Chapter 511 511 Hunter Or Hunted
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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As they moved through the trees, it became clear to Max that they weren't only hunting for something, but some not-so-friendly residents of this jungle were also following them.
His targeting system didn't identify between species that were watching from the woods, but he had a wide variety of targeting boxes to choose from, and some of them were clearly following the group as they traveled.
Max signaled to the Canis team about some of the larger targets that he had spotted, and they nodded that they had seen them as well, but seemed intent on ignoring them for now, so Max assumed that they were either very low on the threat list, or very low on the target priority, so they could simply be ignored until they attacked.
Nico stopped them a few minutes after Max had signaled to the group about a large cat he had seen and bounced down to rejoin the group.
"Are goliaths a form of primate, roughly fifteen meters tall?" She whispered.
"Yes, those are them. Did you find an adult?" Rill asked with a hint of excitement in her voice.
"I did. What's the hunting strategy? That thing is larger than a Crusader Class Mecha, and I really want to shoot it."
"They are just as mean as they are large, so we usually surround it so that it can't focus on the whole group at once, and then target the knees and head with heavy weapons." The leader of the Canis team replied, pointing to the appropriate spots on herself.
The beast had also detected them, and the sound of breaking wood signaled its approach at high speed toward the hunting team.
"Everyone spread out. Make a half moon and begin to fire at a slow rate as soon as you have a clear target. Don't go too fast. Let the others take some of the creature's attention away before you fire again."
"Excellent plan. Will you go first, or will I?" Nico asked, pointing a pair of plasma cannons through the trees toward the sound of the approaching Goliath.
"Since it is your first hunt, please, have the honors." Rill laughed while Nico hopped back up into the trees to wait for the creature to approach.
Max wondered what her plan was, as she had only gone to the lowest branch, a mere five meters off the ground, to target a fifteen-meter-tall monster. Normally, she would take advantage of elevation and try to shoot down at it from above to confuse it and make it look up and away from the rest of the group.
"Now," Rill called as the beast appeared through the trees, and two light blue plasma balls flew out from Nico's weapons as she launched herself up in the air.
Both shots were perfectly targeted, hitting the creature in the groin and bringing a howl of rage, despair, and immense pain all rolled into one noise.
It spotted her immediately, and Nico flew up and over its head, turning it ninety degrees to its previous course so it was no longer charging at the team but futilely swinging its arms at the flying menace.
Rill fired next, hitting it in the side of the head with a Plasma shot and burning much of its face away. Max followed a split second after, aiming for the same spot now that he had confirmation that it was correct, and then a barrage of fire from the others slammed into the back of the creature's knees.
It collapsed to the ground, legs severed, and Nico finished it off with a pair of Plasma shots through the eyes. The mighty beast crumbled as its brain melted, and the collapse of its body shook the ground all around them.
The fierce but short battle had scared away every other creature in the vicinity, and the forest fell deathly silent as the Goliath breathed its last breath.
"You know, I am starting to think these Plasma Cannons aren't really sporting. One volley to take out a Goliath was way too fast." Nico muttered as she inspected their trophy.
"You have a point. They are much more powerful than anything that we have here on Canis. Such a battle usually lasts ten or fifteen minutes." Rill agreed.
"That is good to know for later. You will have to specify hunting weapons when you issue permits to visitors so that they have the full experience of hunting the massive beasts on this planet." Max agreed, looking at the sad sight of the dead Goliath.
"Says the guy who never misses a shot. Maybe we should make the next one a melee-only attack and see how it goes?" Nico suggested, but Ramba waved off that suggestion.
"You might be crazy enough to try, but they are surprisingly fast when you aren't flying up out of reach. Melee attacks against a Goliath are generally considered suicide." The big man informed them, with his tail tucked down behind him, showing just how afraid he was of the concept.
"You have a point. But there is a Tree Viper coming for your head." Nico replied, pointing to his right.
Ramba turned in a split second and fired at the approaching snake, blowing its head off while it was in flight before taking the impact of its body and being thrown through the trees for a dozen meters, rolling along the ground.
"You could have told me that a half second earlier." He grumbled, dusting the dirt and leaves off his body.
"Sorry, I was distracted. But hey, it didn't eat you, and that's a good start."
"Let's drain the blood from this one, and we can look for another Goliath. This time we can use our light weapons and only switch to the Plasma Cannons if it gets too dangerous." Rill announced.
It was possible that only she and Nico were actually enthusiastic about the idea, but somehow they had made themselves the deciding votes, and the Plasma Cannons were put away while the Ion and Laser Rifles were taken out.
Chapter 512 512 Great Bad Ideas
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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Max opted for a pair of Disruptor Pistols, as they had the same damage output as the rifles and were more maneuverable in split-second targeting scenarios, which he was seeing as more and more likely with every step they took through the woods.
The number of large animals was increasing the further that they got, and none of them were friendly.
Sporadic Laser fire from the new organic rifles that they had made for the Canis team took out bugs the size of a large dog while Nico and Rill scouted ahead to try to find more large game.
A flashing warning, showing that a hostile target was incoming, flashed on the display in Max's helmet, and he popped a Disruptor shot at it the instant he verified that it was indeed an alien insect.
After multiple battles against the Klem, alien bugs were starting to become a sore point with Max, and he would have been more than happy to find out that they didn't exist here, but it seemed that they only came in more familiar-looking giant varieties than the Klem did.
His camera feed would be showing everything that they did to the guests up on Terminus, or at least those with the stomach to watch. Hunting wasn't every species' idea of a good time, even if the animals were extremely hostile, so it wasn't being played on the common area viewscreens, only in the private quarters or by request.
He had already verified that his System notifications weren't showing on the feed since they only appeared to him inside his display and not to the cameras mounted on the sides of his helmet, so that much of his data was safe, but it was a strange feeling knowing that thousands of people were looking at the same thing that you were, jumping with every incoming insect and creature.
Like the evil squirrels that they had come across, they looked so cute and fluffy, but their jaws opened up large enough to swallow a human, and they had three rows of teeth in their mouths. One of them had nearly gotten a Canis warrior before a well-placed shot from Max's pistols had split its head apart and left the man with only a few scratches from the close call.
