As Ves kept interviewing Captain Salica Yontrus of Giorno's Ridebashers, he kept getting personal and insightful answers on the uses of different LMC chs.
The woman knew how to tell a good story. The presence of children in the room also caused her to modulate her words and tailor her narrative to make her units sound cooler and more aweso in action.
"So you managed to achieve a 7.3 to 1 takedown ratio for your Monster Slayer chs?!" Andraste said with astonishnt in her childish voice.
"That's right." The rcenary captain bemusedly replied. "It is mainly due to how this ch fits into our system. We know of other outfits that like to use their Monster Slayers as maneuverable frontal battle units. That allows them to take down a lot of enemy chs by storm and cause a lot of morale damage to the enemy. However, these chs also tend to get damaged and destroyed more often, so their kill ratios are a lot lower as a consequence."
"How difficult was it for your ch pilots to get good at fighting with the Monster Slayer?"
"It's a ch that is surprisingly easy to learn for our lee ch specialists. Anyone with a good foundation in swordsmanship can get started on learning how to wield oversized bladed weapons easily enough. It is mastering it that is the real challenge. The Monster Slayer sohow helps with that, but it is ultimately up to the individual pilots themselves to do the hard work. The further they go, the more they need to rely on their own practice and talent to excel. Only our best lee perforrs have the right to pilot this model. Others are better off piloting knight chs or other regular machines."
The Monster Slayer's status within Giorno's Ridebashers was similar to the Second Sword within the Swordmaidens. Both machines served as highly effective elite machines that stood out for their amazing potential and high skill ceiling. The more skilled the ch pilot, the more drastic the performance!
This aligned with how Ketis always envisioned her chs to be used. She explicitly designed the Monster Slayer as a duelist machine where trained and experienced ch athletes could best utilize its advanced movent and attack capabilities on solid ground.
Ves was happy to hear that the Ridebashers managed to make good use of the Monster Slayer model in the field as opposed to a controlled ch arena.
Although this forced the rcenaries to work around several limitations such as its thin and lightweight armor system, the benefits were absolutely worthwhile as long as the ch pilots liked to live dangerously.
From the way that Andraste constantly expressed excitent at the stories about the Monster Slayer, she looked as if she was ready to hop into the cockpit as soon as she beca 10 years old and tested her genetic aptitude!
Ves patted the girl that was resting in his arms. "Calm down, pumpkin. The Monster Slayer is a great ch, but it is a more comrcial and budget-focused machine. It performs well relative to its production cost and material requirents, but it is not exactly a machine that can easily keep up against the elite chs deployed by professional military organizations. The Ridebashers mostly fight against other rcenaries and the like, so the opposition is not as fierce."
Captain Yontrus readily admitted this fact. "That is true. We know our limits. I think we will soon be leaving Davute because once total war breaks out, outfits like ours will get thrown to the at grinder. No amount of compensation and pensions promised by the governnt will ever make up for our deaths and material losses."
rcenaries weren't stupid. Their noses for death were extrely sensitive. Employers needed to offer vastly greater sums of money and other benefits in order to persuade them to put their lives at risk.
It was quite interesting to hear an ordinary rcenary's insights about the upcoming war between Davute and Karlach. Captain Yontrus already fought with the soldiers fighting on the opposite side so she possessed a much more grounded perspective towards this escalating conflict than the usual people that Ves talked to these days.
Aurelia recognized this as well and already began to ask questions to satisfy her own curiosity.
"Are there any differences between the rcenaries hired by Davute and the rcenaries hired by Karlach?"
"We are all the sa, so it is hard to see any differences that apply to us both." The rcenary captain replied. "Davute and Karlach have slight differences in how they treat and manage the rcenaries they hire. Davute doesn't pay much in cash, but they offer compensation in different forms such as chs, phasewater and even land, especially if you sign long-term contracts. A lot of smaller outfits signed up in Davute. As long as they survive, they stand to earn a massive profit."
"What about Karlach?"
"Karlach prefers to work with a smaller number of strong rcenary organizations to ease coordination and limit the chaos. What is special about Karlach is that it is much more willing to promise land, cities, planets or entire provinces depending on how much you are worth. The catch is that much of those territories are currently based in Davute. Only by winning the war will the Karlach rcenaries be able to beco the new aristocrats of their colonial state."
Aurelia widened her eyes until they beca saucers.
"How… how devious!"
It was an excellent way to motivate rcenary organizations that always wished to start their own colonies but never had the ans to do so. By making these promises, the cooperating rcenaries would definitely fight tooth and nail in order to fulfill their dreams!
"Doesn't Davute make these promises as well?" Ves asked.
Captain Yontrus tentatively nodded. "They are available to us as well, but we all get the impression that Davute isn't so eager to pass on so much future territory to re rcs. I think those snobs have already carved out Karlach's star systems for themselves."
That sounded plausible, though the Davutan rulers would truly regret it if their stinginess caused their side to lose the war!
"I would think that many more rcenaries would flock to Karlach as a consequence, captain." Gloria noted.
"It's not that simple, mada. Sure, it is nice to rule over your own colony, but you need to fight damn hard over it. The biggest fault is that once the war is lost, the Karlach rcs will not only incur a lot of battle losses, but they don't obtain all of the colonial properties they were fighting for. Davute on the other hand is much more willing to pay in cash or in tangible goods that we can pack up and take away whenever we are able to leave."
