The expeditionary fleet had finally returned to the Bortele System.


    Its arrival attracted a huge amount of attention from the locals and visitors of rhe busy port system.


    This was not only because of the presence of a famous name that had be known throughout the new frontier, but also because of the ostentatious RA escort fleet that diligently fulfilled its current mission!


    The formidable first-ss warships and first-ss multipurpose mechs of the Bluejay Fleet kept other snooping parries well ar bay.


    No other vessel dared to stray too close to the expeditionary fleet. The people who lived in the Bortele System did not want to cause any offense either.


    The Red Two had already boosted their presence in the Bortele System. As one of the most important logistical hubs of the Toroid Middle Zone, the port system gained a lot of new fortifications.


    The mechers and the Heelers clearly possessed the determination to defend the vulnerable star systems at the front!


    Even if their main purpose was to slow down the advance of the aliens, many locals hoped that the Red Two would not allow their new homes to fall!


    Ves could practically feel the hopes and nervous tension of the people who hade to invest their time as well as their life savings in the growing colony.


    Those who could afford to sell their holdings in the Bortele System and move further to the rear had already done so. The ones left behind either couldn''t afford to do so or had other reasons to stick around.


    Ves couldn''t help but feel a growing responsibility to do his part in protecting these people. The native aliens threatened to wipe out every human in the Red Ocean. There was no way he wanted that toe to pass!


    "It''s not up to me alone, though." He sighed. "Everyone needs to pitch in. We can only defeat the aliens together."


    Now that the expeditionary fleet had reached the Bortele System, the time hade where Ves needed to prepare for his uing departure.


    Most of the Larkinsons did not want him to leave, but Ves needed toy the groundwork for the Premier Branch as soon as possible. He needed to enter the Upper Zones in advance so that he could handle anything important in person.


    Besides, the second-raters of his n were already capable of taking care of their own affairs. Ves deliberately wanted to separate himself from the expeditionary fleet in order to allow his nsmen to develop ording to their desires instead of his own. It was time for them to fight for their own future.


    His children did not take the separation from the expeditionary fleet well at first.


    "Does this mean we''ll be separated from all of our family and friends?" Andraste asked while she was clutching her practice sword.


    Ves sighed as he bent down to pat his daughter on the head. "Yes, ray dear. You will all have toe with me. 1 will make sure to introduce you to lots of new friends."


    "I don''t want to leave! It won''t be the same anymore, papa! How can 1 continue my swordsmanship training if Ketis can''t teach me anymore?"


    "She can still guide your swordsmanship training by remote. It won''t be as good as teaching you in person, but the Hyper Chamber will allow her to spar with you a lot more effectively than normal."


    "It''s not the same!"


    There wasn''t much Ves could do about that. Ketis had decided to stay behind so that she could take care of her husband, her children and the Swordmaidens. Her priorities were entirely different and she deserved to have a life of her own. It was rather admirable that she had readily refused the temptation of promoting to a first-ss mech designer in a couple of years so that she could stay with her family longer.


    In a way, Ketis hade to embody the Larkinsons a lot closer than Ves.


    He did not begrudge his own choices, though. The Larkinson n had to enter first-ss society sooner orter. Ves was just going first. It would take a few years for thousands of other Larkinsons to follow suit.


    He and his children would soon get surrounded by lots of Larkinsons by that time. Ves was already looking forward to how much better his men had be once they had used up their EdNet quotas.


    "If you want to be a warrior beyondparison, it is not enough to learn swordsmanship from Ketis." He told his daughter in an attempt to console her. "First-raters have excellent teachers and instructors as well. This will be a good time for you to polish your marksmanship."


    "That''s boring!"


    "It is not! If you want to retain any hope of bing a serious mech pilot, then you will need to master all of the skills required to pilot first-ss multipurpose mechs! Many of the offensive systems of those machines consist of ranged weapon modules. You will need to master the use of all of them, fromser weapons, positron weapons, gauss weapons, sma weapons, missile weapons and more. If you can choose between defeating your opponents up close or from a distance, then ft is much more convenient to resort to thetter!"


    His stubborn daughter did not look enthused at the prospect of reducing her swordsmanship practice so that she could practice her marksmanship instead.


    Ves was beginning to get a headache. He realized that he and his wife had been spending too little time on raising Andraste.


    It couldn''t be helped. Ves and Gloriana were mech designers, so they had nobat skills worth noting.


    Ves wanted Andraste to enjoy the best possible teaching, so he instructed Ketis and the Swordmaiden to keep his feisty little daughter busy.


    Even though Andraste had too much schooling to spend much time among the Swordmaidens, they practically raised her during the times they could pass on their teachings.


    In other words, Andraste had be indoctrinated by the Swordmaidens!