"New target up ahead. Two hundred meters. I don't know what it is, but it looks really stabbable." Nico announced.
Max wasn't sure if that was a promising evaluation or not, but her thoughts showed him a long-legged crocodile, roughly twenty meters long, including the tail. She was right. It did look like it would be easy to stab. Assuming that you could get at its back and through the hide.
"Oh, a nice call. They are a fast breeding species as well, so hunting one won't impact the local balance much, if at all." Rill commended her choice.
"But are they edible?" Nico asked.
"They taste a bit like yard birds." Rill shrugged.
"Chicken, a yard bird is a chicken." Max clarified for his team after seeing one in her thoughts.
Well, it was like a chicken. The yard bird on this planet was roughly the size of a hovercar, but it looked the same.
"How do we hunt this?" Nico asked, drawing a pair of swords and moving her pistols to the additional arms of the Tech Adept Harness.
Then she added a pair of axes to the last pair of arms and twirled them around, deciding if she liked the balance.
It must have passed her evaluation because she didn't switch the weapons out and only waited patiently as Rill worked out a plan to attack the beast.
"It's not alone. It might look that way, but there is a helper with it, a scavenger bird hiding in the trees. The claws of the bird are venomous, and it likes to weaken targets for the Crocolisk to finish off. In return, the bigger beast will leave a share of the spoils for it." Rill explained.
Max searched his targeting solutions and found the bird. Unlike everything else in this forest, which seemed to be a gigantic version of something vaguely familiar, the scavenger bird looked like a normal barn owl. Nothing special at all, no gigantic fangs in the beak, just a two-kilo or smaller bird with big eyes and a round head.
Maybe that was its secret. It weakened the targets and only needed a bit of food, so none of the other monsters were upset about having it around.
"I will take out the bird. I can hit it from here. Not a problem." Max informed the group, taking out an Ion Rifle since his pistols were short-range weapons.
"Start off with the scavenger. It will make our life easier. The only trick is not to get eaten, and I am sure you can manage that. You're pretty fast." Rill advised.
"Got it."
Max took aim at the scavenger and noticed that there were a dozen more faded targeting boxes indicating hidden targets the same size. He could deal with that as well though, and he squeezed the trigger, dropping the remains of the scavenger from the tree.
As soon as it was hit, a dozen more birds took to the air, meeting the precisely targeted shots from Max's rifle, leaving them all blown to small pieces and scattered through the trees.
"Nice shooting, Commander. No wonder you're the one in charge. It's like you can see the future." Ramba told him with a smile.
As soon as he started shooting, Nico and Rill had both charged, one down either side of the Crocolisk, whose attention was now firmly on Max after he unleashed a dozen energy shots into the trees over its head.
The beast was about to charge when it noticed the two women approaching it. It adjusted its intent instantly, but it made no difference. The massive jaws went for Rill, who rolled under its belly and sliced the bottom of its neck with her sword, while Nico dodged the tail by activating her Gravity Control for a split second and landed on its back, slamming both axes down to anchor herself while she sliced out its eyes with her blades.
The beast reared up in agony, letting Rill get clear of its dangerous front claws and land a deep strike into its chest which gushed blood, and Nico slammed her swords down into its skull.
"The brain is the size of a walnut. You are too far back." Rill informed Nico as the beast collapsed.
"I should have guessed that. It fell for that trick way too easily for it to have a brain big enough to fill its skull." Nico complained, then shook their tour guide's hand and tapped something into the holographic display from her watch, calling down the shuttle to pick up the hunters and the beast to carry back for dinner.
"Do we have enough blood from the Tree Vipers, or should we find one more before we go?" Max asked.
"We have more than enough. They don't reproduce too quickly, so I don't want to hunt too many just for seasoning meat. The big beast will be enough reward for today's trip, and I am sure the others will be interested in hearing the tales of our battles." Ramba replied, leading the way to the shuttle as it landed as close as possible to them.
Chapter 513 513 Post Hunt
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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The gravity beam of the shuttle made the loading of their game an easy task, not even requiring the assistance of the team, much to everyone's relief, and within minutes they were on their way back to the city and ready to start telling the planet about the good news.
Canis had been isolated for a long time, and news of another ally and trading partner would be huge news for them. They had almost everything that they needed, and they lived simply, but some things, like the Replicators and materials printers, were such a luxury that they were willing to let outsiders on their planet in order to obtain them.
[Will all residents that wish to participate in a post-hunt feast please gather in the city park for an announcement by our beloved leaders, who have hunted a giant crocolisk for us to roast.] An announcement was playing throughout the city, and thousands of residents were already on their way to experience the festivities.
With this many people, even given its size, the crocolisk would barely qualify as a meal, let alone a feast, but Max detected that most of the adults were bringing a covered dish with them. That implied that either this was a standard mealtime for most of the city, or they had announced the return of the hunters far enough in advance that locals had made dishes for a potluck.
It seemed like a fun tradition, like on Founders Day back home when the government sent out busloads of candy and snacks for the kids. They would chase the bus around until they had their fill, often running right out of their own neighborhood.
Nico was thinking of a very different event, the harvest festival, where her family would all gather, and everyone brought a dish just like this. There was an art form to that tradition as well, as despite having large families, not all of the Tarith women were good cooks.
On a daily basis, they hired a chef for their meals, but it was a point of pride to show up with something you made yourself, and the others would know instantly if your chef had made the dish for you.
So, the children who were tasked to set the tables carefully curated the items that started nearest to them in the room so that by the time the truly awful dishes made it to them, they were empty, and the children wouldn't be shamed into placing them on their plate, which would inevitably lead to them being forced to eat them before dessert would be served.
Holiday Desserts at the Tarith family house were a fond memory for Nico and Max as well. The first time he had her mother's secret recipe cake, they were at her house for winter break, the first and only year they were in the Academy on Kepler Terminus.
"What are you thinking about?" Nico asked as she noticed Max's mind was elsewhere.
"Our first winter break and your mother's secret recipe cake." He replied honestly, making her laugh.