"Doesn't that make the rcenaries who are fighting for Davute less willing to stand their ground?"
"We will for the right price. If the current batch of rcenaries won't fight, others will co to take their place."
That was the advantage of Davute's rcenary strategy. It was much easier and more straightforward to attract rcenary outfits with generous pay and tangible benefits that they could obtain in a realistic tifra.
Aurelia asked another insightful question. "Do you care whether Davute will win or lose this war?"
"No." Captain Salica Yontrus imdiately replied. "We are only doing our jobs. Davute offers so of the highest rates for rcenary outfits at our level, so we all flock here and do whatever we need to do to earn our keep. The biggest rcenary organizations all have more skin in the ga since they have all agreed to beco a part of Davute's military establishnt in the future, but Giorno's Ridebashers won't be a part of that. This place is only a source of work for us, nothing more."
She sounded cold and callous, but Ves knew that was what true rcenaries were like.
He patted Andraste on the head, eliciting a soft complaint from his cute daughter. "When rcenaries start to care, they are no longer soldiers for hire. They will turn into the pawns of the state."
Captain Yontrus grinned at Ves. "You get it. rcs like us who do the actual fighting don't care about ideals, statehood, building a stronger power base or forming a new ho for all of the people we know back ho. It's the bigwigs at the top that worry about these matters. They're not even treating this as a life-and-death issue. It's all ga to them. They treat the Red Ocean as a giant colonial board ga where everyone underneath them are disposable chess pieces. No matter which side wins or loses, the players will always survive to play another ga."
That was an interesting way to describe the dynamic in the Krakatoa Middle Zone and the rest of the Red Ocean.
"You have an overly cynical view of the rulers of different colonies." Gloriana remarked.
"That's because it's true. Back in the old galaxy, many employers at least put their own lives and wealth at stake. When they lose a war, they often get killed or lose most of their foundation. Here in the Red Ocean, the real owners of Davute and Karlach are the sa wealthy bastards who are still safe and sound in the old galaxy. The old money groups from both sides only have to funnel a lot of money, people and stuff in the hopes of conquering lots of colonial territories. As long as the galactic net continues to tie the Milky Way and the Red Ocean together, this dwarf galaxy will continue to be treated as a high-stakes casino by all of the old money parties whose foundations will always remain safe."
That was a heavy statent and one that Ves did not expect to hear from a re rcenary captain from a rather modest-sized rcenary outfit.
"Did you go into the Red Ocean knowing that you will have to play the role of a pawn?" Ves asked.
Salica Yontrus shrugged. "Most of us already had a good idea what will happen here, but it is not as if the scene here is that much different. We were already risking our lives in the old galaxy, but jobs are harder to co by and don't pay as much. The rcenary industry back ho has also grown so stale and stuck in its own ways that it is difficult for us to seek greater benefits."
"So it is better in the Red Ocean?"
"Yes. Here, the old money groups are willing to spend so much to claim their precious phasewater that they are willing to spend their generational wealth in order to grab more star systems. Business is booming, our pay is at least thrice as high as before and we get easier access to newer and more modern toys like your company's fantastic living chs. If we take part in this ga and win, we stand to beco richer and powerful than we could ever dream of in the old galaxy. If we lose, we die, simple as that. That's the life of a rc in the Red Ocean."
rcenaries played a major role in this early stage of the colonization of the Red Ocean. Even the older colonial states such as the Friday Colonies and the Hex Federation had to rely on soldiers of fortune to cover up their weaknesses and buy more ti for them to raise more military divisions.
"Thank you for sharing your opinions and teaching us the circumstances of rcenaries like yourself." Ves eventually said as he wanted to wrap up this eting. "Before you go, do you have any suggestions that you want to make to my ch company and I? What do Giorno's Ridebashers require the most that the LMC currently cannot provide?"
"It would help us a lot if you take landbound chs more seriously." Captain Salica Yontrus replied as she stood up from her seat. "I get that a lot of important battles are fought in space, but control over planets and defending important installations on land are also important, especially when the threat of getting bombarded in space by huge alien warships disappears."
"We are working on it." Ves said. "Our ch company is still relatively new and we don't have a lot of lead designers in our employ. We have been prioritizing our own clan's needs, and since we mainly fight in space, our design work has been overly biased towards spaceborn chs. This will change in a decade once we have designed more than enough flight-capable chs to have a solution in almost every situation."
The rcenary captain nodded and accepted that statent.
"While I am here, I want to say that all of the rcs in my outfit would love it if you can fill up the many gaps in your company's ch coverage. It would be even better if you can create a single ch ecosystem that can help us save money and minimize the space dedicated to storing spare parts and materials."
"We are working on that as well, but that will take more ti and a lot more consideration, captain. Quality is extrely important to us so we don't want to rush any of our works and diminish our brand by publishing generic ch designs."
Ves wanted to wait until he beca a Senior and developed a more cohesive sche and frawork for the LMC's first comprehensive ch ecosystem.
It needed to be revolutionary and provide unique benefits in order to justify its creation!
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