    While Ves did not entirely consider this to be a bad development, he did not want his daughter to be a sword-obsessed madwoman.


    Swordmaidens subjected themselves to brutal training regimes in order to be the most elite shock troops of the Larkinson n. They had to take on greater risks and sacrifice much of their time just to give them a slightly higher chance of surviving when they finally deployed on the battlefield!


    Ves did not want his daughter to follow in the footsteps of the Swordmaidens. He wanted her to be a martial leader rather than a more expensive variant of cannon fodder.


    Hopefully, Andraste woulde to her senses after she started taking more lessons from first-raters.


    As Ves prepared for his departure to the upper zones, he briefly met with his grandfather.


    "It seems that we won''t be able to spend as much time together as I hoped." Benjamin Larkinson said. "It may be years before I can bold my great-grandchildren in my arms once again."


    "I''m sorry. I didn''t expect all of this to happen so soon."


    "It is alright, Ves. Children deserve to live their own lives. Don''t let an old fogey like me hold yon back."


    "This won''tst forever. Once we have upgraded your machine into a proper expert mech, you can work your way to breaking through to ace pilot. You can join us at the Premier Branch by that time."


    "What if I am unable to do so? I am old. I''ve regained more strength since my recovery, but I am not sure whether I can recover everything that I have lost."


    Ves smiled at his grandfather. "You''ll seed. 1 am sure of it. There is no way you can fail. Conditions for mech pilots are much more favorable than in the past. The stuff 1 told you about is just one of many measures that the mechers have taken to facilitate the growth of all mech pilots."


    "I will take your word for it. I hate the fact that our society is split up into three sses. I wish the Fist of Defiance chose to abolish this division. It would make our lives so much easier."


    "That is unlikely to happen, grandfather. Splitting people up into different sses protects the underprivileged. Besides, every human hase to think in this way. It will be hard for them to see each other as equals despite the huge gap in wealth and opportunities. The fundamental root behind this problem isck of wealth and resources. Perhaps there will be a chance for us to reduce the extreme differences if we win this war. If we have ess to all of the resources of the Red Ocean, we can share much greater resources to the people at the bottom."


    Neither of them thought that was likely, though. The much more probable oue was that the most powerful people imed the most valuable resources for themselves. Second-raters and third-raters had little choice but to contend for the scraps.


    Ves wondered whether the Polymath''s Unity n intended to change this model. Perhaps it would have been better to give it a chance instead.


    No. That was stupid. The Unity n brought way too many downsides!


    "By the way, since you will be departing for rhe upper zones, how will our expert pilots gain ess to those vials? They''re being stored aboard the biggest ship of the Bluejay Fleet, right?"


    "I have already thought about it." Ves told him. "Most of the stuff will remain in ce. Every three months or so, we will transfer a part of it to the courier vessel and send her to the expeditionary fleet. It''s not the most secure way of delivering the goods to their destination, but it is workable."


    He had paid a lot of opportunity costs in order to secure 500 vials of A7-KE1 General Purpose Pilot Cultivation Elixir. There was no way he was going to leave them untouched!


    That reminded him that it wouldn''t rake long before he could witness them in use. His expert pilots had recentlypleted a thorough health inspection to determine whether they could safely ingest the elixirs.


    Ves truly wondered how they worked to increase the resonance strength of expert pilots. He had always thought that willpower cultivators had to polish their strength the hard way. It did not seem possible for shortcuts to work considering how they worked.


    However, the mechers most definitely knew what they were doing. Ves suspected that the elixirs possessed extraordinary qualities that did more than provide a straightforward artificial boost.


    The most important part about the elixirs were the ingredients. No ordinary materials could be used to synthesize them. If Ves was able to get a close enough look at the vials, he might be able to deduce the key materials used to make these remarkable elixirs.


    If Ves was able to get his hands on some of these ingredients himself, he might be able to cobble up his own solution!


    It didn''t necessarily have to be an elixir either. Though his hopes were slim, he did not want to let go of any means to strengthen his forces.


    As the expeditionary fleet steadily settled in orbit of rhe main ner, a lor of activity started to rake ce. Shurrles flew up and down as lots of goods needed to be shipped back and forth.


    Ves dealt with numerous priorities during this time. One of the most important issues was deciding what he and his n should do with the captured archeship.


    Right now, the hull of the damaged vessel was resting safely inside the Diligent Ovenbird. Not much progress had been made towards reverse engineering or repairing all of theplicated archetech.


    Without assistance, it was impossible for the Larkinsons to make heads or tails about the alien vessel. The fact that Lucky was the only one among them that could exert slightly greater control over her systems was proof that the n needed to find a different way to deal with this high-value salvage!