"Good luck getting that recipe, even I haven't earned it yet. But there is hope for the future, and I will make a number of other cakes today with the replicator in the shuttle. Rill, what parts of this thing aren't edible?" Nico responded, looking outside at the crocolisk being suspended below them.
"The side hide. The scales aren't edible either, but they're useful. So, pick the side hide to make the cake and let the locals see you do it. They will love you even more than they do for bringing back a feast.
The rhythmic thumping of her tail as she answered proved the truth of her words, and Max reveled in the fact that he didn't have to read anyone's mind to know if they were telling the truth. The Canis locals were terrible liars, and Nico only lied if she was messing with him.
Most of the time, if someone thought she was lying, it was because she planned to do something so outlandish that their brains couldn't process it.
The crocolisk was set down on a roasting spit built over a huge fire for exactly this sort of occasion, and the chefs got to work cleaning and skinning the enormous creature.
"Save me the useless hide. I will do a demonstration of the capabilities of the Replicator for the feast. Today, it will turn the useless waste scraps of the crocolisk into delicious cakes." Nico announced, then whispered to Rill.
"You can eat chocolate, right?"
The big woman laughed and nodded. "We might have some canine features, but we don't suffer from any of their allergies."
Hundreds of locals moved so that they could see Nico operating the replicator using the scraps cut from the beast, watching through the limited angles available through the open rear cargo door, but when the first trays of cake began to appear, and the heavy chunks of leather disappeared, the doubters were instantly silenced.
There was no fooling a Canis nose, and that food smelled very good.
"Since so much sugar isn't good for the teeth, how about we collect some more scraps and make some brisket?" Max asked.
"I have just the thing. Give me like three blocks, and I will be back." Someone in the crowd announced.
Max looked to Rill for an explanation since the man's thoughts said that blocks were a measure of time and not distance but weren't a measure he was familiar with.
"It's the standard time that it takes to jog the length of one habitation block. About one minute in standard measure." She explained.
"Can you use this? I run a butcher's shop, and none of this has buyers, so we compost it along with the rest of the waste." The man explained when he returned, pushing a huge two-wheeled wheelbarrow full of some sort of hide and offal.
"Park it in front of the replicator's feed bin. It has a bit of range, so you don't need to feed it manually. Then stand off to the left but in front of me, and I will hand you the brisket." Nico told him.
He parked the wagon, and Nico entered the data, then handed him the brisket on the plastic tray when it came out.
"Best trade ever. One wagon of scrap for a beautiful chunk of premium meat." The man cheered, holding it up for the crowd to see, then began to walk away.
"Hey, where do you think you're going? There's like a thousand kilos more material in that bin. Pass off the brisket and come grab the next one."
The look of shock on everyone's face when the meat kept flowing out of the machine as the offal wagon emptied was priceless. He had brought more offal than the Crocolisk weighed after it was deboned and dressed, turning their crocolisk hunt feast into a roast brisket feature, with people just walking up and pressing the button to get a huge chunk of meat, then walking away laughing as they tore it apart with their teeth.
"To think, we just threw an entire feast with one hunted beast and a garbage wagon from the butcher's place." Ramba chuckled as the event wound down for the night, well after midnight.
"Watching children tear apart an entire roast with their mouth because it took two hands to hold it was hilarious. How are your laundry services? These will either have to become topless events, or you'll be wearing out a laundry machine after every party." Max asked.
"We managed to obtain modern auto laundry a few hundred years ago from a rogue merchant, so we are good there, but topless feasts do have a certain appeal to them," Ramba replied with a wink.
Chapter 514 514 Are We Humanitarians?
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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Terminus managed to get ahold of the Hunters that night while Max and the negotiation team were sleeping off the excess of the celebration. The Hunters had found more fun things for them to see, including a human-controlled planet that was under attack by the Narsians.
According to Kepler data, there were no human territories on the northwest side of the Galaxy, out here past Klem territory. But they were currently on one and had been informed of another, so it seemed that there was a lot they didn't know about the ancient colonization efforts and where they sent their ships to.
Sekot was the name of the new planet that the Hunters had found, and they were currently challenging the invaders without their hunting suits to make the fight more even, in their estimation. They still had body armor and energy weapons, so it wasn't like they had devolved by much. They had just taken their equivalent of the nuclear option off the table.
"I don't think it's a good idea to join in without the Mecha. But perhaps we could assist with the Mecha forces and help create a safe space for the locals to stay while the Hunters finish their battles? I don't doubt they will win, even against a Narsian invasion, but the collateral damage could be fairly high." Max explained to the Command Group via virtual meeting held from the shuttle's cargo hold.
"I don't think they would be mad if we brought the Mecha. The Hunters are good like that. Plus, it's how the Narsians are used to fighting us, so it's not like we're going to sucker punch them. At least not much." Nico offered.
She was also using a holographic projection, but it was because she was too lazy to get dressed and get out of bed, so she had created a virtual avatar for herself to attend the meeting with.
"Then shall we set course for their location as soon as we are done here? Traveling at standard warp would give us the chance to make a proper sensor map of the region, as our current data suggested that there were no human colonies here when it has become clear that an entire Colony Wave made its way here in the past." Admiral Drake suggested.
"Excellent idea. Perhaps we should have the Cutters fly in a wide formation to extend the sensor range and get more detailed data on the locations we pass. With their speed, they can get back in minutes should Terminus come across any sort of real danger." Nico offered.
Max could sense that she was really hoping that they would be attacked by Narsians and have a good excuse for a Mecha fight on their way to a fistfight, but inhabited planets weren't that easy to come across in lightly colonized space where most of the stars didn't have any terraformed planets.
"Then it's settled, send out the cutters in a wide scanning pattern, and extend the depth of the scans as much as we can. We can make this an official mapping survey for the Reavers if we gather enough data. Who knows, maybe we will find more potential trade partners that the Hunters simply found too boring to bother mentioning. They aren't out here looking for humans after all." Max agreed.
The Admiral began plotting the course, along with the Cutter Pilots, and within a few minutes, they had a decent map of all the places they could possibly find inhabited planets. Some stars were simply unsuitable, either too early or too late in their life cycle for inhabited planets, but the majority could possibly, theoretically, have an exoplanet that was suitable for terraforming.
