practice, diffusion and other effects can quickly dissipate the power of these weapons. You should be able to tell us more about that, patriarch."

　　"With the way that laser weapons are built, a bit of skewing and scattering of firepower is always inevitable." Ves said. "At relatively shorter ranges, this divergence is practically unnoticeable. Laser weapons can reliably hit targets that are hundreds of kilometers away without any significant loss in power. However, when you start firing at ranges that are 100,000 kilometers away, you get confronted by a bunch of problems. The divergence of a laser beam becomes extremely severe at that point. In addition, slight deviations in alignment can make a beam go wide from its target by many kilometers."

　　"How would you judge the long-ranged striking capability of this damaged fleet, sir?"

　　"We would need more detailed observation data to be sure, but with all of the knocks these alien warships have endured, it is practically untenable for their laser weapons to be in perfect alignment and condition." Ves said. "Unless their alien technology is freakier than I thought, the constant fleeing and frequent fighting must have induced a lot of wear and tear on the ship systems. Not just the laser weapon systems, but also the sensors and power transmission systems should be compromised to different degrees. Oh, I'm sure they can still be deadly at shorter ranges, but they should be a lot less reliable at more extreme ranges."

　　"We can also hit them back as well." Commander Taon Melin of the Eye of Ylvaine spoke. "The guns of our Transcendent Punishers and other mechs aren't nearly as impressive as that of the alien warships, but we have quantity on our side. With the Prophet's blessing, our artillery mechs may be able to pick off their exposed laser cannons before the enemy warships can get much use out of their working weapons."

　　This was a good idea, though Ves wasn't sure it would work as well. The Transcendent Punishers were not fantastic at long-ranged precision because they not only had to account for the inherent variables of their mech frame, but also take the movement of the ship they were stationed on into account.

　　Still, the plan may still work if a large quantity of ranged mechs fired their weapons at the pakklaton refugee fleet.

　　Even if 99.99 percent of shots missed their mark, that 0.01 percent of attacks that managed to strike a warship would still amount to a lot of damage!

　　Over time, no pakklaton starship could bear that amount of damage.

　　General Verle made another important observation. "The pakklaton race mostly build their starships light and fast. Their naval doctrine does not place a heavy emphasis on defensive combat. If their ships are truly in a poor condition, then their mobility must also be affected. THis will not only make it easier for our mechs to land hits on their starships, but also pressure them to make a painful decision."

　　"And that is…?"

　　"The aliens can either stand their ground and attempt to defend their entire fleet, or they can cut their losses and run with the starships that are functional enough to warp out of the battlefield."

　　It was the same concept as lions or wolves preying after herd animals.

　　Whenever the predators chased after their prey, the old and weak usually fell behind. Their only fate in this circumstance was to end up in the bellies of the successful hunters.

　　This was part of the cycle of nature on many different life-bearing planets. It was so ubiquitous because it was a successful formula.

　　Ves and the others could easily envision this formula working in this circumstance as well!

　　"All of this sounds good, but we need to ensure the alien fleet will truly leave with the majority of its ships." Melkor stated. "To do that, we need to pose enough of a threat. Do we have enough firepower to make these aliens back off, or will they choose to gamble on a last stand?"

　　No one could give a definite answer. Not only did they lack a lot of information about the strength and condition of the alien warships, they also couldn't predict the reaction of the pakklatons themselves.

　　General Verle gave everyone a reminder. "Don't forget that we are dealing with real sentient aliens this time. We cannot blindly apply our understanding of how humans will react to certain events in this case. What if the aliens are compelled to answer to any challenge? What if the idea of abandoning a heavily-damaged starship is intolerable to them? What if they have reached their breaking point and seek a fight to the death in order to honor whatever alien gods they worship? Let us try and figure that out first before we commit to a fight."