Chapter 1088: Intervention I
“There are many lessons we’ll have to learn from this battle,” the Jaguar seriously intoned to the assembled host. “Chief among them, I believe, is that our old ways of fighting with arks have changed, thanks to our new weapons and the maneuverability of our arks.”
As he spoke, he manipulated the projection enchantment in Leon’s simple throne room, which displayed several simple shapes fighting each other, with those colored blue representing friendly arks, and red the hostile arks. After his manipulations, the arks separated, increasing the distance between them by several times than it had been before.
“The first is range,” the Jaguar continued. “Our weapons have vastly increased our effective range. We shouldn’t seek to close with our enemies until our other options have been exhausted. It is my firm belief that our losses would’ve been cut in half had we not sought to engage in relatively close quarters as we did.”
Split-Knuckle, the Lion elder, growled. He’d sustained a nasty wound during the battle, having lost his right hand and had much of the rest of his arm badly mangled, but Clear Day had fixed what he could. It would take some time, but the hand would also be restored, though for the moment, he was using a prosthetic designed by Nestor.
“We must be ready to engage our enemies at any distance!” he declared.
“No one here will disagree,” the Jaguar stated, only sounding a little annoyed at the interruption. “All I will say is that we failed to properly account for the increase in capabilities our new kit affords us.”
Marcus leaned forward. “Our fighters and Ulta suits have… limited range, and our flying war beasts need cover as well. If we keep our larger arks miles further back, then how do you propose we use these other weapon systems?”
“With more judicious application,” the Jaguar responded. He waved to Lana, who stepped forward to offer further explanation.
“Our losses among the fighter and Ulta corps were light relative to losses of other systems. It seems they’re more survivable than what we’ve given them credit for, especially after evaluating the damage done to the remaining platforms. Right now, we’re considering using them in a more general screening role than as direct attack systems—at least, when it comes to ark-on-ark battles. For ground support roles, they can be deployed further away from their bases.”