If the Canis were correct, then the Cygnus Expansion had sent these ships so that they would have had decent terraforming abilities, but they would have needed a somewhat suitable planet, to begin with, as the fleet was only capable of modifying a liquid water-bearing planet to one suitable for humans.
"We will leave this afternoon after we have confirmation from the Reavers that they know what we are up to and that they don't object to our deal. I can't see them making a fuss, even if this ally is so rural. I know our soldiers well enough to know that the women of this planet will be very popular among men of a certain proclivity."
The other Commanders smirked at Max's estimation, but he was right. Muscled and tattooed women had always been popular among the soldiers, and if you added wolf ears and a tail, you only increased the number of soldiers who would give them a chance.
Especially after a few years aboard a military ship.
The meeting broke up, and Max headed out to greet the planetary leaders before they left the surface, but not before sending Nico a tersely worded message telling her to get some clothes on and come outside to do her job as Second in Command.
He should have been more specific about how much clothing was considered "Some."
"Can you take a few of our young along on your trip? It seems that your technology made a great impression on the youth, and some of our more scientific sorts would like to travel with you as allied researchers." Ramba asked when Max came out of the shuttle.
"I don't see a problem with that. We have lots of room, and we already have foreign researchers working with our teams to bring varied viewpoints to the process." Max agreed, then saw what Nico had put on.
She had dressed to match Rill in very short shorts and a bikini top, both in olive drab green and paired with a pair of military-issue jungle boots.
"Good choice. We will teach you how to dress for the heat in no time." The big woman approved.
"Have you adapted to the insects already?" Ramba asked at almost the same time.
"She's a cyborg. The only bugs that can bite through her shell are the Klem, and I'm not sure that all of them could manage it either." Max informed him, making the locals reassess their estimation of Nico's combat ability.
"Is she really that strong?" Ramba asked.
"You can decide," Nico informed him, grabbing a cheap knife left over after the party and pressing it against her arm, only stopping when she had bent the blade in a full arc.
Ramba whistled in appreciation. "No wonder you weren't afraid of the Tree Vipers. Even outside your armor, they likely couldn't digest you."
"Unfortunately, it is time for us to head out to the next destination that the Hunters have identified. They say that there are humans under attack by the Narsians, and that is an opportunity both to hunt Narsians and rescue the human locals, so we have to go." Nico replied with her best artificial sad tone.
That voice box was secretly a blessing for Nico. Before she was a cyborg, she was absolutely terrible at pretending to be emotional about things, even when it was socially awkward. The only things she got properly emotional about were food and killing, but now that she could fake the appropriate response by changing her voice settings, she was actually better at blending in with the rest of humanity.
Chapter 515 515 Canis Can Be Nerds Too
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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Max waited and chatted with the leaders while the officials gathered the approved group of college students who had wanted to leave aboard Terminus for an indefinite period of time. The students viewed it like an extended work experience program, but while traveling the galaxy.
Max had assured the Canis leaders that they would take good care of the guests, while Nico assured the concerned parents that the Terminus Trading Company would find them employment and that the fact that Canis didn't have a currency that was worth anything beyond its own borders didn't matter.
After talking to the families of the ones going, Max truly understood Rill's comment about the Reavers not finding too many Mercenaries among the local population. Almost all of the students lived in a family unit with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, and it was only when they had their own grandchildren that they would branch off and move to another residence to expand their family.
There were exceptions, of course. The locals loved to run in the woods and hunt, neither of which were safe activities, so the families had gaps in them, and some preferred smaller families, so there were only one or two surviving members from each generation.
Even the one "orphan" of the group going to space had been taken in by extended family a few generations separated. Living alone simply wasn't a thing that they did.
Max would have to make accommodations for that in the living areas, though it shouldn't be hard since all of the crew spaces were set up for the units to live together so that the entire Canis group would be sharing one common area with separate bedrooms.
Hopefully, that would be close enough for them. In fact, they might even find the experience of having their own bedrooms new and interesting since he could hear in their thoughts that many of them shared with multiple siblings at the moment.
The students arrived, and Max smiled at their enthusiasm, with their ears perked up and tails wagging. It reminded him of the first time that the Innu had seen human technology and had completely freaked out with joy.
"Welcome, everyone. I am Commander Keres of the Terminus Trading Company. I want to say thank you all for considering Terminus Trading Company as your first off-world excursion, and I have promised your families to take the very best care of you until such time as you decide to return.
As you might already know, we are both an interspecies cruise ship as well as a working Reaver ship, doing trade deals through the galaxy and helping form a trade alliance, so there will be a wide variety of opportunities for you in the future.
I am sorry that we are leaving so abruptly, but we have gotten notice that a human-inhabited planet is under attack by the Narsians not too far from here, and we are off to lend a hand."
The students nodded in understanding and began to swarm toward the shuttle, guided by Nico and the hunting team, while Max did the honors of saying their parting words to the planet.
If they had waited for the parents to finish their tearful goodbyes, they would be here all day, so escaping to the shuttle was the only option that the students had to avoid being guilt-tripped into returning home, but Max could sense in their thoughts that the Replicator was their real goal.
They had seen the end product yesterday, but none of them had a chance to really examine the machine while they picked up dinner.
Rill and Ramba seemed to know very well what the end result would be if the families were allowed to linger too long and plead for one last hug from their children, so they escorted them away to a meeting, leaving Max alone with his team and their guests to depart for Terminus.
With ten large additions, the shuttle was fairly crowded, but nobody had to move to the cargo area, so at least they were still properly seated for the trip back to the ship. Their gravity control system was pretty good, but an atmospheric entry was still a rather bumpy ride and tended to pin the weaker humans to their seats, even with the dampening effects of the shuttle.
It was like the first-ever rollercoaster ride for the Canis youths, and unlike the more stoic team that had come up for the negotiations, their tails were giving away their excitement.
"The ship is kept a fair bit colder than the planet, so we will get you fitted for uniforms that will keep you comfortable, while you can set the temperature in your dorm to whatever you like," Nico explained as they flew.
"We're in one room?" One of the men asked.
