Chapter 2696: Payment for Services Rendered (1/2)

Obviously, the Larkinson Clan's major coup was the Auralis. No matter whether the Larkinsons attempted to bring her into service or sell her off, the ship was packed with value!

What was especially important here was that the Larkinsons gained sole custody of the deep strike fleet carrier. They did not have to share the ship with anyone else, which saved everyone a lot of trouble.

The problem was that the Auralis accounted for a huge proportion of spoils that the Larkinson Clan had to skimp out on other spoils.

The Larkinson negotiators filled up the rest of the quota of spoils by securing a relatively small amount of mech salvage and just two expert mechs.

Certainly, Ves was very interested in getting his hands on the Charlemagne and the Jeanne D'Arc. Despite their fall, the mechs were actually in decent shape. Aside from some missing limbs and some broken components, they could still be restored as long as Ves put in enough effort.

The Charlemagne was a special mech. It served as the focal point of Master Huron's asymmetrical neural network, so it should definitely be packed with all kinds of advanced systems.

The fact that the Larkinsons obtained a lot of Scarra mechs was doubtlessly helpful in any attempt to study or reverse engineer the asymmetrical neural network.

”It's a shame I didn't manage to gain any of the valuable research data in Aisling's implant.” Ves sighed.

When Ves handed her corpse over to the Black Cats, their hackers quickly discovered that the implant was completely fried. All of its data storage facilities were firmly destroyed beyond any means of recovery.

There was no realistic way for the Larkinson Clan to field neural networked mechs on its own even if it secured the Charlemagne and as many Scarra mechs as possible.

It would have been much more useful to retain the services of the Aisling Curver and gain access to all of the proprietary research data in her head.

It was too bad that Ves had made a different choice. While he did not regret killing someone he loathed, he also had to accept the implications.

The Jeanne D'Arc wasn't as complicated. Its design was quite simple for an expert mech because its strength lay in its fundamentals. It hit hard, it flew fast and it could take an enormous beating.

The latter was the key feature of this swordsman expert mech. The Jeanne D'Arc needed no shield because its frame was clad with tough, regenerating armor.

When Ves discovered that Venerable Foster's former expert mech was augmented by Rorach's Bone, he immediately put it on his wish list.

He wanted it! Rorach's Bone had a special place in his heart and it was also very useful to boot. The only uncertainty he held was whether it was possible to extract the Rorach's Bone from the Jeanne D'Arc without losing too much of its capabilities. Losses always occurred in any recycling process, particularly when it came to recovering volatile or energetic exotics.

Ves also had plenty of other uses for an expert mech like the Jeanne D'Arc.

By studying it, he would be able to gather a lot of clues and insights about the operation of an expert mech. The Jeanne D'Arc was the best choice to do so because it possessed the least complicated internal architecture out of the 11 broken enemy expert mechs.

On the flipside, the Jeanne D'Arc also had very little to offer in terms of proprietary tech and applications.

This was the extent of the spoils that the Larkinson Clan received. While Ves felt quite regretful that he didn't get to obtain more broken expert mechs, he was content with obtaining a complete capital ship.

As for his allies, the Glory Seekers enriched themselves with plenty of other salvage. The Hexers secured 30 percent of enemy mech wreck salvage, 35 percent of enemy starship salvage and 4 expert mechs.

The expert mechs they obtained were half of the Fridayman expert mechs. While these were less advanced machines compared to the mid and high-tier expert mechs of the traitor clans, the Hexers were quite familiar with how the Fridaymen built their expert mechs. This meant that the Glory Seekers should be able to make much better use of this salvage than others.

As for the Cross Clan, they arguably obtained the highest share of spoils.

Their powerful mechs and veteran mech pilots contributed a lot of battle strength to the alliance's lineup.

Their powerful expert mechs also stopped the equally-powerful Praetor and Planat expert mechs in their tracks.

The Erin Tear, the Imperial Verdict and the Trost were so powerful that they could easily slaughter thousands of mechs or entire starships if left alone!

What was even more crucial was that Venerable Banner Cross sacrificed his life in an attempt to help with containing the Fridayman expert mechs!

This was a very painful sacrifice for an organization that looked up to high-ranking mech pilots to an insane degree!

The Larkinsons and the Glory Seekers weren't heartless enough to discount Venerable Banner's role. If the Leskin did not keep the Charlemagne and the Jeanne D'Arc busy, the Fridaymen would have been able to leverage their advantage in expert mechs even better, leading to a much faster collapse of the Golden Skull Alliance's battle lines.

From an objective point of view, the Cross Clan definitely earned the most merits in battle.

Of course, it was also due to their presence in the expeditionary fleet that the Fridaymen managed to invite the traitor clans to take part in the ambush in the first place.

The alliance members didn't quibble over this detail. It was not as if the Crossers were obligated to help the Larkinsons and Glory Seekers fight the Fridaymen.

The moment they signed the alliance treaty, they formed a mutual defense pact that encouraged them to form a united front against external enemies.

In consideration of the Cross Clan's huge contributions, it gained the lion's share of spoils. The Crossers obtained 50 percent of mech wreck salvage, 65 percent of the enemy starship salvage and 5 expert mech wrecks.

In addition to obtaining the very valuable Erin Tear, the Imperial Verdict and the Trost, they also managed to rope in the Ulver Quinn and the Prava Lonestar.

Part of the reason why the Larkinsons and Glory Seekers agreed to hand over so much loot was to keep the Crossers happy enough.