"Not really. You all have individual bedrooms, but the dorm area was created for military units, so all ten of you will share a common area and kitchen with your own private bedrooms. If you want more privacy than that, you can visit the cruise ship area on your time off and spend part of your wages on renting a fully private room for those times." She told him with a wink.
"My own room. All to myself, no sharing the bed with my little cousin." He sighed happily.
"Roof couldn't be that bad." One of the others laughed.
"You have no idea. Even at twelve years old, he still wet the bed once a week. My own room is going to be the greatest thing ever." The first boy laughed.
"I would have gladly traded you. I shared a room with Priscilla for my whole life. Once she had her first heat, she would come back smelling like a different male nearly every day. It was horrible, and I had to shower twice before leaving for school every morning so that the teachers wouldn't think that I was sleeping around instead of studying." One of the girls complained.
Perhaps sharing space with your family wasn't always as great as it sounded.
Chapter 516 516 Settled In
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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"Ah, I forgot Priscilla was your sister. I apologize for all the times that smell was me. It's a good thing that she didn't want to come along. The whole Galaxy would get the wrong impression of us." A boy at the end of the shuttle next to Max added with a laugh and promptly got a knife thrown at his head.
"Please do not throw knives in the shuttle. The walls will cause them to ricochet, and you could hit someone you didn't intend to. But if you do happen to get along particularly well with someone aboard the ship, there are no rules against it other than consent and public decency." Nico informed them.
"Public Decency? I'm not sure what all that entails. Is that like the rules about peeing in public places?" One of the students asked.
"Yes, also, keep your clothes on in public, and no public sexual activities. There are some nuanced rules, but you can look them up once we get to the ship. I didn't notice anything in public on Canis that was out of bounds on Terminus, so you should be fine." Nico agreed.
"Are there seriously aliens? Like real aliens, not just demihumans who adapted to their planet?" The boy asked.
"There are. Some look nearly like Demihumans, some wear human-shaped robotic suits that can be mistaken for actual people at first, like the Illithid, and some are completely foreign, like the Shin, who look like mobile trees."
"You're in trouble now. No peeing against the living trees." The talkative boy teased one of the others.
"Man, I was three years old. When will you forget that?" The boy in question asked.
"It was a holiday tree in the mall. I will never forget."
Max laughed at the banter. These ten should fit right in with the soldiers they would be bunked next to.
"I should warn the group about a few things before we land. Alcohol is available in many places on the ship and can be produced by your kitchen's replicator. We expect you to be sober to be on duty, and refrain from consuming if you can't handle your alcohol or become violent.
If you are violent without it, we have a variety of virtual reality combat training simulations, as well as well-equipped gyms to work off some excess energy. They are made for Kepler soldiers with systems, so there are more than enough weights for you to work off some excess energy.
Also, the ship is at half the gravity of your planet. You can adjust that inside your dorm area for comfort, but the common areas are all at Human Standard gravity levels.
The cruise ship area has a gravity slide, like a waterslide, but with the gravity controlled, the tunnels don't always lead down. They only feel like they do. There are swimsuits and sealed bags for your other clothing available at the kiosks by the entrance to the cruise ship area. Again, a reminder that there are change rooms for the purpose and no nudity is allowed in the public areas." He informed them.
"Terminus sounds like a fun place. Are there mating rooms? You know, if we do find someone we like and don't want to bother our roommates?" One of the girls asked.
"Yes, all of the rooms in the cruise ship area are soundproof and private. They are mostly just bedrooms, and almost all guests eat at the restaurants or cafeterias, which are included in your privileges as employees, by the way.
Nico will provide you with full details, but if you need privacy for such things, a small fee will get you a private room in the Cruise Ship area. Don't feel ashamed to use them if you need them, and if you find a long-term partner, we can arrange for family accommodations when they become necessary.
The Reaver Companies, like the Terminus Trading Company, are generational. Our core members will spend their entire lives aboard the ship, and so will the next generation. Our ship is fairly newly founded, but I am informed that we have already assigned a few family units to members."
The men of the Canis group shared a conspiratorial look, and the girls rolled their eyes at them.
"What are you thinking?" Nico asked, curious what the inside joke was.
"Maybe we should have brought Priscilla with us." One of the boys answered before they all burst into laughter.
The shuttle docked with Terminus not long after, and Nico led the new arrivals to their rooms while Max arranged the Cutters' departure and double-checked the path they would take to their destination.
They should be there tonight, but if they ran into any delays or unexpected phenomena, it might be morning, ship time, before they reached their destination.
The Admiral had already sent messages verifying that the planet was holding out against the attack and had learned that it was not their first time fighting the Narsians. They were so close to the Narsian territories that the attacks were direct, via line-of-sight portals, and not the all in transfer of a planetary military force like Max had seen in the past in the Kepler territories.
Supposedly those were their version of colonization and not their primary mode of a military offense, a fact that Max hadn't known before. He had assumed that was how they always invaded, and it had never occurred to anyone that they had attacked in the past that it might be a colonization fleet and not a normal, targeted military offensive.
That greatly changed the way humans would have thought about the Narsian attacks. Colonization implied that the Narsians didn't actually know that the planets were inhabited, only that they were inhabitable, so it was only a fluke that they hadn't hit a capital city yet unless the Capital cities were emitting enough of a signal that they knew to avoid those particular areas.
[All Cutters, maintain formation and Warp 5 until further notice. We will only scramble to maximum warp if we lose contact with the planet or receive additional distress calls.] Max informed the pilots and then got to work on the planning stages for their offensive beyond where the troops would land.
There were drones to deploy, bombings to plan, not to mention the matter of if he should intervene with Cleansing Light. It would escalate the situation to a whole new level, and being so close to Narsian inhabited planets, it might actually be worse for the humans they were trying to rescue than if he remained aboard Terminus.
Chapter 517 517 More Threats
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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The five vessels spread out in a wide fan space to gather the maximum amount of data about every system they passed, with the findings relayed both to the Reavers and the passengers aboard Terminus. This was exactly the sort of thing they had hoped to find when they booked their vacation here.
They got to be the first to collect data on inhabited planets that hadn't been seen by the naked eyes of any outsider in time immemorial, thousands of years at the minimum. They had watched as the Commander of Terminus had met a lost colony that had adapted their genome to a hostile planet, and now they were going to see more forgotten star systems, ending with a battle against aggressive aliens that might have descended from the Giants that they knew at home as a peaceful and tolerant species.
Even if the stay had cost fifty times as much as they had paid, they would have been more than satisfied with this experience. Disregarding the cost, just the exclusivity of the experience put it at the very top of the bucket list of events they could have been privileged to enjoy.
Nico's voice was narrating the details of random stars and phenomena that they were passing as they raced toward the planet where the humans and the Hunters were fighting against the Narsians, giving Max a surreal feeling, like he was watching a movie of his own exploits, but in real-time and not played back to him.
Instead of dwelling on that, he linked the Command Ship that the Hunters were traveling on to find out where they wanted his troops, who were currently anxiously waiting aboard their Cutters for deployment.
Well, metaphorically.
Realistically, most of them were playing cards or sleeping while they waited for the one-hour notice to sound that would tell them to get prepped and return to their Mecha for an imminent battle.
[Commander, I have excellent news for you.] Nico informed Max just as he had finished the deployment orders.
[Please don't tell me we need to change the drop sites. I just finished arranging them with the Hunters so we weren't interfering with each other's prey.] Max responded.
[No, this is way better than that. The planet we're headed for is the neutral zone between the Narsians and the Klem territories. We have 48 hours to clear the Narsians before utter chaos descends in the form of a Klem wave ten times anything we have seen attacking human space.]
Max rubbed his temples in an attempt to defeat the headache that he could feel coming on.
[And how exactly is that a good thing?]
[Well, you don't have to be bored, and you don't have to intervene on the surface. You can go with the Cutters and the Hunters' interceptor ships for space battles to deal with the Klem. If my readings are right, this isn't just a wave of pods. It is an actual attack fleet, like real ships, with living stuff in them.
I would play with you, but the deployment orders you sent out have me dropping with the First Battalion near the Commander of the Hunters forces so I can join her for a mission.]
The leader had been quite adamant about that. Their challenge had ended in a draw, and she was determined to regain her title, as she put it, by defeating Nico in a Narsian hunting challenge. They would be taking their Mecha, and Max had insisted on that point, as he couldn't take losing Nico again, so the challenge would be the total number of Narsian dead within the first twenty four hours while hunting together.
[Back up a bit. The Klem force has space vessels?]
[With a 92 percent certainty, yes. There is a chance they are giant pods, but the energy signals suggest that they are actually ships that were assembled by sending pods to a moon and having special creatures assemble a vacuum-resistant ship and then stock it with all the needed aspects for life. The sensors detect plant life aboard the largest signals, though it might be a biomass slurry, like they use to grow more pods.]
Many Klem could use an organic toxin or even an electrical charge to attack, and both of those could theoretically work in space just as well as their projectile spikes did, so a Klem ship would be a fearsome force if it actually existed.
Even more disturbingly, if it existed, it likely also contained the ability to send out attack Klem in space, the way that pods were dropped on planets.
[Thanks for the update. Send me the location data, and I will plan to have Cleansing Light and any spare Drones from our force engage them.] Max sighed, turning back to his computer console to update the deployment orders.
[See, being stuck on the ship sucks. At least you get to go out after the plans are made, and the drones are deployed.] Nico reminded him.
[Your joy isn't because you found out that new enemies existed, is it? It's because you finally got a reason to complain about having to lead the drone forces and supply drops, isn't it?]
[No Comment.]
Max laughed as he ordered the deployment of the drones to assist himself once the rest of the force was on the planet and informed the Hunters that he would be dealing with it as well as he could but that the fleet was an unknown force, which might be well above the capabilities of a single Mecha, even a Titan Class one.
They were just as happy as Nico to hear that and informed him that they would redeploy forces if he needed backup but that their current main force was occupied on the planet, hunting Narsians.
The signals were hard to decipher because of the abundance of small objects and pods, but Max didn't think they had a ship bigger than a cruiser. The real question was if it was a Cruiser-sized pod or a Cruiser-sized attack Klem in space because the second option was terrifying.
Chapter 518 518 Hunting With The Hunters
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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As they passed by the various star systems, Max noticed something odd in how the planets were arranged. Over a dozen of them appeared to have no inhabitants at all, but their layouts were exactly the same, mimicking the mythical Sol, the homeworld of humanity, in that the third and fourth planets of the system were inhabitable, as well as one moon around a gas giant.
It was clear that so many nearby systems consisting of identical planetary arrangements, right down to the atmospheric composition, could not possibly be natural, but the sensors said that all of them had been extracted from their major natural resources and abandoned, leaving behind only nonsentient life.
Some planets still had living flora and fauna, but some were completely barren, destroyed by whatever force or industry had caused the architects of their design to abandon them.
It was completely unnatural that a culture that could rearrange an entire planetary system would mine them empty and then depart, but it was right there on his display, clearly identified by the sensors. Fourteen identical stars, with fourteen identical solar systems, all abandoned.
Could an ancient species have been using them as a test bed to develop something, perhaps even an experiment to develop an advanced species, since the arrangement seemed so deliberately friendly to pre-warp civilization, with three planets needing nothing but to be inhabited?
Max ran an analysis of them all and found one more strange fact. While they were not in a straight row, from no planet could another be clearly seen. They were arranged so that the stars were almost completely behind another intervening star from any of the other systems.
Could the ones who did this have possibly rearranged the stars themselves for their experiment?
Humans could arrange planets if they put in enough effort, but the entire star? That was far beyond anything that they could do.
Going by the conversation and thoughts on the ship when he displayed his findings, it was beyond the alliance as well. They could do miraculous things to put a planet where they wanted it, but there wasn't much that they could do about the location of a star. Even their technology couldn't alter the constellations.
Max filed it in his mind and computer files as an unsolvable riddle and moved on to the next bits of data until the one-hour alarm alerted him to the fact that his unit would be preparing to make landfall while Terminus herself would be hiding from the inhabited planet behind its nearest neighbor.
That would attract the least attention while letting the residents of the ship watch the feeds from the Cutters and Command Mecha, a compromise that the pilots were all used to now, as it kept the Alliance observers at bay and prevented accusations that they were doing something inappropriate.
Of course, they turned them off when they were actually going to do something against the rules of war. They weren't idiots, and a few lapses in the data could be written off as glitches in the nascent human streaming technology. Don't like it, why not arrange to trade the humans some of that top-notch alliance tech?
As the Cutters dropped out of warp, Nico sent a flood of drones out to join them, looking to the locals as if the Cutters had launched them as they arrived behind their planetary neighbor.
The bombers and orbital fighters made the first wave of attacks, clearing the flight paths and landing zones for the Cutters, while Max prepared to launch Cleansing Light out toward the edge of the solar system and intercept the Klem threat, and Nico prepared a personal shuttle to land next to the Hunters with Shattered Pride.
Now that they were close enough for detailed data, Max made sure he wasn't sending anyone on a suicide mission due to outdated data and found that the only one whose target was more formidable than expected was the position that Nico and the Hunters' leader were attacking. The Narsians had taken a whole city, with a population of roughly twenty thousand, with sensors indicating over two thousand giant soldiers currently in residence.
Even for the two super-heavy mecha, that was a lot of enemies to deal with, and they were both melee-focused units. That was an advantage in a city environment, but it was also a disadvantage against overwhelming numbers.
[All Cutters, prepare to begin landing sequence. Flight Paths are clear.] Max informed the unit as the last of the reports came in and then checked on the drone bays, where the regiment's infantry was currently stationed, flying all the fighters that were clearing the path for the Mecha to land.
[Message from the Canis team: Can we do anything productive?] Max's watch informed him.
[Talk to the Drone Pilots. They might have something for you to do. I know Canis doesn't have anything similar, but if you catch on quickly, you might be allowed to pilot sensor drones and do reconnaissance.]
There wasn't much damage they could do if they screwed up flying a sensor drone. At worst, they might not provide useful data, but everything it recorded was sent back automatically, and they might accidentally find something interesting if they just wandered around with it.
The Klem fleet had just come into the range of detailed scanners and visual imaging, so Max brought it all up on the screens inside Cleansing Light, making a plan to deal with the extras before they could become a real issue.
This was the very northeast region of Klem space and the very northwest of Narsian space, with only empty planets to the outside of them, as far as their sensors and the data he had gotten from Canis indicated, so the Klem fleet might be responding to the Narsians as if they had encroached into the neutral territory between the two species.
Both species had started their development in this area, from what the Kepler records said, so it was possible that the behavior of the Klem would be very different here than what he was used to, which was mindless attack waves and brute force.
Chapter 519 519 Bugs In Space
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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Max's estimation of their strength wasn't far off, the largest of their vessels was on the borderline between Cruiser and Destroyer, and fortunately, they seemed to be a holding vessel for other Klem and not a living attack creature of their own.
He would start by removing the strange new Klem that he took for the interceptors of their force first and then get to work on the big ones once the volume of lighter weapons fire had died down.
With no planet or atmosphere to worry about, Max could go all out, and he began to unleash every laser he could while the first six beams from his Disruptors tore streaks through the Klem attack force.
A strange mental pattern appeared in Max's senses of confusion and excitement. It had recognized Cleansing Light as a human construct that didn't belong here and was very eager to kill both it and the Narsians.
There was no sense of why, only bloodlust and that vague recognition of his species, but that was enough to tell Max that these were different than the normal Klem he had been fighting and that they had no intentions of leaving without a fight.
The smaller vessels swarmed toward Max while he fired, unable to shield themselves from his attack on the vast three-dimensional battlefield.
Max continued to fire, wiping out most of the interceptors closest to him, but he noticed a few misses that certainly should have hit their target and began to analyze the data. The creatures, as well as the largest vessels, were emitting some sort of energy field that seemed to move them slightly out of reality, allowing them to move at speeds that defied conventional physics and escape from his Laser fire.
The Disruptors still hit them just fine, so the radiation but not light was capable of passing through that boundary, or perhaps of disrupting the boundary instead of passing through, he didn't have enough data to clarify, but he made sure to log every sensor feed that he could to give to the Development team later.
Only a portion of the force seemed intent on attacking him, while most continued on their path and had increased their speed, intending to make landfall before Max could destroy their vanguard forces.
Three Cruiser-sized vessels were headed for Max, firing a dispersed wave of spikes, expecting him to dodge. The pattern was geometrically perfect, but with a very simple flaw. Max could simply shoot a few of the spikes and maintain a position.
The disruptors had the power to vaporize Klem chitin on contact, and that's exactly what they did, landing a volley of hits on the closest Cruiser that caused minimal visible damage.
If the ship could take that volley, it was tougher than the behemoths by a wide margin, so Max focused his next volley into an orbital strike pattern and burned a hole through the side of the vessel while lasers did their best to deflect and destroy the incoming spikes.
Max wished he had more Ion weapons at that moment, as they packed a larger kinetic impact and could knock the spikes off course, but they were hard to keep supplied in a vacuum, as they needed something to ionize, and even Cleansing Light had limited resources on board.
After the Orbital Lance punched the hole through the chitin, Max watched for the response from the vessel to see how much damage he had actually done.
Like a wound scabbing over, Klem from inside the vessel hurled their bodies into the wound, bound together by some sort of viscous fluid until the venting finished and the chitin began to regrow from the edges of the wound.
Max decided that meant he could treat it as an enormous living creature whose biology he was completely unfamiliar with. He just needed to learn its weak point, and then he should be able to take out the other four ships coming his way much more easily.
Max flashed to the side with as much speed as Cleansing Light could muster and launched another Orbital Lance at the vessel, aiming for one of the wrinkles in the side that had a higher energy concentration than other areas.
Again the orbital lance punched a fifty-meter-wide hole in the ship, but this time, its trajectory faltered, and it began to slow down. That was valuable information. The high-energy wrinkles were part of its maneuvering system.
Again Max targeted the high energy areas, this time toward the rear of the vessel, going by its direction of travel, and this time it began to vent plasma into space before the hole could be plugged. The damage again visibly slowed the ship, and Max could see the hull shudder in what its rudimentary thoughts identified as agony.
Perfect, he had found a vital spot. Now he just had to finish the job.
But the Klem wouldn't make it that easy for him, and a dense wave of Spikes, accompanied by some sort of liquid wave, was coming his way from the other ships, and more interceptors were launching to replace the wave that Max had eliminated.
The best option was to reposition, getting beyond the range of that liquid wave, whatever it was, and to try to completely destroy one vessel before moving on to the others. Multiple wounded enemies were much more dangerous than a few full-health ones when dealing with Klem, as they didn't lose their combat viability until the very last breath.
Max targeted an energy spot on the very rear of the wounded vessel and hit something vital inside, causing a huge secondary explosion that rippled through the hull, sending fleeing Klem in every direction while the ship burned from the inside.
Now he truly had his kill shot, and Max turned his attention to the wave of smaller Klem that were heading his way, plotting a battle plan that would let him get behind another Klem vessel for the kill.
The most pressing danger was the interceptors, but there were other types capable of surviving and maneuvering in space as well, on top of the ones that the other ships were moving toward, attempting to rescue them from the void before that large chunk of their force was lost without ever being able to fight.
Chapter 520 520 Even Bugs Have Vital Points
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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Moving to save their allies immediately was a mistake, from Max's point of view, though he could see that they didn't have any sort of space suits or protective pod as humans ejected from a destroyed ship usually did.
Max ignored the disabled survivors and unleashed the Disruptors in a wide pattern, vaporizing countless interceptors in an instant, then activated his thrusters to gain an advantageous position to attack the Cruisers.
Max could sense the urgency from the Klem, but there was no emotion, only a biological imperative to destroy him before he could damage the mothership.
More spikes and a burst of plasma from one of the ships came his way, and Max chose to move to a lower-density area but not worry about completely escaping, allowing him to fire at the same weak point as he used to destroy the last ship.
The huge Klem vessel phased out of reality at the last moment and turned slightly, but the Disruptor still tore the outer chitin off the rear section, leaving the interior exposed.
It was a Plasma emitting pod at the back of the ships, and Max realized that they were actually flying in reverse, protecting the main weapons that would attack the target planet from impacts and attacks with a hardened shell on the other side.
It was a genius bit of evolution, and Max set the Disruptors back to individual beams, targeting all of the likely evasive positions that the Plasma Pod could end up in. He fired again, and the pod exploded, sending much less of a deadly wave through the ship this time but still leaving it venting vital fluids and atmosphere into space as it floated off course on an uncontrolled trajectory.
With two cruisers disabled, the last one was in a bad spot, and not even the full force of the remaining interceptor bugs, firing their plasma and spikes at Cleansing Light, was likely to keep it safe for long.
The rest of the fleet wasn't returning to help, though, choosing to cut their losses and increase speed toward the planet. They had extensive experience fighting all sizes of human Mecha on planets, and most of their force was vulnerable in space, so they had rushed their approach as much as they could once Max started to attack.
[Nico, change of schedule. The Klem fleet is a real fleet. The largest objects are heavy Plasma Cruisers, and they are on a maximum speed run for the planet, ETA of two hours. It is unclear if I will be able to completely destroy them before planetfall.] Max informed his second in command.
[Understood, Commander. We will finish the Narsian-held city before the Klem arrives and prepare for the arrival of pods.] Nico replied.
[Prepare for the arrival of a fully formed infestation. There are more than pods aboard the vessels, there are fully grown Klem in there, and I have no data on how they intend to deploy them.] Max added.
He was too far away to sense her joy at his announcement, but he knew Nico. Killing off a full city's worth of enemies and then getting to fight even more enemies was better than a second birthday for her.
Max went for a different approach for the final ship and only condensed half his Disruptors, targeting the ship's control areas, while the other three beams fired a dispersed pattern to knock out the incoming spikes and fluid attacks.
The Disruptors also disrupted the Plasma shots, making them unstable and causing them to explode in space. If it were a crowded battlefield, that would be a mess, but with only one Mecha in the area, the destruction caused by unstable plasma could be ignored, as it was all hitting the enemy.
Thirty seconds of fire was enough to stop the final cruiser, and it deployed every Klem it could to try to stop Max long enough for it to heal, but he had gotten position to hit its main weapon again, sending the internals of the ship to a fiery death and leaving the interceptors helpless to defend themselves and with nowhere to return to.
His weapons tore through the remaining Klem while Max planned a way to deal with a dozen more of the Cruisers.
Three of them at once hadn't been bad since he could keep outside of the group and continually attack, but with higher density, the Interceptors could actually do their job and prevent his attacks from reaching the motherships, while the larger vessels would be able to surround Max and leave him nowhere to go if he wasn't careful.
There was the option of doing like Nico and charging a Cruiser to gut it from the inside, but these ones were Klem vessels and unlikely to go down as easily as a Cruiser full of human sailors, who likely weren't even fully armed when she arrived, since nobody expects a Mecha to actually charge and breach a Cruiser.
The Cutters had orbital lances and could be repurposed to attack the Klem fleet, but they weren't nearly as maneuverable as Cleansing Light was, and they were sure to take heavy return fire after the first shot, so they would have to do the equivalent of a drive-by, firing and fleeing before retaliation could come for them.
That might actually be his best course of action. With the speed that the Klem had accelerated to, there wasn't a whole lot of time to prevent them from launching their attacks, and killing the ships would only be of minimal benefit if they still managed to launch a full wave of pods at the planet.
Max went through the battle logs as the last of the Klem in his region fell and analyzed the data they had gathered. The Cutters still seemed vital to the offensive, as the Narsians had erected powerful shields over their main units, preventing the Thunder Guns from reaching peak effectiveness, but with the shields up, the drones were of limited effectiveness.
If he borrowed them for a while, he could knock out a large portion of the light Klem vessels without risking any lives. That seemed to be the best option since Terminus had been on such a long winning streak that he didn't want to take extra risks now.
[Terminus Drone Command, send the Orbital Fighters on an intercept path with the Klem force. Eliminate their escort vessels for Cleansing Light to engage the Cruisers.]